Actually, I take constructive criticism to heart quite often, and have made several changes to both arcs as a result of other reviews on these boards. It was simply that Talen_Lee's review gave me nothing to sink my teeth into. It expressed his opinion, which contradicts diametrically with other opinions of equal value.
FredrickSvanburg's brief critique, on the other hand -- while negative -- provided constructive suggestions that I could deal with if I had the memory available to deal with them. I can't argue that both Vanguard and the Rikti were outfitted and equipped differently during the first war. To create completely new, First Rikti War, versions of them, however, would leave me no room to even type my title. We have to work within the limits given us by the MA. I chose not to create two completely new groups so I could use the space for other things.
I haven't logged on to see where my rating has gone, but I'm afraid that its 4 stars have probably been dinged fairly badly. Such is life, I guess.
The SOLUS Foundation - a Liberty and Pinnacle SG
"The Consequences of War" - Arcs # 227331 and 241496
Vanguard was always, from its inception almost 6 months prior to this story (invasion of the supergroup bases), comprised of metahumans, not puny humans. It's fair to argue that costumes were unlikely to be so uniform, although I cannot find any information on exactly when Impervium and Talsorian weaponry came into use by humans. These advancements do not appear to be Rikti adaptations. "Enchanted Impervium" even less likely so.
Rikti initial invaders (per the cityofheroes.com website history pages) are described as wearing 'powered armor'. Admittedly they're also described as occasionally using their jet packs, something we never see today. They apparently sent everything they had, not holding back, then closed up the portals. Look at a Rikti Infantry today, they're described as "Even out of their battle armor...", so that is definitely not their armored look. Post-war Rikti body armor upgrades are not mentioned anywhere that I can find.
You could make a primitive Vanguard group from existing toons, such as Paragon Protectors, colored Vanguard-purple-black-bleak, renamed and with new descriptions. You'd get several for the sacrifice of one of your existing NPCs. It would definitely add to the 'early days' feeling of the arc.
My earlier feedback on this arc suggested mentioning that SOLUS was just another hero group, and leave it at that. Perhaps the external link to the SOLUS site could be moved to the end of the arc to avoid "coloring" the experience early on.
And it is worth building sympathy for the characters. It is not a lost cause. Although, I personally thought this was done to some degree in this arc, definitely moreso after my first review.
Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!
[ QUOTE ]
I haven't logged on to see where my rating has gone, but I'm afraid that its 4 stars have probably been dinged fairly badly. Such is life, I guess.
[/ QUOTE ]You massively overestimate the impact I can have on anything.
[ QUOTE ]
You massively overestimate the impact I can have on anything.
[/ QUOTE ]
I wasn't only taking in consideration your personal rating, so I overestimated nothing. After 12 ratings, my arc had 4 stars. Whether it was a low four or a high four, I have no idea since we can't see the raw score. Factor in the 2 stars you say you gave it, plus the negative mini-review that followed yours in this thread (which could have also garnered 1 or 2 stars), and the ratings of any other persons of similar mind to yours that may follow your thread, yet not comment, and there stands the potential for an easy drop to 3 stars.
Did it happen, no, since it appears I've had a couple others of opposite mindset that have since rated it well -- but the potential was there.
The SOLUS Foundation - a Liberty and Pinnacle SG
"The Consequences of War" - Arcs # 227331 and 241496
This, incidentally, is exactly why I've been reluctant of late to review arcs. Because no matter what I say, someone can responds with 'Well, complete strangers gave me 5 stars, so you're wrong.'
Meh, [censored] it.
I'd still appreciate a review. I don't get uppity over constuctive criticism either. And I'd like a fair opinion on how my recent changes have affected my arc. Hey, at least you get replies in your review thread. The one I've been updating the most has gotten the fewest replies.
[ QUOTE ]
So, again, anyone that would like, I'd be honored if you'd test Talen_Lee's critique yourself. In the mean time, this'll be the first review I've received that won't result in a single change to my arc. Some people simply can't be pleased.
[/ QUOTE ]
I just played it through myself with a friend. Honestly it felt like this would be a private super group initiation arc that you'd have new members run through to learn about the SG, not something you'd publish publicly. There are a lot of problems, but many of them stem simply from that alone. So I'll try to offer some constructive advice rather than leaving it at just that.
Issues
<ul type="square">[*]Far too many meaningless named characters. The amount of cameos in this arc both left precious little spotlight for the player as well as making none of them memorable in the process. I'd cut it down to just the contact, Captain Superior and one reoccuring named helper who dies in the second to last mission. [*]Why is the player working for Solus? Since this apparently isn't an SG initiation arc despite all appearances to the contrary, I'd highly advise coming up with better hooks and possibly pulling Solus out of the limelight a bit. Maybe make a Vanguard contact instead that has you work with Solus more and more culminating in the same climax.[*]The player isn't that important. This might be mitigated just by cutting down the plethora of cameos, but even some of the mission objectives feel weak by themselves. In particular the milk run (which the contact tries to assure you is more than milk run) feels very weak both from its initial presentation and from the fact you could probably just sit at the entrance and wait for the vanguard to kill everything. A less bad [censored] group would help here, or perhaps just lots of optional body bags and very few survivors.[/list]
Again though, this really feels like something you made for your SG, not for the bigger public and catering to both may simply be an impossibility. This is not a historical rikti war arc, it's a historical Solus arc, and it really shows.
If this arc included more focus on the overall war effort and Vanguard, with Solus playing less of a central role and more the "example victim" it *might* be fun, but as is I think you'd have to be a member of Solus or not really paying attention to the plot to really enjoy it.
I gave the arc 3 stars, but I was a breath away from 2. The writing is decent, and obviously a lot of work went into it, but the overall concept just isn't well suited for the general public in my opinion. *If* I was a member of Solus I'd probably be all over it, but I'm not and as a result it was a rather bumpy ride to an ending where my friend and I laughed and joked about some of the characters dying (including purposefully getting the allies killed). I'm secure enough in my manhood to say I've had other arcs actually make me misty, so what you're trying to achieve is possible it just fell very very flat as it currently is.
I think if you truly wanted to make a good arc you probably could, but I'm guessing having said arc revolve solely around Solus is too important to you. Which is fine, but won't result in good reviews or much fun for the rest of us.
If you do decide to make major changes, I'd be happy to replay it and offer more feedback.
Infatum on Virtueverse
[ QUOTE ]
This, incidentally, is exactly why I've been reluctant of late to review arcs. Because no matter what I say, someone can responds with 'Well, complete strangers gave me 5 stars, so you're wrong.'
Meh, [censored] it.
[/ QUOTE ]
People's perceptions tend to be skewed in that getting a 5 star rating ("A/A+, Mommy!!!") grossly outperforms a 4 ("Uh...well, at least I got a B- rather than a C+..."). Likewise, 3 stars doesn't mean bad, it just doesn't mean good. Many people can't make the distinction.
Of course, I feel the 5 stars should be done away with and replaced by 0.0-10.0. Sometimes the level of awesome is hard to quantify when you're given nothing but whole values to work with ("This arc is damn good but there are just enough issues that I don't quite think it deserves 5...but I feel it's a lot better than all the other 4s out there...").
And then of course, there are the arcs that actively try to lambaste you with their stupid. A '1 Star' just doesn't convey the message I want the person to receive. However, a 0.3 or 0.2 helpfully suggests, "I saw that you made something here by emptying your 'cheeks' over the keyboard and then hitting publish on the results. I'm not griefing you, your arc just sucks that much and you should feel bad about it."
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
Yeah. I figured this in the opening post might have been a hint:[ QUOTE ]
** - Ugh. This is where the edge of suck comes in. This is when you blame it on a nemesis plot. This is when you make your self-insert character my constant companion. This is when the focus of the plot is something other than the person playing it. This is when you make greivous assumption about characters, use existing characters badly, or waste the player's time with plot cul-de-sacs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Arc 137561 - Ctrl + Alt + Reset!
Level Range: 15-30
Now, if anyone has had a long conversation with me about the topic of modern television, especially the modern television that connects and resonates strongly within the mindset of our geekdom, one might have heard me vocalise exceptionally negative opinions about Joss Whedon. In particular, I've said some very critical, and negative things about the Buffy franchises. I want to make it clear that I have an automatic bias in this context, which should make the next statement hopefully land with a bit more impact.
This arc is like a Buffy episode, but really good.
There are a lot of different approaches to the storytelling medium we have in CoX. Some people seem to want to move from epic to epic, from big deal to big deal (see Future Skulls). This arc is not a big deal. This arc is a deal. The arc is your character approaching a problem and solving it. This arc indicates that your character is a focus; it makes them important. It also, and I cannot stress this enough, fails to make your character stupid.
The arc has a self-contained loop - you start the job, you finish the job. It has a sense of self-referential humour to it. It makes fun of itself in places, but fails to indicate the protaganist of the story is a dope.
It might be the anarchistic jerk in me, but I did find myself giggling automatically at the premise of this arc's first mission. The arc itself worries me - I so rarely find time loops or time manipulation stories interesting or enjoyable - . Some part of me is simply enthused at the idea of dealing with another hero group with what I personally view as dubious operational procedures, so when an established character who I do like - [ QUOTE ]
I just want to make it clear, I have no real strong reading on Foreshadow. I haven't seen his appearance in the comics, so I can't say it's 'right' or 'wrong' for his appearance. So a free pass on the contact. I'm not sure Foreshadow has time-sensing abilities, though - I always got the impression he was just a generic, gun-and-sword toting badass whose job it was to kick [censored] and never die, a kind of eternal warrior. Either way, I'm willing to swallow so far.
[/ QUOTE ] - asks me to go kick rent-a-heroes in the teeth over something they're not likely to trust or understand.
The arc develops, it builds on itself. It has a conclusion, quite a climactic one too, with a real sense of cinema to it. It has stuff to do, but doesn't, in the opposite and very frustrating direction, give you a massive laundry list of stuff to do. Oh, and remember how I talked about character in the last arc, how I didn't find myself fond of or sympathising for the PACK of characters you encounter in the SOLUS arc? This arc is how you do it well. There's a character you see once, but his dialogue and story position made him hilarious and at the same time, very sympathetic. I really felt sorry for him, and found the whole affair very amusing.
So, as far as rating goes... I'm right now literally flipping a coin. Is it a strong 4, or a weak 5? Do I take the assumption that minor formatting issues are going to be dealt with? This arc is really good, really well made, and exceptionally well done as a representeur of its particular story trope.
What would I recommend this arc to... well, anyone who likes fighting Wyvern is right at the top of the list, and anyone who wants to play out a solid, entertaining 'episode' in a character's life. Some folk view episodic storytelling as a failing, but I don't - I think episodes let you absorb a story in a discrete fashion. The arc doesn't have a greater point or message (unless that point is 'Don't trust stuff you don't understand,' but I never got anything preachy on that front), but is instead about enjoying its execution. If you took a way the time loop, the arc isn't really anything at all - but at the same time, because that loop is well-handled and well-executed, I don't find myself looking for something beyond the loop.
... Coin's in the air...
Rating: *****
Tags: Solo Friendly, Non-Canon Story, Horror
Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked it. Personally, I'm a big fan of Joss Whedon. I really love his sense of humor and have found that some early writing gigs where he mostly just added some jokes ended up being my favorite parts of those movies (see: Titan A.E. - the smart guard scene, and planet "Bob") So by you saying that this is like a really good Buffy episode, I take it as a great compliment, and I do have a reference to a Buffy episode in mission 3 as well.
I've gotten one complaint about Foreshadow being under-used, and while that may be true I feel that having Foreshadow be under-used by comparison places more importance on the player character's role in solving the time loop on their own.
I just recently changed Agent Steve's final dialog slightly which really made that impact. Before he was less sympathetic and more of a simple plot device/comic relief. Though that isn't his only appearance, just his only notable appearance.
Again, thanks for the kind words, and for the more grammatical advice given through PM (something that I do as well, as it doesn't help anyone's feeling of the arc and in theory should be gone by the next edit)
Not an official request, but my other arc Matchstick Women might catch your interest if you have some free time between reviews.
My hatred of Joss Whedon tends to only show up when we're dealing with a long continuity where you can see the repetition and the like. Short projects - like, yes, Titan AE - are examples of places he does a great job.
I disagree Foreshadow is underutilised. He's just utilised.
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... plus the negative mini-review that followed yours in this thread (which could have also garnered 1 or 2 stars)
[/ QUOTE ]
For the record I gave it 3 stars when I came back to finish it. Going by the titles for the ratings, 2 stars is "mediocre" and 3 stars is "good". I didn't think this was mediocre and by the end I was actually going to try the sequel but when I entered the number for it that I copied from the end dialogue nothing showed up. It was getting late so I didn't bother looking further.
If my mini-review seemed negative it's probably because I was specifically looking for and pointing out things that I thought you could improve upon.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Thank you very much, Frederick. I appreciate that.
The SOLUS Foundation - a Liberty and Pinnacle SG
"The Consequences of War" - Arcs # 227331 and 241496
Ah I'll throw mine in as well.
I always enjoy feedback, however it is a lowbie villain arc, from 1-14 and could probably be easily accused of being "Just a bunch of stuff that happened", 61 plays and a 4 star average (which I'm very happy about).
Arc ID: 80259.
Arc Name: A Proper Heist.
Missions: 4 (short)
Level range: 1-14
Difficulty: Very easy.
Description: You hear of an old time crook preparing a heist the old fashion way, perhaps he'll cut you in on the action...
Notes: Does contain Longbow (plus Family and PPD) and I know you dislike them but they're in small doses so hopefully wont push your major annoyance buttons. General alert as well, one of the custom NPCs (ally) AI can go a bit wobbly at times, not found a way to fix this.
(Anyone else playing this, feel free to PM with reviews of the arc, like I said, always love feedback, good or bad).
Arc 29262 - Hopeless
Level Range: 21-30
Villainous arcs aren't easy. There's two hundred thousand villains out there, and two thousand motivations between them. Whatever you do, you have to assume -something- about the player. Thankfully, there's a motivation that's easy widespread enough, and it's money. And money is what you're offered here.
The offering is done by a legit Etoile businessman. His granddaughter has gone missing - but no, he doesn't want your help. The heroes tried to help. The RIP tried to help. Now, he just wants you to find the culprits, and beat them into a fine paste. This is another thing the arc assumes: You're not above killing. You're asked to kill.
Of course, as you find the ones responsible for Hope being gone, it turns out it's not that simple. It's never that simple. What you're faced with, is a choice. A choice AE has given us in the past. A choice the devs have given us once, twice, thrice. But it's a choice I haven't seen delivered with this level of gut punch before. I offer applause. The choice is as villainous as it should. No less.
Past the story, the arc holds its own. The maps, thanks to patrols and random bosses, aren't empty. The enemy groups change just fast enough. There is a clear logical chain of events that I require. There is writing of quality that is nothing but superb, especially a optional clue in mission two. It fits within its level range as far as enemies, zone and scope are concerned, and it's dark. It's a darkness that City of Villains could use. Not the good-hating evil brand evil of Themari. Not the gleeful crushing of hope of Phipps. It's the selfish darkness of a self-motivated villain who is ready to tread on whatever shreds of innocence are left in this world if it means gain. This, this is what I hate. And in hatred, I need it.
This arc asks dark questions. Questions that should be asked. Questions that should be pondered. If there was a contact I would wish see put into the game, it would be this, to flesh out Nerva, to flesh out the plot. It's unlikely to happen. This is a dark arc. The player's actions would never be allowed in a T rated game. Though who knows. Who knows.
*****
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
Arc 232308 - Sky King's Ransom
Level Range: 21-24
I could do this review in two words, but I won't. I could run you blow-by-blow through the arc, but it's short enough that I wouldn't get to link all my favourite tvtropes pages along the way. I could try to muster up some enthusiasm to make this review entertaining, but by and large, I don't actually have what it takes to do that. So let's try and be simple here:
This arc is two missions long, it's solo-friendly, and it explores an intersection between two bits of canon lore, expanding on a bug that was introduced along with the newspaper/police band system. It has a number of good snippets of dialogue, minimal NPC interaction, significant observation, and uses its maps and its emotes well. This arc is distributed from an established contact who offers material like this in his already extant arcs. The enemy group in question is a particularly renowned one who yes, by the name, are not exactly a secret.
Rating: ****
...
What, yes. Seriously.
I have put up with so many 'clever' stories of late that I think I'm going to punch the next author who acts like a twist ending makes a work mandatory play in the eye. This arc is good. It's something that an actual superhero would do. It could be the dawn of a nemesis' existence, it could be the lead-in in an actual character's story to dealing with another enemy group. It has its minor holes and patches, and yes, it is a little short, and on my lowbie mind/elec dominator I found it frustrating to deal with the [censored]-kickings I got from gangs of sky raiders with swords and sticks.
But so!?
There's this damnable problem right now plaguing the AE that people seem to think there's a spectrum where an arc needs a thousand literary references or it's 'not good enough' according to the arc intellgentsia (and they therefore use this as an excuse to not try to write wel) or that the arc that bothers to pay attention to things like what the arc would mean to the character is somehow 'caring too much' and not focusing on the important thing of 'is it fun.'
Well, I have fun thinking, and this arc didn't make me stop thinking or stop having fun. It has its bugs in its dialogue and the like, but the arc is solid and good with a responsible author who doesn't at any point try to pull some remarkable special comment out of his [censored] like that justifies the entire existence of the arc.
So let's see how those two words work, now: Run it
Tags: Solo Friendly, Canon Related.
Edit: Fixing number.
Edit: Fixing number AGAIN.
Thanks 
Glad you liked. I'm gonna see about ironing out the bugs and congratulations on finding the supersecret hidden text-only cameo.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
I did?!
Holy heck, now I'm worried, since I honestly don't know what I caught. >.>
One of my characters shows up by name if you take the alternate path out of one mission, If You Know What I Mean. Because, you know, no arc is complete without an author insert.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
Arc 82059 - A Proper Heist
Level Range: 1-14
Bank heists always have a certain glamour about them, whether it's put there by Jason Statham failing to find his own rear, or by a Daniel Ocean-like mystique of coolness and spectacular refinement. On the other hand, that's the kind of glamour that City of Villains quickly eschews, with its rampage-to-the-bank style of heist, where you run away with a giant sack slung over one shoulder cackling manically. There's no real feeling of planning, either - your broker handles all the details, and you get their attention by performing entirely unrelated things that sometimes can involve the retrieval of magical doo-dads that you may not have any reason to care about, countering attempts to frame yourself, and occasionally kicking in the teeth of someone who had no idea you were coming because you feel like you're not scary enough. There's no real sense of nuance in the whole affair.
This isn't an arc I'd call villainous because that word has such implications and it's beneath this arc. No, this arc is criminal. Yes, it uses the word 'villain' a few times, but I'm okay with that because the tone of the arc is definitely that of crooks. It's a low-end arc, it's people making the best of a bad situation in Mercy Island. This is how I felt more of Port Oakes should have felt - buttoned down crooks and thugs, trying to put on a veneer of respectability.
The arc has a number of NPCs, and they all have distinct character voices. You could mistake two of them for one another in their dialogue, after a fashion, and there is a little bit of weirdness about the first and third in their mechanical distinction, but whatever. The arc has a clear feeling of the scummy underbelly, of competing with crooks for the role of best crook, conniving your cohorts and actually being appropriate in your level of behaviour. The narration has a clear sense of scope and scale. It has appropriate, in-universe slang.
Characters in this arc are distinct and clear, with everyone having notable and particular mannerisms that distinguish them one from another, each mission having its own tone and shape. And it's fun! There are extra things to do, and badass beatdowns can be asserted. Me, I took the principle of killing every ****** in the room, which meant I clicked everything I could find.
So, no problem, right? It's a great arc, lots of flavour, fun stuff to do, and no real 'what the ****' moments, along with some nice optional content and a sense of character voice for the NPCs. So, five stars, right? Right?
No, unfortunately. See, I've left out one major complaint I have with this arc. It opens with a typo, moves on to run-on sentences, and then, from there, the longer the arc goes, the worse the grammar gets. I don't want to belabour the point - I've produced one of my longest to-the-author letters covering the persistant grammar problems, and hopefully he'll be able to weed out the daisies and we'll have a great arc on our hands here.
There is a final clause; this arc works from 1 to 15, but it's worth noting that missions 2 and 3 feature an enemy group that have a minimum level of 5. I had fun kiting these guys, and because it's DXP, I quickly shot up from 2 to 6 and didn't have any trouble with them, fighting whites and yellows instead of reds. I also killed everything on the map - but I bet there are brutes and other non-stalker characters who would hate this experience.
Rating: ***
Tags: Solo Friendly, Canon-Related, Kid Friendly
Thank you for the review and for the letter, I will be getting on to working out the grammatical problems in the arc, they've never really cropped up before and nobody has mentioned them before so unfortunately they've not been caught.
Originally the arc was 5-14, seeing that with the new MA levelling changes I had assumed that the MA would auto-level the Family down from 5 to 1. Obviously it doesn't work like that so I will be putting the level back up from 1 to 5 again.
I'm glad you enjoyed the arc and in my mind a 3 star rating from you is a 4 star rating from others, since you are pretty particular but with good reason (as I said those grammatical errors weren't even caught or mentioned yet).
I'm glad you liked the Characters as well. I tried quite hard to make them seem not quite so overpowering as other Characters I've seen before (they're not author inserts either but original characters for the Arc).
Thanks for your review and your help.
The real thing that made me like the characters in the arc is that they're distinct. They're simple enough characters - I mean, none of them are designed to be overpowered, two of them don't help you until the mission's effectively over - but they are very much very clear, distinct personalities, separate from one another. They're also not excessively generic.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the grammar before. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to it.
Why ask for a review if you intended to disregard all negative feedback? I wouldn't even call him the harshest reviewer on these boards for that matter.
QR
Weatherby_Goode - "Heck, Carrion Creepers negates the knockdown from Carrion Creepers."