[IMG] # 41565 - Astoria in D Minor

I just published my first arc. I realize a lot of people have been doing that lately, but I've had this idea in my head since the MA was first mentioned by Posi as "Something cool we're thinking of doing". Now of course I'm on an adrenaline high being all excited that I finally got to make my story.

Long story short, I'd like some people to actually PLAY my arc, and would love some feedback on it. To get some attention, I made a quick poster which I think turned out fairly well in a minimalist kind of way, considering I have roughly 0 artistic ability.

Click HERE to view the poster!

As the poster says, the arc is called "Astoria in D Minor", arc ID 41565.

It's a 5 mission arc, although each mission is fairly short, and can be stealthed. Non-stealthing, it'd probably take around 30 mins to an hour depending on your difficulty and how quickly you can defeat mobs. It's level 25-29 and solo friendly.

It's a horror arc meant for heroes with some pretty dark themes, and might be kind of depressing (Depending on how much you let text affect you, anyway). The story is about the search for a lost daughter in Dark Astoria, a warshade, and a disturbed hero trying to save people.

PLEASE let me know what you think! I've put a lot of work into this arc, and really would like to know how it's received. I realize that by throwing it out to the masses I could be opening myself to some harsh feedback, and while I do want negative as well as positive criticism, I only ask that you keep it constructive.

Oh hey, I can edit this post! Well, since it seems to finally want to let me do that, I also have another Astoria arc:

The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts. Arc ID: 170547

Okay, that was creepy as hell.

Seriously, very good job... excellent storytelling and atmosphere throughout the arc! The way you formatted the text in certain places was very effective.

Only one very minor gripe (SPOILERS!)...







I gathered that in the final mission, my character was entirely confused and thought the civilians were monsters or something. But I found that I as a player was pretty confused as well. I was saying to myself, "Wait, are these good guys? Why are they hostile to me? Wait, they're saying I'm attacking them?" (Which admittedly I was...) So, uh.... hmmm. Maybe that sort of dissonance was exactly what you were going for. I have to admit it was rather uncomfortable for me, in that I knew I was doing what I needed to do to complete the mission, but at the same time I knew it was wrong. Fortunately, by the time I got to that mission I had faith enough in the story to just let it carry me forward, rather than just saying "This makes no sense! I'm supposed to be a hero!" and quitting the arc.

So... I don't know. Maybe that's not a gripe after all. You could make it a little more straightforward that the protagonist isn't thinking straight at this point--either with something suggesting as much on the mission entry text or, if you wanted to do something a little more extreme, by making the "enemies" look like zombies (while keeping the dialogue as is).

But it seems like it'd be a tough call to make. Like I said, I was confused, but I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing or not.

Oh, and on a less equivocal note, I caught a typo in Event Horizon's dialogue in the end, where he talks about how the fog "playes" with your mind.



END SPOILERS




Once again, magnificent arc! I could definitely see myself running it again.


EDIT:
I just read the souvenir text. I'd strongly encourage anyone who runs this arc to be sure not to miss what's written there.

im just about to log in to give this a whirl because of word of mouth from some friends .

I'll give my feedback later on after i'vr completed it

Promised you feedback later on.

So here's your later on.

There's nothing that kept me from giving this five stars, it definitely sells the atmosphere very well, but here are things I wanted to say.

1) Your "contact" is supposed to vanish for the last two missions. In that case why not work the whole thing through a.. well I want to say pay phone, but that's not available. Maybe one of the desks with an abandoned office phone? If you want to introduce Irene, maybe put her right inside the first mission.

2) Had some over-boundary issues with the default-size clue and dialog windows - the medical lab clue from the fourth mission and the closing text after the fifth mission. If you were going for that, all well and good, but I wanted to let you know.

3) Argh, not the Mayhem asylum and Ruladak caves again! I got very sick of those in test, because they're pains to navigate and there's only one layout. The Ruladak caves especially, since they require making a blind right and opening a non-obvious passageway to get to the end. The Mayhem asylum seems like the only thing for that map, and I won't say the Ruladak caves didn't work, even seeing all-caps descriptions pop out was a bit of a jump scare. You might be able to pull off the atmosphere of twisted reality just as well with one of the large office map-transition-to-sewer layouts.

4) Yeah, I noticed that the lights were on in the first mission and it struck me as odd then. Maybe you could set the first mission in an abandoned-office version of the same map, and then in the fifth mission the lights are on? It struck me as Event Horizon replaying the day when he snapped, when everyone seemed to be attacking him. I didn't particularly notice the civilian armament, but they'd work well with crazy weapons instead of vanilla ones - a Ruladak sword, a "bloody rust" rifle, etc.

5) Been playing Urban Dead, have we? The BaniPan zombies really don't follow the standard model in that they're basically half mummy half zombie. Husks, Chambers, etc. Old Civil War-era dead. The shamans, contrarily, are all actual modern-day people who've turned to the cult of the cannibal gods. Presenting them as standard Romero zombies doesn't work, but putting their ancient dead gods in their mouths is just as effective as barhah harman hambargahz. Similarly, your claws guy could be focused on cutting instead of blood and be suspiciously, clinically _clean_. And then a bloody clown in the psycho reality. (unless he's the same model then I dunno what to say)

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Okay, that was creepy as hell.

Seriously, very good job... excellent storytelling and atmosphere throughout the arc! The way you formatted the text in certain places was very effective.

Only one very minor gripe (SPOILERS!)...







I gathered that in the final mission, my character was entirely confused and thought the civilians were monsters or something. But I found that I as a player was pretty confused as well. I was saying to myself, "Wait, are these good guys? Why are they hostile to me? Wait, they're saying I'm attacking them?" (Which admittedly I was...) So, uh.... hmmm. Maybe that sort of dissonance was exactly what you were going for. I have to admit it was rather uncomfortable for me, in that I knew I was doing what I needed to do to complete the mission, but at the same time I knew it was wrong. Fortunately, by the time I got to that mission I had faith enough in the story to just let it carry me forward, rather than just saying "This makes no sense! I'm supposed to be a hero!" and quitting the arc.

So... I don't know. Maybe that's not a gripe after all. You could make it a little more straightforward that the protagonist isn't thinking straight at this point--either with something suggesting as much on the mission entry text or, if you wanted to do something a little more extreme, by making the "enemies" look like zombies (while keeping the dialogue as is).

But it seems like it'd be a tough call to make. Like I said, I was confused, but I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing or not.

Oh, and on a less equivocal note, I caught a typo in Event Horizon's dialogue in the end, where he talks about how the fog "playes" with your mind.



END SPOILERS




Once again, magnificent arc! I could definitely see myself running it again.


EDIT:
I just read the souvenir text. I'd strongly encourage anyone who runs this arc to be sure not to miss what's written there.


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I'm actually super glad you mentioned this, because as confused as it made you feel, that is EXACTLY the mood I was going for for that mission. I wasn't sure if a lot of people would be affected the way I did because not everyone gets too involved with a storyline, and beating up civilian models is basically the same thing as beating up monsters to them. I guess a little bit of backstory is in order here, but originally when I designed the arc, mission 4 did not exist, and mission 5 was meant to be the big standout of the arc - the whole theme of the arc was going to revolve around choices, or rather the lack of choices. The fact that you have to mow down a bunch of civilians to finish the arc is meant to be a disturbing experience because of the fact that the game doesn't ALLOW you not to. I mean, you can stealth past, or just run past and let their aggro reset, but odds are you're going to have to fight at least SOME of them (Especially since Event Horizon has a couple helping him at the end and you HAVE to fight him). That's what Event Horizon's dialogue is meant to evoke - You didn't have any problem doing this when it was zombies - but change a model and some dialogue and all of a sudden it's a LOT more disturbing. I ended up dropping some of those themes from the main focus, but I still wanted to have them in there as kind of a tertiary thing to think about, and they still helped push the atmosphere of desperation and hopelessness that WAS the main theme of the arc.

This mission is the main reason why the arc is "Heroic" and not "Neutral". For a villain or at least morally ambiguous character, it's no big deal to kill some people to defend yourself - you do what you need to do to survive. But for a hero, you're really meant to tear yourself up for it - your back was against the wall, but those people didn't NEED to die.

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1) Your "contact" is supposed to vanish for the last two missions. In that case why not work the whole thing through a.. well I want to say pay phone, but that's not available. Maybe one of the desks with an abandoned office phone? If you want to introduce Irene, maybe put her right inside the first mission.

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Putting her in the first mission is a brilliant idea and I wish I'd thought of it :P. Honestly, I had this same issue when designing the arc, but I had to make the concession because of the limitations of the MA system. The arc is meant to be very personal and your character is meant to be very present for the whole thing - doing it all through a payphone or computer desk just feels too detached to have the same feeling as talking to a person.

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2) Had some over-boundary issues with the default-size clue and dialog windows - the medical lab clue from the fourth mission and the closing text after the fifth mission. If you were going for that, all well and good, but I wanted to let you know.

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This isn't exactly intentional, but it isn't really UNintentional either. I was aware of the issue but didn't bother to fix it, because those clues are meant as an interface screw ANYWAY, and actually reading them won't gleam much more meaning than just seeing the huge wall of crazy staring at you.

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3) Argh, not the Mayhem asylum and Ruladak caves again! I got very sick of those in test, because they're pains to navigate and there's only one layout. The Ruladak caves especially, since they require making a blind right and opening a non-obvious passageway to get to the end. The Mayhem asylum seems like the only thing for that map, and I won't say the Ruladak caves didn't work, even seeing all-caps descriptions pop out was a bit of a jump scare. You might be able to pull off the atmosphere of twisted reality just as well with one of the large office map-transition-to-sewer layouts.

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To be honest, I know they're a pain to navigate. I ran this arc a LOT of times while testing it and the while I learned to find my way around the Ruladak caves (Hint: ALWAYS have your map open, it's much easier :P), the hospital always gave me trouble having to backtrack and find all the objectives. At the same time though, the maps were just too perfect for the atmosphere to consider switching them out for another one. The hospital just screams "Silent Hill", which is obviously a major influence on the arc, and the Ruladak caves are the absolute foggiest map you can find (Plus, the BP sigils actually look really cool when it's all you can see in the fog). I was considering using one of the transition to sewer maps, but I wanted to stay away from any really gigantic maps just because I personally find they tend to drag on, and most of these missions were meant to be reasonably short-moderate in length.

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4) Yeah, I noticed that the lights were on in the first mission and it struck me as odd then. Maybe you could set the first mission in an abandoned-office version of the same map, and then in the fifth mission the lights are on? It struck me as Event Horizon replaying the day when he snapped, when everyone seemed to be attacking him. I didn't particularly notice the civilian armament, but they'd work well with crazy weapons instead of vanilla ones - a Ruladak sword, a "bloody rust" rifle, etc.

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Again, a bit of backstory is needed here. Originally the arc was meant to have a very circular sort of feel; you start and end in the same place. In fact, the original conception (Which I threw out before even writing it because it didn't work as well for the narrative) was that the last mission actually WAS the first mission again - only this time you saw what REALLY happened. I got rid of that because I wanted to leave the ending more ambiguous rather than a slap in the face "You are the real bad guy!". It's up to the player to decide how they feel about themselves after running the last mission - were they really killing innocent civilians this whole time, or was what they saw in the last mission just a side effect of getting too close to Mot in mission 4? As for weapons, I intentionally wanted to give them the most "realistic" armament I could rather than crazy stuff. They're meant to really feel like they're just normal people trying to survive in a town that's gone insane - not meant to be insane themselves.

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5) Been playing Urban Dead, have we? The BaniPan zombies really don't follow the standard model in that they're basically half mummy half zombie. Husks, Chambers, etc. Old Civil War-era dead. The shamans, contrarily, are all actual modern-day people who've turned to the cult of the cannibal gods. Presenting them as standard Romero zombies doesn't work, but putting their ancient dead gods in their mouths is just as effective as barhah harman hambargahz. Similarly, your claws guy could be focused on cutting instead of blood and be suspiciously, clinically _clean_. And then a bloody clown in the psycho reality. (unless he's the same model then I dunno what to say)

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I honestly did not think anyone would get the Urban Dead references :P. I know the difference between BP zombies and Romero zombies, but that was another one of those things where I had to make a concession because of the limitations of the system. I didn't want to make my own custom group because Dark Astoria IS the BP zone and no Astoria arc should lack them. The "Barhah harm manz!" stuff was actually more of an in-joke to myself and possibly the 1 or 2 people who might actually get the reference. As for Schism, that's not actually meant to be blood all over him (Although it does look like it - not entirely unintentional), just a really creepy looking costume. I get what you're saying, and I think that approach could work just as well, it's just I chose to go with him this way. Plus, I'm not actually great at costumes, and it's a lot harder to convey "This guy is WAY too clean looking" than it is to convey "This guy is MESSED UP".

Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback so far and I'm really glad that people are liking the arc - I put a lot of work into it. It means a lot to me to see people react the way they are because when I wrote the arc I wasn't sure if people would really get what I was going for, or if they would feel the way I meant for them to feel, and seeing that they do really helps boost my confidence in my writing.

I look forward to any more comments anyone has!

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The arc is meant to be very personal and your character is meant to be very present for the whole thing - doing it all through a payphone or computer desk just feels too detached to have the same feeling as talking to a person.

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It's sitting out in the streets of Dark Astoria. The phone isn't hooked up but it rings anyway. Your "contact" is across the way in a phone booth after the first mission. The walls make her feel safe.

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It's up to the player to decide how they feel about themselves after running the last mission - were they really killing innocent civilians this whole time, or was what they saw in the last mission just a side effect of getting too close to Mot in mission 4? As for weapons, I intentionally wanted to give them the most "realistic" armament I could rather than crazy stuff. They're meant to really feel like they're just normal people trying to survive in a town that's gone insane - not meant to be insane themselves.

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Ah, different interpretations here. Also after I saw the civvies start attacking me I just turned on superspeed and slipped through to the end, stopping to drop the occasional zombie. I gave Event Horizon the first strike and kept his henchmen out of splash range. Call me an old softie.

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It's sitting out in the streets of Dark Astoria. The phone isn't hooked up but it rings anyway. Your "contact" is across the way in a phone booth after the first mission. The walls make her feel safe.

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Again, very good idea and I wish I'd thought of it :P. It's a pretty major rework for me to put in at the moment (Still kind of riding on that "I just finished an arc!" buzz), but it's definitely an idea I'll keep in mind when I feel up to changing things.

*Edit* the more I think about this idea the more I realize how perfect I could make it for the arc. I may make the change sooner rather than later.

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Ah, different interpretations here. Also after I saw the civvies start attacking me I just turned on superspeed and slipped through to the end, stopping to drop the occasional zombie. I gave Event Horizon the first strike and kept his henchmen out of splash range. Call me an old softie.

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A perfectly valid way of doing things! You miss out on some disturbing dialogue from the people you attack by doing it that way, but I do like that people are feeling it enough to actually WANT to avoid fighting them. It is a very dark and depressing arc, and heroic failure is a very major theme - but that doesn't mean you need to abandon your principles. You didn't like the available options and created your own; it's about as heroic as you can GET in this arc.

I hate to double-post but I just had a burst of inspiration and made a fairly major change to the arc. The overall plotline is the same, but I switched out the contact for a different one (It makes sense when you play it). Given that it is going on 6 AM, odds are I probably missed some text making all the changes, but I'm fairly sure I caught all the important stuff.

Also, there was no payphone contact =(

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Also, there was no payphone contact =(

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That's what I said!

Very nice! I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

SPOILER ALERT




One gameplay issue: in the first mission, as you escort Event Horizon out, if you get too far from him, he plays the Waiting animation. Even if you get close to him again, you have to wait for the animation to finish, or he won't move. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong; I'd try to get him to move, but he wouldn't follow and so I was creating an endless animation loop. I don't know if this happens with the other escort characters or allies, because after the first mission I made a command decision not to get further than 10 yards from any escorted character.

Thanks for a great arc!

The below flier is posted on behalf of the player promoting their Mission Arc.

For more information about having a flier posted, please see the Event Posting Rules

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So far I'm enjoying the arc and I love your map selection. I had to stop, however, at the 4th (?) mission (the one with the super foggy cave) because of a bug. The text in the popup window and my name in the Nav bar showed up in a gibberish font that looked like a combination of Russian, Greek, and a weird Wingdings that I had never seen before. I tried relogging but the problem persisted. I'll try again another day, but if it isn't fixed, I'll probably just start it over. I already sent a /bug report but I'm curious if you used any special formatting, especially for the character name in the Nav bar, and if anyone else has had this problem.

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So far I'm enjoying the arc and I love your map selection. I had to stop, however, at the 4th (?) mission (the one with the super foggy cave) because of a bug. The text in the popup window and my name in the Nav bar showed up in a gibberish font that looked like a combination of Russian, Greek, and a weird Wingdings that I had never seen before. I tried relogging but the problem persisted. I'll try again another day, but if it isn't fixed, I'll probably just start it over. I already sent a /bug report but I'm curious if you used any special formatting, especially for the character name in the Nav bar, and if anyone else has had this problem.

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Heh, maybe I should put a warning about that (Some other people have mentioned that people might be confused by this). The gibberish font isn't a bug, it's MEANT to look like that; it's a deliberate font choice. Mission 4 is meant to be very "What the hell is going on?" (Which is pretty much summed up by the mission finish popup). Just run through it like you would a normal mission; the objectives are all pretty obvious (Two named bosses and a desctructable object, plus one optional glowy, and take a look at the clues you get from them. It won't really make any more SENSE, but you'll probably at least kind of figure out the general tone of the mission.

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One gameplay issue: in the first mission, as you escort Event Horizon out, if you get too far from him, he plays the Waiting animation. Even if you get close to him again, you have to wait for the animation to finish, or he won't move. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong; I'd try to get him to move, but he wouldn't follow and so I was creating an endless animation loop.

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I think this is just an issue with how escort animations work in City of Heroes in general. The escort NPC, if they have an animation set for when they've lost you, won't move again until they finish a complete "cycle" of the animation. The wait animation is kind of long so it's possible to lose him again before he starts following you. All you really need to do is just make sure he's actually moving before you get too far away from him (This goes for any escort NPC in the game really).

Also, thanks Ex Libris for posting my poster!

When things went south and/or got weird, my hero started pulling her punches and relying a lot on Personal Force Field to get through. Except for Schism - he went down hard. Then the heralds too, but otherwise I just skimmed through the whole thing.

Mostly it made my very rational and scientific hero start wondering if any of it was real - half expecting to wake up to a ringing bedside phone at the end of mission 4, at the end of a particularly weird nightmare - and reinforced her general distrust of all things magical. She managed to hold on to her personal beliefs and moral compass through it all; it helps that her powers are such that she does not have to kill to defeat/arrest, and doesn't.

(There was also a point where I imagined her muttering various scientific constants and laws under her breath and even hurling them like incantations against the monsters.)

I loved this arc. Easily my favorite, but I couldn't find it when I looked for it earlier today.

It should still be there, I didn't unpublish or anything. You probably just have "Arcs I've already played" or "Arcs I've already rated" ticked on your search field, which will filter out arcs you've completed/rated from your search results.

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A perfectly valid way of doing things! You miss out on some disturbing dialogue from the people you attack by doing it that way, but I do like that people are feeling it enough to actually WANT to avoid fighting them. It is a very dark and depressing arc, and heroic failure is a very major theme - but that doesn't mean you need to abandon your principles. You didn't like the available options and created your own; it's about as heroic as you can GET in this arc.

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The last mission tied it together very nicely. Up until then it was a "dark" arc and I assumed the final civilians were possessed or something, but reading their text pretty much forced me to flip on some stealth.

Event Horizon's text was quite cutting, but the real and genuine kicker was as I zoning out, and suddenly connected the dots between the "don't let them break the barricades" text and the custom critters in the first mission.

Very nice concept and execution.

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It should still be there, I didn't unpublish or anything. You probably just have "Arcs I've already played" or "Arcs I've already rated" ticked on your search field, which will filter out arcs you've completed/rated from your search results.

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Bah, of course!

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A perfectly valid way of doing things! You miss out on some disturbing dialogue from the people you attack by doing it that way, but I do like that people are feeling it enough to actually WANT to avoid fighting them. It is a very dark and depressing arc, and heroic failure is a very major theme - but that doesn't mean you need to abandon your principles. You didn't like the available options and created your own; it's about as heroic as you can GET in this arc.

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The last mission tied it together very nicely. Up until then it was a "dark" arc and I assumed the final civilians were possessed or something, but reading their text pretty much forced me to flip on some stealth.

Event Horizon's text was quite cutting, but the real and genuine kicker was as I zoning out, and suddenly connected the dots between the "don't let them break the barricades" text and the custom critters in the first mission.

Very nice concept and execution.

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I actually wasn't sure how many people would pick up on that. It's very subtle since not a lot of attention is drawn to it in the first mission, and by the last most people have probably forgotten about them.

As much as I hate bumping my own thread, I also hate being down on page 5, so....

I've made a few edits to the arc, mostly minor, although one of the minor changes to the last mission changes the meaning kind of significantly for those of you who really wanted to avoid the civilians (Note: You probably won't even notice the difference - but it's there).

Also I've got the itch to work on another arc. I feel like doing another Astoria arc, although with a different tone than this one (I don't think I could pull off something this depressing TWICE - at least not without being too similar to the arc I've already written). I've narrowed it down to two ideas and I'd like some opinions about which people would be more interested in playing:

1) The first idea would be sort of a "Side arc" to D Minor. Event Horizon would be the contact, and it would focus on the Council that he was originally sent to Dark Astoria to investigate. Along the way you meet a heroine with a vendetta against the Council. Major themes would be deliberate human cruelty contrasted against the random, indifferent destruction of Mot, and the cycle of revenge and violence.

2) The second idea is a bit more... out there. It would be a very metaphorical arc with a real theatrical flair, focusing on three characters and their approaches to dealing with Mot and the BP in Astoria. Heavily inspired by the game Pathologic - if anyone has ever played it, you know the introduction where all three characters are in the theatre? Think of something like that stretched out to a whole story arc. I don't want to give away the major theme because the metaphor is kind of the key point and I'd rather people figured it out on their own, but if you're one of the people who actually HAS played Pathologic, you can probably make a pretty good guess.

I kind of plan on doing both arcs eventually (Unless I come up with a better idea), but I'm not sure which one to start with. I'd love to hear some feedback about the ideas to decide which one to develop first.

Also: Random dumb interpretation of D Minor I came up with: YOU are Schism. Come up with your own!

Pathologic?

Pathologic is about hard choices, changing viewpoints, and the terrible balancing act of life.

I don't think the MA supports choice or reflects its results very well, though. And I can't see making a Russian game work without that.

I can grab a kind of structure from it - fight through the same map three times with three different "viewpoints" trailing you, seeing different events and finding different clues each time. Then one or two failable missions.

But I wonder what kind of contact you'd need for the whole mess.

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Pathologic?

Pathologic is about hard choices, changing viewpoints, and the terrible balancing act of life.

I don't think the MA supports choice or reflects its results very well, though. And I can't see making a Russian game work without that.

I can grab a kind of structure from it - fight through the same map three times with three different "viewpoints" trailing you, seeing different events and finding different clues each time. Then one or two failable missions.

But I wonder what kind of contact you'd need for the whole mess.

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Well, I did say "Inspired by", not "Directly ripped off from" :P. Of course the choice aspect of Pathologic is one of its strongest themes and one I can't really replicate in the MA. Originally I was going to actually do something like that "Three different viewpoints on the same story" thing, only with 3 arcs instead of 3 missions, but I realized that A: That would eat up all my arc slots and B: I don't think I could write it well enough to still have interesting things to reveal the 3rd time through while making each arc interesting enough to stand on its own.

However, having three different viewpoints all tackling the same problem is something I CAN do. The contact would be more of an existential thing, bridging the three characters together while not actually being involved in the story at all, kind of like a narrator. As I said, the idea behind the arc would be for it to be very theatrical, not at all like being a character in a game but more like being thrown into the middle of a play (But of course, you're the protagonist). It's something I've got worked out better in my mind than I've really expressed it here, my main hesitation for saying too much about it is when I do write it, I'd like it to be fairly surprising.

That said, I've been thinking on it a lot today and came up with a really interesting unifying theme to tie all 3 arcs together without making them direct sequels or anything like that. Think of the way Silent Hill sort of has a "Personality" throughout the whole series even if none of the games directly connect to each other (Well, except for 1 and 3).

Well, my next arc has the first draft written. If anyone is interested in helping me test and has a character decently high level on Virtue, let me know here, especially if you have a good eye for editing. I don't like to publish until I've polished the story up a fair amount.

Bit of warning: The contact is pretty verbose, and the story takes the crazy up to about 11.

Posting because this is easily the best arc I have played so far in the MA, and that includes the dev's choice arcs. This one even beat out Ascendant's arc, and that's saying a lot.