Arc 2622: "A Tangle in Time" (and others)
By
anachrodragon,
Posted on: 2009-04-16 15:45 in Mission Architect
I wanted to say that I very much enjoyed "A Tangle in Time." My husband and I played it together, and we both felt it really captured exactly what we want from the MA: quirky stories unlike the stuff the devs have given us.
You got two five star ratings from us. 
Bumped because A Tangle In Time is awesome.
Okay, played through Blargrimmar, because I wanted something a little light.
The arc takes itself at least modestly seriously, in that the actual events happening in it are important to the characters involved in them. But the tone of the writing is very light-hearted, helped along by enough tributes to steal men's souls and make them slaves, or however that goes. I use "tribute" rather than "parody" because the NPCs care about what's going on and that makes all the references in the arc real things in their own right rather than cheap copies.
The custom faction is superbly costumed and generally well-balanced (though I ran this arc on a 43 regen scrapper so who knows how reliable that is) as are both the guest allies (and one in particular). So if you want something light-hearted and a little goofy but more than just an empty joke, I heartily endorse "Blargrimmar Wants You!"
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Dropped into "Eclipse over Paragon". The grand plan here seems very familiar, but I'm not surprised it took the Mission Architect to pull it off.
You'll see why when you play it. I really can't say anything more than that, other than it's another great adventure.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Beach_Lifeguard reviews Eclipse Over Paragon:
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Overall this was a fun arc that uses existing story lines, and takes them a little further. Anybody who likes the council and the wolves should give this a try. 5 stars!
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Two tidbits of feedback, and an arc update:
dragonslay:
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A Tangle in Time 2622
Rating 4 Stars
I ran this arc with a lvl 50 Ice/Ice Blaster on diff 1.
Overall this is a very fun and funny arc about being caught in a time loop. Four of the missions occur on the same map and fortunately it is a small map. There is a slight twist in each mish although honestly four out of the five are very similar. The story is well written and the players thoughts are presented as well. The entire arc is CoT and PPD (there are 2 custom critters) and both are fun to kill. Contact dialogue is humorous at times, easy to follow and brief (three great qualities).
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HolyEvilAoD
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Eclipse Over Paragon (64609)
30-50 range
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4 out of 5 stars
I do think the "comedy" character is misplaced (and he's definitely a joke character. His bio is pretty obviously meant to be a joke) and he adds nothing to the arc. I suppose you're supposed to feel sorry for him, but as he's not legitimately funny, he doesn't.
Still, a good strong arc.
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Bladeskrieg was supposed to be part character cameo, part placeholder and part comedy relief.
But he's gone now. Praise the lawd. I finally figured out a replacement and got someone much more appropriate to take his place.
Thanks for the feedback and good word!
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Also, apart from Eclipse Over Paragon's NPC change, I've tweaked A Tangle in Time's story to cater more heroic interests. Some other dialogue tweaks as well.
Blargrimmar Wants You!'s custom group gets a balance tweak. No more stacked shields or Ninjitsu.
If you haven't played these yet, now would be a great time. Feedback would be very appreciated.
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Arc Name: A Tangle in Time
Arc ID: 2622
Faction: Thorns, PPD
Length: 5 missions
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @jjac
Difficulty Level: Easy/Medium
Synopsis: In an Oranbegan ruin, untouched for hundreds of years, lies a fragile relic that can bend the very rivers of time. Your mission is to tamper with it. (Solo highly recommended. Story driven.)
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First off, I gotta hand it to you. Very neat little story! Loved all of the NPC text, as well as the poses and placements you used.
Now, the notes:
Mission 1 (And, by extension... you know. Spoilers):
- The introduction text has "if it falls to the wrong hands"; should be "if it falls into the wrong hands". And I might change the "!" at the end of the "who knows" question to a "?".
- Mission objectives are highlighted very neatly and nicely!
- "Alright..." as the custom accept mission text seems unnecessary... just a thought.
- Riley's description starts with "Has been", I'd recommend "He's been". I know the next sentence starts with "He's" as well, so maybe extend one of those into a "he has" so you don't repeat words too much (Heheh).
- Hanson's description has "a wonder how" (I'd use "a wonder that") and "become sargeant" (I'd use a couple of corrections there and make it "become a sergeant").
Mission 3:
- The mission entry popup text reads "plunk you back to the"; I think "guide" or "force" would better describe whatever's happening. Or, at least, say "plunk you down at the" (Or "plunk you down back at the"?).
- There are some cases where you use capital letters after an ellipses ("...") despite it not indicating the end of a sentence, but usually you don't (As seems more proper to me). Hanson has a line that says "Re... Match", which -- as a single word -- couldn't be broken up into separate sentences anyway, so I'd use a lowercase "m" and watch out for a couple of other instances in the dialog of other missions.
- The mission completion popup text has "Hopefully," -- should be "Hopefully;", and (Personal suggestion) I'd also end the popup with an exclamation mark because of the situation.
Mission 4:
- The contact text just prior to entering the mission has the line "never really done any crimes for us to put that info [...] to use", which sort of needs a complete re-working (Try something along the lines of "we've never been able to capitalize on that info, as he's never committed a serious enough crime"?). Also, "well known" needs a hyphen.
- In the mission, Moby says "how many years worth", ought to be "how many years' worth". He also says "will it take", instead of "it will take" (As it isn't the beginning of the query, the usage is improper).
- The prisoner ran off so fast, I didn't even catch a good glance of him! I was fighting from a distance, so I imagine if I had been on a melee character I could have checked him out. There was also a pillar in the way, and additional aggro from a secondary mob. In any case, adding some sort of rescued emote to him will hopefully slow him long enough for his rescuer to get an eyeful.
Mission 5:
- The contact's mission introduction text uses "archaeologists", the spelling of which is not wrong... but it is a bit rare. I believe you also have the modernly-spelled "archeology" or "archeologist" in there, too (But I forgot to write it down. So that might be wrong, but it would explain why I wanted to bring up "archaeologists"). If not, ignore me.
- The mission popup text uses "through" instead of "with".
- Moby asks "do you have anything to do with all this [...]", instead of "don't you have anything to do with all this [...]" -- which might also work better as "don't you have anything better to do with all this [...]". As it's actual NPC chatter, grammar and the like don't need to be adhered to as strictly (Which is a bit of a fine line to walk between "natural speech" and "is terrible to read", but you've done very well), of course.
- Moby also says "I happen to have a couple who", which probably was meant to be "I happen to have [Or you could say "know"] a couple of friends [Or prisoners, or acquaintances, etc.] who".
- The prisoners' description text has "a prisoner," instead of "a prisoner;", "or a" instead of "and no", and ends with "one" instead of "them".
That's all I can say without spoiling things! The rest goes into a PM. I enjoyed the arc a lot. I hate lifeless writing, and you didn't have any (Which is great, because it would be especially bad in an arc like this)!
^^^ I've incorporated the corrections, thank you for your thorough feedback!
And some positive feedback by PoliceWoman on Eclipse over Paragon:
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Eclipse over Paragon review
Overall
Overall I thought this was a good arc, fairly well written. Nothing really grabbed me as a moment of pure awesomeness, though the mutated versions of Fusionette, Jim Temblor and Flower Knight came close; I kinda think maybe you could develop these guys a little more for extra fun. Colleen made sense as a contact for a Council arc but I didn't get a sense that she had a whole lot of personality other than just being someone to give you missions, and the arc overall, while functional, didn't quite give me a sense of immersion. Not quite sure how to make that happen. Perhaps you could add a side plot where the player thinks she got exposed to some of the nictus water, and over the course of mission entrance/exit popups and clues, starts feeling itchy or getting urges to bay at the moon or other snippets that make the player worried they are getting afflicted by the war wolf disease. Giving the heroes who got wolfed some more dialog and personality would help too. Still, this story was pretty good and I liked it, so I gave it 4 stars.
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I added more clues in the beginning, particularly to the Archons to help reinforce the story. I have also made it more involving; I knew I couldn't actually change the player itself, and if I did as much as hint it all the roleplaying robots, furries and untaintable godlike Mary Sues would complain about it.
Welp, I can't please everyone; if it'll help many more to get into the story, all the better for most of us. Also, because of all the text additions, it'll be one less boss at the end due to space.
Thank you for the detailed feedback and the good word!
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Arc Name: A Tangle in Time
Arc ID: 2622
Faction: Thorns, PPD
Length: 5 missions
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @jjac
Difficulty Level: Easy/Medium
Synopsis: In an Oranbegan ruin, untouched for hundreds of years, lies a fragile relic that can bend the very rivers of time. Your mission is to tamper with it. (Solo highly recommended. Story driven.)
I really enjoyed your arc here. I found it while asking for feedback for my own arc, written independently of yours, but with the same concept: Time Loop.
Mission 1,2: PPD patrols cleared up quite a few of the CoT before I got to them, not necissarily a bad thing though.
Mission 3: After the first two missions having the CoT mobs and the PPD patrols, then this one had all PPD with practically no CoT in it. I think you might want to add some CoT patrols (unless you actually did and they just got taken out by the PPD before I got to them) so you get a similar mix compared to the first two missions. Also, you could add an optional altar glowie in missions 2 and 3 just so it's still there.
I know it was mentioned once, but I never really got the feeling that I had been running through this countless times. It's a hard feeling to convey I know, but I'm just mentioning my feelings.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, it gave me a few ideas on how to improve my own arc, and hopefully I can make mine better without being thought of as a copycat.
PoliceWoman's feedback on A Tangle in Time:
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Overall
The only things I'd suggest would be to add a few clues to help the player understand what is going on; the time loop could be very easily confusing to many players and some exposition would be helpful. Adding a souvenir would be nice, also.
I gave this arc 5 stars.
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And thus, the arc is updated. More clues, a souvenir and the last mission is re-ordered just a bit. Try it out if you haven't yet!
Yes, everyone should check this one out!
I will try to make time to play it again this weekend. I really enjoyed it as it was, so if you've tweaked it that's even better.
I have updated A Tangle in Time and Eclipse Over Paragon to be more lowbie-friendly, with level ranges 5-54 and 1-54 respectively. If you never had the chance to try these arcs because you were too low level, now's your chance to give em a whirl!
Still, A Tangle in Time might pose a bit of a challenge, because hey, Circle of Thorns am I right?
I hear a few people wanted this arc to get better exposure, so here:
Arc Name: A Tangle in Time
Arc ID: 2622
Faction: Thorns, PPD
Length: 5 missions
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @jjac
Difficulty Level: Easy/Medium
Synopsis: In an Oranbegan ruin, untouched for hundreds of years, lies a fragile relic that can bend the very rivers of time. Your mission is to tamper with it. (Solo highly recommended. Story driven.)
The missions should be varied enough despite the recurring 'theme'. Let me know what you think.
Feel free to try out (and give feedback on) my other arcs, as well:
Arc Name: Blargrimmar Wants You!
Arc ID: 4572
Faction: Pantheon, Custom
Length: 5 missions
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @jjac
Difficulty Level: Medium/Hard
Save a reformed cop whose past life is catching up with him. Reason with his old gang the only way they know how: By carving a swathe of destruction within their ranks!
Arc Name: Eclipse Over Paragon
Arc ID: 64609
Faction: Council, Custom
Length: 5 missions
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @jjac
Difficulty Level: Medium
The Council threaten to turn Paragon into their own Warwolf Factory! Stop their plans and crush their furry legion!