I'll try yours if you'll try mine
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 13:04 in Mission Architect
I would like to thank you for writing such fun and interesting arcs.
Your first one, Axis and Allies was quite good. Well done with the map selections and costumes of the various soldiers and the Fhurer. In the Dunkirk mission I had trouble picking out who the Generals were. Giving them a different look would be handy.
For the Soviet mission I had a horrible time finding one of the Generals. That isn't you fault of course, just bad luck on the placement.
As for Celebrity Kidnapping, I enjoyed that as well. I would update the costume for Paris though. Orange hair isn't her thing :-p I thought that Willy Wheeler was very well done, and the text from him was really good.
The use of $name was a bit much for my tastes, and I didn't get any money from Willy! I'm gonna have to bust his chops next time I see him.
If you ever have time to run my arcs ( 2 part story) I would appreciate it) The info is in my sig.
Thanks again!
I enjoyed the banter from the various toons, it really added to the fun.
The Hero Simulator, Chapter 1, The Beta Tester
The Hero Simulator, Chapter 2, The Robot Mystery
More Info at....
https://boards.cityofheroes.com/show...0#Post13494207
Torchbearer review (arc 103694)
Premise is that Prometheus (the mythological figure) is trying to take back the Flame of Prometheus. Level range seemed to be 40-54 hero side. I played a 50 AR/dev blaster.
Mission 1
Briefing: The mission closely ties the arc to the events of the Top Cow comic book, though does a good job of explaining what the Flame of Prometheus is, and why it's important. The plot to go back in time to "erase the day we took the Flame" is a little confusing though, as is "I learned about the alliance" ... is the "alliance" the Prometheus/Chronos arrangement? And how does this relate to the Nemesis Army in 1937? Time travel changes can get confusing; this plot could be made a little clearer.
Second part of briefing: "he has willfully given his Flame" should be either "he has willingly given his Flame" or "he has given his Flame of his own free will".
Okay, the plan here and how this relates to Nemesis is finally explained near the end of the second part of the briefing; I'm to recreate historical battles of the Freedom Phalanx. The briefing and second part of the briefing explain this in a rather longwinded and roundabout fashion; may want to edit that a bit to make it clearer earlier on in the text.
ParagonWiki claims that Brass Monday was on July 11, 1932 in Steel Canyon, incidentally - not 1937 in King's Row (at least I think this is the map you're using). I think all your "1937" references maybe should be "1932". I haven't read the novel, though, so it may happen differently in there.
Lord Nemesis of 1937 says "I planned for this enevitability, Police Woman." enevitability should be "eventuality".
The "4 canisters to find" weren't really explained in the briefing; may be worth having the contact mention that the canisters of gas need to be gotten too.
The hostages say "nice outfit there, sonny" -- but I'm a female character, so "sonny" probably isn't the right thing to say. Maybe "youngster"?
Should there perhaps be some Paragon Police battling here, resisting the Nemesis incursion?
Interesting clues hinting Nemesis is "cheating" on technology compared to the "historical record". Though ... what IS this mission, really? I'm not time traveling back to when this event really occurred, since the Freedom Phalanx already took care of this. So is this an alternate reality, or a simulation within the simulation that Prometheus is putting on somehow? Plot is a little murky on this.
Debriefing: "You'd have made one heck of a founder of the Freedom Phalanx back in the day" doesn't really make sense as a sentence. Suggest maybe "The Freedom Phalanx would've been proud to include you" or "You certainly proved yourself the equal of the founders of the Freedom Phalanx" or something like that.
"oracle ." has an extra space after oracle.
Mission 2
Briefing: So we're defending against the surprise attack from the 5th Column in WW2. I kind of think Statesman should give more props to Atlas and his last stand immediately before the Freedom Phalanx arrived on the scene; he mentions it casually in the second part of his briefing (where he says only that Schlager killed him) but I think he really would say something more positive about Atlas in the main part of the briefing. Statesman acknowledges the Atlas's contribution on history plaques, such as:
[ QUOTE ]
When the Freedom Phalanx became the first legally recognized Super Group in 1953, Statesman held a conference at Valor Bridge. He said, 'The valiant hero Atlas died defending the city on this very bridge. I do not know how to thank you for your faith in the Freedom Phalanx, except to say that I, too, am ready to die in your defense.'
[/ QUOTE ]
... so I totally believe he would say more about Atlas and his heroic efforts here.
Objectives: "2 Citizens to get to saftey". saftey should be "safety". Strangely, "Defeat Schlager" is not in my objectives, even though Statesman really emphasized it was important to get him. He didn't become an objective until I destroyed a weapon cache, I think.
I got the "Fanning the Flame" clue (saying I got attacked by Prometheus minions) when I destroyed the first weapons cache, but it wasn't until I destroyed the last weapon cache that the ambush of Flicker minions actually was spawned. So the order of these seems wrong. May want to give the clue as a "mission complete" clue, or otherwise make sure the clue doesn't appear before the ambush.
Citizen from 1941 says "Help me! Please!" if I leave her too far behind, then says "Aaiiieeeeeeee!" if I come back to get her. I think maybe you have these messages reversed.
Schlager's description, "german" should be "German".
Mission exit popup: "You have completed the second of Statesman's challenges." Aren't these really Prometheus's challenges?
Debriefing: "Altas" should be "Atlas". Statesman says "5th were better armed than I recall" but this is never stated during the mission (that I noticed) and I didn't get a clue to that effect, unlike the previous mission. I did get a clue about the fire elemental things attacking though.
"Chronos seemes to be allowing for these "anomalies"" ... maybe "allowing for these" should be "allowing these".
Mission 3
Briefing: "Hero-1" should be "Hero 1". "Omega Squad" should be "Omega Team".
Second part of briefing: "suffered 80 loses that day" should be "suffered over 800 casualties that day".
Mission entry popup: "rikti" should be "Rikti".
Flicker's description: "they have master and control over fire" should be "they have mastery and control over fire".
I really picture Alpha Team's assault on the Rikti portal to be a lot more dynamic; I mean, it's supposed to be over a thousand heroes launching a suicide run against the Rikti. Consider adding some patrols or battles full of minion-level costumed heroes that are just getting brutally slaughtered by Rikti? Maybe more Rikti patrols or other action.
It'd be cool if there actually were a Rikti portal here, though of course it shouldn't be destroyable by Alpha Team, so maybe that's not possible. I never did see any hero allies either.
Ember of Prometheus description: "emmisary" should be "emissary". "Defeat Prometheus" objective maybe should be clarified as "Defeat Avatar of Prometheus".
Overall
The premise of re-creating the Freedom Phalanx's major battles is interesting, and the writing style is pretty good, but somehow the missions never really *grabbed* me; they could stand to be a little more immersive. The historical background was very nice; but I felt that the framing story of Prometheus setting a series of tests was awkwardly presented and came across as being rather deus ex machina (which, I suppose divine intervention would have to be).
I did like rescuing the hostages in the first two missions; I think maybe you could give them some additional dialog reacting to the current events (the Nemesis attack or the German invasion) to add to versimilitude. The second and third missions both could stand to have more chaotic fighting going on, to better give the feeling that they're both set in "war zones" (against the Germans and against the Rikti).
It was a decent story overall though, and I gave it 4 stars.
-----
@GlaziusF - Dream Paper 1874
@Steeple - Enter, the Darkened 107230
@Flagrant Fowl - Strange Tale of Silent Witness 114250
@El Condor - Freaks and Geeks 55715
@Ryo Takenoko - 1 of Kidnapping an Idol 136188 or Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys 134140
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
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!"
Dream Paper review (arc 1874)
Premise is investigating a series of breakins to apartments; level range seemed to be mostly 11-20. I played a 10 MA/regen scrapper.
Mission 1
Briefing: Not a bad intro to the situation. I think "Get over here" maybe should be "Get over there"; with the contact's avatar standing right in front of me, I think the assumption is that you're meeting him.
Second part of briefing: "but there's a lot of people where the Singer Lofts is all they have" is awkwardly phrased. Maybe rephrase to something like "but for a lot of people, all their worldly possessions are in those apartments."
Rescued a Nervous Outcast who claimed to be a tenant, though it didn't update my objectives.
Rescued Grandma Yan, she seems cool. Not quite sure what to do with her; she's following me, but doesn't fight and doesn't seem to want to be led out.
Some puzzling clues from Grandma Yan and the Ransacked Possessions collections; haven't figured out what they mean yet. I also like the frantic dialog that the Lost seem to have, looking for ...whatever it is.
The clues say "You look through the cardboard boxes" and "This box is full of..." and the graphic is a pile of boxes. The latter message should probably be "These boxes are full of..."
It was a defeat all, but not too huge a map, so wasn't a problem.
Debriefing: nice debriefing explaining Grandma Yan's medicine, though perhaps this explanation should also be in a clue somewhere so that players other than the team leader can see it too.
"Grandma Yan's never told anybody about what this stuff is" ... probably should drop the "about".
Mission 2
Briefing: Found this a little confusing. The lab found the powder is some kind of drug peddled by the Tsoo, and the contact concludes that the Tsoo are drugging old ladies? Considering it's "Grandma Yan's medicine", wouldn't it be more logical to conclude that Grandma Yan is mixing this drug into her medicines? Seems a leap of logic to assume that the Tsoo are secretly poisoning Grandma Yan's snake oil.
OK, from the second part of the briefing, I see that "Grandma Yan's medicine" is medicine that Grandma Yan takes, not makes...this wasn't entirely clear to me until this point. Though in this case it seems more logical to find whomever actually gave Grandma Yan the medicine (apparently not a pharmacy as there is no label on the jar). Maybe it would be worth mentioning where Grandma Yan supposedly gets her medicine, and have that also point towards the Tsoo.
Decent dialog from Cloud Guardian. In his description, "oaganization" should be "organization".
----at this point a friend dragged me away from this story arc and into a Positron TF; when I got back to the story arc, I was a level 16 scrapper and had to redo mission 1----
Interesting that Stalking Tiger seemed to be expecting someone else (someone more important than my little scrapper).
Stalking Tiger's clue is very interesting, and I think contradictory with what the contact has been telling me. Alphonse Rubel acts as if he's so close to Grandma Yan, it is rather weird that he wouldn't have known that Stalking Tiger is one of her grandchildren; and the if Stalking Tiger's statement that the "drug" is a painkiller in small doses is true, then I have difficulty believing that the lab analysis would be inept enough to show that it's some kind of poison (eastern vs western medicine notwithstanding). Possibly Rubel is just mixed up and the lab actually said something much less and he just jumped to conclusions; but if this is the case, this makes Rubel look pretty bad, which would make me wonder why I'm working for him. Anyway, this plot seems to rely on either the lab or Rubel being dumb, which is rather awkward.
Debriefing: Well, at least Alphonse has the good grace to be surprised to find out that Yan is Stalking Tiger's grandma.
Mission 3
Briefing: Now Alphonse says that it's the paper the Lost are after, not the "drug", and his evidence is that the police lab was attacked. This seems kind of weird because the debriefing for mission 1 explicitly said the papers were from the Tsoo warehouse; so why are the Lost attacking the police lab and not the Tsoo warehouse? Seems like a possible plot hole.
I like the Lost/PPD battle that I ran into fairly early in the mission, it gave me a stronger impression of the Lost were attacking the police lab.
I found the "Discarded Paper" collection, but it was a computer terminal -- the name doesn't seem to match the graphic. Maybe use a desk or a bulletin board or something.
The "Odd Visions" clue probably should mention that the paper is blank (currently a message to that effect shows for the person who clicks it, but other teammates won't see that).
I found several Lost Bombs; I'm a little surprised that disarming them isn't among the objectives.
"Mather's Malaise" clue doesn't make very much sense to me; just seems like some disjointed sentence fragments indicating that Mathers is all confused. I suggest you make it clearer that he caught a glimpse of the paper, or picked it up or something. Then after that became really confused.
"The techician's story" clue should be "The Technician's Story".
"Recovered Paper" clue is a little confusing; it says "There are a few of Grandma Yan's packets, a small stack of office-sized sheets, and some half-hearted attempts at folded origami animals". I thought that "Recovered Paper" would just be one sheet of paper; I wonder if it should be "Recovered Papers"? Also, where did all these pieces of paper come from? I thought they would only have the paper from Grandma Yan's medicine packets that Rubel sent over?
"Lt. George's story" is interesting. You have an extra space after "embedded in it".
Debriefing: good writing style but the content is confusing. Now Rubel says he got the paper from a youth hostel? But the paper Rubel gave to the PPD was the paper that was used to wrap Grandma Yan's medicine; and the debriefing to mission 1 specifically says the paper that Yan's medicine was wrapped in was from the Tsoo warehouse! Seems to be a continuity error. It sounds like maybe Rubel gave some EXTRA paper to the PPD at some point, in addition to that; if so, I think that needs to be made more clear.
Mission 4
Briefing: Rubel now tells me that a Troll dropped off some more papers at this youth hostel, so I need to go after this Troll. I think the police lab really needs to check to make sure these new papers are also psychically active (or whatever the last batch of paper is) before Rubel sends me off after this Troll; without doing that, it seems entirely possible that it's just innocent newspaper and I'm going off on a wild goose chase. After going in and beating up the Tsoo at Rubel's request, then finding they were completely innocent, I am uneasy about blindly doing what Rubel asks me to do.
I like all the extra, non-required stuff in this mission; the superadine stashes, the clues hidden in the garbage, the dialog from patrols and trolls guarding the superadine.
The Troll paperboy vomiting from Superadine withdrawal was a nice touch!
"The paperboy's story" clue, "withdrawl" should be "withdrawal". I do like that you get the paperboy out of the Trolls and into a detox program... very nice touch.
Mission 5
Briefing: OK, this sounds like a dramatic finale where we find out who is giving the Lost their orders, and warns about lots of psy or mez or both. I confess I'm curious as to who is behind this and what their motivation is. And why the Lost call the blank paper "Scripture".
Second part of briefing: this is the first time Alphone Rubel says that HE brought the paper home and gave it to Grandma Yan to wrap her medicine in! If this is really true, shouldn't he REALLY have mentioned it sometime around the end of mission 1? I mean, the paper being traced to a Tsoo warehouse was half of the reason he wanted me to go thrash the Tsoo in mission 2! If he knew that he gave Yan the paper, he shouldn't have sent me there. Seems to be a plot hole.
Inside the mission, I like the pseudomystical dialog the Lost have, talking about their Scripture and their Prophet (presumably the big bad). Very nice dialog overall in this last mission.
I like that you have a lot of things going on in this mission. I originally thought "9 printing supplies" was too many glowies, but after finding some of them, I thought that the fact that there are several different kinds of supplies, each with their own clues, was pretty cool.
Thinking about it, if all the paper I've encountered so far has been "dream paper", shouldn't I have experienced weird visions when I first picked up the folded paper packets used for Grandma Yan's medicine in mission 1, and again when I recovered the paper from the PPD safe in mission 3? This seems to be an inconsistency. OK, a little later I found "Finished Dream Paper" that is described as "identical to the ones pulled out of the PPD's evidence locker" that apparently do not generate visions, so this explains that away. Though I wonder why the Lost are so hot to recover the non-imprinted paper then?
The troll paperboy ally was cute. I like his lines of dialog when I outdistance him, then come back to him.
I found Blaloch and "rescued" him; I guess I'm not too surprised that he turned out to be the "Prophet" the Lost were seeking.
Debriefing: So Blaloch is rescued and we got the paper off the streets but I'm still quite confused as to what just happened; Rubel doesn't seem to know either. I'm left with tons of unanswered questions. Who was really behind the Dream Paper plot? It doesn't SEEM like it was Blaloch, he got co-opted somewhere along the way...I think. Or I guess it's Blaloch's split personality?
Why did the Lost try to steal the paper back from Grandma Yan in the first place? The paper on her medicine wasn't psychicly active (was it?) because I didn't get visions when I picked it up. Likewise why did they try and steal it from the PPD? The "safe" contained explicitly non-active paper, while the "computer" had one piece of blank (active) paper. Was there a point to the Tsoo mission or was that just a big red herring?
How did the Troll paperboy get involved in all this? If Blaloch controls the paper production AND controls the youth hostel, couldn't he just have one of his Lost minions deliver the paper and not get the Trolls involved at all?
What was the point of the paper? It was hinted that it could be used for mind control, but this wasn't really developed beyond having some of the PPD investigators act weird.
Overall
I like the writing style and especially the dialog, and there's some decent characterization. I like that you get to redeem the troll paperboy. I liked the structure and the amount of content in the final mission. The premise is neat and the idea of the dream paper is cool.
However, I thought the plot itself was rather confusing, and I felt there were several plot holes and inconsistencies that I found distracting. The end of the story left me with a lot of questions unanswered, and I never did feel like I knew what exactly happened or what the ultimate goal of the paper mill was, even at the end. I think the story could benefit by having some of this background plot explained by the end, to give more of a sense of closure to the story arc.
I gave this story 4 stars.
-----
@Steeple - Enter, the Darkened 107230
@Flagrant Fowl - Strange Tale of Silent Witness 114250
@El Condor - Freaks and Geeks 55715
@Ryo Takenoko - 1 of Kidnapping an Idol 136188 or Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys 134140
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
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 ]
Overall
I like the writing style and especially the dialog, and there's some decent characterization. I like that you get to redeem the troll paperboy. I liked the structure and the amount of content in the final mission. The premise is neat and the idea of the dream paper is cool.
However, I thought the plot itself was rather confusing, and I felt there were several plot holes and inconsistencies that I found distracting. The end of the story left me with a lot of questions unanswered, and I never did feel like I knew what exactly happened or what the ultimate goal of the paper mill was, even at the end. I think the story could benefit by having some of this background plot explained by the end, to give more of a sense of closure to the story arc.
I gave this story 4 stars.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, what this needs is-
a) a mention by Alfonse that in addition to the paper he gave Grandma Yan for her medicine, some of it also came wrapped in order forms from etc. etc.
b) A "lab report" end clue for the police lab mission. All the paper the Lost were after could potentially be activated by someone who knew how - the sheet on the computer is an activated sheet that's still "broadcasting".
c) A longer talk from Mr. Blaloch, probably an end clue.
And hey, since I finally got Engineer today I don't even have to budge from my day job spot.
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)
Enter, the Darkened review (arc id 107230)
Premise is to help Lady Grey face an unspecified new threat. Arc warns it is combat intensive but soloable.
I played a 50 broadsword/shield scrapper with soft capped defense, on Unyielding difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: Lady Grey explains that Vanguard is meant to fight "otherworldly threats", and this apparently includes CoT (at least in this story arc). The Vanguard article on ParagonWiki really says they only fight Rikti, but we'll let this pass for sake of the story.
Mission objective "Find spell book." should remove the trailing period, as it looks weird with a comma after it. It would also be nice if the contact told you about the book and 4 spires to destroy in the briefing.
"Spellbook" clue: It would be nice if this clue told you more than "You should be able to get more information from Lady Grey". At least describe the book and its contents. Ideally, give enough info that the player themselves can guess something from the clue. It's nicer to let the player figure things out rather than have the contact just tell them.
Found a "Summoning spire", and it uses the obelisk graphic instead of the spire graphic, which is kind of weird. The "Stone fragments" also refer to them as obelisks. I like the floating books animation you gave the guards though.
Mission 2
Briefing: I think "their summonings" should be "their other summonings", since you stopped one in mission 1. The fact that Lady Grey tells you the summonings succeed anyway makes me feel like doing the first mission didn't really matter, which isn't a good feeling. This also seems to completely negate the "The Circle is stopped" clue awarded by mission 1.
You might consider adding dialog or clues to mission 1 that tell the player that there's other, backup rituals going on. That way the player discovers the fact that there are extra CoT rituals, and can tell Lady Grey about them, then she can ask you to look into them.
I'm a little unsure why Lady Grey is the contact for this very magic-oriented story arc; I wonder if one of the more typical magic contacts would make more sense.
"Lastly, I'm sure that some sort of boss needs to be stopped" isn't a good line, IMHO; it reminds the player that the mission is just another door mission. Maybe rephrase to something like "Lastly, defeat the leader of these summoned beings to keep them disorganized until we can develop a strategy for containing them."
Mission title of "Destroy altars, find captive, and defeat enemy boss" is too long and basically just recaps all the mission objectives, which are listed right below the mission title in the nav tool anyway. I suggest you give it a simpler, high level title that describes the whole mission, like "Contain the Damage", "Control the Situation" or "Secure the Area".
The "4 spires to destroy." objective should remove the trailing period, as it looks weird with a comma right after it.
"Defeat Krx'azzt" is in the mission objectives, but Krx'azzt hasn't been introduced yet. Maybe rephrase this to "Defeat enemy boss" or "Defeat Darkened leader".
Ran into several groups of, basically, drow elves. They seem to be okay, with reasonable dialog (if a little stilted), as drow elves go.
The briefing says to destroy altars, but the mission objectives say to destroy spires, and when I actually find a "Summoning spire", it uses the obelisk graphic. I think you need to pick just one thing to call these and use the appropriate graphic for whatever that is.
When I destroyed the first spire, I got the clue "The last of the altars are being destroyed", which seems wrong since thre are still 3 more to go. Also the text of this clue is just "Lady Grey will like the news" which doesn't really give the player any information at all. I think this should have more information in it; or if that's all you think the player should get out of destroying the spires, you don't really need a clue for them at all.
I found a captive Circle of Thorns mage being guarded by some Darkened; I suggest you give them some "inactive" dialog to try and set the stage for why the Darkened have captured a CoT. As soon as I freed the CoT mage, though, he ran away. But, one of the things Lady Grey asked for is for me to bring back a captive mage, so it's weird that I can't do that with this hostage. I suspect there is one particular mage that will let me escort him back to the door, but the fact that there is another mage who won't let you do that is confusing.
Found the Captured Madness Mage. His objective in the nav bar is just "Captured Madness Mage", should probably start as "Capture a Mage" and then once you free him, change to "Lead Mage to Exit" or something similar. Also, I'm not sure he should say "Many thanks" when you get him to the door, considering you're about to turn him over to Vanguard for interrogation. I suggest you give him some more arrogant sounding dialog.
The Darkened mobs used a ton of electric blasts, voltaic sentinels and short circuits when fighting me. A little bit of this would be okay, but they all seemed to do it, including all minions, and the amount of stacked END drain was too much IMHO. With my high defense I was able to shrug most of it off, but I think you will get some players who will find the END drain incredibly annoying and not want to fight your mobs. I might suggest that you move the electric powers to only lieutenants or only one particular flavor of minion, instead of having all of them have electric powers. If you can scale the electric powers down so they don't do short circuit, that would help also; they'd still do END drain then, but not insane amounts of it.
Found and fought Krx'azzt the Crusher. His dialog didn't quite make sense, with him coughing and choking a lot, and saying "I see you have fight. Greeeaaghh", which doesn't scan. For the "Spidery amulet" clue you get from defeating him, again I suggest you give more detail to the clue so the player can think about it, rather than just asking the player to take it back to Lady Grey; I think that would help keep the player more involved in the story.
When I finished the mission by breaking the last altar/spire, I got a clue called "Darkened amulet" which is supposedly from the Crusher; this seems redundant with the "Spidery amulet" clue. I think you should merge these into just one clue that is awarded after defeating Krx'azzt.
Debriefing: Now Lady Grey says she's going to ask the captive about the text in the book. This does make sense, but I think the briefing should more clearly state that this is why she wants a CoT captive. (Unless I missed it, she was still trying to get Dark Watcher to look at the book.)
Mission 3
Briefing: Lady Grey now expositions that the CoT were trying to summon the Demon Queen of Spiders, hoping to broker an alliance between the Demon Queen and Arachnos. But the Demon Queen basically screwed over the CoT, and with her Darkened lackeys has taken over some Arachnos assets.
I'm afraid I find the plot, as presented, hard to believe as it depends on the CoT being smart enough to plan a duplicate summoning ritual, but also stupid enough to not set up any protective spells or signed any demonic contracts to ensure the Demon Queen would actually work with them after being summoned.
What's the Darkened's motivation for taking over an Arachnos base and not another CoT cave in Oranbega or something?
Mission title: "Stop the pillaging"; what pillaging? Nothing like that was mentioned in the briefing.
Mission objectives: "Find Lady Grey." should remove the period at the end, looks weird with a comma after it. Not clear why "Defeat Kalinda" is necessary when the idea behind this mission is to stop the Darkened; it seems like Kalinda might actually want you to do that.
Ran into a group of hostile Arachnos, which was unexpected; I thought this base was taken over by Darkened.
Found Lady Grey and Serpent Drummer; they are both Hero level allies, which seems pretty overpowering.
There are a lot of Darkened and Arachnos mobs here which don't seem mutually opposed to each other, which seems odd; based on the mission briefing I'd think they should be mutual enemies.
Mission exit popup: Says that Dark Watcher has returned, but we never saw him in the mission, so this doesn't seem relevant. Maybe rephrase to "You emerge from the Arachnos base to find that Dark Watcher is waiting for you" or something similar.
Mission 4
Briefing: Suddenly Dark Watcher is safe, having escaped from the Darkened. It would be nicer if the player was the one who saved Dark Watcher instead of having it happen "off camera".
Lady Grey also expositions about the Demon Queen's plan being to combine Darkened magic and Arachnos technology. How does she know that, since the Demon Queen isn't exactly someone we've had contact with before? How does Lady Grey know about Handmaiden and the 5 generals? My understanding is that the player is the main person investigating the Darkened threat; as a result, it would be much better if you had the player uncover this plot through finding clues in previous missions, rather than having the contact simply tell her about it. This would also keep the player more involved in the story.
Also, the story rather suddenly changes from using the name Handmaiden to using the name Zi'riin. If you want Handmaiden to just be a title, maybe introduce her as "Zi'riin, a Handmaiden of the Demon Queen".
Inside the mission: Defeat Zi'riin is both the title and the sole objective, which is a bit repetitive. I suggest you mix these up a little, like maybe make the mission title "Defeat Darkened Handmaiden" while keeping the objective "Defeat Zi'riin". Also what happened to the 5 generals? I guess the Vanguard Shield is taking care of them off-screen?
This map seems pretty large for a mission with only one "defeat boss" objective (defeating Zi'riin). I suggest you either add more content to this mission map or else use a smaller map. Since the Demon Queen is trying to merge magic with technology, maybe some glowies relating to that, giving clues as to what she is up to, would be helpful.
Found Infernal, he spawned as a Hero for me and he spawned a set of four giant Demon pets as helpers; this was pretty overpowering for an ally, especially considering Zi'riin spawned only as an Elite Boss for me.
I was quite surprised to find Zi'riin was a male Darkened, so he wasn't the Handmaiden at all, but just one of the five generals. The original briefing needs to be a little more clear
Mission 5
Briefing: despite everything I've done we're still losing the war against the Darkened somehow? The Darkened have conquered the Rogue Isles and are conquering Paragon City shortly. Lady Grey says to give up, but I still am being offered a mission for some reason.
There's an extra space after "$name" in the first sentence.
Second part of briefing: It's nice the Lady Grey is discouraging me from going and getting killed by the big boss, but as a hero I need to go. Kind of a nice touch.
Inside the mission: the briefing said that Numina and Infernal went back to talk to the Freedom Phalanx, but in the mission they are actually objectives to find. Seems inconsistent, maybe need to rephrase the briefing.
Destroying the first conduit gives me the "Magic Conduit" clue which reads as if I should get it after ALL the conduits are destroyed.
I nearly died rescuing Infernal due to END drain from multiple short circuits dropping all my toggles; I am not sure you ended the END drain to be this severe, though.
Infernal is a Hero ally which is a little overpowering.
The final Handmaiden boss was only an Elite Boss so was outmatched by my Hero pet. Admittedly her Dark Armor (which I think was on Extreme) was very annoying -- all the Infernal pets fed her Dark Regeneration, and she self-rez'd after I killed her the first time. Fortunately managed to drop her the second time before she healed again. She looked like she was doing a stun AoE, this would make her super hard for a squishy character to handle; her self-rez actually did stun my scrapper through her mez protection.
I actually found Numina after defeating the Handmaiden and rescuing Lady Grey, so having Numina say "They have taken Lady Grey. I think they plan to kill her" and the "Numina has been freed" clue that says "She urges you to hurry to keep Lady Grey from being killed" didn't actually make sense. You may want to rework these dialogs and clues to make sense regardless of the order that you face these encounters -- or you can make Lady Grey's spawn linked to rescuing Numina first.
The "Lady Grey has been rescued" clue and "The world is safe again" clue have no text in them at all, just a clue title. I suggest you either add some text to these clues, or if there's really no info to be given, remove them as clues and put this text in the mission exit popup box and/or the final debriefing.
Overall
The missions all work fine functionally, but I think the plotting needs some work. It really felt like almost nothing I did in the missions actually mattered to the plot, and in fact the plot moved the opposite way from the actions I took. For example, in mission 1 I stopped the summoning ritual, but it turns out the CoT manage to summon the Darkened anyway. In mission 2 I defeat the Darkened boss and destroy another summoning altar to prevent more Darkened from teleporting into our world, but the rest of the arc seems to just have more and more Darkened show up, so it doesn't seem like it really worked. In mission 3 I'm supposedly stopping the Darkened from taking over an Arachnos base, but the Darkened are still occupying Arachnos bases in the later missions. In mission 4 I defeat one of their generals, but the Darkened are winning the war and about to conquer the world. It just feels like nothing I did had any positive effect on the storyline.
The current plot is the Darkened incursion starts really small in mission 2, but then gets bigger and worse with each mission, and the Darkened are ultimately their strongest in mission 5 where they've conquered the Rogue Isles. I think it would work better if the Darkened were at their strongest in mission 2 or 3, having them conquer the whole Rogue Isles midway through the arc, but through the hero's efforts she is able to chip away at the edges of the Darkened organization, until a final confrontation with the big boss in the last mission. Basically I think you should give the player some sort of positive feedback along the way that she's making some progress towards solving the Darkened problem.
Too much of the story was related through Lady Grey telling you what happened, rather than the player actually getting to see that information for themselves, via clues or dialog inside missions. It would be much more involving for the player to uncover these clues that lead to the next mission themselves, to rescue Dark Watcher themselves rather than have him escape off-panel, and so on.
The power level of the allies should be toned down, in my opinion; having multiple AV level allies following you around is far too overpowering. Especially considering the final end boss actually spawned as an EB (weaker than either of the allies). Infernal is especially annoying because he summons so many demon pets that get in your way. If it doesn't mess up your artistic vision too much, I might suggest that you create a couple named Vanguard bosses as allies (kinda like Captain Dietrich and Lt Sefu for the Longbow). Since you're working for Lady Grey, Vanguard allies would make more sense than Numina and Infernal. You would have a chance to give them some dialog and characterization also.
Regarding the enemies, their costumes look okay but I think you should reconsider the powerset selection or at least the powers you give them some. Having multiple minions with Short Circuit would cause them to drain all END very quickly, making them very unpleasant to fight. I'd suggest that you reduce their powers so no minions have Short Circuit; maybe lieutenants would be ok to have it. I think you mean these electric attacks to be "magic spells" cast by the dark elves; you might make some of the minions use energy, fire or dark blast instead of electric blast, to mix up the damage types and cut down on the END drain some.
I thought the Handmaiden with her extreme dark armor was pretty crazy tough, but she is the end boss of the whole arc, so maybe that is okay. I think you maybe should drop her self-rez power though, it's kind of a pain for players to deal with and I'm not sure it adds much to the story.
Finally, I totally suggest that you consider using some of the webbed Arachnoid cave maps in your story arc, and maybe steal and reuse some of the Tarantula mobs from Arachnos for your faction; it would add to the "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" feel that you're going for here.
With all that said, I rated this story arc 3 stars. Hope you think that is fair!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Flagrant Fowl - Strange Tale of Silent Witness 114250
@El Condor - Freaks and Geeks 55715
@Ryo Takenoko - 1 of Kidnapping an Idol 136188 or Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys 134140
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
You can make me owe you a review if you play through and leave feedback for one of my story arcs, and post a request here.
@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 ]
Enter, the Darkened review (arc id 107230)
Mission 1
Briefing: Lady Grey explains that Vanguard is meant to fight "otherworldly threats", and this apparently includes CoT (at least in this story arc). The Vanguard article on ParagonWiki really says they only fight Rikti, but we'll let this pass for sake of the story.
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I'm a little unsure why Lady Grey is the contact for this very magic-oriented story arc; I wonder if one of the more typical magic contacts would make more sense.
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Yikes! I really dropped the ball on this one. The whole time I had this plot in my head, Im kept putting this on par with the Rikti invasion, never really stepping back and realizing that there are others who really should be handling an invasion of magical origin. I will replace Lady Grey and Vanguard right away. Quite honestly, this obvious oversight is embarassing
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The briefing says to destroy altars, but the mission objectives say to destroy spires, and when I actually find a "Summoning spire", it uses the obelisk graphic. I think you need to pick just one thing to call these and use the appropriate graphic for whatever that is.
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This was an oversight, as I originally had altars in place. Upon testing with my various characters, I found that the squishies would get pummeled by the exploding altar if they got too close (remember Frostfires' base with that altar that always send half the group sailing). I bounced back and forth between obelisks and spires, and apparently lost track of what I was using. Again, this will be corrected very soon.
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The Darkened mobs used a ton of electric blasts, voltaic sentinels and short circuits when fighting me. A little bit of this would be okay, but they all seemed to do it, including all minions, and the amount of stacked END drain was too much IMHO. With my high defense I was able to shrug most of it off, but I think you will get some players who will find the END drain incredibly annoying and not want to fight your mobs. I might suggest that you move the electric powers to only lieutenants or only one particular flavor of minion, instead of having all of them have electric powers. If you can scale the electric powers down so they don't do short circuit, that would help also; they'd still do END drain then, but not insane amounts of it.
[/ QUOTE ]
As I went back and check my custom mobs, I found that only one of them had electrical as a powerset, that being the Darkened Archers, who used Archery as their primary. They were mistakenly set for Hard instead of standard, so that has been fixed. They were never intended to have the Voltaic Sentinel/Short Circuit combination. It sounds like more Archers were spawning that Darkened Duellists, even though they are equivalent level minions. I will test this more with varying level characters.
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What's the Darkened's motivation for taking over an Arachnos base and not another CoT cave in Oranbega or something?
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Technology, which is something that is mentioned later.
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Found Lady Grey and Serpent Drummer; they are both Hero level allies, which seems pretty overpowering.
[/ QUOTE ]
I will try them again at the lower setting with one of my squishies and see what happens. Mainly, I decided to err on the side of caution in respect to all AT's being able to solo the MArc. I would rather have the beefier AT's have an easier time with the end fight, than see a squishier AT not being able to continue the arc because they couldn't finish the boss.
[ QUOTE ]
Lady Grey also expositions about the Demon Queen's plan being to combine Darkened magic and Arachnos technology. How does she know that, since the Demon Queen isn't exactly someone we've had contact with before? How does Lady Grey know about Handmaiden and the 5 generals? My understanding is that the player is the main person investigating the Darkened threat; as a result, it would be much better if you had the player uncover this plot through finding clues in previous missions, rather than having the contact simply tell her about it. This would also keep the player more involved in the story.
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This was information that she gleaned from Dark Watcher after he was rescued. The intention is that he traveled to the Demon-Queen's plane and learned this, only to get caught. I didn't explain things properly. I will find a way to get Dark Watcher into the missions themselves, getting more of his findings into the plot.
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Mission 5
Briefing: despite everything I've done we're still losing the war against the Darkened somehow? The Darkened have conquered the Rogue Isles and are conquering Paragon City shortly. Lady Grey says to give up, but I still am being offered a mission for some reason.
Second part of briefing: It's nice the Lady Grey is discouraging me from going and getting killed by the big boss, but as a hero I need to go. Kind of a nice touch.
Inside the mission: the briefing said that Numina and Infernal went back to talk to the Freedom Phalanx, but in the mission they are actually objectives to find. Seems inconsistent, maybe need to rephrase the briefing.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm so glad you caught this. The yellow highlight at the top of the breifing screen was a description of the image that was there, and that it wasn't supposed to be Lady Grey at all. What I failed to put into the description, and is important, is that it is a magical illusion put there by The Darkened. This illusion was mainly there to convince the hero to give it up. Tales of woe, gnashing of teeth, that sort of thing.
The accepting of the mission was basically our protagonist pulling key words from the speech the Darkened had the illusion give.
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I actually found Numina after defeating the Handmaiden and rescuing Lady Grey, so having Numina say "They have taken Lady Grey. I think they plan to kill her" and the "Numina has been freed" clue that says "She urges you to hurry to keep Lady Grey from being killed" didn't actually make sense. You may want to rework these dialogs and clues to make sense regardless of the order that you face these encounters -- or you can make Lady Grey's spawn linked to rescuing Numina first.
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Stupid front/middle/back placement glitchy. Will make sure these are set properly or change maps to make this work right.
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Finally, I totally suggest that you consider using some of the webbed Arachnoid cave maps in your story arc, and maybe steal and reuse some of the Tarantula mobs from Arachnos for your faction; it would add to the "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" feel that you're going for here.
With all that said, I rated this story arc 3 stars. Hope you think that is fair!
[/ QUOTE ]
Very fair. There are things you said that I haven't commented on here that are still going to be improved upon. Thank you for your time and honest review. The feedback you've given will be used to improve the arc, which is what feedback is supposed to be 
I ran through your arc Celebrity Kidnapping [Arc ID: 1388] and it was very enjoyable. I prefer a more serious or gripping storyline but this was a humorous change of pace. I particularly liked the use of the paparazzi's cameras! As another reviewer posted, you may want to update Ms. Holiday's outfit into something more "hot." I rated your story very well.
My arc is below:
Fatale Attraction [SFMA/CGMA]
Arc ID: 181264
Difficulty: 1-54
Morality: Heroic
Missions: Two short missions, one timed mission (#4), and two missions on large maps. Only one of the short missions has a Defeat All Enemies condition while the rest require a Defeat Boss, Collection, and/or Escort.
Duration: One hour should suffice
The Strange Tale of Silent Witness review (arc id 114250)
Premise seems to be to investigate the origin of a mute superhero. I'm guessing that this story arc is all about this other hero, and not so much about me, which makes me a little uneasy. We'll see.
Level range was 40-54 with neutral morality. I played a 50 bs/shield scrapper with capped defense, on Unyielding difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: entire briefing purports to be in the form of a "handwritten note". The briefing is very detailed about Silent Witness and his background; one minor quibble I have is that the writing style sounds more like spoken dialog to me. You might consider editing it a little to make it seem more like the written word (since it's a note) rather than the conversational tone it currently has.
Second part of briefing: also good on detail, but a similar suggestion. Since this is some kind of telepathic or empathic link now, maybe reword this part of the briefing to be more like visions that you see and/or emotional impressions, instead of the conversational tone it currently has. This would better convey that this is telepathy at work.
Mission objectives: "Doctor Ominous" probably should be "Defeat Doctor Ominous" or something similar.
I immediately ran into several "Magic Ninja" who happened to be on fire. This struck me as being a little silly; but, I'm not sure yet whether this story is a comedy, drama or tragedy yet.
I quickly found they were working with Doctor Ominous and some Magic Apprentice mobs, who all look like very western magicians. The flaming Magic Ninja don't really seem to fit the theme very well; being "magic" doesn't feel like enough to me.
Doctor Ominous is in a faction called "Magic Practioners"; should probably be "Magic Practitioners".
His speech could use a little punctuation. I suggest you change:
"We can leave now gentlemen. The transfer isn't complete, but it will finish with us out of the building The group monitoring Mr. Train will just need to make sure he stays for the full treatment, so to speak."
to
"We can leave now, gentlemen. The transfer isn't complete, but it will finish after we have left the building. The group monitoring Mr. Train will just need to make sure he stays for the full treatment, so to speak."
The new objective "Find Buddy Train and rescue him from the building" is awkwardly phrased; I suggest simply "Rescue Buddy Train".
Found Buddy and he can talk in this mission; maybe that is correct for this timeline, though. Magic Ninja's dialog "Blond Justice ! There is no time for this!" has an extra space after my character's name (Blond Justice).
I fought a lot of Magic Ninja while freeing Buddy, then got immediately hit by an ambush of more Magic Ninja. With them all being dark melee, I think their stacking accuracy debuffs would be very frustrating for some players. You might consider switching them to martial arts or ninja blade, or if you have space in your arc, make a few flavors of ninja, each with different attack sets.
Did you mean to give Buddy Train a horribly scarred face and fire aura powers?
Once I get Buddy to the door, he says "Ugh, this is..." and falls down. Then he gets up and opens the door and runs out. Not sure if what he says is supposed to mean anything.
I got a "Living History" clue saying that Doctor Ominous started the fire, but Doctor Ominous never actually said he started the fire and I never clicked a glowy that gave me any evidence to that effect. So I'm not sure how I came to this conclusion. This clue also says the fire disfigured him and made him unable to speak; Buddy was indeed disfigured in this mission, but he seemed to speak just fine. Seems inconsistent.
Exit popup dialog says "Dr Ominous escaped". But I know I defeated him in the mission? I went back through my combat log and did find a message saying "Doctor Ominous teleported before he was defeated", but this message wasn't really noticable. You might want to add a clue saying that Doctor Ominous teleported away, or perhaps clarify the exit popup to say that Dr. Ominous teleported away.
Debriefing: make it clearer that this is being done through telepathy. This debriefing sounds like the contact is just talking normally.
Also, it occurs to me that since the player went back in time to rescue Buddy Train, who later becomes Silent Witness, then Silent Witness should totally recognize the player the first time she talks to him -- even if the player doesn't know who Silent Witness is. Or at least Silent Witness should have some vague memory of a hero who pulled him out of the fire, then figures out that hero is the player in the debriefing.
Mission 2
Briefing: Interesting set up. I'm to escort the contact to talk to the (apparently now retired?) Doctor Ominous.
Mission title: I think you should rephrase this; "Assist Silent Witness" instantly casts me the supporting character, and Silent Witness as the star. Maybe something more neutral like "Investigate the warehouse" or "Meet with retired supervillain" or something.
I found a "Weak Silent Witness". Strangely, this version can talk; I think this is a continuity error.
After destroying the altar I got a clue called "Power Transference Altars?" which refers to "The strange altars". But there was only one, so not sure why this is plural.
Weak Silent Witness is still weak after destroying the altar. Also, if I ditch him, then come back to him, he says "Let's find and destroy that altar" even though it's already been destroyed.
I like the lengthy monologue Doctor Ominous has while I fight him; maybe it's a little silly for him to be monologuing while fighting, but it's pretty classic for villains to do that. Except for the bit where he says "someone who looke da lot like your flunky Blond Justice". Grrr! Further reminder that this story arc is not about me. 
I got the clue "Not So Ominous" and "No Honor Among Thieves" that seem very redundant with each other, relating much the same information about Doctor Ominous's plot in 2004. I'd keep "No Honor Among Thieves" (it has a little more info) and delete the other one.
"No Honor Among Thieves" claims I wasn't there in 2004, but in fact, I was there when I rescued Buddy in mission 1. It does try to clear that up with the "at least you weren't until you were sent there". I think maybe you are trying to foreshadow a later mission where I go back to 2004, again, but as written it is rather confusion; suggest you rewrite to make it more clear.
Mission 3
Briefing: "I have found someone who has fought with them recently." Then later, "We must find him and get the location" makes it sound like he wasn't really found.
How does Silent Witness know that this Anestra stumbled into the main Carnie base, yet doesn't know where the main Carnie base actually is? That seems a somewhat implausibly specific level of knowing something while not knowing it.
"I will check one of two of Anestra's known locations" doesn't quite scan. Suggest "Anestra has two known hangouts. I will check one of them." or something similar.
I like Anestra's dialog, berating his students. "permenent" should be "permanent" though.
I got a "Better Security Needed!" clue which was pretty funny; but I kind of expected to get a clue from interrogating Anestra, too. The mission exit popup mentions "Madame Cynthia's hideout" but maybe this should've been also mentioned in a clue that Anestra gives you.
This mission was amusing and quick but didn't seem very closely tied to the main plot.
Debriefing: I'm a little uneasy at how Silent Witness talks about "recovering his power", considering we've learned that "his power" is actually stolen from the souls of his dead friends. I almost wonder if he's better off letting it go.
Mission 4
Briefing: So now Silent Witness wants to beat up Madame Cynthia, who a lot of his power has been transferred to. I'm not sure why defeating her would actually get his power back, though; I mean, it took a magical ritual to siphon the power away from him and into Cynthia in the first place, right? So shouldn't it require a ritual to move the power back, too? Possible plot problem.
Mission title is "Defeat Madame Cynthia" but there are tons more objectives other than just defeating her. Title should probably be more general so that it makes sense even after Cynthia has already been defeated.
I found a mix of Carnies and Magic Ninja/Magic Apprentices guarding Silent Witness. I started off thinking it didn't make sense that Doctor Ominous's lackeys would be working with Carnies after the big backstab, but eventually found that Doctor Ominous had ousted Cynthia and taken over, which sort of makes sense. However, the "Defeat Madame Cynthia" mission title really needs to be replaced with something more general.
I found Cynthia and she instantly became an ally; it seems odd that Silent Witness would allow this, since I think Silent Witness wants to take his powers back from her.
Madame Cynthia summons 3 generic Illusionists as pets, which is really confusing when fighting other Carnies. Consider changing Cynthia to be one of the non-pet-summoning bosses.
Doctor Ominous II's description, "deceipt" should be "deceit".
At the end of the mission, the "Ominous No More" clue strongly implies that Silent Witness is asking me to leave so that he can kill Doctor Ominous. My character doesn't have a problem with this, but some heroes will. Maybe this is okay for a neutral arc though.
Also near the end of the mission it is strongly implied that Doctor Ominous now has all of Silent Witness's power; this seems to contradict the earlier missions which said that Madame Cynthia had intercepted them before they got to Doctor Ominous. The most likely explanation is that after Doctor Ominous took over, he somehow stole the power from Madame Cynthia, but this is never explicitly stated anywhere. Should probably have some clues or dialog to that effect.
Debriefing: Silent Witness basically admits to killing off Doctor Ominous. He also seems to question whether I was present at his origin in 2004; which is very odd because he sent me there in the first place, so he should totally know that. Unless somehow a time paradox has caused him to forget that, but if that's the case, it needs to be made more clear. "It appears the past cannot be changed" is a weird thing to say after sending me on an Ouroboros mission at the beginning of the arc, too.
Overall
This story arc really seemed to be about Silent Witness: his origin story, his powers getting weakened, and his powers being regained. I'm afraid I don't like how the actual player seems a very peripheral character in this story; I really feel that the player character should be the star of the story arcs they play through. If you can change things around a little bit so the player gets more of the limelight, I think it would be a great help.
Silent Witness is supposedly mute, but this is used rather inconsistently; all of his dialog seems to be in a conversational style that would be natural for someone speaking, but wouldn't be right for someone writing down their speech on a notepad, or for someone doing telepathy. He also sometimes has spoken dialog in the missions where he appears as an ally. Since being mute is a defining characteristic for Silent Witness, I think you should make him more consistently quiet, and his communications (via notepad or telepathy) should be written in a style to more strongly convey the feeling that he's actually writing you a note, or beaming telepathically to you - and not just talking normally.
After going back in time in mission 1, the rest of the arc seems to semi-forget that Silent Witness actually sent you back in time to do stuff. This was kinda jarring and felt like a series of continuity errors. Time travel IS tricky and confusing, so if this was all some weird side effect of time travel, you should make it more clear what happened.
I think the rules for how powers can get siphoned from one person to another in this story arc need to be better defined and then applied consistently. In mission 2 it was very important to use a magical altar to steal Silent Witness's powers, so destroying the altar helped stopped the bleeding; but in mission 4 it seems like Doctor Ominous steals the power from Cynthia without need of an altar, and then Silent Witness takes it back from Doctor Ominous without an altar too; this seems inconsistent.
Anyway, with the above concerns, I ended up giving this arc 3 stars. I hope you think that is fair.
-----
I owe a review to:
@El Condor - Freaks and Geeks 55715
@Ryo Takenoko - 1 of Kidnapping an Idol 136188 or Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys 134140
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
You can make me owe you a review if you post a request here, and you play through and leave feedback for one of my story arcs.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Hey PW. Thanks so very much for the detailed review! Your points are all valid. The short version of my explanation is: I may have more story there than I'm capable of telling, at least through MA. EVERY mission clue and dialog box is filled with the maximum content, and I tried very hard to edit that down to fit in as much explanation and story as possible. Earlier versions had even more chopped out because I was getting feedback that people weren't bothering to read it, and the "conversational telepathy" (which is what I'm going to call this story mechanism) was an effort to get in more detail, after establishing that he's opened a telepathic link to your mind.
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I'm guessing that this story arc is all about this other hero, and not so much about me, which makes me a little uneasy. We'll see.
[/ QUOTE ]
I feel the opposite from you on this. I like stories about other characters, and riding along with them. I think it's risky for someone to try to tell stories about MY characters. It's a gripe I have about CoH's missions from the beginning. So many of the mission briefings assign my emotions and reactions to me. Hey, if I'm playing a soulless serial killer - I am *NOT* surprised at how bad the sewers smell! 
But with that comment made, I do see your point. I will think about ways to make the player character more active in the goings on. Your comment later about being called SW's "flunky" is right on the mark.
[ QUOTE ]
The briefing is very detailed about Silent Witness and his background; one minor quibble I have is that the writing style sounds more like spoken dialog to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
The unstated (because of space restrictions) goal of this technique was to show that this guy really liked to talk. Losing his voice was a big deal for him. Yes he can communicate through telepathy, but it's to one person at a time, and the method he's learned REALLY hurts the receiver.
[ QUOTE ]
I immediately ran into several "Magic Ninja" who happened to be on fire. This struck me as being a little silly; but, I'm not sure yet whether this story is a comedy, drama or tragedy yet.
[/ QUOTE ]
In the great tradition of Asian theater, it's all three at once, often in the same scene. Or at least, that's the goal.
But I agree the concept of "Magic Ninja" isn't really used well. It's supposed to just be silly, and probably ends up just being ineffective.
[ QUOTE ]
Doctor Ominous is in a faction called "Magic Practioners"; should probably be "Magic Practitioners".
[/ QUOTE ]
Argh! Typos! So... many... typos. Thank you, and I apologize for missing that.
[ QUOTE ]
The new objective "Find Buddy Train and rescue him from the building" is awkwardly phrased; I suggest simply "Rescue Buddy Train".
[/ QUOTE ]
Wonderful suggestions all through this. I really appreciate them, agree with them, and I'll adopt them.
[ QUOTE ]
Found Buddy and he can talk in this mission; maybe that is correct for this timeline, though.
[/ QUOTE ]
Correct. He's still a normal guy here. Though, he is on fire, and is being burned, but strangely, isn't dying.
[ QUOTE ]
Did you mean to give Buddy Train a horribly scarred face and fire aura powers?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yep. Dude's on fire.
[ QUOTE ]
Once I get Buddy to the door, he says "Ugh, this is..."
and falls down. Then he gets up and opens the door and runs out. Not sure if what he says is supposed to mean anything.
[/ QUOTE ]
This has aggravated me from the beginning. There's a wonderful "collapse" animation that fits the end of the mission perfectly, but he won't STAY COLLAPSED! If I tell the MA to play that animation and then do nothing, Buddy collapses dramatically, lays there for a few seconds (until the animation finishes), then stands back up and stares at you. So I added the "exit" command so that he at least leaves the mission. I think I'll just scrap all that and have him run out the door as soon as he gets there.
[ QUOTE ]
This clue also says the fire disfigured him and made him unable to speak; Buddy was indeed disfigured in this mission, but he seemed to speak just fine. Seems inconsistent.
[/ QUOTE ]
He was still burning when he left. My original goal of the collapse animation was that he effectively "dies" at the end of that mission, and then (offscreen) Doctor Ominous does his stuff that restores Buddy's life, but does not finish draining the collected power. Again... space. I'm not sure at this point how to deal with this troubling plot problem. All the important stuff happens offscreen in this mission.
[ QUOTE ]
You might want to add a clue saying that Doctor Ominous teleported away, or perhaps clarify the exit popup to say that Dr. Ominous teleported away.
[/ QUOTE ]
Great solution, thanks.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 2
Mission title: I think you should rephrase this; "Assist Silent Witness" instantly casts me the supporting character, and Silent Witness as the star. Maybe something more neutral like "Investigate the warehouse" or "Meet with retired supervillain" or something.
[/ QUOTE ]
A fantastic solution, going back to your first comment about involving the player more directly.
[ QUOTE ]
I found a "Weak Silent Witness". Strangely, this version can talk; I think this is a continuity error.
[/ QUOTE ]
Trying to save time and space, I was hoping to imply that the telepathic link that he opened during the mission briefing was still open. Or perhaps he went ahead and opened a new one when you got there. One thing I need to verify in these missions is that all his "dialog" is supposed to be to the player. The NPCs should not hear him, and he shouldn't be talking to them. Except in the first mission, of course, where Buddy can still talk because he's on fire, but not quite burned up yet.
[ QUOTE ]
After destroying the altar I got a clue called "Power Transference Altars?" which refers to "The strange altars". But there was only one, so not sure why this is plural.
[/ QUOTE ]
It appears I have some clues left ofter from early versions when there were multiple altars. I'll fix.
[ QUOTE ]
Weak Silent Witness is still weak after destroying the altar. Also, if I ditch him, then come back to him, he says "Let's find and destroy that altar" even though it's already been destroyed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Also left over from earlier struggles with the MA system's mission objective placement. I'm considering not even having the thing spawn until you find him, but then there's the risk of having to back-track through the map to find something that WASN'T THERE when you walked through earlier.
[ QUOTE ]
Debriefing: I'm a little uneasy at how Silent Witness talks about "recovering his power", considering we've learned that "his power" is actually stolen from the souls of his dead friends. I almost wonder if he's better off letting it go.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good. This is a question I want you to ask. No, I won't provide the answer. I suppose Silent Witness feels that since this madness has happened. It is better that HE have these powers than a villain. In the longer explanation for this whole arc, the original idea is that he wanted to try to prevent this from happening at all, but finds that it can't be stopped. Like I said earlier, this might be a story that the MA is capable of telling, but I might not be capable of telling by using the MA.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 4
Briefing: So now Silent Witness wants to beat up Madame Cynthia, who a lot of his power has been transferred to. I'm not sure why defeating her would actually get his power back, though; I mean, it took a magical ritual to siphon the power away from him and into Cynthia in the first place, right? So shouldn't it require a ritual to move the power back, too? Possible plot problem.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yep, this ritual would take place after "defeating" Madame Cynthia, in the great CoH tradition of "defeating" someone, and then they sit down with you and help you do what you wanted. 
[ QUOTE ]
I found Cynthia and she instantly became an ally; it seems odd that Silent Witness would allow this, since I think Silent Witness wants to take his powers back from her.
[/ QUOTE ]
Having gotten there and found that Dr. O has usurped control of the Carnies from her, and is beginning to take HER power, this is supposed to be a "The enemy of my (more powerful) enemy is my friend" moment.
[ QUOTE ]
Madame Cynthia summons 3 generic Illusionists as pets, which is really confusing when fighting other Carnies. Consider changing Cynthia to be one of the non-pet-summoning bosses.
[/ QUOTE ]
The confusion in that final battle is something I really liked. Particularly on a large team there can be carnies confusing other carnies, causing them to switch sides back and forth. But if it really doesn't work, I might change that.
[ QUOTE ]
Also near the end of the mission it is strongly implied that Doctor Ominous now has all of Silent Witness's power; this seems to contradict the earlier missions which said that Madame Cynthia had intercepted them before they got to Doctor Ominous. The most likely explanation is that after Doctor Ominous took over, he somehow stole the power from Madame Cynthia, but this is never explicitly stated anywhere. Should probably have some clues or dialog to that effect.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is what has happened, but you're right, it's not made clear enough. I'll have to rework this some to try to fit in that information.
[ QUOTE ]
After going back in time in mission 1, the rest of the arc seems to semi-forget that Silent Witness actually sent you back in time to do stuff. This was kinda jarring and felt like a series of continuity errors. Time travel IS tricky and confusing, so if this was all some weird side effect of time travel, you should make it more clear what happened.
[/ QUOTE ]
What I was going for is that after going back in mission 1, you end up not changing the outcome of things at all. However, having done that, when you return, there is NOW a memory of a hero who probably was you who was at the scene. Although the outcome of the whole mess ended up being the same.
Like I said, this might be more than I can get across coherently. Thank you again, PW, for the great review and the great suggestions. I'll see what I can do to tighten things up.
Freaks and Geeks review (arc id 55715)
Premise seems to be protecting geeks from some kind of threat? Level range around 20-50 to 30-50 heroic. I started this on a 25 inv/ss tanker, then got distracted by getting invited to a team; when I got back to it, I re-started it on a 12 ss/will brute. Ironically, the brute moved through the content faster, due to higher DPS.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact, a scientist in a white lab coat, wants me to go to a university and save the local NERD club from mystery assailants.
I think there's an actual university building map in MA somewhere, that was used for the invention tutorial; have you tried using that?
I like the Neil model, very geeky looking costume.
Midge says "Luther! Help!" when I get near her, but Luther isn't around; not sure if this is intentional. I like her dialog when you rescue her though. Dwayne's dialog is funny too.
"only to encounter the lifeless body" suggest "discover" instead of "encounter".
"your brief inspection calls to notice an odd discoloration"
Debriefing: There's too sharp a transition between Dr. McSwiggins' grief over Luther and him thanking me and expressing a huge debt of gratitude. I think you need a paragraph break and/or a moment (or sentence) where McSwiggins pulls himself together and realizes he should thank the player.
Mission 2
Second part of briefing: "eminates" should be "emanates".
The briefing says Freakshow kidnapped the scientists, but I find this mission is inexplicably full of Crey.
"The Orderly" speaks in broken English, I'm assuming this is intentional.
The "GenEx Re-Encryptors", as minions with rad debuff, were quite dangerous, especially in multiples. They seem to be mixed with some dual blades minions, so hopefully aren't too overpowering, but you might keep an eye on them; they could prove problematical in large spawns.
I really think that you should get a clue from freeing one of the doctors; maybe a brief story of what happened to them, or at the very least explaining the condition the doctors are in, if they can't themselves talk about it. Especially Dr. Hu, who is clearly acting oddly.
I'm kinda puzzled as to why I need to lead Dr. Hu to safety but Dr. Galakiewicz didn't need to be led out; seems inconsistent. You might want to make the reason why a little clearer (perhaps Dr. Hu is more disoriented, which would fit the way she acts).
I did get 2 clues when I got Dr. Hu to the exit. I think I got "Like a doughnut hole in my memory" from delivering Dr. Hu to the exit; probably this clue should've been awarded when you first rescue her from her guards.
I think I got "The Orderly's Orders" from actually completing the mission. I like the way this clue is written, and it makes sense the way my run went (where I bashed everything, since I was a brute), but considering the Orderly is not a required objective, it seems possible for a player to not kill him, and yet somehow get this clue. Also this clue refers to "Freak genetics", but I don't believe Freakshow actually get powers from genetic engineering; according to ParagonWiki, their powers are from a Crey super-serum combined with cybernetic implants. Perhaps "Freak cybernetics" would make more sense here.
Debriefing: rather than have Dr McSwiggins say "Countess Crey, as usual, denies any knowledge" you might consider having him take Countess Crey at face value. I think the official line is that most people think she is a noted philanthropist and corporate magnate, and only a few crackpots believe she's a villain. Though this can work too, if Dr McSwiggins is among the people who "know" Crey is dirty.
The debriefing makes it sound like Dr. Hu is about to become a superhero ... or maybe supervillain. We'll see.
Mission 3
Briefing: The contact says there was an address and an engineering schematic scribbled on the back of the Orderly's Orders; this fact should be mentioned in the "Orderly's Orders" clue, because the player is described as taking a good look at it, at the end of mission 2.
I'm a little puzzled as to why the Freaks want to transform nerds into Freaks in particular, but hopefully this will become apparent later.
I think you should consider renaming "Geek-Freak Transformer" to be something like "G33k2Fr34k Xf0rm3r". Though I guess it IS named by the Crey, who would probably name it something boring like "Experiment 49/c (patent pending)".
"Though it worries me as before" -- not clear what is worrying him; the text immediately preceding this phrase is "her beautiful mind seems sharper than ever" which doesn't sound very worrisome. Maybe needs to be rephrased.
Aha, Dr. Hu has become a hero as a result of her experience. Being a martial artist is not very geeky, though; maybe she should have radiation powers, force fields, or grav control or something? Physical attacks just don't seem geeky enough. I also think Dr. Hu's dialog could stand to be a bit more geeky. "You gravely understimate my capabilities!" sounds more like a martial arts film quote. Also, "understimate" should be "underestimate".
"Destroy crate" is such an ordinary sounding objective compared to the other pseudo-techy-gadgets that are part of the Geek-Freak Transformer. You might give it another mad science name that sounds more impressive than "crate". Also, how is it that any of the geeks have been turned into Freaks so far, when the Geek-Freak Transformer is still in pieces and not yet assembled? Seems like a possible logic error.
I destroyed all the Geek-Freak Transformer components, but the mission has not ended despite being named "Destroy Transformer Components", because now the Geek Freak boss has been spawned and I have to defeat him. I think you might rename the mission to something that more generally covers everything that happens in this mission, like "Stop the Geek-Freak Conspiracy" or something like that.
Found and fought teh Ub3r-d0rk; he called an ambush in when he was very low on life, but the ambush didn't arrive until after I actually killed Ub3r-d0rk, so were somewhat irrelevant (though fun looking). You might consider triggering this ambush earlier on. Maybe even have some of these Geeky Freaks spawn surrounding Ub3r-d0rk, as his "posse".
I could see from Ub3r-dork's background info that he is going through this elaborate plot because he's angry at Dreck kicking sand in his face or something, but most players will not catch that -- you may want to give clues to the player that reveal this earlier on. I see that ub3r-d0rk does mention Dreck in his dialog, but I think that isn't quite enough.
Debriefing: The contact calls me "sweet prince" despite my character being female.
Overall
I really like the first mission, where the younger geeks have pretty good dialog as they are threatened by Freaks and rescued by the player. The second and third missions did not seem quite as charming, though, as the adult geeks and the geeky Freaks didn't really talk or act very geeky. I suggest you try and give both regular geeks and Freaky geeks more geeky dialog in both the later missions, to stay with the theme. I might even suggest that you cut all the "adult" geeks from the plot, and just re-use the younger geeks from mission 1 in the later missions (maybe with Midge taking the place of Dr. Hu), and give them more "young geek" dialog, which worked better to communicate the "geek" theme than the "scientist" dialog that Dr. Hu and Dr. Galakiewicz had.
I also saw you had Geek Freaks as the ambush Ub3r-d0rk calls, but I didn't see them anywhere else in the story arc. I think they were very good looking models, but they were dreadfully underused! I think you should consider adding some static spawns of Geek Freaks in mission 3, giving them geeky animations like floatingbooks or lecture or similar, and dialog expressing their dual nature as Geeks and Freaks. For example they can debate whether they oughta go to chess club or fight club; or whether they prefer Star Trek or The Terminator. They can also talk about how their boss has an axe to grind against Dreck. That would all help build some Geek/Freak ambience.
Finally, I think you should consider not killing off Luther in the first mission. This is, of course, totally up to you -- but in my opinion, your story arc is trying to be more lighthearted and fun. The death of one of the characters is a sharp departure in tone from the lighthearted and fun aspects. Having Luther badly hurt and hospitalized would probably work just as well for your plot, and maybe better.
With all that said, I ended up rating this story 3 stars. (I almost rated it 4 stars based on the first mission, but felt the later two missions weren't quite as good as the first one.) Hope you think that is fair!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Ryo Takenoko - 1 of Kidnapping an Idol 136188 or Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys 134140
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
You can make me owe you a review if you post a message here, and you play through and leave feedback for one of my story arcs.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
You are always fair, PW - no need to worry about that! 
I'll address a few of your observations, then comment generally:
[ QUOTE ]
when I got back to it, I re-started it on a 12 ss/will brute.
[/ QUOTE ]
On a 12? Really? Wow....
I'm glad you liked the beginning tone of the 1st mish, if not the ending of it so much. More on that later.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 2
The briefing says Freakshow kidnapped the scientists, but I find this mission is inexplicably full of Crey.
[/ QUOTE ]
...and that surprise is deliberate, with the hope that the actions and clues in mish 2 lead the player towards understanding the plot turn. Did that happen for you? I was unsure about that. You give me a helpful suggestion for this later in regards to Dr. Galakawiecz.
[ QUOTE ]
"The Orderly" speaks in broken English, I'm assuming this is intentional.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes; I worked to provide each character/group with its/their own "voice" (i.e. the nerdy kids, the Crey grunts grumbling about working conditions, etc.). The Orderly, for lack of better terms, is "big & dumb". Hence, the lousy speech.
[ QUOTE ]
I really think that you should get a clue from freeing one of the doctors; maybe a brief story of what happened to them, or at the very least explaining the condition the doctors are in, if they can't themselves talk about it. Especially Dr. Hu, who is clearly acting oddly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Perfect! Dr. G will get the clue, explaining the Freak kidnappers delivering them to the rogue Crey for mysterious purposes. This will further clarify the confusion you feel at mission start.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 3
I'm a little puzzled as to why the Freaks want to transform nerds into Freaks in particular, but hopefully this will become apparent later.
[/ QUOTE ]
Again, an intentional puzzle at the start, meant to be cleared up by the player's progress through the story (both the clue given by the crate and t3h Ub3rd0rk's info describe the reasoning). I hope this worked!
[ QUOTE ]
Also, how is it that any of the geeks have been turned into Freaks so far, when the Geek-Freak Transformer is still in pieces and not yet assembled? Seems like a possible logic error.
[/ QUOTE ]
The procedure is already operational: failed attempts with both Luther and Dr. G and a successful one on Dr. Hu. As the clues describe, t3h Uberd0rk is pursuing a machine to mass-produce the Geek Freaks. The ambush wants to imply that a handful of Geek Freaks have been created, but the army is yet to come. I understand that I may not have given the player enough info to reasonably conclude this on her own.
[ QUOTE ]
I could see from Ub3r-dork's background info that he is going through this elaborate plot because he's angry at Dreck kicking sand in his face or something, but most players will not catch that -- you may want to give clues to the player that reveal this earlier on.
[/ QUOTE ]
Does t3h Ub3rd0rk's clue left on the crate not help with this also? Perhaps I need to add earlier clues as well.
[ QUOTE ]
Debriefing: The contact calls me "sweet prince" despite my character being female.
[/ QUOTE ]
The contact is addressing the departed Luther at this point. It's a quote from the ending dialog of "Hamlet", though I don't expect the player to get that. The confusion comes from not shifting to 3rd person with this final sentence. I'll ponder a fix to this for clarity's sake.
[ QUOTE ]
Overall
I really like the first mission, where the younger geeks have pretty good dialog as they are threatened by Freaks and rescued by the player. The second and third missions did not seem quite as charming, though, as the adult geeks and the geeky Freaks didn't really talk or act very geeky... Finally, I think you should consider not killing off Luther in the first mission. This is, of course, totally up to you -- but in my opinion, your story arc is trying to be more lighthearted and fun. The death of one of the characters is a sharp departure in tone from the lighthearted and fun aspects... With all that said, I ended up rating this story 3 stars. (I almost rated it 4 stars based on the first mission, but felt the later two missions weren't quite as good as the first one.)
[/ QUOTE ]
Here is where you've hit on the crux of the dilemma with a certain style of writing (which happens to be mine ) and MA: I never set out to write a "humorous" or "serious" story - I just imagine a story and try to portray it. This arc was not actually meant to be funny and lighthearted in tone; it was meant to use humor and tragedy to tell the story of a disgraced and obsessed Freak-Geek's plan for revenge. Where the "fail" may be for many players is in the disappointed anticipation of a "humorous" arc, which I undoubtedly create through my choice of topic (geeks) and what happens in most of the first mish. The loss suffered at the end of mish#1 impacted you the way I meant it to, being fully intended to signal a shift in tone towards the more serious through the remainder of the story and hoping that the player will go with me. But that will instead be a letdown for many players, and I get that.
Perhaps this style is better left to fan fiction or some such thing. I know most players just want to jump into a fun arc and have a clear pathway towards a great time. Anyways, your review has given me tremendous food for thought in reflecting on this and future arcs. Muchas gracias, PW! 
EC
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[ QUOTE ]
but in my opinion, your story arc is trying to be more lighthearted and fun. The death of one of the characters is a sharp departure in tone from the lighthearted and fun aspects...
[/ QUOTE ]
Here is where you've hit on the crux of the dilemma with a certain style of writing (which happens to be mine ) and MA: I never set out to write a "humorous" or "serious" story - I just imagine a story and try to portray it. This arc was not actually meant to be funny and lighthearted in tone; it was meant to use humor and tragedy to tell the story of a disgraced and obsessed Freak-Geek's plan for revenge. Where the "fail" may be for many players is in the disappointed anticipation of a "humorous" arc, which I undoubtedly create through my choice of topic (geeks) and what happens in most of the first mish. The loss suffered at the end of mish#1 impacted you the way I meant it to, being fully intended to signal a shift in tone towards the more serious through the remainder of the story and hoping that the player will go with me. But that will instead be a letdown for many players, and I get that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I actually think you could spin this story in a more serious direction (instead of towards humor) if you preferred. Perhaps the students in the first mission could be bitter, aging grad students living lives of quiet desperation, avoiding the reality of the outside world by staying permanently in school as indentured servants to tyrannical professors. I think I'd find a "Freaks and Geeks" that was completely cynical and bleak in tone to also be quite believable.
My concern is that switching from the comedy of the first act to the more serious elements of later missions felt like a very stark change of tone. I understand now that you meant for Luther's death to signify this transition, but my personal opinion is that it would be more effective if you decided whether you'd rather your story to be primarily lighthearted or primarily serious and dark, and then made all the story elements support that narrative.
Anyway, I do hope this helps.
@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 ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also, how is it that any of the geeks have been turned into Freaks so far, when the Geek-Freak Transformer is still in pieces and not yet assembled? Seems like a possible logic error.
[/ QUOTE ]
The procedure is already operational: failed attempts with both Luther and Dr. G and a successful one on Dr. Hu. As the clues describe, t3h Uberd0rk is pursuing a machine to mass-produce the Geek Freaks. The ambush wants to imply that a handful of Geek Freaks have been created, but the army is yet to come. I understand that I may not have given the player enough info to reasonably conclude this on her own.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay, this makes some sense. To get this across, you might consider having a pre-op Geek as a hostage in this mission (I suggest re-using one of the student geeks from mission 1), guarded by some post-op Geeky Freaks who have dialog telling the pre-op Geek how much better s/he'll feel after the G33k 2 Fr32k transformation. Maybe also have a prototype transformer as something to destroy also.
@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 ]
...my personal opinion is that it would be more effective if you decided whether you'd rather your story to be primarily lighthearted or primarily serious and dark, and then made all the story elements support that narrative.
Anyway, I do hope this helps.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your opinion is extremely helpful to me, and I agree that there's much to be said for the effectiveness of an unambiguous tone in a story, particularly when one is trying to have fun playing a computer game. It's not like we're trying to make "Fargo" here, after all.
EC
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, this makes some sense. To get this across, you might consider having a pre-op Geek as a hostage in this mission (I suggest re-using one of the student geeks from mission 1), guarded by some post-op Geeky Freaks who have dialog telling the pre-op Geek how much better s/he'll feel after the G33k 2 Fr32k transformation. Maybe also have a prototype transformer as something to destroy also.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's a wicked-cool idea. I'll look into what I can do to make something like this happen. An LOL re: pulling this miracle off: fixing the typo "understimate" which you noted to "underestimate" put me over the 100% file limit!
EC
Kidnapping an Idol review (arc id 136188)
Premise is that a teen idol has been kidnapped and needs to be rescued. Level range was 35-50. I played a 50 AR/dev blaster on heroic.
Mission 1
Briefing title: Minor nitpick, but I suggest you capitalize "Idol" and maybe make the briefing title either bold or a larger font to stand out.
Briefing: The contact says Shota is his agency's "top model and idol singer", but at the same time says "His debut concert is tonight!" I'm not sure it makes sense for the agency's top singer to be doing his first concert; possibly Shota should either be a promising new singer who is doing his first concert, or else he can be the top singer and it's not his debut (maybe he's doing a benefit concert or something).
Second part of briefing: "Shota had not filled out the final paper work to sign with us" -- this definitely contradicts Shota being their "top model" if they don't even have a contract with him. As a hero I'm a little uneasy at his suggestion that I should make any Agency contracts I find, disappear; that sounds rather villainous. (Granted, it is labeled a Neutral arc, though.)
Mission entry popup: "Aside from all the good looking people, it seems quite harmless." But I can see an enemy Idol Singer and Idol Manager in line of sight from where I entered, so this text doesn't seem right. Also "afterall" should be "after all" in this popup.
Mission objectives: "Defeat Yuto Nakajima" is among my objectives, but has not been introduced as a character yet. Consider either having the contact mention this guy's name, or rephrasing the objective to be "Defeat Agency manager" or something similar.
Idol Manager's description: "possesive" should be "possessive". They also seem to be sonic blast/martial arts with build up; this might be a little too dangerous a combination.
Does it really make sense for Idol Singer to be a minion? I'm not sure Idol Singers should be so common, maybe they should be a boss or lieutenant. The Idol Wannabes and Backup Dancers make perfect sense as minions though.
Backup Dancer has sonic powers, which I'm not sure makes sense since they aren't singers. Maybe they should be Martial Arts or Dual Blades, to look more acrobatic. Also, Backup Dancer's description, "dancer's" should be "dancers".
I found a glowy desk which was named "Looks for Clues" .. probably should have a more normal name like "Desk". I got "A fortune cookie" as a clue, but the text of the clue says nothing, just that it's "A fortune cookie from the Lucky Dragon." I think you should add some text to this clue, explaining to the player why she thinks this fortune cookie is important enough to treat as a clue. There needs to be some reason why this cookie is particularly suspicious.
The mission exit popup does touch on the cookie possibly being a lead. Perhaps move some of that text to the clue.
You might also want to add a clue from defeating Nakajima, saying that he confessed to kidnapping Shota.
Mission 2
Briefing: Neat briefing about why the Lucky Dragon is a likely place to investigate. "Lucky Dragon is notorious" should probably be "The Lucky Dragon is notorious". "waiters teeth" should be "waiter's teeth" or maybe "waiters' teeth". "I don't like it when people take my idols" should maybe be "I don't like it when people take my people".
"Shota belongs to Rocket's" -- this contradicts his earlier statement that Shota hadn't actually signed on with his firm yet. Though, maybe the contact actually does feel this possessive about Shota already; if that's your intent, this is fine.
Second part of briefing: "i" should be capitalized "I". "calibur" should be "calibre" or "caliber". "notorious for it's ninjas" should be "notorious for its ninja", or maybe better would be "notorious as a ninja hangout".
Mission entrance popup: "chinese" should be "Chinese".
Mission title, "Go General Gau's at the Lucky Dragon" doesn't quite make sense. I suggest maybe "Get Takeout at the Lucky Dragon".
"Lucky Dragon Ninja" minion needs a description.
I'm not sure why "Water Girl" or "Lucky Dragon Ninja" have energy melee; maybe worth mentioning in their descriptions. Martial arts, katana, or dual blades would all make sense without needing explanation.
You could also probably re-use some of the Tsoo minions for this mission if you wanted to save space, though this might lower the mission range unacceptably.
Got the "Credit Card Receipt" clue; this clue seems awfully short. "Ageny" should be "Agency" in this clue. It mentions "There is an address on the back", but usually you don't write your address on your credit card receipts, so this is kind of strange.
Mission exit popup: "Talent Scouts" should be "Talent Scout's".
Mission 3
Briefing: This briefing seems awfully short. I'd suggest you at least repeat what the address is (an old warehouse) and give a hint as to what opposition the player might face there.
Mission objectives: I love the "3 compromising photos of Shota to locate" objective. They should totally award a clue when you take them, though, with some description. This wouldn't be a clue that is important to the plot, just something amusing that the player could enjoy reading.
I think the Agency minions overdo it a bit on sonic blast; that's a LOT of stacking sonic debuff. It does make sense the Idol Singers and Idol Wannabes sould be sonic blast, but you might consider bumping the Idol Singers to lieutenant or boss, and maybe adding junior level Talent Scouts or Talent Agents who use some other power set.
Shota's description is just "Take Shota to the exit" which is the same as the objective; I think his description should be more descriptive of why he's such a superstar teen idol. His costume is kinda weird (just in his underpants?) and his captors are taking photos, which is pretty funny (and explains the compromising photos).
Shota says "How embarrasing!" when rescued; should be "embarrassing".
Found that Backup Dancers have empathy powerset; this would make a large group of Backup Dancers really hard to kill, so I suggest you cut empathy from minions and maybe reserve it for lieutenants or higher.
When you leave Shota, then come back for him, he says "It's about time someone came for me" -- but he actually has seen me earlier, when I rescued him, so this is a little bit of an odd thing to say.
Mission exit popup says I "recovered" revealing pictures of Shota, but when I actually clicked on the glowies in the mission, it said I was "deleting" them; this seems inconsistent.
Mission 4
Briefing: This mission actually sounds rather villainous; it sounds like we're being hired thugs smashing up the rival agency. Maybe that is okay for a neutral story arc though. You mention it a little, but maybe highlight more that the Agency is responsible for a lot of criminal misdeeds, so a hero player will feel better about taking them down.
Mission title: "Defeat The Agency Boss" doesn't seem accurate, as defeating the Agency Boss is only one of many objectives listed. Maybe it should be "Destroy the Agency" or "Put the Agency out of Business".
Mission objectives: After destroying a backup computer, "2 Backup Computers to Destroy" turns into "Backup Computer to Destroy"; probably should be "Destroy the last Backup".
"Agency Contract" has no message on the progress bar when you click it. It maybe should award a clue of "Shota's Contract" when you complete it.
I like how the Idol Singers actually sing and dance in this mission; I think they needed to do this more in earlier missions to give more of a feeling that they are singers.
The Agency Boss's description: "originally one of Rocket's idol or was rejected from the start" should be "originally one of Johnny Rocket's idols, or perhaps he was rejected from the start".
Nice debriefing I like how Shota gets a sudden crush on you for rescuing him; the way he's portrayed, I think this works even if the player is on a male character. "With a face like your's" should be "With a face like yours".
Nice souvenir.
Overall
The plotting and the mission design was pretty good. I think the writing is a uneven though; there are some good bits (I particularly like some parts of the last mission) but a lot of the clues and dialog are too short. It would help to add some more details to the earlier missions to give them more character and build up the "teen idol" theme more; maybe more idol wannabes with dialog and animations. I do like how the clues lead you from one mission to the next, but I think their description should be more detailed, and you might consider adding a few non-plot-relevant clues that just describe things you find and build a sense of immersion in the "celebrity teen idol" world.
I was leaning towards a high 3 or low 4 rating through much of the arc; the final mission with its nice debriefing and souvenir pushed me into giving it 4 stars.
-----
I owe a review to:
@Elisenda - 1 of (A Lame Joke, 22982) (Fine Literature, 136522)
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - second arc
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@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'd already played and reviewed Teen Phalanx Forever, but since my brute has been collecting dust, I pulled him out of mothballs to try
Celebrity Kidnapping - Arc #1388
Celebrity Kidnapping begins with a great idea: snatch a celebrity out of jail and hold her for ransom. Being the heiress to a fortune, she's obviously going to be worth a pretty penny. The man with the plan is your old pal Willy Wheeler, you are the muscle, and Willy for some reason has brought in The Family to cause a ruckus at the Zig and then safeguard the captive.
My first nit with this arc is the entire premise that a celebrity heiress is going to jail at all, much less for drunk driving. If this were the way of the world, might as well just build a fence around Hollywood and call it prison. Anyway, suspending disbelief beyond that, the arc is very well constructed with a pleasant mix of essential plot-advancing story elements and total fluff (ambushes of "paparazzi" whose alpha attack is a triple-stacked Flash - bring break frees if you're squishy). It made no sense for the second mission to have a Warrior just "hanging around" with Freakshow types. They hate each other.
I failed the final mission. After (tell me why The Family boss here has a quantum gun?) getting the girl, again you have to lead her out. Your path is marred by a series of extremely difficult spawns in addition to the additional waves of ambushes and other seemingly random "rescues". It's just too much for your aggro-happy ally to handle and, ultimately, her burn everything in sight strategy gets her killed.
In the end, what started out promising in the beginning of the arc, falls into its own trap in the final mission, losing its focus on essentials and switching gears toward "more fluff, less substance." Paring down some of the extraneous elements would be helpful. Don't get me wrong, the fluff stuff adds character and I like it, but I think it's overdone in that final arc. YMMV
With solid design, excellent writing, minimal clues (with no need for them), and keeping Willy in character (for the most part), with the caveats I mentioned above, earns this arc 4 stars.
------------------
For your consideration I offer:
[ZQ] Power Play - Arc #187269
A City of Villains story arc uniquely told in the first person.
Story-focused, solo-friendly
No EB/AV at all. Signatures will scale to Lieutenant on challenge level 1. Increase your difficulty and/or team size to face bosses.
Fine Literature review (arc 136522)
Premise appears to be to fight a crazed writer that is sick and tired of getting her manuscripts rejected. Level range is 1-54 neutral. I played an 18 SS/will brute on Malicious difficulty.
I wonder if you want Officer Dickson to maybe be Officer Dixon instead?
Mission 1
Briefing: The captions for the mission briefing, "Fine Literature" and "Freeing the Publisher" maybe should be in a larger or bolder typeface, to stand out more.
"offcers" should be "officers". Dickson asks me to "discover Literatura's plans", who I assume is the "crazed villain" described in the first paragraph, but you should maybe make that explicit, e.g., "She's calling herself Literatura now, and has taken hostages" or something.
With the goal being to stop a new villain, I kinda think this should be a Heroic arc, not Neutral.
Second part of briefing, "Thanks for helping" seems much too short. Maybe have him give some extra background info on either Literatura or the publishing group. If Literatura has actually been submitting manuscripts, it seems like the police would at least know her name (or pen name) and a little history for why she's snapped.
Love the famous authors as henchmen concept, it's very fun. Though I think "Literary Heroes" is not a good name for their faction, since they are clearly bad guys, not heroes. Maybe "Literary Greats" or "Notable Authors"?
Found a police officer hostage and freed him; not sure why he isn't a required objective.
Jane Austen was an empathy minion; she's one of many minions, so maybe this is okay, but dangerous in large numbers.
I don't get why John Milton has electric and energy attacks? He's just supposed to be a thug dressed up in costume, right?
A Shakespeare/Milton/Austen spawn beat me up; a combination of Jane Austen's heals and John Milton's END drain did me in. Curse you, evil authors!
Freed PageWorks Publisher and he gave me the "Tip-Off" clue. "over-heard" should be "overheard".
I like Literatura's costume. "Lewis Caroll" in her description should be "Lewis Carroll". She has an excellent back story, but how did such a bookish girl happen to gain superstrength? She hits very hard - she spawned as a Boss for me, and even after I beat up all her supporting minions, she managed to KO Blow me out.
At this point I decide I'm playing too low level of a character for this story arc (I should really know better...all custom mobs is always harder), so I switch to a level 50 broadsword/shield scrapper with soft capped defenses, and I restart the arc on Unyielding difficulty. My 50 scrapper had no problem defeating Literatura (again a boss) and friends, so I think level and slotting was my issue.
Debriefing: Seems very short. Contact says "I'm grateful you've freed the warehouse" ... this doesn't seem consistent, I thought I rescued the people in an office, and the publisher warned me that a warehouse is being attacked.
Mission 2
Briefing: good setup for the next mission.
Second part of briefing seems way too short ("I thank you!") ... maybe add some extra background info here.
Mission objectives have six different flavors of seizing books; you might consider merging them all into "6 piles of books to seize", unless you feel it's particularly fun the way you have it split into 6 objectives.
I like the awful book titles that you find in this mission. You might consider having each book award a clue that is an excerpt from that particular book. This would be both fun and help establish why Literatura must be stopped from publishing her work at all costs. And I really want to read some of "Snide and Prejudiced"! The description in the progress bar is very fun, but is so small and on the screen for such a short time.
I think this mission could use more dialog, considering all the mobs are highly literary people who I would picture having stuff to say. You might consider adding a couple patrols or non-required bosses for the sake of adding some dialog. They could either quote literature, or comment on how crazy their boss is for making them dress up like this.
Literatura has pretty much identical dialog in this mission as in the last, except for saying "Chapter 2". I think the famous quotations theme is good, but she should use different ones in this mission. "Poor Kiping" should be "Poor Kipling" though.
That seems to be it for the story arc. Debriefing was okay, but a little anticlimactic; though stopping crazed writer isn't quite the same as saving the world. I like the "Very Bad Novels" souvenir, though. "siezed" should be "seized" in the souvenir.
Overall
Fun theme, a neat new villain and nice costumes and concepts for her henchmen. I think it needs a little more content though; no need to increase the length (2 missions seems fine for the plot), but maybe add some additional supporting dialog from her henchmen, and/or additional clues (such as from collecting the books) to help support the literary theme. Literatura's dialog in mission 2 should definitely be changed from mission 1; maybe she can go into Mercutio's death scene upon defeat, or something.
Some of the powerset selections were rather weird; I still don't get why Literatura would have superstrength or why any of her henchmen should have energy/electric blasts. I can maybe believe Jane Austen would have empathy. You might consider changing them to have more "normal henchmen" type powers, like weapon sets or martial arts. The minions and lieutenants seemed a little on the tough side also; they were fine for my 50, but really hard for my 19. You might consider giving the low ranked ones easier secondary powers, to make them more fodder-like. Up to you.
I like the concept and the enemy costumes looked great; it was fun hacking my way through notable authors, even fun being defeated by them. I was thinking I would rate this a high 4 or low 5, but I do think there needs to be a little more dialog and supporting background, so I settled on 4 stars.
-----
I owe a review to:
@Stomphoof - Return of the Three Fold King 163274
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@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:A father's iron will
Arc ID :198952
Faction:An overly serious/ dramatic Custom Group
Creator Global/Forum Name:@Kemli
Difficulty Level:Moderate to Hard. Multiple EBs possible, AV.
Synopsis:Simple arc where a girl has been kidnapped and it's up to you to rescue her.Try to keep your allies alive, they come in handy.
Other notes: Despite the multiple EB's,Lt's and minions,the arc is soloable,however it's probably more fun and is optimised for a team.
Pinnacle & Virtue:
A bunch of Heroes - Alpha Team, Legion of Order.
A bunch of Villains -Black Citadel , Pinnache.
Return of the Three Fold King (arc id 163274)
Premise appears to be helping a professor recover an ancient artifact, then this leads into something bigger. Level range was 1-54, but with Tuatha, Arachnos and Custom groups, I figured I'd better play a 50. I solo'd on a 50 bs/shield scrapper with soft capped defense, on Unyielding difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: I suggest you change the font of the caption of the briefing ("Return of the Three Fold King Part 1") to make it stand out a little more; make it bold, another color, or larger type.
"I am glad to hear that you answered my ad in the Paragon Times" is a bit awkward, I suggest trimming to "I am glad you answered my ad in the Paragon Times".
"artefact" should be "artifact"
"The reason I myself cannot go is currently there are Circle of Thorns crawling all over the place trying to find the item" seems awkward to me; I suggest rephrasing to, "I tried retrieving it myself, but I found there were Circle of Thorns crawling all over the place -- probably looking for the same item! That's where you come in."
Entering the mission, I find that "Defeat the Depthlord" is my objective, but the Depthlord has not been mentioned up to this point and doesn't clearly help me "find the Runestone of El", so this is rather puzzling.
Inside the mission I find it's not CoT at all - it's a custom group of "Lemurians". This seems to contradict what the contact told me, though.
"Foot Soldier" description, "and they generals" should be "and their generals".
As I get close to a Lemurian/CoT battle, I hear Ice Thorn Caster say "Oh great its $name!" (I wasn't close enough for it to use my name apparently.) This message maybe should be its "active", not its "inactive" message.
"Honor Guard" description, "relegated" should maybe be "promoted", as relegated usually means a sort of demotion. "lieutenats" should be "lieutenants". It actually doesn't make sense that the Honor Guard makes up the lieutenants and officer of the Lemurian military; normally an Honor Guard is its own unit, not cadre for the rest of the military.
"Depthlord Valkurn" has a description that calls him "Depthlord Valkum"; guessing Valkurn is correct since it also appears in objectives. "anyones guess" should be "anyone's guess". "it appears he is after the Mace as well" is puzzling as there has been no mace mentioned in the story so far.
I got the "Runestone of El" clue when Valkurn dropped; maybe should make it clearer, either in Valkurn's dying dialog or in the clue, that he is the one you get it from.
Debriefing: Professor Cramer admits to deceiving me about the goal of the mission and why he couldn't go. This seems like a bad start to a contact/hero relationship; I'm not sure what is gained by deceiving the player in this manner.
"Falconeer" should be "Falconer", "artefact" should be "artifact".
Now that the professor has revealed he is a hero in his own right, and he tricked me into getting this runestone for him, I am unsure why I should agree to help him on his quest to get the four Runestones needed for his ritual; I mean, he's a hero, why can't he do it? Also, he lied to me already, so not sure I would be strongly motivated to help him further. OK, so his powers don't work on Lemurians ... so why make him a hero in this story then? I think it would be simpler to keep him a normal professor if his powers are not relevant to the plot.
Mission 2
Briefing: I think it's a little early for him to say "I hope that you would be willing to fight The Three Fold King"; perhaps hint more subtly at the threat the Three Fold King poses.
I have to say the "need 4 runestones to complete the ritual" plot is a little formulaic.
"Tuath de Dannon" should be "Tuatha de Dannan".
Second part of briefing: "probebly" should be "probably". "their leaders" is a little ambiguous as to whether he's talking about the Tuatha or the Lemurians.
Mission entry popup: "A cool ocean breeze carries with the smell of blood." I think you mean "with it the smell of blood."
Mission objective: I now have the objective to "Defeat Elegor the Brazen", who has not been mentioned up to this point. I am guessing this is the "leader" that supposedly has the Runestone, but perhaps Elegor the Brazen needs some introduction.
I hear some Lemurians talking about a "necklace". Not sure what that is yet.
Elegor says "A noble attack,but futile!" missing space after the comma.
Mission ends right after I defeat Elegor. Seems kind of a big map for just defeating one boss; not sure how the Lemurian patrols factored into this mission, I didn't have to interact with them at all.
Debriefing is kind of on the generic side, basically a longwinded "Thanks, 2 out of 4!"
Mission 3
Briefing: The contact says that the Lemurians are angry at us and are holding some hostages because of us; but it so happens it's also in the same office that the third runestone is in. I'm not sure this makes sense; wouldn't the Lemurians have gone after the third runestone anyway?
I like that there is more to do in this mission (rescuing 3 hostages). The hostages have rather stilted dialog though; "Thank god! Its Blond Justice! Quickly, come and help me!" does not sound like something anyone would really say. "Its" should be "It's". I'd suggest using something shorter and more natural sounding. Even just "Help!" would probably sound more natural.
Some of the bad guys say "What? Its Blond Justice! Destroy him!" should be "It's Blond Justice! Destroy her!" (i.e. "It's $name! Destroy $himher!")
Found a safe that contained the runestone, giving me "The Stone of Liu" clue. Looking at the clues, I notice the first is "Runestone of El", the second is "The Runestone of Uo" and the third is "The Stone of Liu" -- if you keep this four runestone idea, you may want to standardize the name of the clues (e.g. make them all The Runestone of Xxxx).
In "The Stone of Liu", the phrase "very different to the other stones" maybe should be "very different from the other stones".
Got "A Safe Combination", not quite sure when; possibly from a hostage rescue. Is it possible for the player to find the safe before rescuing the hostage that gives this clue? Not sure; it worked the time I did it, just wondering if the other order would mess things up.
Got "A Strange Map" at the end of the mission also. Would be nicer to know what it shows, even if you can't make out the symbols.
Debriefing is kind of on the generic side, basically a longwinded "Thanks, 3 out of 4!" Shouldn't he mention the map I found, if the map has any meaning?
Mission 4
Briefing: I think "I have found the last Runestone Blond Justice" should be "I have found the location of the last Runestone, Blond Justice" -- he hasn't ACTUALLY found the stone, since he is sending me to get it.
How is it these runestones got scattered all over the place anyway? Maybe needs more backstory. It's a little too generic-fantasy-quest-plot as it stands.
Not sure why the Lemurians would barter with Arachnos, as presented here; don't all surface dwellers look alike to us? Unless they maybe have a connection to the Mu Mystics...hmmm, that would actually make sense.
"bring the Runestone of De back.." has an extra period at the end of it.
Mission entry popup: "This cave appears deserted"...but I can see a spawn of Arachnos right past the popup bubble, so this message seems wrong.
The "3 Crate" objective in the nav bar should probably be removed (make the false glowies optional).
"Defeat Felaren" is in my objectives, but I have no idea who Felaren is; maybe he should be mentioned in the briefing. Or alternatively you could make it "Defeat Lemurian negotiator, Defeat Arachnos negotiator" -- or perhaps "2 Negotiators to defeat".
One crate I searched gave up "The Statue of Nocturn", which satisfied my "runestone" objective, but this statue is not actually described as a runestone in its clue, so I'm not at all sure it is the right object. Seems inconsistent; maybe it should be described as a runestone, or your objective should be to find the statue, not a stone.
I see four more crates glowing, but I have "2 Crate" in the objectives ... yet I already have the runestone, or statue. I think you must've made some of the crates optional and not others, which is confusing and probably not intended.
Okay, searching the extra glowy crates, the ones that don't decrement the "2 Crate" objective actually have clues inside, while the crates with nothing inside, do decrease this counter. This is rather illogical. I'd suggest you make the glowies with no clue completely optional; and the glowies with a clue either optional or have an objective of "Find clues" rather than "Crate".
"A Strange Book" clue has "Three F old King" in it; has an extra space inside the word "Fold".
Found Arachnos Negotiator. "Oh great its Blond Justice! I heard of them! Get em!" should probably be "Oh great, it's Blond Justice! I've heard of her! Get her!"
His dialog where he attempts to "negotiate" while I'm fighting him sounds pretty cheesy, I'm afraid. "Can't we all get along?" and "Look, I will scratch your back if you scratch mine!" do not sound like anything I'd expect an Arachnos officer to say.
Warmaster Felaren also says "Its Blond Justice!" but should say "It's Blond Justice!" And "mearly a scratch" should be "merely a scratch".
I think it might make sense if you highlighted the common ground the Lemurians and the Mu have, being both sorta ancient Atlantis-era civilizations.
Debriefing: the contact says I found "The Runestone of De" but I didn't get a clue anything like that. I'm guessing "The Statue of Nocturn" got renamed somewhere along the way and not all references were changed.
Mission 5
Briefing: The contact basically says that now that I have the 4 items, I can fight the final boss, and the final boss is going to be tough. He uses slightly more flowery language than this, but that's the meaning of it.
In the mission I find I'm in a (thankfully small) Oranbega map. I beelined to the Three Fold King, who spawned as a +1 EB for me, and fought him.
In his description, "The God of War of the Lemurians" is awkward sounding; I suggest "The War God of the Lemurians".
In his dialog, "I had just reawoken!" ... I'm pretty sure reawoken is not a word. May want to rephrase that; maybe risen, awakened or returned would be a better word.
Defeating the boss ended the mission, which was awfully quick and straightforward for the finale of 5 mission story arc. I'd suggest you put more stuff to do in this mission, to make it seem more dramatic. Perhaps you have to fight his lieutenants before facing him, or rescue someone from a horrible ritual, or click four glowies that represent you using the 4 runestones you found ... something more. Just going in and defeating the boss and having the mission end is a little anticlimactic.
Debriefing: Now he starts talking about Nocturn, who hasn't really been mentioned before (except as part of the Statue of Nocturn clue). The fact that Nocturn is pleased with me doesn't really resonate due to the fact that Nocturn hasn't been introduced until now; maybe need to introduce her earlier in the plot. Also, "artefact" should be "artifact".
Souvenir: "War Gods return" should be "War God's return". "Falconeer" should be "Falconer". "Tuatha del Dannon" should be "Tuatha de Dannan". "aurdous" should be "arduous".
Overall
I'm afraid I just can't get past how formulaic the "get 4 objects to kill the boss" plot is; it's a very generic fantasy plot. I'd suggest you rework the plot to be a little less formulaic, if possible.
The fact that the contact basically lies to you to get you to do the first mission, then expects you to do 4 more missions for him anyway, is a big negative. He also reveals that he's a hero, but the fact that he's a hero is never relevant in the rest of the plot.
I found the dialog to be rather awkward. You don't really meet any recurring characters in the story (other than the contact); even the Three Fold King himself never appears until the very last act, so you never get an opportunity to understand him and/or hate him enough to want to beat him. Missions 1, 2 and 5 were all too generic in construction (go in .. defeat boss .. mission over) and needed more of interest in them; especially the last mission, which should be a more dramatic finale. Mission 4 was better because it had more clues to find, but the way the crates were defined as mission objectives was very confusing and unintuitive.
I wish I had some more positive things to say, since you clearly put a lot of work into this. But as it stands, I felt I could only give it 2 stars. Sorry!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Linarra - Coming Unglued 6015
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
@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!"
Coming Unglued (arc id 6015)
Premise is to fix some kind of dimensional anomaly. Stated level range is 41-54 blue side, solo friendly. I played an AR/dev blaster.
Contact is a lady scientist that I'm not familiar with.
Mission 1
Briefing: You may want to emphasize the caption by putting it in a larger font or bolding it or something.
The briefing seems awfully short and does not really explain much; she mentions a "time slip" and a "misalignment" without explaining what those are, then goes on to say that I need to disable some pylons. I'd suggest that you have the contact: (1) introduce herself and what she does, and (2) explain the relevance of the pylons to the problem. Possibly tell me where the pylons are and what might be guarding them.
Second part of briefing: she says the pylons are hidden inside crates, which is a little weird; wouldn't it be simpler to ask the player to gather the crates? Unless it is plot-important that they are pylons, in which case you might use a different graphic than crates, something more scientific or mystical looking than a crate.
Neat description in the mission entry popup.
Inside the mission, I find some Crey guarding these crates, and roaming Shadow Shard Reflection patrols. I'm not quite sure why.
Oddly, the Dimensional Pylon has dialog as I destroy it; it seems to be descriptive ("A shudder passes through you... Something doesn't feel right") but it's formatted as if the Dimensional Pylon is talking, which looks weird. I see that I have "Destroyed Pylon" as a clue (not sure when I got that) which I think works better for explaining these strange feelings than the crate having dialog does.
Destroying the crate spawned a Lanaruu ambush. Related to the dimensional problems, I guess; still quite weird though.
Second, third and fourth crates also talked, narrating stuff I "feel". Didn't spawn any more ambushes though. Destroying the fourth crate finished the mission, but I'm still left quite confused as to what just happened.
Mission exit popup is equally confusing. "But now the dimensions are...'unlocked'... time is of the essence." What makes me think these dimensions are unlocked? Perhaps there should be an additional clue explaining that the dimensions have become unlocked at the end of the first mission. Also it should explain what it means to be "unlocked".
Debriefing: the contact barely says anything here, just "Let me get to work". I think she should explain some of what is happening. Right now I don't feel like I know anything about the story so far.
Mission 2
Briefing: At this point the contact says that the dimensions are "unfastened". I suppose we are meant to assume this is bad, but it would be very helpful if the contact explained what this meant, and what the consequences would be, so that the player can better understand why it's bad.
Suddenly she says "We need those coordinates" but has not mentioned coordinates until this moment, so this doesn't make sense. She then says "Retrieve the dimensional parameters!" ... but where am I supposed to get them? Am I to check some sort of instruments, or is there someone I ask for them, or will they be written on the war walls in fiery text? Needs more explanation of what is being asked.
Mission entry popup: "you wouldn't think the culprit would keep such an important piece of information in such a nondescript building" .... There's a culprit now? The info presented so far just makes it sound like something is going haywire; we never got a clue suggesting someone was actually behind it all. Needs some explanation.
Also I'd agree that a random building is a strange place to look for this info. What made us go to this building, out of thousands? There must be some reason?
Lots of Crey in this building, not quite sure why. You usually see Crey in tech labs.
Suddenly, a patrol of Rularuu showed up, saw through my stealth and attacked me. This was somewhat surreal. Still not sure what is going on.
Found a glowy computer that I clicked which suddenly completed the mission. Gave me the "Dimensional Parameters" clue, but the actual text of the clue doesn't say much, just that it's the data you need to realign the coordinates, whatever that means.
I'm really not sure what this data was doing here in this office. The only NPCs who had any dialog were the Rularuu patrol, and I'm not even sure they are supposed to be able to talk.
Debriefing: Far too short. Contact should explain a little about what's going on.
Mission 3
Briefing: Now the contact says the "enemy" (what enemy?) is moving to realign the pylons in the wrong place-time. She wants me to realign them first. This mission is confusing to me; not sure if it has been fully thought out. Didn't I destroy the pylons in mission 1? And if the bad guys realigning the pylons is bad, why is it good if I realign the pylons? And if I realign the pylons in a certain way, what's to stop the bad guys from realigning them again after I leave?
Mission entry popup for this mission is cool though, helps set the scene.
Again with the glowy crates substituting for pylons? I really think you want to use a more interesting looking object for your pylons. Maybe one of the generic technology devices that looks like a big microscope?
I click the four glowies and the mission is done. That's it?
Debriefing: She thanks you for helping but still doesn't really tell you what happened.
Overall
This arc played more like a story outline than a story. There's a visible framework where the contact is getting you to help with some kind of dimension threatening problem, but within that framework there's really very little description of any sort.
The briefings and debriefings are much too sparse; I think you really need to have the contact explain more about what's going on.
The "culprit" or "enemy" is mentioned a couple times, but it's not explained why you think there is a culprit/enemy, and you certainly never catch one. I guess the Crey were involved somehow, since I ran into Crey, but this is never really explained.
It was interesting seeing the Shadow Shard Reflections, Lanaruu and Rularuu, but their presence also needs to be explained. I would guess they have leaked through from another dimension as a result of the current problem, but I think this needs to be more clearly stated either in a clue or in a debriefing. Shouldn't the Crey be surprised to see them, also?
Having the last mission require simply clicking some glowies felt rather anticlimactic, also. A more dramatic finish would be nice; perhaps you could confront this mysterious enemy. I also definitely think your glowy "pylons" need to be something more visually impressive than generic looking crates.
This arc felt incomplete. Most of the time I did not know why I was doing what I was doing. I think the arc could benefit greatly from adding considerably more text in the form of explanations, clues and/or dialog, to present more story to the player.
With the lack of actual story, I was torn between rating this a high 1 or a low 2; there is the framework of a story here, though, so I'll give it 2 stars. Hope you think that is fair!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Grandma Squeak - one of 118970 Curse of the Pharaoh's Tomb, 63131 American Gothic, or 129487 I'm So Confused
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
@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!"
Re:Arc 6015, Coming Unglued
No problem, this is an unfolding (and pending) story rather than a complete work... kind of like "you find this problem, and there's no time for investigating now... fix it, then we'll figure it out".
(the crey are there as a placeholder until custom mobs get fixed, and the crates... that's a click-and-destroy engine limitation. There are only a few item types that you can BOTH click AND destroy; crates are one, and the best I could choose. When those two issues are resloved, I will fix that aspect.)
Of course, almost all of your critique is extremely valid. I'm going to use your thorough critique as a reference to improve and flesh it out - it will be invaluable, and I am very grateful for so much work you put into reviewing it.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
PW - Is there one particular arc of your that you'd like some responses or plays on more than others? Your first two look like they were probably on Test, so I'm guessing you've pretty much got them where you want them; but "Teen Phalanx Forever!" is getting a fair amount of buzz so I expect that it might be the same.
Thanks for any help.
"...his madness keeps him sane.": My Profile on VirtueVerse
Can You WIN the Internet? MA Arc #85544
Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
Task Force Mutternacht #349522 <-- 1st AE Challenge
[ QUOTE ]
PW - Is there one particular arc of your that you'd like some responses or plays on more than others? Your first two look like they were probably on Test, so I'm guessing you've pretty much got them where you want them; but "Teen Phalanx Forever!" is getting a fair amount of buzz so I expect that it might be the same.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I would say play whichever sounds most appealing to you; I've purposely tried to make my story arcs all fairly different in theme and genre, because I wanted to try a variety of things.
Although I am pretty happy with how my story arcs are shaping up, a lot of the improvements I've made have been due to the very good feedback I've received both on this forum and in game. More feedback is always good! I find myself constantly fiddling with little changes to each story arc, trying to make it a little more cool with each iteration -- a sort of "polishing".
In direct answer to your question, though, I'm pretty happy with where Celebrity Kidnapping is right now, and haven't changed it in awhile.
Teen Phalanx Forever! got a fairly extensive remodeling about a week or two ago; this has been pretty well received, but it's still sorta new-ish, and so I definitely think it could use more testing, and I would be glad of additional feedback.
Axis and Allies has had a moderate amount of tweaking over the last few days. Despite this originally coming from test server (as you noticed), I actually feel like this is my weakest story currently, mostly [u]because[u] it was the first story I wrote, and so has all my MA newbie mistakes in it. So it's probably the story that can most use constructive suggestions. But it's fairly villainous, so I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Hope that helps!
@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!"
Hi there.
I reviewed your arc in my thread. Check it out when you get the chance.
Please in turn review my arc #100293, "The Revenge of Dr. Radium". Thanks.