Christianity and Chaos: The Lost Choir.

Well, its finally done. It's taken over two weeks of hard work (off and on of course), but I have finally finished my Christian-themed Mega-arc;

THE LOST CHOIR

Part one: ID 123675
Part two: ID 136959
Part three: ID 141011

I tell ya, this thing quickly got progressively bigger and bigger as I wrote it. It started as a quick little five mission arc, but quickly grew to "One arc, and then a second smaller one to wrap things up" then "Two full arcs" then "Three full arcs" then "Two full arcs and a climactic single mission because the idea I had for the third full arc was silly."

As it stands, The Lost Choir is eleven missions long. Quite a timesink I know. But, if you do give it a look, please play all three parts in order, and send feedback.

Thank you very much.

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Ran arc one, witholding full review until I've done the whole thing. Immediate concerns:

Why the bible verses?
Suggest a pass over Rikti dialogue, a lot of it sounds not-so-Rikti.

Arc one rated 4 stars, was going to be 3 until the final mission. There finally was the Evangelionesque mind_!@#$ I was expecting. :P

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[ QUOTE ]
Ran arc one, witholding full review until I've done the whole thing. Immediate concerns:

Why the bible verses?
Suggest a pass over Rikti dialogue, a lot of it sounds not-so-Rikti.

Arc one rated 4 stars, was going to be 3 until the final mission. There finally was the Evangelionesque mind_!@#$ I was expecting. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

I purposely held off on bringing in the customs I had cooked up until the last mission, so as to surprise the player. As for the rikti dialogue I'll take a look at it. Sadu'sii does mention that he has a vanguard translator, which is pretty much just an excuse not to write entire mission briefings and clues in Rikti speak. Yeah, it sacrifices immersion, but at the sake of increasing player comprehension.

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Ah, been waiting for this. Grats on finishing it. Looking forward to playing it soon.

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it is in my queue of missions for tomorrow...

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global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ran arc one, witholding full review until I've done the whole thing. Immediate concerns:

Why the bible verses?
Suggest a pass over Rikti dialogue, a lot of it sounds not-so-Rikti.

Arc one rated 4 stars, was going to be 3 until the final mission. There finally was the Evangelionesque mind_!@#$ I was expecting. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

I purposely held off on bringing in the customs I had cooked up until the last mission, so as to surprise the player. As for the rikti dialogue I'll take a look at it. Sadu'sii does mention that he has a vanguard translator, which is pretty much just an excuse not to write entire mission briefings and clues in Rikti speak. Yeah, it sacrifices immersion, but at the sake of increasing player comprehension.

[/ QUOTE ]

the problem isn't in clues and mission breifings, but in the in-mission speech. I haven't really encountered much riktiise anywhere else yet.

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List of changes. 5/5/09.

Critters/custom groups:
-Changed primary powersets for the Nephilim, Seraphims, and Sephs to "hard", removing nuke powers.
-Name Change."Nephs" to "Sephs".
-Name Change. "Reason of Xhantranos" to "Mind of Xhantranos"

Text:
-Part 1: Mission 5: Removed mission completion clue, moved its text to the mission debriefing.
-Part 1: Mission 5: Changed "Kings Row" to "Atlas Park"
-Part 1: Mission 3: Removed nav text from Vanguard Sergeant allies.
-Part 2: Mission 5: Edited completion text.

Objectives:
-Part 1: Mission 3: Changed Sergeant Joan from "Non Combat" to "Agressive"
-Part 2: Mission 2: Changed ally placement from "Any" to "front"
-Part 2: Mission 4: Changed escort objective to release captive. Bug rendered mission impossible to complete when it was an escort.

Misc: Edited most of the Rikti dialogue to make it sound more "Rikti-ish"

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123675 The Lost Choir: Chapter One: The Old Testament
136959 The Lost Choir: Part Two: The New Testament
141011 The Lost Choir: Chapter Three: Apocrypha

i love this arc! this definitely gets the Ridiculous Seal of Approval! (TM). with 11 missions, and minus the problems with the map bug, i would have to say it took me about 5-6 hours. this is a huge amount of time. but it is definitely worth it. the story is superb and extremely interesting. your custom toons were really good, fun to fight and reasonably difficult. great costumes too. your choice of maps shows good command of story telling. people sometimes do not realize how crucial maps are in their story. you choices are brilliant. i can go on and on...

i do have to make a few comments. i wonder at what audience this is directed. because you use Christianity and biblical references. but in doing so you will likely aggravate two groups. one is the knee jerk reaction people that feel like you are infringing upon their rights somehow by even mentioning religion. this group will also have preconceived notions about what will be in these arcs. believe me when i say that most Christian related work is dull, clichéd and stereotypically bad. do you want to be automatically associated with this? i guess it is your decision. but you will automatically turn off a large group of people that may wish to play.

the other group you will antagonize will be the Christians themselves. they will be attracted because in the initial belief that this will be something that they can subscribe to. because of the dearth of good Christian storytelling this might be popular in a search. but once they begin they will quickly realize that you diverge from standard Christian canon. eventually the story not only leaves gnostic and apocryphal mythologies but fuses them with COH mythologies in new directions. while this is not a problem, just by using and appropriating Christian terminology and applying it to a story that diverges tremendously from acceptable canon you are setting yourself up for needless trouble.

there is a reason that the gnostics and their demiurge encountered problems with what they considered their fellow Christians. i am not sure of your background is but i have a couple recommendations...

1) remove your direct Christian references in your titles. this is a bit misleading for both groups, Christians and non-Christians. it sets them up with preconceived notions that will be, in one group, greatly disappointing and the others stop them before they begin.

2) remove the citations to your biblical quotes. leave the quotes in place, but by not showing where they are from will not lessen their impact. those that know that they are biblical will know, those who don’t will not.

these are not to diminish your story in any way. but there are some very large barriers to overcome if you let things stand the way they are. prejudices will abound. this is an excellent story and for me it sets the benchmark of what a 5 star story arc should be. but you need to decide exactly what you are trying to accomplish here. are you trying to educate? are you trying to tell a story to as many people as possible? if yes to both, unfortunately, you have created barriers to both. there are ways around this though...

otherwise... excellent work! probably the best story i have seen. an excellent combination of all your elements. maps, characters, writing, etc... even the little things are beautiful. the text after finding the radio is brilliant stage craft. you set a benchmark that i will compare all others to.

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global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

Thanks for the glowing review! This arc was pretty much my way of taking the ten years of going to Catholic school I had to suffer through and making them worth something. I'm not Christian myself, but I respect the philosophy and recognize that I do have a heavy Christian background.

So in a way, this arc is a tribute to the religion I denied, yet respect.

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i take you have read the gnostic gospels and such stories?

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global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

oh yeah, and... you need to put EB and AV warnings in your descriptions.

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global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

[ QUOTE ]
i take you have read the gnostic gospels and such stories?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I have not. Although I did hear about them back during school...going to have to hunt those down.

Thanks for the heads up about tags as well. Be sure to add them in. I've honestly never been fond of tags, since they break immersion, but I recognize the necessity. Thankfully, I15 looks like it is going to correct this.

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if you are serious, go to the source; the nag hammadi library manuscripts. the complete library is recommended. then the best scholar on the gnostic gospels is elaine pagels. her books are really good. her books "the gnostic gospels" and "the origin of satan" are excellent.

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global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

5/16/09. Applied another layer of polish. Fixed some spelling errors, shuffled around some customs, and snipped off some dangling plot threads that were left over from previous iterations of the arc.

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Added a souvenir. Only to part 3 though, and its only a short one. I didn't have enough space to recap the entire arc.

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Removed a plot point from part two that never really went anywhere (it was intended to be used in an earlier version of the arc).

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Playing around with rebalancing the powersets of the titular "Lost Choir" group. I really like their costume designs, but their powers always kind of bugged me. I'm going to be playing around with various combinations, but I might end up going right back to the way it was.

Edit: Keeping them mostly the same, but upping a few powersets in difficulty. They always struck me as being too easy.

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Okay, I have a half-day free, so I decide to take on the mother of all arcs, the Mister Squid Task Force (MSTF).

I suspect it will be great: it's huge, and has had some time to mature as an arc. I did not like Da Vinci Code or its sequel, but then this sounds like something completely different.

There's rumour of EBs and AVs, so first I'll get get some equipment. For fun, white is observation, orange is suggested changes, and yellow is the Clock.
3:57pm: heading to Bloody Bay.
4:32pm: exiting Bloody Bay with a Shivan stick.
4:34pm: enter Skyway AE center. Utterly quiet.

THE LOST CHOIR Part one: ID 123675
4:37pm: enter part 1, mission 1.
Arc description: convieved -> conceived
Construction workers dialog gets a bit repetitive.
Excellent animation with the pick.
Clue: Something about a choir?: wierd -> weird
4:46pm: Return to contact.
4:49pm: enter second mission.
M2 intro: defering -> deferring; convievably -> conceivably
Into mish, searching for clues - the Rikti altar is right there at the entrance (in the cave?!) so I just now need to defeat the base leader.
High Priest Fara'sii - is a magician, with CoT powers? I thought Rikti priests were not like that. Understandably the model is not an actual Rikti priest (was blue not red), perhaps you decided that would be too tough for just a second mission.
4:56pm: Return to contact.
Mish 3 intro: worshiping -> worshipping
Nav info: Rescue the High Preist. -> Priest.
4:59pm: enter third mission.
Cool, I got Rikti mates! First time I ever healed a Rikti. Felt strange.
My Vanguard sidekick looks ominous. His colours are.. darker than usual. I suspect him already. But he holds true.
The Rikti-speak does seem kind of broken. Although it's not hard and fast, they often seem to me to speak in Statement: Command/Question, where Statement may describe how they're feeling, or what they're doing. Both statement and command start with a capital letter, and each could be spoken alone and still make sense. You have instead broken your sentences up with colons, which is quite different.
5:12pm: Take a bio break.
5:14pm: Return from bio break. Yes, I can be that fast AND wash my hands.
I decide not to take my escort straight out, as I can see the big-bad nearby. We defeat Nii'roh! With gallant disregard for the life of my escort, I let him join in and he does well.
It tells me "You have defeated Nii'Roh" twice.
It's a really long escort. So far, and nothing happening. Perhaps spawn some patrols upon rescue, that would then waylay my path back to the exit. Otherwise, it's very dull.
5:24pm: Return to contact.
M4 send-off: wont -> won't
5:28pm: Enter mission 4.
Lots of dimensional-tendril looking objects on this map. It takes a while to find all the targets on this large map.
5:38pm: Return to contact.
M5 intro: slaugtering -> slaughtering
5:40pm: Enter mission 5.
Found Nephelim, when rescuing some cops. So he clobbered me. Came back, clobbered him!
Final return message might be more appropriate to a pop-up box upon exiting the mission. But then there'd be no need to return to the contact... it's a nice story tactic, but logic is difficult within the MA system.
5:53pm: Return to contact.

Overall, a nice story developing here, I look forward to playing the next two parts.

Cheers, airhead

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Just dont ask the native americans what Christianity did for them kk? thx.

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Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.

Thanks for the spontaneous review! Spelling has never been one of my strong points though so thanks for spell checking.

I also like that anagram, "MSTF"

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[ QUOTE ]
Mish 3 intro: worshiping -> worshipping

[/ QUOTE ]

Just an FYI, both forms seem to be accepted as correct on various dictionary websites. (the spellchecker in Firefox actually tags the doubled 'p' as incorrect)

I have a tendency to want to put that extra 'p' in there, too. Force of habit for me, with the old grammar rule for adding 'ing' to a word, I guess.

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No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback

American drops consonants, not just vowels? Weird. Unfortunately I've been using an English dictionary (Chambers English).

Anyway, here's the play-by-play for parts 2 and 3.

THE LOST CHOIR
Part two: ID 136959

6:07pm: Collect new arc, part 2.
M1 intro: city hall -> City Hall
What a strange beginning!
6:12pm: Enter mission 1.
Wow, tricky glowie to find. But enough evidence was given in the introduction for where to look.
That's a huge map, with lots of interesting critters, for just one glowie.
Melakh Elohim: offset -> is offset
B'nai Elohim: radience -> radiance
Melakh Adonai: Litterally -> Literally
6:21pm: Return to contact.
6:23pm: Into mission 2.
I find the 'clue' - so happy to find the glowie fairly easily in this monster map.
Guard of Sadu'sii: persistant -> persistent
Woah! Very cool ally. Heh. Mission was short from that point on... judging from the level of the boss, it was meant to be.
6:41pm: Return to contact.
Interesting premise, for where the contact actually is. Be nicer if the arc was in 'real' Paragon of course.
6:43pm: Start mission 3.
Just a thought about the critters - Oraphim is fun, he has some resistance to my mezzes, and lots of knockback on his attacks. When I attack an Oraphim, I best keep my back to a wall (and not a ravine).
Lots of running around, some of it with my ally (although he eventually just slows me down) eventually leads to all the objectives. Thankfully, two very close together.
7:04pm: Return to contact.
More surreal contact commentary. It will be great when more variety is given to the contact process in MA.
7:06pm: into mission 4!
It's a long one. Find an object that triggers another objective! But thankfully that appears in the same room.
Thellos: diety -> deity
Thellos looks more human than Rikti. Perhaps that's how Rikti started out, I don't know. Perhaps an alien head helmet (with the vanguard mask used) would give a more exotic look.
7:35pm: Return to contact.
M4 Return text: Godess -> Goddess
Heading for another good climax within the arc!
7:37pm: Enter mission 5
This map looks familiar. I've been here before.
Woah, my ally is tough. I put up my shields and let it do the work.
Ooh, it flies. It glows. It does 945 points of damage in a hit... for a deity, it does seem kinda godlike.
Nav says "Defeat the Aspect of Xhantranos", critter is Mind of Xhantranos.
Mind of Xhantranos: efficency -> efficiency
I really like the exclamation, "countless ravaged stars!" I'll have to start using that.
Xhantranos is going to devour this world - I'm not sure which world this is, I think it's the spirit realm, but I'd feel more scared if he said "your (my) world".
7:56pm: Returned to contact!
And with that, we come to the final battle, the final arc, the Finale.

THE LOST CHOIR
Part three: ID 141011

8:05pm: collect new arc.
Ooh! My contact is a deity! I deserve no less Perhaps this deity needs an aura, but then what do I really know about how deities look.
M1 intro: insticts -> instincts
Time to bust god! Sounds like I'm gonna have a LOT of allies...
8:07pm: enter finale.
Okay, that's weird. I'm beating on humans, and Rikti come to my aid. I think I might have compromised my principles.
Way cool! Many of the little cherubby thingies have joined Xhantranos.
Okay, now I find Rikti not on my side, and Vanguard that are. I guess I have to trust to my 'instincts' (aka target selector).
I set my target selector to find Thellos, he's likely going to be a great help here. But I bump into my old (and ominous-looking) friend Luther! Got to love the religious references in this thing.
And there's my godly friend, with a slight name change. Now it really needs an aura! At least it has a bubble. Oh wait! God is a lieutenant now. Perhaps Sadu will be more useful to me.
Nope, another lieutenant.
But there's the big X! He definitely hits hard. With the aid of a Shivan, we take him down, moments before the vast ambush takes out the Shivan. We win! Yay!
Hatred of Xhantranos: burst -> bursts; formidible -> formidable
Existance is saved -> Existence is saved
8:31pm: Return to contact.
M1 return msg: Existance -> Existence; likey -> likely; to vast -> too vast
Weird. I got two copies of the Souvenir.

Overall:

The concept is great, and very heroic. I see how it clashes with CoH canon at times, but mostly it doesn't, as it is stuff not covered by canon yet. A canon guru may be able to identify all of these situations, and perhaps this could even be a completely valid extension of canon. The only area that confused me was the priest/magician. I sensed the author's style in this, it let me accept that the story would find its own direction.

There's definitely a place for really long arcs, but only if the whole is done with care like this one. I think some of the mishes are a bit dull (sparse) for the map size, most are fun, and seeing friends again at the end was cool. None of the big maps were tedious - even targets in dense fog were made to glow, with good attention to the animations selected.

Religion-wise, I can't see what the fuss is about. The only clear link to the bible was in the entry pop-ups, which provided a nice flavour reference to a religion I already know, a different religion to the ones floundering in the story.

I want a Keeping the Faith badge!

Cheers, airhead

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