MA cliches: What to avoid in your new Arc.
By
Aces_High,
Posted on: 2009-04-22 06:15 in Mission Architect
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I'm frankly not aware of this supposed army that Venture has. Where do I get my own army? That'd be pretty awesome.
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I know if I had an army I'd be doing more important stuff with them than one starring bad arcs.
Like invading Canada!
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I'd sign up for that army. I'm sick of their geese.
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RaiderRich2001 wrote:
Not every person on here has enough sycophant brownshirt followers to sink an arc either.
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Ah... isn't that cute. He just Godwined the thread and nobody noticed.
(The following is not directed at you RaiderRich2001, but at everyone who has been whining about Venture in general. Including a certain self-important someone who felt so stung by Venture's honesty that he had to go out and start three other threads to "prove" how much more mature and intelligent than Venture that he is, and accomplished exactly the opposite.)
I really really don't get the dislike a lot of people are spewing toward Venture. Those people who become upset at his review of their arcs need to remember that they volunteered to have him rip-up their story-arcs!
And it's not like Venture has been talking in Rocket-Scientist lingo and then acting like we're idiots because we don't understand him. He mentioned that his lines come from TVtropes, and he assumes that you're intelligent enough to use Google. The biggest problem that I have with a lot of Hollywood, movie reviewers, and TV shows in general is that they assume that we're all friggin stupid. I hate that! HATE!!! Whereas Venture has made the mistake of assuming that we're all reasonably intelligent. I really like that.
But it seems that a lot of you out there prefer to be talked down to by a writer/director who just assumes you're an idiot. Maybe that's why so many of you dislike Venture. Or maybe it's because he's honest, and you really do not have the writing skills that your non-competitive "everybody wins today" grade-school teacher told you that you did.
This is the problem with those non-competitive everybody wins school programs that they have nowdays, everyone believes that they're exceptional They don't learn how to handle losing, or how to take honest criticisim without freaking out. We've all heard of Sturgeon's Law, but everyone thinks that they're the exception. "Yes, I know that most fan-fic writers suck, but this is my story we're talking about." Well guess what sweetheart, you're no exception. You're no Stephen King, and chances are that your stories are of mediocre quality at best.
Well, you never know, I could be making a Firefly reference...
Trouble is, I'm probably the one person on this board who hasn't seen a damn episode. It's on the Bucket List, I swear!
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
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He mentioned that his lines come from TVtropes, and he assumes that you're intelligent enough to use Google.
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The problem is, he hasn't read the first page of the site, which says:
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Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.
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(emphasis mine)
If the site is not intended to be a list of cliches and things not to do, why is he using it for that purpose? There has to be thousands and thousands of tropes. At some point you will probably use one.
It's like playing Minesweeper on a 10x10 grid with 100 mines. You are going to hit a mine no matter what you do.
If the odds are that stacked against you. Why even write an arc if Venture's going to inevitably mark it down and his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?
Should all arcs be 5 stars, no. But why keep the cream from rising to the top because of a no-win scenario?
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
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If the odds are that stacked against you. Why even write an arc if Venture's going to inevitably mark it down and his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?
Should all arcs be 5 stars, no. But why keep the cream from rising to the top because of a no-win scenario?
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Venture doesn't low-rate all arcs. Besides, there are several other reviewers here so a second opinion is not out of the question. Everyone has different tastes, likes, and dislikes. Just because Venture might 1 star an arc doesn't mean that people like Talen_Lee or myself are against high-marking it. It really is better to get more than one person to review something anyway, just for that very reason.
SG Leader "Knights of Tir Asleen"
"I am a humanoid... I get really annoyed at the things humans do."
"Shepherd" ID: 135806 - Heroic Morality Story Arc
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If the odds are that stacked against you. Why even write an arc if Venture's going to inevitably mark it down and his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?
Should all arcs be 5 stars, no. But why keep the cream from rising to the top because of a no-win scenario?
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Venture doesn't low-rate all arcs. Besides, there are several other reviewers here so a second opinion is not out of the question. Everyone has different tastes, likes, and dislikes. Just because Venture might 1 star an arc doesn't mean that people like Talen_Lee or myself are against high-marking it. It really is better to get more than one person to review something anyway, just for that very reason.
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It would help if an MA Metacritic existed, unfortunately we don't have anything like that.
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
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I really really don't get the dislike a lot of people are spewing toward Venture. Those people who become upset at his review of their arcs need to remember that they volunteered to have him rip-up their story-arcs!
And it's not like Venture has been talking in Rocket-Scientist lingo and then acting like we're idiots because we don't understand him. He mentioned that his lines come from TVtropes, and he assumes that you're intelligent enough to use Google.
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Several assumptions here are off-track. Dunno about anyone else, but I don't dislike Venture at all. I enjoy his reviews and thanked him for introducing TVtropes. As I said, its entertaining.
However, many of the trope terms are evanescent. It is actually far clearer to distinguish among the various types of Mary Sues and say specifically "self-insert", or whatever type of authorial wish fulfillment/aggradizement type is being used.
Mary Sue as a term is light as fluff, blowin' in the wind.
Many other terms on that site are obscure, arbitrary, or the opposite of self-evident. Venture is not treating us as intelligent by overusing those terms.
Btw, I am not a disgruntled author. I don't claim to be a writer and I don't plan to ask to be reviewed when, or even if 
, I get an arc finished.
So, not upset; don't dislike Venture; haven't written anything worthy. No ax to grind at all. 
In the interests of clarity, reduce the overuse of obscurantist jargon. If not, include a disclaimer on the reviews stating the reliance on said jargon.
I don't have time to deal with all of this, but here:
If the site is not intended to be a list of cliches and things not to do, why is he using it for that purpose?
Because some of the things on it are cliches and are things not to do. These are things that tend to crop up in the "offenses" line. Or are you seriously prepared to argue that someone should toss the player the Idiot Ball? Is it even remotely possible to have a justifiable Wall Banger, or (as I suspect) does that make as much sense as a married bachelor?
Why even write an arc if Venture's going to inevitably mark it down and his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?
Who are these people? If I've got legions of disciples why wasn't I informed?
In any case, as of the last tabulation my arithmetic mean was running just under 3 stars. This means the arcs I've reviewed are beating Sturgeon's Law by lightyears, and this "Venture haetz everything!" codswallop is exactly that.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
I use my gf as a barometer on whether terms such as Mary Sue make sense. Even after an explanation based on the tropes site, it was still clear... as mud.
I'm simply not going to address the majority of these complaints as I've already made my position explicit, but this....
...are you seriously implying I should change the way I write to make your girlfriend happy? I wouldn't change the way I write to make my girlfriend happy, unless she made me very happy first, If You Know What I Mean.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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...his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?...
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You know how I react to Venture or Talen_Lee giving out a one-star? I don't PLAY it. No play, no rating. No rating, no one-star. No one-star, NO TANKING YOUR RATINGS. So don't put your lousy rating on MY doorstep, sir; I only throw stars at stuff I actually play. If you want to sniff out a one-star conspiracy, I suggest you look elsewhere, and learn to not alienate everyone with one sentence while you're at it. 
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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...his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?...
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You know how I react to Venture or Talen_Lee giving out a one-star? I don't PLAY it. No play, no rating. No rating, no one-star. No one-star, NO TANKING YOUR RATINGS. So don't put your lousy rating on MY doorstep, sir; I only throw stars at stuff I actually play. If you want to sniff out a one-star conspiracy, I suggest you look elsewhere, and learn to not alienate everyone with one sentence while you're at it.
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Well, in a way, that's almost as bad. True, 1-star ratings are worse than no ratings, but let's say Venture just didn't like an arc that maybe -you- would like. But now you won't play it, because -he- said it was bad or had a BadTrope. And so it stays buried on page 1482. Your 4-star rating (assuming you liked it) could help bump it up a few hundred pages and give the author tickets... but now, that won't happen.
Supposedly.
*shrug*
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
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Well, in a way, that's almost as bad. True, 1-star ratings are worse than no ratings, but let's say Venture just didn't like an arc that maybe -you- would like. But now you won't play it, because -he- said it was bad or had a BadTrope.
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...
Getting an idea of which arcs to check out and which ones to avoid... isn't that the whole point of reading reviews in the first place?
If I find a reviewer I tend to agree with, why would I play an arc that has been panned by that reviewer?
There are movie critics I'm usually in agreement with. If they don't like a movie, I tend to avoid it. There are also some critics I almost never agree with. If they don't like a movie, I'm inclined to go out of my way to see it. Plus, I generally avoid whatever they rave about. Overall, this approach has served me well.
There are other factors that can come into play, of course. Like what my friends think, what I personally think about a particular director or actor, and what my expectations for any particular piece happens to be (I don't go to some movies expecting a strong story, for example, I'm just in it for the visuals). But, by and large, I read movie reviews to get a sense of whether I should bother or not.
Don't see why arc reviews should be any different?
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The review system should replace the rating system in player's attempts to find things. I know it does for me - I've lost all faith in the rating system for making sure good content bubbles to the top.
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According to a SG member. Far too many arcs take place in the cargo ship map.
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So true. Even I have an arc on the cargo ship map and *I'M* sick of seeing that map.
I can't help it though. Unless the Game Devs add some classical pirate ship maps into the game, there's no other appropriate setting for my Pirate Rum Runners mish. 
MA Author: Look for my eight arcs under @Witty Librarian!
Hero Cleanup Protocol estory now available! Through Smashwords.com and most ebook retailers!
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Humor Arcs - We get it. Super powers versus fruit.
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Humor is very subjective. Personally, I thought that arc's concept was pretty funny - especially the play on the celery stalk...er.
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Humor is definitely very subjective. You can get 60 people to snicker at your in-jokey homage to Portal and then get 1 person who doesn't snicker. And then without mercy berates the concept of humor arcs using yours as the example. Ouch.
MA Author: Look for my eight arcs under @Witty Librarian!
Hero Cleanup Protocol estory now available! Through Smashwords.com and most ebook retailers!
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... are you seriously implying I should change the way I write to make your girlfriend happy? I wouldn't change the way I write to make my girlfriend happy, unless she made me very happy first, If You Know What I Mean.
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So that's a no on the disclaimer?
I'm obviously being facetious, just as you are here. Overuse of these trope terms, "If you know what I mean", is as bad and gets as old as adding "That's what she said" to make a phrase suggestive. ...ba rum pump
Clarity is the objective. You probably read Policewoman's reviews. If not, I highly recommend them as examples of detailed and very clear analysis.
You took a deserved swipe at deconstructionism. Take a sample of communications/media papers, say 30 or so, and you'll get a generous sprinkling of jargon terminology. Everything from Freudian analysis to deconstructions. These are simply overlays. Just as your preference for TVtropes as shorthand is an overlay.
You're going to write to please yourself. So your style of criticism is a bit of a Mary Sue in its own right. But if you're interested in more clarity, you may become a better writer if you drop derivative terminolgy.
Otherwise... you wanna read a Freudian analysis of Alien ? Or a Jungian one of the original Star Wars trilogy?
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I don't have time to deal with all of this, but here:
If the site is not intended to be a list of cliches and things not to do, why is he using it for that purpose?
Because some of the things on it are cliches and are things not to do. These are things that tend to crop up in the "offenses" line. Or are you seriously prepared to argue that someone should toss the player the Idiot Ball? Is it even remotely possible to have a justifiable Wall Banger, or (as I suspect) does that make as much sense as a married bachelor?
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OK, as an instance, you have marked down people for a Xanatos Gambit (a.k.a "having a backup plan") or some variation thereof. This is a comic based MMO! Comic books practically invented the Xanatos Gambit because superior strategy and planning is the only way a scrawny weakling like Lex Luthor would have been able to put Superman in any kind of danger, because otherwise it's just Superman punching Lex Luthor, fight over, no plot, no story.
The Xanatos Gambit is a staple trope of the comic book genre. Without Xanatos Gambits, there's no comic books. Without comic books, there's no City of Heroes.
I've seen you mark people down for a Mary Sue. The page itself says there's no way to define the term. You can't mark an arc down for something that is so nebulous and confusing that nobody knows what the hell you're talking about. Hell, I could classify any character as a Mary Sue/Marty Stu.
Big Bad is a listed trope on TV Tropes. Marking down a mission for a Big Bad means that every mission containing an EB or AV will never get 5 stars. Having a boss behind it all is not only a basis for comic book tension, it's a basis for video game and RPG structure as well.
You know what else is a trope? Story Arcs. What are we creating? Story Arcs. So because every trope on TVTropes should be marked off, every story arc fails the Venture test.
You cannot mark down something simply because it appears on TV Tropes.
You like Star Wars? Guess what? the entire plot of the 6 movies taken together is a Xanatos Roulette. I guess that franchise deserves only one star. You like Star Trek? That franchise has named 25 tropes on that site (to say nothing of the others it includes), I guess that series deserves one star. Name a piece of fiction you like. It probably has several tropes
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
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The review system should replace the rating system in player's attempts to find things. I know it does for me - I've lost all faith in the rating system for making sure good content bubbles to the top.
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This. Every star rating should come with a review of at least a paragraph. If not, there should be some way to aggregate and average reviews so one reviewers opinion doesn't dominate.
And by the way... Metacritic rules.
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
OK, as an instance, you have marked down people for a Xanatos Gambit (a.k.a "having a backup plan") or some variation thereof.
Um, no, I haven't. I don't even think I've marked anyone down for a Xanatos Roulette, which is a black mark in my book. Of course that's because I haven't come across any arcs that struck me as having used one. N.B. the canon Nemesis arcs live on Roulettes, and as a result they are almost-universally reviled.
I marked down one for playing the PC as a Xanatos Gilligan, basically throwing the Idiot Ball in such a way as to have the player thwart the plan by being too stupid to manipulate properly. Are you prepared to argue that it's acceptable to cast the player as a moron?
Comic books practically invented the Xanatos Gambit because superior strategy and planning is the only way a scrawny weakling like Lex Luthor would have been able to put Superman in any kind of danger, because otherwise it's just Superman punching Lex Luthor, fight over, no plot, no story.
"Having a plan" does not constitute a Xanatos Gambit. A Xanatos Gambit is a particular type of plan in which the Chessmaster is assured of some kind of victory regardless of what the mark does. This is actually not all that common in comics, which is why the trope namer drew the honor. I don't think I've seen a bonafide Gambit in any arcs yet.
I've seen you mark people down for a Mary Sue. The page itself says there's no way to define the term.
The page does not say there is no way to define the term. The page says there is no universally accepted definition. This is true of a lot of words, some of which may surprise you, like "truth", "evidence", "fact", "proof", "justice", and everyone's favorite, "pornography", just to toss off a few examples. And yet we do more than just use these words in writing. Many of them describe concepts essential to our lives.
I have employed and explicitly stated a very precise definition of what I mean when I use the term "Mary Sue". If I used any other term imaginable I would have to offer a similar explication. A very small percentage of readers have asked what a Mary Sue is, all of whom being people whom have never heard the term before. I can't imagine any smaller number of readers would have issues with any other term I could possibly appropriate or coin.
Big Bad is a listed trope on TV Tropes. Marking down a mission for a Big Bad means that every mission containing an EB or AV will never get 5 stars.
And where, exactly, did I do this? I haven't. Ever.
You cannot mark down something simply because it appears on TV Tropes.
I haven't. If you think every time I mention the use of a trope I'm marking off for it then You Fail Reading Comprehension Forever.
You like Star Wars? Guess what? the entire plot of the 6 movies taken together is a Xanatos Roulette. I guess that franchise deserves only one star.
An awful lot of people think four out of those six movies weren't very good, and that would be one of the reasons.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I'm sorry but there's nothing increasing ambiguity here. There just isn't. Language is ambiguous by nature, about the only useful thing deconstructionism has to say.
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In essence, you're saying 'because people can misunderstand me, I am under no obligation to say things that are understandable.'
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In situations where language is unambiguous, the responsibility is always on the speaker to express the correct thought. Computer programming is like that.
English is not (as are essentially all other human interactive languages). In those situations, its the responsibility of the speaker and the listener to meet halfway: the speaker must strive to target a small enough area with their words that the listener than then correctly select the proper meaning in context. If either don't do their job, or worse if one or the other deliberately places all of the responsibility on the other, communication is impossible.
Most people without an emotional vested interest probably understand the gist of "Mary Sue" (that are familiar with the term at all) enough for that term to land squarely in a basket of meaning that the listener can then retrieve a more precise meaning within the context of the speaker. That's all that the speaker is either required to do, or even theoretically capable of doing.
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According to a SG member. Far too many arcs take place in the cargo ship map.
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So true. Even I have an arc on the cargo ship map and *I'M* sick of seeing that map.
I can't help it though. Unless the Game Devs add some classical pirate ship maps into the game, there's no other appropriate setting for my Pirate Rum Runners mish.
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I'm becoming a bit alarmed about that myself. I selected the cargo ship map for Secret Weapons in beta (actually, I selected the indoor/outdoor one originally, before it was removed). I did so only after testing literally dozens of maps for a variety of features. What I was looking for in that map was something that was fairly linear, fairly expansive, allowed flight, allowed partial stealthing, contained a significant amount of spawn points, contained sufficiently interesting geometry, and was reasonably ally-friendly (some maps are *not* friendly to allies, like some of the cave maps). That map best fit those parameters, and believe me I didn't select the first one that seemed to work.
However, it does seem to be a fairly popular map, alongside a couple of outdoor maps. I won't change it just because its popular, but it does factor in my decision making for future missions.
I'm also considering revamping the mission arc that contains that map, and I *may* change that map if I do, although if I do the fact that its popular would be only one factor in that decision.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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I'm sorry but there's nothing increasing ambiguity here. There just isn't. Language is ambiguous by nature, about the only useful thing deconstructionism has to say.
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In essence, you're saying 'because people can misunderstand me, I am under no obligation to say things that are understandable.'
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In situations where language is unambiguous, the responsibility is always on the speaker to express the correct thought. Computer programming is like that.
[/ QUOTE ]In a situation where one is putting oneself forward as an authority on writing it behests the individual to actually write well. As it stands, there is almost nothing one can glean from a venture review one could not glean better from simply going to TVTropes and researching for oneself.
As it stands, there is almost nothing one can glean from a venture review one could not glean better from simply going to TVTropes and researching for oneself.
Of course, you'd have to have played the damn arc first yourself, in which case why exactly do you need a review? Presumably after playing it yourself you've formed your own evaluation.
Look: people aren't having significant trouble understanding me. They're just not. I'm not going to change. Get over it already.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
(QR)
Long and somewhat interesting semi-derailment there.
To the list of arc cliche's, I'd like to add one I keep stumbling on especially in short missions:
Playing out passive-aggressive angst. If people have an axe to grind with someone (programmers/developers seem common,) populating a defeat all with said characters may not be as useful as a trip to a counselor or reading a good book on Zen.
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I'm frankly not aware of this supposed army that Venture has. Where do I get my own army? That'd be pretty awesome.
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I know if I had an army I'd be doing more important stuff with them than one starring bad arcs.
Like invading Canada!
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