[IMG] # 41565 - Astoria in D Minor

What to say..? Just as confusing as the other one! I guess it's just me, but a little explanation always works.

-Right, so from the moment you started the arc, you were being manipulated into killing civillians?
-And the fog just made you think they were zombies?
-But then after you find out that they're people, who do you keep attacking them?

Also, if you were being manipulated by the mother, then why would she send you out to get her child, while the other hero who's (I think) working for her, kills her?

Anyways, it well deserves 5 stars, but it did leave me a bit confused and guessing in the dark.

-El

I shall bump this thread, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I just made my way through it, and I enjoyed it. Still, the interpretation that missions 1 and 5 are the same is butchered by the fact the maps don't match up. Terrible pity, really.

it hurts

As a lover of all things Dark Astorian, I'll check it out the next time I can log some game time.

=D

Played this one again years later. Absolutely fantastic. The friend I ran it with was creeped out.

Sorry if this counts as a necro-post (*rimshot*), but this is the best place to comment on it.

Friggin' creepy. I did this just now with an ill/rad troller, and so, I was able to improve invis past the civilians and NOT kill any more than I had to...

Still...

Your use of text was most unsettling.

5 stars for certain!

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Giving this a run on a level 22 ice/fire dominator, +1/x1 with bosses on.

---

Crazy radio picking up cries for help and also somebody's music program. Well. Let's see where this goes.

Well, that was straightforward. Mom's being menaced by Pantheon in the front room, she runs out, I see another hero on camera and go to help.

Wandering through this building are small zombies with some kind of enhanced perception that brings them swarming down on me. Their opening volley saps accuracy, so that makes 'em a special kind of fun to deal with.

The hero seems to be trying to stay incognito, which is hard with warshade tendrils wriggling out of you, but he doesn't use any powers on patrols on the walk out.

I do get intercepted by a Council boss who wolfs out, so that's something. Weirdly no XP on the wolf. Has that been a thing for a while?

...two Council bosses. Man, they really wanted to contain this guy, huh?

---

Event Horizon sends me to meet a colleague of his named Schism. He warns me about the eccentric tastes.

Ah, abandoned hospital. Have to search through here for survivors. ...or dead bodies, which also take the count down.

Huh. How about that. She actually was in this hospital... and for the second time in as many missions I'm leading someone all the way back outside. Wonder what's going to stand in my way this time.

...nothing. Clear shot out.

---

Of course she runs off into the fog, which swallows her up. Well, time to chase her down. ...somehow. I guess we pick the transmission up when we're in Moth Cemetary? Might want to set that up.

I find... what's left undone... in one corner of the map, right ahead of me, and Schism pops up right behind me when I finish examining it. Did you plan that?

In his own little mind, he was helping her out. Better to die than live in fear.

Well, it's a noble sentiment, but that doesn't mean you get to make that decision on somebody else's behalf.

Huh. The debrief seems to think I can see Irene, but I thought I was just in radio contact the entire time.

---

And now I'm lost in the fog, searching blindly.

...well. Things have gone red all of a sudden.

On the plus side, the old crooners are coming through a lot clearer.

Greeted by gibberish in Ruladak's cave. The door's locked behind me. The only way out is through.

...and for some reason this mission is minimum 25. Huh.

Anyway, Schism's here, with even more mez resistance because of his laugh. He tells a joke that isn't very funny at all.

...I always forget about the faces in the walls, until I run into them.

And there's... Haley? Irene? I think Irene was wearing something blazery. She's mind-controlled a Council man, and tries to turn that on me, but Domination makes me immune to her little tricks.

And now I rage on an incongruous payphone until Event Horizon's voice gets through. He's pulling out and he wants me to come with, once I've secured Haley (um) and Irene (possibly double um).

---

Well. Event Horizon's gotten guilty about trusting Schism around the living, and now he wants to show me the truth.

I'm sure his monotone voice is a sign of how reasonable he's going to be.

The bug text introduces the DJ for this little program... but I thought Mot was a guy.

Wow. Ritzy digs in here. And some civilians who con hostile around Event Horizon. ...one of them asks why I'm attacking him, then rips up a chunk of the floor and throws it at me. I think they've all gone mad.

Strangely there seems to be another EH in here, talking to the Pantheon about how their dead gods are dead.

Then some Pantheon and civilians fighting, and stealing each other's lines (the pantheon says "hold the barricades", the civilian says "barhah!")

Oh. There is another Event Horizon, who's decided to believe in predestination. Apparently Schism had the right idea: life is a strange game, where the only winning move is not to play.

He's gone all dwarf down in the cave. I manage to ding just before him so it's not that much of a slug, but a Dark Dwarf is a good notional boss.

Haley's become a prophet of Mot. Well, that's a life choice. I pick out the occasional cry for help from deep within the words, but I opt instead to turn off the radio and walk away.

---

I haven't gone into the new Astoria yet. Reading through the souvenir, though -- perhaps the best thing to say is that Astoria truly has died, now, and gone to hell. I'll miss our own little Silent Hill, but we'll always have Architect.

...say, what's happened to that Tielekku storyarc now, anyway? I really liked that one.

Storyline - ****. A really great ride that runs out of track and crashes through the station roof at the end. After Event Horizon evaporates (as Dark Dwarves do) there's no closing clue, no exit comment, and the last thing we get from the radio is a proper version of a clue from the madness mission.

I dunno what I was expecting, exactly. You haven't been afraid to get into the psyche of the character, maybe something like:

"You have to get out of here. You've seen what the fog does, how the fog lies. You need to get away before it drives you mad, too.

"You shut off the radio, and turn your back on a little girl in the grips of a mad god.

"Maybe it already has."

The souvenir is a nice bit of overall closure, but it's not nearly as immediate. Kind of "The Shining" in its own way, with the last mission serving as the Rialto.

Design - *****. Lord a'mercy, yes. The only little hiccup was rescuing General Z and a Tsoo tattoo artist from the asylum at the beginning. (I swear, the game tosses that artist in every time you want a random civilian, just for jollies.)

Everything going on here plays crazy well into the theme.

Gameplay - ****. I have to say, I felt just a little bit demotivated when I got to the second mission and it ended with the second "escort out across entire office map" in as many missions. I realize why you're doing it from a story perspective, and you can't well just say "mission complete" with an ambush on the way, but unlike the case with Event Horizon there's not even anything in the way. Maybe you lead her to a pile of rubble that's an alternate exit, or something? Or not an alternate exit, because she came in that way but there's just a blank wall there and she runs off screaming for Mommy?

But the actual fights this arc throws at you are generally reasonable, mostly stock enemies and a few simple customs.

Detail - ****. It never really struck me until the third mission that this was a bit of a running arc -- you're roaming the streets of Dark Astoria with a radio, picking up missions in random places. Maybe you'd be able to do something with that, but it could stand to be played up a little more, either way.

Overall - *****. Maybe I'm a bit colored by my history, but back in the day this was one of the arcs that opened my eyes to the possibilities of Architect. It's still a standout for atmosphere, and is as much or more an experience than a story.

General Z is a bit of an annoying guy to keep having spawn as a civilian, but as the new Astoria arcs reminded me, there actually are Tsoo in Dark Astoria (and always have been), so the tattoo artists at least fit the zone... even if it is a little weird to be rescuing them... especially when it likes to spawn them multiple times in that one mission... which it always does...

Anyway, I think a lot of issues with this arc really come from the fact that it was my first one, so I stuck a lot closer to the typical mission layout used by most of the original game arcs (escorts back to the door with 1-2 ambushes along the way, for example). A lot of the questionable gameplay choices are ones that I wouldn't make now having had more practice. In Tomorrownauts! I have a lot of stuff set up so you have to backtrack during missions, but I made sure that you had something interesting to do while backtracking (and when you didn't, I eventually just cut those objectives out, or made them optional). Obviously I did a little bit of playing with the standard mission formula in D Minor, but even this version of the story arc is several iterations removed from the one I originally published - the last mission used to be a different map and had the objectives set up a lot more plainly, the "still busy" text was just generic "you have to go rescue X!" stuff, etc.

One thing I was pretty bad at with my Astoria arcs was endings. Both D Minor and Signal:Noise kind of just get weird and then stop at the end instead of offering any sort of conclusion (or rather, the "conclusion" comes about one or two missions before the story arc ends). The Beating Heart of Astoria has a proper ending, but then I guess because it starts weird, I couldn't just end it by going in that direction again and had to actually write a proper story :P.

I've thought about commenting on how my arcs compare to the new official Dark Astoria content, but ultimately I think they're going for two different things. My story arcs certainly don't take place in the same Dark Astoria as the official ones, even ignoring all the obvious visual differences in the revamped version of the zone.

Personally I would have liked to have Paragon give me a job to just write the zone for them, but then I guess there are issues with hiring someone with no experience from another country to take the lead on a major content update :P

Yaknow, it was the funniest thing, but running through it reminded me of this story arc in particular. I've run a number of AE arcs, but this one stuck with me because I like DA and this was a great companion to it, especially if you knew about the radio tower and its associated badge from back in the day.

I also think whomever wrote the new DA arc ran though this at least once.

SPOILER ALERT TO THE NEW DA ARC!!





















Especially when you get hold of the statue holding Mot during the Sister Solaris arc. Similar treatement played into the broadcast from the radio, particularly near the end.

And the 'lost souls' of the Detective and your 'fellow incarnate' you run into thoughout the arcs.

I won't go into all the details obviously, but there's definitely a nod in there somewhere