[IMG] # 41565 - Astoria in D Minor

Well, it won't let me edit the OP for some odd reason, but anyway, my 2nd arc is now posted. I'm putting it in this thread since it's thematically similar to my first arc (Although it's not a sequel - there's no plot connection between the two).

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

EVERYONE GO PLAY IT.

I'd honestly like to say more about it, but I can't even begin to figure out how to describe it. It's the kind of thing that's just best experienced to understand it. Make sure to read the souvenir after you're done.

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Based on the feedback I've gotten I made a change to mission 3 of The Beating Heart of Astoria. It IS possible to complete, I did it every time when testing, it's just really finicky. Since that seemed to be stopping a lot of people halfway through the arc though, I changed the escort to a captive instead. It should be much easier to complete now.

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This sounds...interesting!

*ponders doing it*

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I just ran The Beating Heart of Astoria and left you some feedback. One of the most creative uses of the MA I've seen. Very thoughtful and lots of abstract concepts throughout. Nice touch with the souvenir. *****

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Thanks for the vote of confidence!

Just a quick bump and another reminder that I just published my 2nd arc,

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

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Added some extra dialogue to the sendoffs to give the Thaumaturgist and the Paladin a chance to mock their predecessor's failure - It wasn't made very clear I felt that the three heroes absolutely hated each other, hence why they refused to work together. The Assassin doesn't say anything new, but he's not the monologuing type anyway.

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Just finished playing through Astoria in D Minor:

In general, I gave it a four star - interesting plot, good use of maps and custom critters, and made a reasonable attempt to push the boundaries of what AE could do. Lots of minor typos - but what mainly marked it down from a five to a four is that it felt like you fell prey to the Pathetic Fallacy - the belief that portraying a sense of confusion is synonomous with confusing the audience. It's not. While the fourth mission was nicely confusing, its main consequence was simply to make me tense - not in an emotionally frightened way, but rather in a headache and eyestrain sort of way. (I really dislike that map.)

Also - as a general writing style - you tend to filter: that is, very often you write "you feel as though someone is watching you" or "you think Irene will be OK" or stuff like that. This calls attention to the fact that the audience is being fed information by the author with the "you feel" or "you think" - if you're successful in writing, you'll already get your audience to feel and think that. Usually it's better just to say "Irene will be OK - she has to be" or "Something's watching. Waiting. Hungering."

In particular:

MISSION 1

"Find Irene." - this is the title of a mission, like the title of a book. As such, you don't need a period in it.

Acceptence links - you don't need to put them in quotes. Convention has us assuming that the text in the main part of the dialog is directly spoken by the contact, and the link text is indirectly spoken by the character. Thus, neither of them are in quotes.

Also, acceptance links don't traditionally have periods - it looks inconsistant with the "Ask about other stuff" link right beneath it.

Council Commander - huh? Why are these guys here? Might want to hang a lantern on this in their About box.

"Trapped Council" - how did I know that they were trapped? Also, the minion with him is not similarly labeled; makes it seem like only the boss is trapped, and not the guy standing right next to him.

The Trapped Council was just standing in the main lobby - I had to walk up to him to get him to talk so he could attack me and tell me stuff. This felt odd - I wanted it to be more dynamic - ie an ambush.

End of mission dialog - "Event Horizon thanks me and puts me in contact with Schism" - he just told me that he'd do this, right at the end of the mission. Thus, this dialog is redundant with what was told me ten seconds earlier.

MISSION 2

Contact intro text - "She shudders" - we're talking over a radio. There's no way I can see her shudder. I could be hearing her shudder, but if that's the case then you can just write out "brrrr", or whatever a shudder sounds like.

Accept link - again: no need for quotes or a period.

Clue - "I saw a little girl!" - no context is given for this clue in the clue itself. Unless I had just seen the "Clue Found" message, I wouldn't have known that this was a clue from a rescued hostage.

Interaction text - "Investigating Body..." "Body" doesn't need to be capitalized.

Civilians rescue text - is all the same. As a consequence, it looks odd. I THINK you can make it different.

Mission complete contact dialog - doesn't feel like the denumont - written like it should be the intro to the next mission, instead.

MISSION 3

Interaction text - "trying not to vomit" - needs ellipses there at the end (...)

Clue text - You already tell us who is at fault - both from strong hints on the body, and on the fact that the compass text has his name in bright red. No need to explicitly state it in the clue.

MISSION 4

In general, while I understand what you're trying to do here, it only worked intermidantly for me. I find that map simply gives me a headache and makes me tense.

Nice use of clowns and dialog - I'm assuming that was Schism and the mom, right?

Good use of the phone.

Another place where the About text was getting in the way, though - while the experience was surreal, the About text for the stock critters was very bland and straightforward.

Final clue - This just seems out of place, and not in a good way: that is, I simply couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Rather than fit with the theme, it simply looked like you had made a mistake with the text and accidentally written something you didn't mean to, or else had forgotten to edit out.

MISSION 5

Intro text - the whole "all will be revealed" thing comes across as pretensious and flat, and doesn't fit with the rest of the piece (ie, this feels like the authorial voice is coming down and talking to me directly.)

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Going to go point by point here:

[ QUOTE ]
Just finished playing through Astoria in D Minor:

In general, I gave it a four star - interesting plot, good use of maps and custom critters, and made a reasonable attempt to push the boundaries of what AE could do. Lots of minor typos - but what mainly marked it down from a five to a four is that it felt like you fell prey to the Pathetic Fallacy - the belief that portraying a sense of confusion is synonomous with confusing the audience. It's not. While the fourth mission was nicely confusing, its main consequence was simply to make me tense - not in an emotionally frightened way, but rather in a headache and eyestrain sort of way. (I really dislike that map.)


[/ QUOTE ]

"Pathetic Fallacy" isn't used the way you're using it here. It's not the same thing as a "Logical fallacy" which is used when pointing out a poorly formed argument - pathetic fallacy is the act of personifying an object or thing such that you're applying human characteristics to something which does not have them . It's a common literary technique... but not one that I've used in this arc (At least, that I remember).

Also, everyone hates that map. But can you honestly say that it's not perfect for that level? I admit that it's overused, but I think my use of it is pretty well justified.

[ QUOTE ]

Also - as a general writing style - you tend to filter: that is, very often you write "you feel as though someone is watching you" or "you think Irene will be OK" or stuff like that. This calls attention to the fact that the audience is being fed information by the author with the "you feel" or "you think" - if you're successful in writing, you'll already get your audience to feel and think that. Usually it's better just to say "Irene will be OK - she has to be" or "Something's watching. Waiting. Hungering."


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this statement mostly, I've tried to catch all the times I've done this, but at times the quickest way to express a feeling is to just let the player know what they would be feeling in that situation - i.e. you could spend lots of time creating an atmosphere that says "Cold", but it's a lot more efficient just to say "You feel a cold creep across your skin". Remember the mission architect does have size restrictions and so efficiency of language is sometimes necessary/

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"Find Irene." - this is the title of a mission, like the title of a book. As such, you don't need a period in it.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's a typo. I just corrected it now.

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Acceptence links - you don't need to put them in quotes. Convention has us assuming that the text in the main part of the dialog is directly spoken by the contact, and the link text is indirectly spoken by the character. Thus, neither of them are in quotes.

Also, acceptance links don't traditionally have periods - it looks inconsistant with the "Ask about other stuff" link right beneath it.


[/ QUOTE ]

The reason they're in quotes is because, in mission 4, the acceptance line is an action, not something the player is saying. It's easier to break form by dropping quotes to suggest an action than to suggest an action by adding something to quoteless dialogue. Yes, normally they're assumed to be spoken, but it's a stylistic choice. There's no "Correct" way to do it.

[ QUOTE ]

Council Commander - huh? Why are these guys here? Might want to hang a lantern on this in their About box.


[/ QUOTE ]

Event Horizon specifically points out that he's in Astoria to figure out precisely why the Council are there. I admit this is pretty much just a loose plot thread that isn't mentioned at all later in the arc, but I felt like I needed some explanation as to why a warshade specifically was rooting around Astoria.

[ QUOTE ]

"Trapped Council" - how did I know that they were trapped? Also, the minion with him is not similarly labeled; makes it seem like only the boss is trapped, and not the guy standing right next to him.

The Trapped Council was just standing in the main lobby - I had to walk up to him to get him to talk so he could attack me and tell me stuff. This felt odd - I wanted it to be more dynamic - ie an ambush.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ambushes are pretty limited in MA - you can only attach one to a trigger, you can only give them one line of dialogue, and they have a habit of getting stuck on geometry/not moving at all.

Also, they keep saying things like "The Warshade can get us out of here!" or "We've lost contact with the rest of the squad".

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End of mission dialog - "Event Horizon thanks me and puts me in contact with Schism" - he just told me that he'd do this, right at the end of the mission. Thus, this dialog is redundant with what was told me ten seconds earlier.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this is kind of redundant. Removed it.

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Contact intro text - "She shudders" - we're talking over a radio. There's no way I can see her shudder. I could be hearing her shudder, but if that's the case then you can just write out "brrrr", or whatever a shudder sounds like.


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"She shudders" is more evocative than "Huvavah" or "Brrr" or whatever sound a shudder makes. I realize it's not strictly realistic that you would know she was shuddering over a radio, but it's also not strictly realistic to be running around with superpowers fighting the evil minions of an ancient god. Call it narrative license.

[ QUOTE ]

Clue - "I saw a little girl!" - no context is given for this clue in the clue itself. Unless I had just seen the "Clue Found" message, I wouldn't have known that this was a clue from a rescued hostage.


[/ QUOTE ]

Added context.

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Interaction text - "Investigating Body..." "Body" doesn't need to be capitalized.


[/ QUOTE ]

Another typo. Fixed.

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Civilians rescue text - is all the same. As a consequence, it looks odd. I THINK you can make it different.


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Normally I could... by making the civilians all seperate objectives... which would screw up the timing on Haley's spawn because I'd only be able to tie it to one of them, and there would be no way to guarantee that it was the last one you found... plus the arc is sitting at about 97% - I don't have the space to add in multiple objectives when they really aren't strictly necessary.

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Mission complete contact dialog - doesn't feel like the denumont - written like it should be the intro to the next mission, instead.


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Irine really doesn't want to spend the time chatting with you about what just happened when her daughter just ran off. It's meant more to link with the next mission than to tie up the previous.

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Interaction text - "trying not to vomit" - needs ellipses there at the end (...)


[/ QUOTE ]

I thought I had them, but it must have been in an earlier version of the arc. Fixed.

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Clue text - You already tell us who is at fault - both from strong hints on the body, and on the fact that the compass text has his name in bright red. No need to explicitly state it in the clue.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've had people explicitly complain "How do I know Schism did it?" Normally I'd be all with you on too much exposition, but in this case I only added it specifically because people seemed to feel like a leap of logic was being made.

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Nice use of clowns and dialog - I'm assuming that was Schism and the mom, right?


[/ QUOTE ]

Schism and Haley, actually, but I understand why a lot of people keep thinking she's Irine. I picked Irine's model long after I designed "Spooky" Haley, and didn't realize at the time how similar the costumes looked.

[ QUOTE ]

Another place where the About text was getting in the way, though - while the experience was surreal, the About text for the stock critters was very bland and straightforward.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure I can't edit that stuff unless I designed a whole custom group to fill this mission - and as I said, I'm sitting at 97%.

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Final clue - This just seems out of place, and not in a good way: that is, I simply couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Rather than fit with the theme, it simply looked like you had made a mistake with the text and accidentally written something you didn't mean to, or else had forgotten to edit out.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's from the phone. There's no phone glowy so I went with a destructable object. I'm making a quick edit to make this more clear.

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Intro text - the whole "all will be revealed" thing comes across as pretensious and flat, and doesn't fit with the rest of the piece (ie, this feels like the authorial voice is coming down and talking to me directly.)

[/ QUOTE ]

It's meant to seem out of place. Event Horizon is not himself by this point. It's not meant to imply that the last mission is the "Truth". I've been struggling with ways to make it more ambiguous but people seem to keep getting that impression. Added a line to make it more clear that these are Event Horizon's words, not "The voice of god".

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I did this on my main, BLargenwargen, several levels ago. I give it five stars for the innovation, use of maps, and storyline! And although I HATE that one foggy map (you know the one) I understand why it was needed for the story. All in all, a great arc!

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Another bump and getting my 2nd arc info on to the second page (really wish I could edit the OP)

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

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A quick and long needed bump to mention that Astoria in D Minor placed 2nd in Projectionist's Mission Architect contest:

Here

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This is totally random, but couldn't you just write "Her voice shuddered"?

- J

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I loved Astoria in D Minor. Thanks so much for mentioning it in my "Monster Arcs" thread. I have a couple comments!

SPOILERS AHOY, ME HEARTIES
* I didn't get it at all that the Clown and Herald were supposed to be hell versions of previously appearing characters. Even now I refuse to accept it as part of my interpretation of that mission

* I loved the doubt that was sowed in/after Mission 3, and the idea that you raised earlier in the thread ("You are Schism?"). Was especially weird because my character is a Dual Blades Scrapper

* The Small Zombies or whatever they were called felt a little flat. Maybe too subtle. At first I thought they were thrown in as comedy or something, or would be more explicitly explained later, but I never got the sense of them being children at any point through the arc. I only got that idea reading this thread afterwards. When I saw the Pantheon involved, I thought, pseudo-voodoo, shrunken heads, shrunken zombies? What is this? And then I forgot about it. I don't see any reason not to name them Zombie Child or something like that - Small Zombie (or whatever it is), along with their mysterious description, implies to me that they're not children, but small for some other reason, because if they were children, why wouldn't they be called that and described as such?

* After the deep, deep weirdness of Mission 4, which I loved, returning to reality in Mission 5 also felt a little disappointing. I also found it very easy to kill zero civilians ... I even approached the one Rifle guy who said something about, hey, it's a hero, he started shooting at me so I hit him once, he said, "Why are you attacking us?" and so I just ran off. As a result, Event Horizon's chastisement of my slaughtering innocent civilians, which I didn't do, really fell flat. Although enough doubt remained after mission 3/4 that I was able to accept it.

I guess I should have done what I was "supposed" to do (fight them like hell) in order to make that narration really work well, but it wasn't really in character for a guy who fights monsters and saves humans. Especially since their dialogue was so sensible and normal - "We're innocent people, we've got to keep the zombies from getting in, why are you attacking us?" - maybe if their dialogue was a little crazier it would have been easier to want to whale on them.

* I also sent you one 'red pen' gripe about the little objective text in Mission 2. See tells in-game for details.

* I loved all the Silent Hill references - the fog, the conflicting realities, the murderous guilt of the protagonist - but when I found the PHONE in Mission 4 (why is it 'PHONE' and not 'Phone' or 'Telephone'?), I was a bit like, all right, that's pretty heavy-handed! The phone scene from the original Silent Hill for the PSX is still the most memorable moment of that game, and the Astoria version isn't even as weird and scary as the original. Maybe others won't see it as such a ripoff, but to me it was almost as if you'd had one of the characters say, "$name, I am your father!"

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Anyway, I hope you realize that all this comment and analysis reflects how invested I was/am in the arc. I loved it and wish I could give it more than a mere 5 stars. Looking into your other arc now

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I'm not going to respond to every point since I'm a bit short on time, but I did want to mention a couple things.

Regarding mission 5: Honestly, enough people have skipped the civilians and made the same comment you have that I've actually considered totally redoing mission 5 and just changing the theme entirely. In the original design, mission 4 didn't exist in any form (It was just an idea I had for a one-shot mission), and mission 5 in its current form was meant to be the real mind-screw of the arc. However, Mission 4 seems to have kind of stolen the show and a lot of people have expressed disappointment in the ending - I could probably fix it by removing mission 4, but given that everyone seems to like that one, that would be stupid (And I like that one too :P). Maybe once I15 hits I'll mess with the new MA options and turn mission 5 into something that hits harder.

Also, the phone actually wasn't a deliberate Silent Hill reference (Though there are quite a few), it actually just came up because I needed something to end the mission and I was scrolling through the list of destructable objects and saw a payphone, and thought it would be a good way to end the mission and bring the player back to reality by having them pick up a message from Event Horizon.

One last note: It's called "PHONE" rather than "Telephone" or just "Phone" because everything has weird names in mission 4. Even the system text when you defeat the bosses gives you weird messages.

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Understood! Good luck with the arc and please post here if you make updates (I'm thread-subscribed). I'd love to play a new, even BETTER version.

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I finished Astoria in D Minor last night, having taken a small RP team with me based on recommendations of another person in my SG & by your appearance on Projectionist's Mission Architect contest.

Wow.

I've got a lot of compliments I want to bring forth but they are really just getting jumbled up in my mind. The writing was stellar, immersive, and jumped totally outside the idiom of how CoX skews its writing. By the time you realize that you're nowhere near a typical comic book hero story, you've already got your heart in your throat.

I was working on a similiar arc, but now I've sort of thrown my hands up, I feel sort of counterfeit in continuing it at this point. I REALLY want to use the map in mish 4 (which despite what you post here, was the first time I've seen it in MA), but feel like that would be crass imitation. We'll just have to see how it works out.

We're spreading the word about this mission arc to as many people as we can, we're absolutely agog that it doesn't have five stars (but we blame that on griefers).

Few notes:

Didn't recognize that the Heralds in mission 4 were supposed to be versions of the existing characters - this isn't too surprising as I was playing the emp/ defender and I was pretty far away from the action so I never really saw them.

I'd have to agree that mission 5 seems sort of ... off somehow. I think I know what you were going for (sort of a Outer Limits Twist mixed with a Tomato In the Mirror). The way that the story hints things are headed, I can see that some players would feel more justified in taking out the civilians ("they must be possessed! they're pawns! We're saving them!") until you get to the end and you're all...oh wait. I partially think the literal brightness of the map might be detracting from the mood as well - after the last few mishes, you're really expecting the opposite. Still, it is supposed to be the same place as the first mish. I have an idea, but I don't know how to express it without dropping too much spoilerage.

The souvenir is pure gold, by the way.

Final question: Is "The Beating Heart of Astoria" a continuation of this arc, sort of a side story, parallel story, or completely unrelated?


If you're looking for much lighter fare, feel free to try my arc, which is in the sig. A thread link is here.

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"...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

QR - I just finished Astoria in D Minor, and I'm in two minds about it.

Technically it was great, i didn't see any typos or spawn/trigger problems, it worked very well.

When i got to Moth Cemetary, with the 'Find haley!' instruction, I flew round for a while trying to locate her, and when i couldn't, i thought that maybe the Ritual Leaders were involved and if i defeated them all she'd spawn somewhere. So I defeated them all. Nope. Then I did all the Dig Leaders too. Still no Haley. I sent you a PM hoping you were on so you could give me some advice, but you weren't.

So i started to Clear All.

I HATE Clearing all, especially on outdoor maps.

That illustrates how much extra leeway I was prepared to give your arc because I was enjoying it.

After a while I found Haley.

Mission 4...I normally hate this map, and i absolutely WILL ragequit if anyone puts me in it after auto-exemping me down to where my stealth is not available.

I was auto-exemped down, no stealth, and I stayed the course till the awesome end room. it's the 'Silent hill'-ness of THAT object that does it. Wonderful.

So far, so great. The reason I'm in two minds is Mission 5 and the Souvenir. For mission 5, I wasnt bothered by the lightning or the events, but i wanted more of your excellent creepy n loony writing. Mission 5 doesnt feel climactic enough to me, especially since i avoided fighting the civvies cos I thought they were mistaking me for a bad guy, so I completed it very quickly. I was expecting something uber, tbh, because the previous made me have high expectations.

And finally, the souvenir, I'm sorry, for me, broke the immersion. I'd have much preferred a simple short paragraph describing what it was. The souvenir as it stands seems to say 'meh, the arcs just blather, tbh', and I think that's selling yourself short.

Top stuff overall, though. Thanks for a very enjoyable arc.

Eco.

EDIT: Rereading what ive written, it doesnt come across how much i enjoyed the first 4 missions. I REALLY hate Clearing all, and I REALLY hate that map lol. I cant remember the last time i decided to clear all on an outdoor map in the MA. If you can get that sort of reaction, you're definitely doing something right dude.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Thanks for the feedback! I've been experimenting with some tricks to add to mission 5 to make it more interesting. So far I haven't gotten what I'm going for to work perfectly, but I'm still trying.

The souvenir is probably something I would rewrite by this point, except it seems to suffer from the "Constantly opening and closing" bug whenever I try to edit it, which makes it incredibly difficult to change. I'm hoping that goes away in I15.

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[ QUOTE ]
The souvenir is probably something I would rewrite by this point, except it seems to suffer from the "Constantly opening and closing" bug whenever I try to edit it, which makes it incredibly difficult to change. I'm hoping that goes away in I15.

[/ QUOTE ]
Get in, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-X, get out. Alt-tab to notepad. Works wonders for me. Good luck.

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Made some changes to D Minor, most notably mission 5 and the souvenir.

I changed the civilians around so they don't talk anymore - the idea is that people weren't buying them as victims so just being eerily silent might be more effective. Event Horizon's dialogue has also been rewritten to account for the change. I'd like to make bigger changes to this mission but I haven't had much luck getting the trick I want to use working in a satisfactory manner.

The souvenir is completely rewritten - I like the new one a lot better, it's a bit of musing on the nature of Dark Astoria rather than the weird meta-thing I had before.

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Aw. I liked the metaness of the old souvenir, it was sort of one extra mindscrew after the rest of the arc.

I'm gonna PM ya on my brief idea for mish 5...

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"...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

Ok I played this mission with all the lights out and nobody else home. Then running mission 4 waiting for something to jump out and get me a tree limb fell on the roof. I went and changed my shorts and completed it. It had maps I couldnt see on I had to clear all enemies to find the 1 clue and I played on maps I absolutely hate. You did an excellent job of raising my blood pressure jumping at every sound in the house and really enjoying this arc . I hope to see more of your work in the future.

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Made some more changes to mission 5 (Big ones), but servers just went down for maintenance so I didn't get a chance to test them out. Some of them might mess up the boss fight but they might not, it's one of those things.

*Edit*

Aaaand I just got a great idea that might even bring it up to the mind[Radio edit] level of mission 4. Going to have to wait until maintenance is over to work on it though.

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Changes to Mission 5 are pretty much done in Astoria in D Minor, so giving the thread another bump.

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Cool! Looking forward to trying the new version!

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