Will do for this arc. 
@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE
Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!
Gah! I just had one of the those days... sigh. If you noticed the Arc ID for this arc changed (it's now 37636). I was editing, and for the life of me I don't know why, but I accidentally clicked Unpublish, then went to click Cancel, but clicked Accept instead. I lost the few ratings I had. 
I feel like an idiot. That's the last time I try editing an arc just after waking up and still half-asleep.
This is just a heads up that the Arc ID has changed.
Turg: Thank you! 
I haven't been playing other people's arc much yet, but yours is on the top of my list when I do!
I finally had a chance to update this arc, some are based on feedback:
- Added a clue when defeating Bobby Red.
- Rephrased some secondary briefing text in Mission 2.
- Edited a sentence in the computer clue in Mission 2, to hint on what may or has happened in the mission.
- Rewrote some of the final boss battle text.
- Added a hint in the clue on the last mission.
- Edited/rewrote/added a few lines on the final debriefing.
Thanks to everyone that have tried out the arc, and especially those that gave feedback. This arc, along with my Pandas vs. Rikti arc, really sometimes goes on a rollercoaster, switching between 4 and 5 stars. 166 votes so far!
I hope to see more playing this short dark mystery arc.
I just wanted to throw in that I played this one recently. It was nice character arc and a darker story. I did with a level 20 blaster, and had no major trouble with the foes.
Story-wise, I thought it was pretty good in that your contact didn't make me feel like I was just along for the ride. By asking for my toon's help and making it seem like they were working in tandem, it certainly made it more appealing. I also like that it was a straight story of human(or superhuman) stuff - not every arc as to be Epic or pure silliness.
The story had enough drama to work well, but wasn't over the top, I think. Also, a logical use of the Council and Family - especially given that they overlap so much in places like IP.
That's my take on it. Cheers!
Nobody "gets" me, Baby! I'm the wind...
Chicks dig Giant Robots!
Just played this last night, definitely an excellent arc. The writing was well done and everything seemed very well paced.
Infatum on Virtueverse
This is a high 30s DB/fire brute, putting on his hero pants (made from real heroes!) because Mission Engineer ain't gonna earn itself. Live feedback begins... now!
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Okay, so a hero wants to be in two places at once and instead of risking traveling through the fifth dimension and coming out as an evil mirror clone, he asks me to go ask a Family guy some questions. WITH MY SWORDS.
So let's do that. Though I wonder exactly what this Family guy knows that'll help locate her.
I'll just slap her photo on a sword with some gluestick and say "DOES THIS LOOK FAMILIAR" every time I whack him. He should get the hint.
Exchange Banks are tiny maps, so this guy should be cake to find.
Well, the Family nabbed her. Okay. And Johnny In Fine Dick Tracy Tradition My Last Name Is The Color Of Everything I Wear here was trying to do a little extracurricular dirt-gathering. Let's break into the bank ourselves, FOR JUSTICE, and see what comes out. (he's a nice powerset mix, barely distinguishable from an actual Underboss. Keen gear.)
...aw hell. She's one of those scientists who discovers the cure for all known illnesses then gets silenced by Big Pharma. This can't end well.
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Another scenario where there's two places and I head for one of them. Alright. I guess since we're working with time pressure here this needs to get done priority alpha.
Hmm. Okay, so it sounds like the Council built a robot for the Family, and the Family, according to this computer and my own wild guesses, gave up a scientist who developed a cure for warwolfin'? Makes sense. Ms. Arkahn isn't going to like that, Yogi.
...and she's a believer in poetic justice and/or irony and/or total prickishness. Well, since there aren't any more glowies left, it was nice knowing you, doc. Hope you wake up in the Zig.
...aw, she doesn't go all WHAT HAVE I BECOME when she offs a hero. That's just poor deathbeast etiquette. Rise of the Phoenix, this one's yours.
Oh, so I did just knock her out then? Fair enough. Though honestly I'm amazed she's alive, given how many Council troops just die of zombie space cancer when they try to fuse.
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Huh. So she is suffering from zombie space cancer, and the cure is actually property of Mr. Albino Glasses. It wasn't about her cure for warwolfin' after all? Kinda odd. Council wouldn't do that to a scientist just for giggles, they kidnap 'em and make 'em work on like death machines or doom viruses or something.
Man, this contact guy'd make a good villain. "My mom-analogue is in the hospital --> TIME TO BREAK THINGS." Instead of, y'know, sitting up with her or something because I've handled things okay so far.
It smells like malevolence in here. I guess malevolence smells a lot like mold.
Hey, it's that guy who gave me that mission! He's a lieut though, and that plus his boosted perception means he almost gets shredded on the way to the boss. And because of the melee range bug just kinda stands back and watches me have at it. Not that I blame him, a splash from thunderstrike knocks him halfway across the room.
So, wait, this entire thing was just an attempt by this guy to prove what a humongous jerk he was? Dude needs some knife-twisting lessons. Like, there actually is a cure but you drink it or break it right in front of the guy. Or maybe it is water but you don't let on. C'mon now, that's like showing people the marks on your cards.
Pff, and now he's congratulating himself because he didn't let his emotions overwhelm him at the crucial moment. Dudebro, let me spell this out for you: instead of being there for the most important person in your life when she was dying, you went off to punch some guy in the junk. But hey, don't let me stop you from telling yourself you did the right thing.
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It's a quick arc, quicker than the mission count suggests. There's some good use of patrol dialogue to set the stage and provide a little interstitial plot, because the contact believably has no clue what's really going on here.
Despite the acerbity I don't really expect the contact or his furry mom to act much differently. I'm not expecting her to think straight with a tiny bit of space crustacean inside her screaming for blood, and the contact is a great portrayal of someone who's layering justifications on after the fact, i.e. a normal human being.
This'd make an interesting revamp if they ever allow for branching arcs, if the boss in the second mission tries to run at low health. Or maybe put the final mission on some crazy small timer and give the player a chance to pull off a feat of MegaSmithian story impact.
Because as it is, this is my main problem with the arc: what I'm seeing here is something that I couldn't have changed. I was basically a passenger on the train Mr. White Shades was driving, and not even an important one at that. If I hadn't been around he would have made sure my contact followed the right leads just so he could twist the knife at the end.
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)
Thank you Servo and Raging Bear for the comments and feedback!
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GlazuisF: I love your review! I was laughing reading through it. Your review style is pretty unique. In some parts I wasn't sure if you were serious or not.
I have some clarifications:
[ QUOTE ]
Hmm. Okay, so it sounds like the Council built a robot for the Family, and the Family, according to this computer and my own wild guesses, gave up a scientist who developed a cure for warwolfin'? Makes sense. Ms. Arkahn isn't going to like that, Yogi.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It wasn't about her cure for warwolfin' after all?
[/ QUOTE ]
Er... actually there's no mention of a robot. The Family have asked and paid the Council to create something else, which you already know by now. And no, the doc didn't develop a cure for warwolves (I didn't want to break canon). She developed various experimental cures for other diseases in her work, which Bobby Red from the first mission wanted to steal and sell. The note on the cure mentioned, as you found out later, was planted and was fake.
[ QUOTE ]
Dude needs some knife-twisting lessons. Like, there actually is a cure but you drink it or break it right in front of the guy. Or maybe it is water but you don't let on. C'mon now, that's like showing people the marks on your cards.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL. I guess I need to think of even better ways to make him evil. I'm not sure if having an actual real cure would work though. As supposedly there isn't one for warwolves, at least according to the permanency depicted in CoH canon. As for the idea of letting it stay as water, like it is now, but for the bad guy not to say anything, I actually thought of that. The problem was, I wanted that important fact to also be seen by people who only skim or barely read the briefings, or to clue people on a team on that vital twist, on what's going on. So I placed it in there. And admittedly, also for a secondary smaller reason, dramatic effect.
But you know how villains are, always mentioning their big plans at the end.
[ QUOTE ]
Man, this contact guy'd make a good villain. "My mom-analogue is in the hospital --> TIME TO BREAK THINGS." Instead of, y'know, sitting up with her or something because I've handled things okay so far.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pff, and now he's congratulating himself because he didn't let his emotions overwhelm him at the crucial moment. Dudebro, let me spell this out for you: instead of being there for the most important person in your life when she was dying, you went off to punch some guy in the junk. But hey, don't let me stop you from telling yourself you did the right thing.
[/ QUOTE ]
Um... eh? What? O.o I think you may be missing something, the chance for a cure. The contact didn't leave her to join you so that he could just beat up the bad guy. He came with you because of the clue, that there might be a chance for a cure that might save her. It's not to go break things or punch some guy (although of course he'd love to beat the guy that did it, he was angry of course). He couldn't just sit there and do nothing, if there's a chance that he might be able to save her. So try and save her he did.
As to why he couldn't just let you go alone, it was someone that was really important to him, so he had to make sure that the mission succeeds. And of course, with two people, the cure might be found faster, and thus increase the chance that she might be saved. And if the bad guy is there to stop them, then two people will have a better chance at defeating him and bring the cure back.
Hmmm, this is the first time someone mentioned thinking he was solely there to fight the bad guy. If a couple more players mention it again in a feedback, I may think about rewording some of the text a little, to emphasize that (aside from helping you bring the bad guy to justice) he is primarily, and more importantly, there to try and save her life.
[ QUOTE ]
This'd make an interesting revamp if they ever allow for branching arcs, if the boss in the second mission tries to run at low health. Or maybe put the final mission on some crazy small timer and give the player a chance to pull off a feat of MegaSmithian story impact.
Because as it is, this is my main problem with the arc: what I'm seeing here is something that I couldn't have changed. I was basically a passenger on the train Mr. White Shades was driving, and not even an important one at that. If I hadn't been around he would have made sure my contact followed the right leads just so he could twist the knife at the end.
[/ QUOTE ]
For the first paragraph... well, yes, it would be interesting to be able to have two outcomes for the arc. My problem with it though was I fear it may lose some of the reasons why I wrote the arc in the first place. As shown in the final debriefing, it was to show that heroes in Paragon City can lose a lot in their chosen life, while protecting innocents and fighting evil. That there are heroes that will choose not to cross the line, even when someone they love is lost, unless they too become the monsters they fight everyday. In the end, the arc was about heroes choosing not to give in to ones emotions and then kill out of revenge. And even if they may go near that line, there are those that will not cross it, even if every part of their body wants to.
As for the second paragraph, unfortunately yes, like most of the game's story arcs and TF's, you are in a train of sorts. But you as the player did change things. If you'll notice the contact chose the wrong leads to follow, if you weren't there it would've taken him longer, and the doc would've expired by then. No mention of her last words and important reminder to the contact. If you weren't there, the contact at his state of mind and body would have been defeated or killed. Because twisting the knife wasn't the bad guy's only goal, as he mentions during the battle, he was aiming to also kill/defeat/capture the contact at the end. If the player wasn't there, the killer wouldn't have been brought to justice neither. Overall, if you weren't there it would have an even graver end, with an unsolved murder mystery, and two dead bodies.
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Thanks for the review. I enjoyed reading most of it, and it was amusing seeing how you play through things. It's nice to see how or what a player is thinking while going through the arc. The guesses, even the combat.
There is one suggestion that I may use from your review. Ever since I changed the Ally from Boss to LT (because of the last patch that gave bosses a powerful Tier-9 attack), you are not alone in suggesting on increasing his survivability. I'm now thinking of reverting him back to Boss level.
Well, thanks again for the review! I am a little curious though, if you don't mind, I didn't catch the ticket message when you finished my arc. What was you final verdict on my arc, your rating I mean?
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Er... actually there's no mention of a robot. The Family have asked and paid the Council to create something else, which you already know by now.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, yeah. But how many things do you hard-code to make sure they don't attack you?
Must have been all the pistons in my ear.
[ QUOTE ]
Um... eh? What? O.o I think you may be missing something, the chance for a cure. The contact didn't leave her to join you so that he could just beat up the bad guy. He came with you because of the clue, that there might be a chance for a cure that might save her. It's not to go break things or punch some guy (although of course he'd love to beat the guy that did it, he was angry of course). He couldn't just sit there and do nothing, if there's a chance that he might be able to save her. So try and save her he did.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, here's the thing. This is Paragon City. You can stick your head out the hospital window, yell "HEY! Some jackass mutated my mom and he's got the only cure! HAVE SOME MAPS!" and then throw out a sheaf of paper. 1/4th of the citizenry will glance around furtively and head off to someplace the camera can't see, and you'll need to ring up the FAA to handle all the air traffic.
That's the easy part. Anybody can go punch a dude and grab a vial of stuff, the police put out APBs for that all the dang time.
The hard part is sitting up with your mom while she's dying, and you're the only person who can do that.
Now, this isn't to say that I don't understand his reasons. But I hope you understand mine.
[ QUOTE ]
Well, thanks again for the review! I am a little curious though, if you don't mind, I didn't catch the ticket message when you finished my arc. What was you final verdict on my arc, your rating I mean?
[/ QUOTE ]
4, largely because of the aforementioned feeling that I might as well just have stayed at home and ate chips for all the good it did. However you want to explain things, that's the impression that I got.
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)
Ah, thank you.
Oh I understand your reasons on staying with her. But honestly though, one can say the Paragon-City-is-full-of-heroes part for much about everything. I guess it stems to what a character would do at the moment, and this is what this character would've done in this case, and I think you saw that, which is why it didn't affect your overall rating for it. You just didn't agree with what he did, which is fine.
As for the impression of not being able to change things, which did affect your rating, if I get anymore feedback that relate to that, perhaps I could try rewording a few things. But I have a feeling, it's the arc itself that would probably need to change to really prevent such impressions. So I may actually not be able to do anything about that.
From reading the review originally though, I thought you gave it lower than the 4 you gave. lol. I enjoy detailed reviews like yours. You weren't kidding when you said "PREPARE" in-game. O_O Now it makes me wonder what Venture will think about the arc, since this arc is in his queue.
Thanks again for the review GlaziusF.
Hey hey fellow MArcers. Just another update for this arc:
- Based on a few feedback since I changed the optional Ally into a LT (because the last patch gave bosses a damaging tier-9 attack), I've reverted him back to Boss level. Even though the last mission is pretty short, he usually has little life left or is dead by the time the player reaches the EB. This made the optional Ally mostly useless in the final battle, unless you could heal or buff.
I've tested it again with my usual barrage of solo tests with my blaster, defender, controller, tank, and scrappers. It seems to be fine, even though with the tier-9 attack, he seldom got to use it, except during the EB fights. He was definitely a lot of help to my squishies during the EB fight. He still died in a couple of solo tests with my squishies who relied on him to tank, but I think that's fine, in that, there's still a challenge.
- Also based on some feedback, including GlaziusF's review in this thread, some texts have been reworded/added/edited.
- Added a line in the secondary follow-up briefing in mission 2.
- Reworded a couple of sentences in the mission 3 briefing.
- Changed the mission 3 nav title to emphasize getting the cure.
- Reworded the two main objectives for mission 3.
- Reworded a couple of sentences in the final debriefing.
Well that's it. I've been getting some great comments aside from feedback the past month. Thank you to everyone that played it. 208 votes with a 4 star average so far. Hoping to get even more plays for this one.
The same with my Pandas vs. Rikti arc thread, I'll also be posting links to reviews of this arc as well. This will also be a way of thanking and recognizing the reviewers that have provided their time on the forums. Some of these are a few updates old, but are still good references.
Review by Beach_Lifeguard (5 stars)
Review by Bubbawheat (5 stars)
Review by PoliceWoman (4 stars)
A Mini Review by Lazarus (5 stars)
That's it so far. Thank you to the reviewers above and those that gave comments in-game. Hoping to see more plays, comments, and any feedback you may have for this arc.
Here's an update:
After a few more feedback and suggestions, I've decided to change a few things:
- Removed the custom Family critters. The whole arc now only uses normal Family mobs.
- And thus, the arc's level range is now set at 20-29 (the usual level for the Family on the heroside).
- Due to the overall lower, and more focused, level range (as well as my goal in keeping the arc solo-friendly even at these levels) the final boss has been adjusted to Boss instead of Elite Boss. (At these earlier levels, it's difficult for some to solo EB's)
- And because of the above, the optional Ally is adjusted as well, from Boss to Lieutenant.
- Bobby Red has been turned into a Lieutenant as well.
- The two objectives in the final mission are now chained, since previously it didn't make sense that it was possible to finish the second objective without the first, due to how the story progresses and ends.
I've tested the arc again with my usual battery of play-thrus with different AT's, and it should be pretty balanced and solo-friendly for the 20's. I think this will overall help improve the arc, and not to mention, make the Family's involvement and power-level make more sense with the story.
Thanks again for those who have played the arc and those that have given feedback and comments.
Arc Name: The Missing
Arc ID: 37636
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Shadow-Rush / Shadowrush
Difficulty Level: 20-29, Easy to Moderate
Synopsis: What starts out as a missing person case turns into something more sinister.
Estimated Time to Play: 20-30 minutes
Notes: Story-Driven. Mystery. 3 short missions. Solo-friendly. An optional Ally is also provided.
I would love to get some comments and feedback on this arc. It's shorter than my previous one, but I believe it has a bit more heart. I've proofread it a few times, but like always I might have missed a few typos or grammar errors, so if you find any, I'd appreciate notes on it.
EDIT: Updated the OP.