A Week in the Life of a Villain 153720
Rating 3 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Thugs/Poi MM diff 3.
A Week in the life of a Villain is an ambitious arc that wants to be a mini-TF, but instead just becomes an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink story. In fact, there probably is a kitchen sink in there. The arc is very long, in every aspect, big maps, numerous objectives per mission and a plethora of stock CoX enemy groups, plus a couple of custom critters as well. The real story behind the contacts' motives is actually a very good story, but by the time it gets going you find yourself wishing you were getting towards the end.
Mission 1 Nemesis, carnies, custom bunnies and many objectives gives you the mini-Tf feel from the start. EBs with Elude suck big time, but I guess thats the point. Oh yea did I mention the Freakshow.
Mission 2 Council wolves are fun to kill, even when there are scores and scores of them. Are we getting close to the end?
Mission 3 Banished Pantheon another fun enemy to kill, Ally makes life faster, but sixteen rescuees?? Sixteen !! That's too many for me sorry, even in a real TF with a large team, I didnt like that. Yes, the talking soup bowl was cute.
Mission 4 now the story gets good. I can understand the contact would hold out on me a little with such a huge bombshell, but honestly if this hadn't been a review I would have never lasted this long and never received this beautiful twist in the story. Malta, lots of Malta, map too big for my taste, worse still you cannot hear those wall glowies on that map with all that ambient hum, i missed the first (of four) and wasted about twenty minutes running around looking for it. My polite response, Not good.
Mission 5 CoT, can't have a TF without them no? Again CoT another fun enemy to kill. Map way too big for a mish five and too many bosses to kill. Akarist EB battle was epic, ally was necessary (that Akarist dude is nasty).
I had a love hate relationship with this arc. I know it is designed for teams, it is not meant to be soloed. It is long and hard, OK, but what makes it so long is the ridiculous number of patrols, unnecessary objectives, and running around looking for stuff. That stuff is not moving the storyline ahead. The true motives and the true nature of the contact is lost in the hours of fighting, which is really sad, because I really liked what the contact turned out to be. This arc has the potential to be a four or even a five star arc, if it is dramatically scalled down in scope. Not the necessary stuff, just all the 'ok we need that, so multiply it by FOUR!'.
Overall great CoX enemies to kill. Decent looking custom critters. Great behind the scenes storyline. Problem is A Week in the Life of a Villain wants to do it ALL.
Why not five stars? Too many objectives. Too many rescues. Too many different enemy groups. Huge maps that take forever to navigate.
[ QUOTE ]
Interesting.
You want to field this one, Dragonslay?
[/ QUOTE ]
Gladly.
What am I fielding?
A Madness of Blades 98770
Rating 4 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Thugs/Poi MM diff 3.
A Madness of Blades is a short fast and fun arc. Overall I enjoyed running it very much. I actually wished it had been longer, a rare and wonderful thing. The story is good. The custom critters look good and are fun to kill. The maps are all appropriate to the storyline.
Mission 1 Boss Blades looks great. He is fun to kill.
Mission 2 Find the Gem, defeat Bloody. Another fun Boss battle.
Mission 3 EB was fun to kill.
Overall A Madness of Blades is a good arc. It can be run at most levels as it is not that tough. There is on tough EB at the end, but you get ally support.
Why not five stars? I never got engrossed in the story completely. Custom critters looked good, but not "WOW".
Good job!
Thanks for reviewing my arc. I appreciate the honesty and feedback.
I was expecting a 3 star maybe a 4 star at best. It's nice to think with some polishing it might be a 5 star. Although 75% of the 5 star missions in the MA (I have tried) I think aren't even worth 2 stars. But we each have our own tastes.
I've only played a few Task Forces, so I can't comment too much on their length or content, although I would say my arc is far smaller than the ones I have played.
I'm guessing you don't like large maps? Or long missions? (I like the longer missions personally and a variety of enemies... I don't like the speed run type of mission)
Well you liked the one thing I hoped that would be liked.. the story. As I said it was a story driven arc. It requires patience to unfold, but hopefully is worth it in the end.
I'll explain what I was thinking when making the arc.
First of all, no group was set above medium difficulty, except boss groups.
I tried for many groups to show up to hopefully keep it fresh over 5 stories. You never fight the same group again in the 5 stories.
I interjected some things I found funny (if anyone actually reads dialogue bubbles) , but then that's also dangerous because humour is subjective.
There are no defeat all missions, There is in fact no need to fight anyone other than captive groups and boss groups
It is meant for a team. (although I couldn't find anyone to test it as a team, so I soloed it with 3 characters)
The only trouble soloing I found was on Mission 1 and Mission 5.
I tried to make this a reasonable as I could, yet retain some difficulty.
I purposefully used the stock enemy groups due to my experience playing other arcs, and the insanely overpowered characters I have encountered (minions 2 shotting me). I felt that CoX groups would be better balanced. I did make 3 custom characters (that fight), 1 you need to fight and she is difficult, but NOT unbeatable. and the others are actually allies, and you probably will need the ally in mission 5.
The contact, Mission 1 EB, and Mission 3 & 5 allies are all my toons from a Supergroup and a Villain Group of mine. Now I have heard people say they don't want to see other peoples toons, but I felt they were so appropriate for this arc I had to put them in.
The 1st mission's EB was a custom character (actually a toon of mine), I just felt she fit right in the story. She was difficult. I tested it solo with a lvl 40 Dual Blades/Willpower Brute on lvl 4 difficulty (I made a mistake when I said it was lvl 3 difficulty.. oops) Also I soloed the EB with 2 other toons on lvl 3 difficulty (Crab Spider and a Blaster). But I had warned people a team would be better. There are roaming patrols, but remember it is supposed to be a "convention/meeting" so people would be logically moving around the map wouldn't they? You only had to actually free 4 captives and fight the boss so I felt it was appropriate length personally. Since it was to be a meeting of different enemy groups, I needed 4 groups that the Contact might want to have business dealings with (and ultimately control or eradicate according to the contact's ultimate wishes if the meeting actually happened). The purpose of the first mission was essentially a test of the contacts to see how your character(s) would perform (and treat the captives, although I forced the issue by making the decision for the character).
The 2nd mission I thought would be easy. Since you don't need to kill anyone except the boss group and click on one object (and there is only one to find), you could simply breeze through this mission (and there are few maps smaller than the ship maps... but it had to be a ship for the background story). And this is the teaser clue, It should hopefully make people interested when they click on the object. (I did tell people to please read the clues). The werewolves are supposed to be real werewolves not council, but we can't make custom werewolves that look as good yet. I hope we can soon!
The 3rd mission, was going to be long, This is where I hummed and hawed over the length. But in order for the story to develop the contact's personality (her wish unlike many villains to not kill innocents) the danger had to be readily apparent and the truly evil nature of the group your character was about to face had to come out. The events in this mission show the depravity of the Pantheon.Your characters actually come out like heroes in comparison. And to deal with the AV (which you can avoid) I put in an Ally. (and the Ally as you know may trigger a remembrance of the teaser from mission 2). I wanted the results of the ritual to be unthinkable... that is why the scope of the ritual needed the 16 rescues of very special people(in my mind) The length is unfortunate (and if the game actually placed the captives where I told them too, it would be very linear, but the MA seems to have issues regarding placement). I did find that 75% of the captives spawned almost next to each other right near the begining, so there was only a few I really had to look for. I hoped people would like the Cauldron's weird personality) LOL Ultimately, this was another test of the contacts (remember the offer at the end of mission 5?), she wanted to find like minded villains, who could do what needed to be done (kill), but could show restraint when needed (remember what was the purpose of her Order?).
The 4th mission was meant to reveal the "secret" gradually during the mission with the 4 clues, and completely (almost) at the end of the mission. Hopefully, as they read the clues (assuming they do), it should suddenly start hitting them. What the heck have I gotten myself into? The 4 glowies I agree with you. They are NOT showing up where they should be( set to FRONT. MIDDLE, BACK), and they can be hard to find sometimes (I've played the arc over and over again and they seem very random as to where they are showing up. If I could fix this I would, but I can't with the current MA options. Maybe in MA when issue 15 comes out? I hope! Malta sappers would be rare (at least solo) because of the medium difficulty (and maybe depending on your own difficulty setting). I agree with you though, I am NOT a fan of searching, but until we can specifically place items, we're all out of luck.
Finally, the 5th mission comes. Due to the background story, you finally know the truth and what's at stake. Everyone's favourite enemy, the COT (although the real background was thousands of years ago)! . But You learn the truth about your "ally" from mission 3 (a toon of mine as well). But in finding out her background, you hopefully come to understand her a bit. You find out a bit about the background of the contact and your ally in mission 5. You learn what the "Order" is about. And why these 3 toons are in the "Order". Hopefully, you think about the varying degrees of evil presented over the arc. The 3 members of the "Order" you meet in the story never had a choice about what they became, but they did make a choice and join the "Order" You can be evil and yet still have a conscience (contact). You can be evil out of ignorance and need (Mission 3 ally's background), but seek to lessen your evil by joining the "Order" (again remember what is the Order about), and you can be evil and not know why or if you really are evil (mission 5 ally's background... this happened to her, but why did her Deity allow it to happen to her? Is she actually doing his will?) Unfortunately due to length limits in the MA, I couldn't really expand on what the story is ultimately about. Morality.
I needed the 4 bosses and the 1 AV for a simple reason... their are 4 types of Archmages and 1 leader, together they can form a Pentagram... 5 points... 5 bosses. And enact the ultimate ritual they can perform. What happened the last time the COT summoned the Demon Lords?
The map had to be big, because it is supposed to be the City of Oranbega where the leaders are and considering their egos, I doubt they would be in small quarters.
Akarist is VERY difficult, and I think without the ally (if soloed) almost impossible. Epic is right... I think I spent over 10 minutes fighting him. The ally I picked to be helpful but not overwhelmingly so. I was actually going to have the contact show up, but I found her too powerful.
Spoiler of sorts (what I really wanted to convey in the mission):
Also if you read the "cannon" history of the COT, the original ruling body called "the Circle Of Thorns", fought a war against the Mu civilization eons ago, The COT made a bad choice and dealt with Demons to repel the Mu (that it where my fictional background history of the "Order" would come in), but the Mu wizards found new tactics (hmmm.. i wonder what help they had?.. the "Order" maybe) and repelled the COT. Again the COT sought help from the Demon Lords and began the final slaughter of the Mu... but wait the COT couldn't go through with it and refused to slaughter all the women and children. And because of that "moral" choice they were cursed and the COT exists as it does today, intent on killing a large part of the world's population.. the descendants of Mu. Now the COT is truly evil. The "Order" chose a side 14,000 years ago (Mu). And because of that choice the COT and the Demons were stopped, but at what price? You see the tragedy of the situation? The original COT would probably be considered good until they made the pact with demons. But even corrupted as they were, they drew a line an refused to go over it (slaughter). The "Order" is similar in that because of what they are, they would be considered corrupted, yet they show restraint in what they do. I thought it as an interesting parallel for a story.
In the end, I am glad you liked the story. I may try to find smaller maps, but It's kind of trial and error since we can't really "see" the maps until we play the mission. And the larger maps have the spawn points for the objectives I want.
Thanks again for taking the time and effort of reviewing it!
Note: edited for my bad spelling and grammar
Thanks for the feedback! I'm definitely going to try to sit down some time this week and do a once over on the critters to improve their look! 
The New Freaks in Town pt. 1 72852
Rating 2 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Invul/EM tanker diff 3.
The New Freaks in Town pt.1 is a fast simple arc intended to introduce a new enemy in Paragon. A rival group to take out the Freakshow. The custom enemies look good and are challenging in groups. However, the storyline is not engaging and the missions are lacking excitement.
Mission 1 Custom critters look ok, have interesting powers and I liked the fact that the Freakshow still wanted to kill me even I helped them.
Mission 2 Three glowies, big map, very dull.
Mission 3 Two cool EBs, but they weren't fighting each other.
The New Freaks in Town pt 1 tries to be good by playing it straight and simple, however, the story never gets off the ground and the missions lack excitement, twists, surprises and pretty much anything except good looking c.c.s
Why not five stars? Low on interest, low on story.
nuff said
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for reviewing my arc. I appreciate the honesty and feedback.
I was expecting a 3 star maybe a 4 star at best. It's nice to think with some polishing it might be a 5 star. Although 75% of the 5 star missions in the MA (I have tried) I think aren't even worth 2 stars. But we each have our own tastes.
I've only played a few Task Forces, so I can't comment too much on their length or content, although I would say my arc is far smaller than the ones I have played.
I'm guessing you don't like large maps? Or long missions? (I like the longer missions personally and a variety of enemies... I don't like the speed run type of mission) . . .
[/ QUOTE ]
You are confusing what I would consider to be great and five stars. Five stars does not mean it is the greatest story arc in all of CoX.
The five star rating system is very limiting. It is a little too basic for me. I certainly do NOT want a complicated rating system, however, I feel 1-10 would have been better. I hope the 5 Stars system is never changed, because it has set a strong tone. When I start a review I start with a clean slate and the arc "has the potential to be five stars" attitude.
Five stars as I interprete it (and I believe this is the way Devs choice works as well, because I have run many of them and most are a three or four, only rarely a five) is an above average story, with good and new looking custom critters that work correctly mechanically, in story appropriate maps, that are fun to play and long.
Lets break that down into a simple form to read. An above average story is purely subjective IMO. There is a very popular Devs Choice arc (name eludes me) about the Phantom of the Opera, that is very well rated. I loved that arc. I read about ten percent of those quotes from the play. I just loved the look of those custom critters. Most of the story and in mish dialogue, tldr. When I review I make a point of reading every single thing. A lot of the time, its not worth reading. However, when I review, if the story is interesting and makes me WANT to do the next mish, it could be about pink ponies and it will still retain the "potential for five stars".
Good and new looking custom critters. I am sure there are Devs Choice arcs without c.c.s however atm I cannot think of any. However, I have found that having c.c.s dramatically helps in pursuit of Devs Choice. More importantly they have to work correctly. When the devs make EBs and AVs for PVE they have a different specs than what we give our EBs and AVs. I have knocked down countless EBs in MA with Air Superiority. AS is a great power, but it doesn't tickle EBs in PVE, it certainly does not make them 360 like a childs toy. So have c.c.s that mechanically work the way they are intended is important.
The maps have to fit the storyline. It's basic, if you see a bunch of tech ops in a graveyard there better be some good writing about who kidnapped them and which highway they used to get them there.
Fun to play. Well there cannot be anything more subjective. However, I am very brave and I will say what is fun for me, is fun for the Devs. Challenging enemies, that are not ridiculously difficult to defeat, that rarely send me to the hospital, but that will send me to the hospital quick if I play my powerset poorly.
Finally I'll throw long into Devs Choice, but NOT for me. I only say long because every Devs choice i've seen has been a long or very long arc. I think there is one (total) medium (or less) arc and I ran it and that thing was the longest three MA mishes I've ever done. For my reviews any length has the "potential for five stars", even one mish arcs. Although, honestly, for a one mish arc to get five its going to have to reinvent the wheel.
You believe I dont like longer arcs. You are correct, when I am playing for pleasure, when I'm reviewing, I have no bias for length.
I work in the entertainment industry, on the production side. I consume TV and Film media 40 hours a week as my occupation and then many more hours a week for personal pleasure. I grew up on movies and moviemaking. I watched Roger and Ebert review films for years and read their books as well. What I noticed, even as a teenager, is that they had to review films that they themselves would never have seen for pleasure. They reviewed countless films that were not their "style" of film. However, they gave the film a clean slate when they stepped into the theatre. Film critics never write a review that starts "I hated Batman, because I love musicals." or "I hated Mama Mia, because I love blood and guts." I review MA in the same way.
I do not rate arcs down for having larger maps or longer missions. I rate arcs down for having larger maps without a good reason for it to be so large. I rate arcs down for having longer missions when there is no good reason why I need to do so much.
A Week in the Life of a Villian could have been a stronger arc if it contained only what is necessary and not everything that is nice to have. It is nice to have patrols of several diff enemy groups at a convention, but not necessary. Maybe the carnies are on patrol duty, Freakshow get the day off. It is not necessary to have four wall safes. The wall safes are actually quite deep and one can hold four clues. It is not necessary to have all sixteen quads still alive for the ritual, maybe the cauldron ate eight already. It is not necessary to have all five Mages on the map at once, a couple could have gotten stuck in traffic. It is nice to have thoroughness, but with thoroughness you must be prepared for the downside. Too long, too boring and mostly too frustrating. Players do not like mishes with multiple objectives. Five Mages in the final mish is fine, if the others were quicker, or sixteen rescuees are fine if all the other mishes are quicker, well maybe a dozen, sixteen is sixteen no matter how you cut it. Four wall safes? That's just silly and unnecessary to me, but as you said about 'personal tastes'. You love a movie that the critics hated, sometimes.
As I said I appreciate honesty.
I don't particularly care what rating I get. Although if I got less than a 3 that would strike me as rather odd, because I thought it was a very balanced and well planned arc. I enjoyed playing my arc and even more so, the making of it.
I like to hear people's opinions though. And everyone likes it when someone genuinely pays you a compliment (which I assumed you were doing when you said it could be a 4 or 5 star arc)
My comments about you not liking large maps and long missions I had already guessed from your comments of other reviews and mine. Everyone has their own dislikes and likes.
If you didn't lower the rating because of it that's good. If you did on some unconscious level then that's fine to. You gave me honest feedback on what you thought. That's all I care about. You have every right to judge it on whatever criteria you like.
We are going to agree to disagree on certain parts of the plot and setting though, because some of your suggestions would leaving gaping holes in the story and hurt the story.
Mission 1 map: It is supposed to be a large map because there are many representatives at a hotel/office building. Now are there better maps? Maybe, but I looked over quite a few and that's the one I liked. As for the patrols which you do NOT have to attack, I think it would be rather silly for one group to trust the other villain groups to be security for them (or as it was intended checking up on each other), don't you? There were 4 Bunny waitresses to find so that you could find the hidden one among them. I thought that was logical as well, wouldn't you need to find the right one, since they're all in the same outfit?
Mission 2 had to be on a ship so I picked a ship map. i guess I could have picked a slightly smaller ship map, but again I thought that having the cargo hidden amongst many containers made more sense from a security point of view. But it could have been smaller I guess.
Mission 3 Map: Well Banished pantheon would kind of stick out anywhere else but a deserted graveyard. Also since their main troops are undead it kind of fits. Graveyards are generally large and outdoors. For setting a mood it fits as well. The number of rescues I can see many people having an issue with. True, many of them could have already been dead. But I wanted a "good" outcome not a tragedy. If you exit the mission and see the contact she tells you something to get you back into the mission fast so that no one dies. If you actually fail the mission, you get a result like what you suggested. Also if any complete set of quads died then their part of the ritual would have been completed and logically a LOT of Spirits of XXX would have to be generated. Failure is always an option in MA! But I do understand what you meant, although I did the mission in maybe 15 - 20 minutes so I'm not seeing the great waste of time personally. How long did it take you? Also, I would hope anyone who "gets into" the game, might find killing enemies who perform human sacrifice and torture and other unspeakable acts satisfying enough to spend a few extra minutes to finish the mission. For me there was a VERY strong sense of satisfaction at the end of that mission... not that it was FINALLY over, but because they were dead and I actually rescued people from a horrible fate. Anyways, that's my opinion.
Mission 4 Map: I agree with most of what you said. this could be a smaller map. There could be only one safe, although that would make it impossible to tell the 4 clues.. we only have limited space to write the clue in and it would be literally impossible to do so in the space we currently have for a clue. Also my hope of slowly revealing the truth would be screwed up. It's a build up the the revelation. I thought it was a good plot device.
Finally Mission 5 Map: Again... it's an underground city... it's huge... it's the final mission... it's the stronghold of the COT! Come on it can't be small! It would be like the final battle in the Lord Of The Rings taking place in a parking lot! This is an epic confrontation against one of the deadliest enemies in the CoX mythos. This is a feud that started 14,000 years ago and you want it to be over fast? They are going to summon the Demon Lords in a ritual that needs the 4 Archmages and Akarist to perform it, and you want one of them to be stuck in traffic? Mages.. that can (theoretically) fly...teleport... etc.. I think you see where I am going with this? Also could there be any worse outcome than allowing the CoT to succeed in this ritual? The last time they did this, they almost completely wiped out an entire civilization. And the goal of the current CoT is to wipe out billions of people (Decendants Of Mu). with the demon hoards they could do this. I think the risk/reward ratio is appropriate don't you think? Kill 5 mages to save potentially 1 fifth of the world's population?
Anyways I think the size and type of map I picked for 3 of the missions are perfectly justified. The mission 4 map i could make smaller I agree. The mission 2 map could be smaller as well although I don't think there's that much difference between the ship maps in size really.
The mission 3 objectives may be too long for many people I agree. However I guess I wrote it with my own bias in mind... I am a very patient person so it didn't seen that long to me.
Maybe my tastes are different than a lot of people. I like longer missions and missions with a plot.
Again thanks for the review and your follow up message to me.
Btw, i loved the Phantom Of the Opera Arc as well!
Note: Edited to add a comment about Banished Pantheon
The Lost Choir: Chapter one Old Testament 123675
Rating 2 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Invul/EM tanker diff 3.
The Lost Choir chapter one is a long storydriven arc that had me fighting stock CoX enemies and some custom critters. The story is ok. The custom critters look very good for the most part and are fun to kill. The in mish dialogue tends to be a little odd.
Mission 1 five rescuees. Simple fast fun.
Mission 2 Ritki boss is fun to kill. Ritki are always fun to kill.
Mission 3 EB was very cool looking.
Mission 4 c.c.s here not very interesting and have odd dialogue.
Mission 5 One very tough very cool looking EB.
The Lost Choir chapter one has very good looking c.c.s. The c.c.s are fun to kill. However, the arc suffers from terrible flow problems. The first and second mish were very quick, the third mish was very slow because I had to run around a big map looking for the EB that spawns after the objectives are fulfilled, the fourth mish was a little slow as well as there is some searching. Then the last mish was another quick one.
It is a storydriven arc, but I never got into it. I honestly didn't care if I helped these people or not. I never felt like I had any reason to help them. There are a lot of twists and turns, the guy I kill in mish 2 is my ally in mish 3, etc. etc. It never grabbed me.
Why not five stars? No flow. Weak story. In mish dialogue at times poor.
Blondes Revenge (arc 150638)
The premise is that a group of blondes get sick of being the butt of blonde jokes and decide to take over the city.
Naturally, it made the most sense for me to play Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) for this arc.
The contact looks like Ms. Liberty, but has no name, instead defaulting to "Contact Hologram". Should give her a name.
The story arc "Blondes Revenge" should be punctuated "Blondes' Revenge" or "Blonde Revenge", or maybe "Blonde Vengeance".
Mission 1 (the only mission)
Briefing: Needs paragraph breaks. "dont" should be "don't". "Nevermind" should be "never mind". "randomsome" should be "ransom". "powersource" should be "power source". "officebuilding" should be "office building". "Paragons' reactor" should be "the Terra Volta reactor".
Ms. Liberty (or Contact Hologram) wants me to take out a bunch of power generators because the blondes are conspiring to build these power generators, then knock out the Terra Volta reactor and corner the market on energy.
This plot has several holes. First, you have to believe that blondes have the technology to construct power generators. Second, even if you assume that they can build them, wouldn't it be more correct for me to stop them from attacking the reactor? After all, it's not illegal to build a power generator; while it IS illegal to attack a nuclear power plant.
Second part of the briefing: "Save us from the Blondes" seems a little too short, and also doesn't make sense since Ms Liberty is herself blonde. Though, this does put her on my suspect list; it seems entirely possible she may be planning to betray me to the blondes.
The mission title is "Take out 4 generators." which seems awfully dry. Also, I'm able to take out all 4 generators and the mission still won't complete, since the Sheriff is needed also, so this title is inaccurate sometimes. I suggest you rename it to "Stop the Blonde Conspiracy" or something similar.
The mission objectives are just "Sheriff" and "4 Generator". I think these should be "Defeat Sheriff" (or "Rescue Sheriff" if appropriate) and "4 Generators to destroy".
All your mobs are in a faction called "Blonde 2" which doesn't really make sense. I suggest you name their faction something more descriptive like "Dumb Blondes" or "Blonde Rage" or "Blonde Leading the Blonde" or "Blonde Ambition" or something like that.
The description of the various mobs seems to have dialog instead of info about them; I think you should rephrase their info to describe who they are, then change some of the blondes to SAY the stuff you have in their info right now.
I don't get why the Librarian has archery and the Investigator has electric blast. The Investigator's info has "takeover", which should be "take over".
Singer Star has a cool bio, but should maybe be named either "Pop Star" or "Singer Songwriter".
Why is Biker Girl a gravity controller? I think it would make more sense if she tried to stab me with a knife or hit me with a baseball bat.
I found a male Blonde! He was a police deputy. I think it would make more sense for male Blondes to be either surfer dudes or frat boys.
In Teacher Lady's description, "Benjamin Franklins'" should be "Benjamin Franklin's". Also, not sure it helps your story to have her talking about Benjamin Franklin's key experiment. Suggest you come up with something funnier.
Sheriff says "Its time you dyed your hair Blond Justice". "Its" should be "It's". And, well, my character IS blond already.
I think "I should have dyed my hair red" is kind of a sad thing for the chief blonde to say as she dies.
Debriefing: Really doesn't say much. The contact should really say more here, maybe say something about the aftermath of the blonde attack. "Blondes are bad" really isn't sufficient.
Overall
This is clearly meant to be a comedic story arc, but...I'm afraid it just wasn't very funny. I think you need to add more jokes to your story if you want it to be comedic. None of the blondes had dialog except the final boss; I'd suggest you add a lot more dialog, maybe containing some of the stuff you embedded into their descriptions.
The plot itself, to replace the city's power supply, is not very funny, doesn't make much sense, and does not really add much to your story, which seems to be about angry blondes. I'd suggest that you replace this plot with something more closely aligned with the blonde anger idea; like maybe have them holding a lot of brunettes hostage, with the idea that they will forcibly bleach blonde them. For each hostage, the blonde guards could say stuff like, "Prepare to dye!" "Gentlemen prefer blondes!" "Now you'll get to see that blondes really DO have more fun!" If you want destroyable objects, maybe you can use some of those toxic waste drums to represent huge barrels of peroxide or something.
I think you should make your blonde NPCs play up the blonde stereotype, and get rid of all the blondes in intellectual professions like teaching, lab assistant work, investigating, etc., and replace them with things that fit the "dumb blonde" meme, like cheerleaders, sorority girls, spokesmodels, ski bunnies, beach bunnies, and so on.
Alternatively you could avert the "dumb blonde" trope by making ALL of your blondes into very highly intellectual characters, like nuclear physicists, college professors, psychologists, economic advisers, etc., and have them all speak extremely brainy dialog about how angry they are because the world stereotypes them as being "dumb" simply for being blonde.
Anyway, as it is, I didn't feel like this story arc really worked, and I felt I could only give it 2 stars.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I'm afraid of even posting here, but if I don't know how to improve my arc if I don't try and promote it some way.
Here it goes:
Arc ID 64859
Name: The Calling of the Cult. (First Chapter)
Creator: @Misho
Morality: Neutral
5 Missions long, Map 1-2-4 Small Map 3-5 Medium or so (honestly I felt them small, but I really like them and run well with the story...
Length according to MA descriptor: Very Long.
Aprox. Length from previous players' runs: Not so long.
Custom Group.
EB/AV included.
Party recommended altho' not needed.
My advise: try to read everything, and not everything is a must complete objective.
Looking for Feedback to further improve my arc story. I want to make this the first part out of three. But will wait to see if people likes the concept.
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici 161797
Rating 5 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Invul/EM tanker diff 3.
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici is a great arc. It is very well written. The custom critters look good and are tough. The contact is likeable and his dialogue is excellent. If not for the fact that you never actually meet Dr. Marcovici this should be a devs choice.
Mission 1 rescue guys, find a clue, kill some Freakshow.
Mission 2 Custom critters look good (not great) and are fun to kill. Nice attention to details with the c.c.s, similar clothing style yet all different. Digger has a shovel, lumberjack has an axe, etc.
Mission 3 I loved the tie in to me in the storyline here. 5 bombs, quick simple. why is this mish even here?
Mission 4 Ah that's why. Nice. Very nice. I hate Dr. Marcovici, never even met him and i hate him. How did I know Marcovici wouldn't be here.
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici deserves five stars because the story is so good I was eager to go back in and look for this [censored] guy. The missions are quick and straightforward, but that's not what makes them great. They are great because they are all quick and straightforward, the flow, tempo, pace whatever you want to call it is maintained perfectly. A rare and wonderful thing. The c.c.s are cool to look at and are tough and fun to kill. Most of all the storyline grabs you from mish one and holds you throughout.
Great job!
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici ends in a cliffhanger. You must decide between two life choices. I decided to go after the hostages because that's the sort of hero I am. So:
Dr Marcovici H 161800
Rating 4 Stars
The continuation of the arc maintains all the great things from the first part. The story is good. The pace is quick and straightforward and most of all I want to kill this guy already.
I enter each mish eager to finally come face to face with evil.
Mission 1 rescue heroes, Kung fu and Rad-Rad look great.
Mission 2 Rescue hero.
Mission 3 the sewers, nice unexpected surprise. Dr. Marcovici EB tough and I couldn't wait for him to die. He asked me why I killed his brothers? Because they were evil, just like him.
Very good continuation. Not quite as good as the first part.
Why not five stars? This H edition needs some slight twist or surprise in the storyline. Either or both Kung fu and/or Rad-Rad should fight, they look way too good not to see them in action. Mish 1 (or mish 2) needed a boss guarding the hostages.
Good job!
The whole story overall awesome. Everyone should play this.
The Calling of the Cult 64859
Rating 2 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Invul/EM tanker diff 3.
The Calling of the Cult is a storydriven arc about a group of creatures that have existed for milennia and are now starting to reappear. The arc was frustrating at times and great at other times. The contact dialogue feels like it was written by two different people one a good writer and another not so good. Oddly this is the way the entire arc felt. Some of the custom critters look great and others are just plain bad. The in mish dialogue as well, alternates between great and horrible from moment to moment.
Mission 1 Arachnos are fun to kill. I like the cave.
Mission 2 CoT, boss fun to kill.
Mission 3 Big beautiful cave, Whisperer fun to kill.
Mission 4 EB Snake very cool. Best mish in the arc.
Mission 5 difficult map to navigate. The Shadow Lurker was very cool looking and very tough to kill.
The current version of The Calling of the Cult feels like a rough draft to me. At times I thought I was reading some filler text that the writer was later going to replace with the correct text.
To the author:
Some things I liked. The contact was good. The opening dialogue by the contact was quite good. I was pysched that this was going to be a good arc. In mish one I liked the fact that the guards call for backup when i get near the egg. Mish three was a good map. I liked the vision from the contact going into mish 4. The cultist, the demon crawler and the shadow lurker looked good. Snake EB battle in mish four was great.
Some things I did not like. The contact dialogue gets too verbose near the middle/end. I wanted him to get to the point already. There were a few too many ssss in his dialogue. I got the idea and I heard the ssss in my mind everytime I read his text from the opening statement. At the middle/end you need to remove some of those ssss because they just started to get distracting and I didn't want to read anything he had to say. The in mish dialogue generally quite good, but at times it is quite bad. Arachnos boss in mish one says "I haven't been rattled like that since high school." Yikes that's bad, moreover it was completely out of place when considering all the other dialogue in the arc. The story is crystal clear at times and other times it is very fuzzy, at the end I am supposed to be dead so they can resurrect Xaos or am I supposed to be alive for that? The story is a little muddled. I didn't like the garbled, ancient language the Shadow EB was saying, that was silly to me. Then suddenly he speaks perfect english. Overall I liked the maps a lot however, that last map sucks. I know what you were trying to do thematically, but honestly that map is not fun to navigate at all. Worse still you cannot see those cool costumes until you are standing ontop of the guy. C.C.s enlightened and supplicant need a makeover IMO.
Why not five stars? Muddled storyline. No flow. Contact too longwinded. Bad map choice mish 5. A couple of the C.C.s look bad.
[ QUOTE ]
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici 161797
Rating 5 Stars
Character: lvl 50 Invul/EM tanker diff 3.
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici is a great arc. It is very well written. The custom critters look good and are tough. The contact is likeable and his dialogue is excellent. If not for the fact that you never actually meet Dr. Marcovici this should be a devs choice.
Mission 1 rescue guys, find a clue, kill some Freakshow.
Mission 2 Custom critters look good (not great) and are fun to kill. Nice attention to details with the c.c.s, similar clothing style yet all different. Digger has a shovel, lumberjack has an axe, etc.
Mission 3 I loved the tie in to me in the storyline here. 5 bombs, quick simple. why is this mish even here?
Mission 4 Ah that's why. Nice. Very nice. I hate Dr. Marcovici, never even met him and i hate him. How did I know Marcovici wouldn't be here.
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici deserves five stars because the story is so good I was eager to go back in and look for this [censored] guy. The missions are quick and straightforward, but that's not what makes them great. They are great because they are all quick and straightforward, the flow, tempo, pace whatever you want to call it is maintained perfectly. A rare and wonderful thing. The c.c.s are cool to look at and are tough and fun to kill. Most of all the storyline grabs you from mish one and holds you throughout.
Great job!
The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici ends in a cliffhanger. You must decide between two life choices. I decided to go after the hostages because that's the sort of hero I am. So:
Dr Marcovici H 161800
Rating 4 Stars
The continuation of the arc maintains all the great things from the first part. The story is good. The pace is quick and straightforward and most of all I want to kill this guy already.
I enter each mish eager to finally come face to face with evil.
Mission 1 rescue heroes, Kung fu and Rad-Rad look great.
Mission 2 Rescue hero.
Mission 3 the sewers, nice unexpected surprise. Dr. Marcovici EB tough and I couldn't wait for him to die. He asked me why I killed his brothers? Because they were evil, just like him.
Very good continuation. Not quite as good as the first part.
Why not five stars? This H edition needs some slight twist or surprise in the storyline. Either or both Kung fu and/or Rad-Rad should fight, they look way too good not to see them in action. Mish 1 (or mish 2) needed a boss guarding the hostages.
Good job!
The whole story overall awesome. Everyone should play this.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, thanks for the review. I'm am so glad you enjoyed it. I put a lot of work into this whole thing and it took up all three of my MA spots, so I am really hoping more people give it a try.
I just wish there was a way to give the player a choice and have the story branch out, but still stay contained in one story arc. Maybe someday the Dev's will give us that option.
Thanks again.
Arc Name: Truth in Paragon
Arc ID: 216693
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Draconek (Forum Name: jdinflames)
Difficulty Level: It's set for easy, but it has a few customs in there...so medium. My stories are all "intended" for solo play.
Synopsis: Paragon is a violent city, and it's up to you to clean it up! This story is built for all levels, and is an introduction to other storylines that I am currently working on.
Estimated Time to Play: Less than 1 Hour
Link to More Details or Feedback: Feedback in game or on here via PM would be amazing, as this is my first story arc
I hope you've got time to review my arcs.
My 1st Arc , which taught me a lot about limits of the MA.
Title: A Father's Iron Will
Faction: Neutral (Heroic story)
Arc ID: 198952
Creators Global Name: @KemLi
Difficulty Level: Medium (Unless your on higher than Tenacious)
Synopsis A young exchange student has been kidnapped . Her mother has come looking for her and it may be another relative that has taken her.It's up to you to be the hero.
Story Type Serious/Dramatic
Mission Count: 2
Note All bosses , EBs and AVs scale. I was able to complete it solo with a lvl 4 un-enhanced blaster , with judicious pulls and insps. Designed for teams but soloable.
My 2nd Arc , published today.
Title: A Shadowy Way of Light
Arc ID: 221466
Creators Global Name: @KemLi
Faction : Neutral (Villainous story)
Difficulty Level: Medium-High. Adjust difficulty to suit your playstyle.
Synopsis Purely Villain arc. You've been contacted by a new Religious Sect in the Isles and they've thrust you into dangerous situations. But they've fed your desire to be truly evil and have led you to face some of Paragon's finest. You will be the ultimate victor and rule all that you survey.
Story Type Serious/Dramatic
Mission Count: 4
Note All bosses , EBs and AVs scale.I'd suggest you not go in alone..unless your skills rival well..he who shall not be named but looks remarkably like me -_-
Feedback appreciated.
Pinnacle & Virtue:
A bunch of Heroes - Alpha Team, Legion of Order.
A bunch of Villains -Black Citadel , Pinnache.
My arc has been reviewed, but I have changed it a lot and if you get a chance, I would love it if you would play my arc In Pursuit of Liberty - ID 221702.
I would love to get your feedback.
Thanks so much. I hope you enjoy.
@Gypsy Rose
In Pursuit of Liberty - 344916
The Vigilante - 395861
Suppression - 374481 - Winner of The American Legion's February 2011 AE Author Contest
Here's my first foray into AE mission construction. It'd make me happy if you'd check it out and leave me some feedback.
Solidarity Forever: The Paragon City Sidekick's Union
by @Exploding Lad
Arc ID: 260117
Help Exploding Lad figure out who's undermining the sidekick tradition!
The arc is only three missions long with some simple custom enemies and works for levels 1-54. It's supposed to be a little funny/goofy but solidly superhero. Let me know how it works for you.
Arc Name: The Revenge of Dr. Marcovici
Arc ID: 161797
Faction: Heroic
Difficulty Level: Average. One Elite Boss, but he is set to standard difficulty.
Synopsis: This is a story driven arc with a unique twist to it.
Halfway through the arc you have to make a decision on what your next action will be. Depending on your decision the arc plays out very differently for each of the 2 choices you have.