Calling it "Chapter 1" in the title may turn players away, perhaps at least wait til player has opened up the arc description.
Arc description says the upcoming contact is the 'strangest' because of its looks, but also because it asks for me/player? That's not necessarily strange. The arc description also suggests this is a team mission. That's potentially limiting your audience (at least with most of the reviewers seeking solo-able arcs), you might suggest soloing on level 1 (although the last AV is impossible even then for me).
Impressive-looking contact. It's a neutral arc and I've been asked to save the hatchery. As a hero, I might baulk at this. As a villain, I might too, having grown up on snake massacres. As a neutral (mercenary?) I might need a bit more coaxing as to how contact will 'make it worth my while'. There's a gem of a reason on the 'sendoff' screen, but that's only after I 'accept' the first mission.
Not your fault, but the two eggs spawned exactly on top of each other. The two egg rescues have exactly the same dialog. Suggest you break into two separate objectives so you can add some variety. Nice small map. Rapidly cleared objectives (my difficulty=1). The exit popup reminds me of my confusion, why am I there - I don't know. Honestly, I would have rather not start the mission, since I'm a hero.
I got a clue that summarises the first mission nicely. But it ties my current contact's objectives to 'my most recent contact' who could be anyone (previous mission, I presume). This is very confusing, perhaps simply remove the concept.
Mission 2 intro is still vague, but at least it is much more convincing, as much as a precognitive snake can be. Objectives are straightforward, target has a suitable name. The mission turns out especially simple, no side objectives, no non-essential objectives (so perhaps a little dull). The target's dialog is interesting, aside from the unaware comment, which just seemed confusing. Target seems to know I'm a Controller... but then the Clue says he has never heard of me! This doesn't seem to make sense. But a nice, small map.
At this point, I find it most intriguing that there's a sort of strata of precogs within multiple villain groups, and they compete. I am willing to suspend my heroic ideals and pursue these strange goals just to find out if that's true. Unfortunate that the last precog was a fake...
Mish 3 gets a little more convincing (in part because I've gotten this far) and I'm off again to a cave. Turns out to be a cave I haven't seen, very interesting. Also has custom mobs, but my fears are not realised on 1 difficulty (which is fine by me). Very nice, complete descriptions on the critters. Lots of dead-end glowies in this, especially compared with previous mission. Found the right one, which leads to an unannounced ambush. Could add some dialog there. The target turns out to have a very short description that doesn't tell me anything. If I have a named target, I'd imagine he's relevant in some way? The return message doesn't clear anything up, but does end in a nice other-language chant... The map here was nice, but bigger than the 'small' map you claim above.
and mish 3 didn't take the direction I thought it might.
Mission 4 gives me an unusual request for 'accepting' which I really do like. Sendoff text is a difficult color to read against the darker green background of the AE building. I've rather forgotten that I'm a hero at this point, and I'm happy to go kill a snake that apparently wants me to kill it. I find a Big Bad, who is very big and bad, and I eventually beat it (not easy though - would expect something like this more at the end of mission 5). He does have some intriguing dialog.
Mission 5 sendoff threatens me with death should I give up now - only this is unlikely to be achievable in MA. The Rudalak cave is hardly 'small', it takes quite a while to reach the cult leader. There is no dialog at all until you reach him, and then he speaks a strange language. I am not able to make any meaningful impact on him, so I have wasted a lot of time with this. I cannot rate it. If I could beat him (and it somehow explained the cult-that-had-no-purpose) then it could be a 4 if most of the issues I had were fixed.
[ QUOTE ]
Typos:
Arc Description: strangest character -> strangest characters
Mish 1 Intro: there's a space after my name ($name) ; landsmass -> landmass
than involve you and me : not sure what you meant here. "that involve you and me"? Why does it involve me/player?
Mish 1 Sendoff: impeding -> impending
Mish 1 Battle dialog: until champion -> until our champion
Mish 1 Exterm dialog: Interestering -> Interesting
Clue A weird confession: Had -> had ; arachnos -> Arachnos
Clue A strange situation: impeding -> impending
Mish 2 entry popup: knuckles, is -> knuckles, it is
Mish 3 intro: impeding -> impending ; Intoxicating -> intoxicating
Forsaken desc: ocassion -> occasion ; mostrousity -> monstrosity
Faithful desc: This -> These
inscribed tablet (complete text): indecriphable -> indecipherable
Deep Spawn desc: bizzare -> bizarre
Clue from altar: remove the word 'Anyway' as redundant
Whisperer desc: it -> he
Mish 3 return text: dechiper -> decipher ; hailsss -> hail
Mish 4 entry popup: on -> in
Antediluvian desc: irradiates -> radiates
Glyph covered book: glyph-covered ; book.This -> book. This ; obsidian like -> obsidian-like
Mish 4 exit popup: places -> place
Mish 5 intro: it'sss -> itsss ; exerprt -> exerpt
Mish 5 sendoff: it really -> there really ; conssider -> conssiderss
Enlightened: absulote -> absolute; fear is very the air -> fear is the very air
Lurker: Bizzare -> bizarre ; doesn't -> don't ; depts -> depths ; He uses its sword -> It uses its sword
[/ QUOTE ]
In a detailed arc, that's not a lot of typos really, and I imagine you'll have them fixed very fast.
You're welcome to review my arc (in my sig below), it's had a review before but hasn't been played since I fixed the issues found then (two weeks ago).
Cheers, airhead
Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!
Just finished the arc. Good story, fairly well-written text, if a little stilted in places.
I'll just go over my notes from start to finish. Note that I caught a lot of the same typos Airhead did, which I won't repeat here.
Part 1
Intro Text
I had a little trouble reconciling my hero's mentality when accepting this mission; saving a Snake hatchery strikes me as a gray area at best. I would move mention of the player's impending death to the intro text, so I'm given a more concrete incentive to accept the mission.
Mission
Not a bad idea, using the cocoons as eggs. Hopefully at some point we'll be able to place actual Snake eggs as destructible objects.
Part 2
The Alcazar's text was a little weird. The "Hmmmmmm"s in his initial dialogue threw me off a bit. "Hmmm" is a sound I associate more with contemplation than concentration. I'm not sure what you might put in its place, though. "Mmmmmmm" might be a bit better.
The other thing I noticed about the Alcazar is his line, "Expel this Blaster..." This might be just me, but I tend to think of our archetypes names as sort of a meta-concept, used by the players to describe their characters, but never by the characters themselves. I would change $archetype to something like "intruder" or "wretch." Or you could just go with "Expel $himher..."
I must say I laughed out loud at the exit popup text for that mission.
Part 3
Intro Text
You put an extra "e" on "glimpsse."
Enter Popup
like -> as though
Mission
While I'm something of a fan of red herring glowies myself, there is such a thing as too much. It got a bit tedious to stop every few feet to click on each of those tablets on my way through the cave. I'd say you could reduce their number by at least half.
It was a little odd having a clue for the bluish tablet both from the glowie and from mission completion. I'd get rid of one or the other.
Return Text
these -> this
Part 4
Send-Off Text
Nice use of font size; it was fairly effective at indicating a change of voice.
Enter Popup
Amazons -> Amazon
Return Text
on itss -> in itss
thisss -> thessse?
I hesitate with that last correction because the multiple "S"'s make it look like it could be pronounced "thess." Maybe just go with "these," without the extra consonants.
Part 5
Intro
a exceprt -> an excerpt (Airhead's correction on this was incorrect 
)
Mission
I feel sort of ambivalent about your choice of map. On one hand, it's not one I've seen often, making the mission stand out; on the other, it sure is hard to navigate! Especially vexing when I reached the Shadow Lurker and he kept running from me. I'd consider doing one of two things: either change to another map, or make the mission itself more interesting. As it is right now, it's essentially just a matter of "fight your way to the end until you reach the big boss," without much to keep the player's intrigue on the way. Add some patrols and/or mini-bosses with dialogue, maybe one or two glowies, throw in some clues to expand or clarify the story; anything to break up the monotony.
Exit Popup
live -> life
Return Text
in a wild goose chase -> on a wild goose chase
However, "wild goose chase" doesn't strike me as a turn of phrase this character would use.
Again, live -> life
It was a little disappointing not receiving any sort of hint as to why the Cult wanted to kill me.
Overall Notes
I liked the design of the enemy NPCs, both in terms of costume and description. I also like that you didn't throw them at the player in Part 1, but let the story unfold a little first.
The story itself--the nature of the Cult, etc--was a little hard for me to follow. However, this may be partly because I was in "correction mode", and paying more attention to spelling and grammar than I was to the story itself. Still, my gut tells me that it wouldn't hurt to clarify and reveal a little more to the player.
All in all, I did thoroughly enjoy the arc, however, and rated it 4 stars. I can see that quite a bit of work has gone into the crafting of the story and, while it still strikes me as a little rough, I do believe it's a good one.
I'd be happy for you to play and rate either of the arcs in my signature. Be advised, "A Show to Die For!" is probably the more solo-friendly of the two (though still challenging), but I've received less feedback on "Queen of the Jinn," so the choice is yours. Thanks in advance, and I hope I was able to help!
Very well, I've taken into consideration all this tips and will correct all the issues I can as soon as I log in. I've been away since I was in the beach for this weekend, and was really surprised to see any replies to my post.
Feedback like this is what I need to improve my story. One fact is that unfortunately I completed and published this arc at 99.84% capacity, so there's really no room to include some important stuff as for example. "Why the cult wants me dead?" Which is something I really gotta add....
I will see what I can do to add a little more spice to the maps and more dialogue to the arc.
Well, the patch download is complete and ready now, so I'll get to "reviewing" mode in order for all the arcs in the signatures.
[ QUOTE ]
I'd be happy for you to play and rate either of the arcs in my signature. Be advised, "A Show to Die For!" is probably the more solo-friendly of the two (though still challenging), but I've received less feedback on "Queen of the Jinn," so the choice is yours. Thanks in advance, and I hope I was able to help!
[/ QUOTE ]
Lol, when I logged in I saw that I had, not only play this mish already, but actually rate it too. I gave it a 5 stars. I will proceed then to play your other arc.
Quid pro quo time. You're probably reviewing mine, so here's mah critique. FYI I played it with my level 50 non-IO'd out Thugs/Dark, and it was fairly easy. Of course, most MM's at 50 are insanely powerful, so take it for what you will. Also, I am going to admit that I write books for a living (at least starting to), so story is the most integral part of the arc. That said, let the bashing commence! 
Mission 1: It's...well, to be frank, the dialogue before and after...it's corny. Not in a bad way, as Indiana Jones has fueled my love for the corny, but corny none the less. I like the dialogue during the mission, and it's great to see some informative clues.
Mission 2: I hate Circle maps that are big. You kinda scared me at first, but thankfully it turned out to be smaller. Perfect size. Not much patrol dialogue that kept me waiting for the next "outburst", so the mission was kind of mediocre to me.
Mission 3: Ah...the Calystix map if memory serves. Lots of glowies, but only one is the real one. This is fun to a point. When it's almost certain to be the very last glowie I click on, and there are upwards of 15 before the final (which, thankfully, is a different model than the rest...the "saving grace", if you will), it gets kind of repetitive and tiring. Still a good mission with good dialogue, except the final boss doesn't seem as much crazy as he does corny, but that's not a bad thing.
Mission 4: Interesting mission info. Drew me in a bit. The caves do get old, but I don't know of any better way of depicting the ruins. Maybe a small or medium Circle map, but it's your arc and it works anyway. Not as much dialogue again, but I do have a fancy for in-mish talking. End boss is pretty epic and fun, and its and the aftermish dialogue makes me feel supah.
Mission 5: In the intro dialogue, you left out "know" in the sentence "But I do not know what that means..." Nitpicky, but it bugs me. Also, how does he know that a spell was placed on me? It seems like he just knows it. Not much room to type something like that in though, so it's no biggie. Don't personally care for this map, but it's definitely a good tool for setting the scene. I just don't care for enemies seeing me before I see them.
Wailer info "on" should be "in"
Final boss does run, and the map doesn't really work for that, as I can't see him w/out jamming the Tab button, but hey, it still works. Nice ending dialogue too.
Overall: If I could give it a 4.5 I would, and you've already got plenty of 4's, so what the hey, I loved the story and the details given in everything, especially the customs, so you geta merry little 5 star.
Only thing that didn't make it...well, not perfect, but pretty close...was the fact that every mission was in a cave. Pet peevy to be sure, but it's my review and I'll do what I want. Other than that and the few spelling errors, it was great!
I'm not really too much for spelling or grammar unless it's like a single mistake. Just don't have the temper for it.
I can feedback on other stuff though! Live from a high 40s spine/regen scrapper.
---
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
...um. Okay, I never thought I'd be soldiering on before I even got to the first mission, but brother, you can take yourself and your freaky venom-warped former humans and your mindless forced mutation for your snake goddess and go die in a fire. And then in an ice.
But a review is a review.
Battles start before the player jumps in. Any "battle joined" dialog that assumes the player's there doesn't make sense.
Kinda stinks that Snake Eggs don't show up as destructibles anymore. Maybe they'll change that back soon.
Freaky dream omens. Now I got a devoted mystic on my tail and he's probably told all his Mu buddies.
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...um, why is the circle mage the main suspect in the attack on the lair and not the guy who had the dream then went to wreck it? Does my snake-eyed buddy think the dream was a sending of some sort?
Weirdly enough he shows up in a corridor right at the front of the map. I take him down and that's the end of it. (the map /whereamis as CoT_30_Layout_05_04 if you were using a random one.)
---
A mysterious cave.
Aw man, this mysterious cave? It's like half empty because those spots are reserved for special TF or other spawns and I always wind up running down the one branch of it with no fights at all.
On a side note I have not seen a single blue "mine" cave or its villainside counterpart. Like, ever, running AE content.
It should be "only one" tablet is the real deal, not "all but one".
I think the arachnoid caves have spawns all the way through and look suitably mysterious.
The worst part of this cave is that even though there aren't enemies all down one branch of the cave the glowies still spawn there.
The tablet I pick up off the altar is described as pulsating twice in consecutive sentences. I got the hint the first time, thanks.
...wow, these Enlightened are terrible. Nothing like being confused and terrorized with the pain-shout debuff on you so you get shredded by the enemy ranks and not even your damage aura is any help. Did you check up on them after they did that powers revamp?
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...an ancient Amazon snake cult temple? I buy the snake cult, but the Snakes themselves are recent vintage, produced from the same sources as Statsey and Recluse.
Hoo boy. Hi there, Stheno! Haven't seen you in a while.
---
And then... it's the ruladak cave. The ruladak cave that everybody uses for Mysterious Cave Mk. 2, the ruladak cave with only one layout and that's still a pain to navigate even when I know exactly where I'm going.
Also there's no visibility and the Enlightened are bad enough when I can see them coming.
You can use "$heshe" to put the appropriate pronoun in depending on character gender.
You called the boss of last mission "Talamanca" and the cultist talks about "Salamanca" in this mission. Which one is right?
Oh boy, it's a thing from the Far Realm. Fortunately it's just a bruiser.
Unfortunately, TIER 9 MEANS WAITING FOR TIER 9 TO DROP.
Seriously. Click MY godmode on, mow down his escorts, and then run off and wait until I see the end bar take a hit, because nothing I can do to something with a tier 9 or IH up will actually matter in 5 seconds.
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Overall the custom group had one severely annoying lieutenant and the final boss as the biggest pains, and the story's a little confusing given what I know of the Snakes and their nature. I've noted problems with the boss placement and the map choice, too.
The story itself is pretty great underneath it all, it just needs to be told a little better.
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)
The Culling of the Cult 64859
Played with a level 50 Fire/Fire blaster with set IOs
Set to Difficulty 3
Mission 1
The contact, a snake, tells me that he is Shlykkanos the Great Seer of the snake children. He has foreseen my arrival days before and tells me that one of his kinds last snake hatchery has come under attack. He asks me to stop it, under any means I desire, as long as the offspring are unharmed.
I enter a cave map that is littered with broken egg shells, someone has been busy. I soon discover that Arachnos are the culprits. The boss appears to have had a dream, telling him to destroy the Snake seer and its champion, perhaps its me? Oooooh.
Nice atmosphere and clues.
- A strange situation clue tells me that the Seer might help me escape my impending doom. This is the first I heard of it.
Mission 2
The seer said he had a vision his lair would be attacked, but not sure why, only that it involved me, him self and our mutual survival.
-Ok, but Im not aware of any threat toward myself yet. Unless its all from what the Arachnos agent said about the Seers champion.
He tells me there is another seer, this time a CoT mage that has powers of vision superior to his own. The contact suspects this mage is the source of the attack on his lair and tells me to defeat him, it would benefit both of us.
I zone into an Orenbega map with CoT scattered around. My objective is to kill the CoT leader. Alcazar was in the second group, it made for a very quick mission.
I defeat the boss and it turns out he was just siphoning the magic out of anyone he can, including our contact. He never heard of the Arachonos agent or me.
Mission 3
Our contact is surprised the CoT mage had nothing to do with us and doesnt know what to do next, so he tells me to come back later while he uses magic to find information about our mutual looming threat.
-Again, I am not aware we have a mutual threat, how am I involved in any of this?
The spell didnt work as he hoped so he delved into magic unknown to him, the magic of the CoT boss Alcazar, from the previous mission. Our contact exclaims that he saw a glimpse of a reality filled with darkness and madness and it felt intoxicating, uh oh
.He also says he saw a cave that was calling out to him. I am sent to look into it because our seer is a wimp and doesnt want to go himself!
I zone into a unique cave map with a custom group, presented in the form of a secret magical cult. Descriptions are
descriptive
even describing the cults hierarchy. Nice details here.
I need to search for a tablet then defeat a boss called The Whisperer, who appears to also be some type of seer. He knows about the snake man seer thing and its champion, which is in fact, me. He also says I have doomed myself. Uh oh, but how?
-This map had a lot of emptiness too it, groups were far and few inbetween until I got to where the correct tablet was placed. Probably the games fault, but it still felt empty. No points taken off for this though.
Mission 4
The seer, after finding out about the tablet and the cult, exclaims its all connected, but he needs time to read the tablet to find out where it came from.
The seer has a vision, sort of. I hear another voice coming from the contacts mouth saying it knows who I am and what drives me forward. It invites me to its temple to show me what my future holds.
I need to find the source of the contacts vision, the one who spoke to me through the seer, and find information about the tablet.
The map is another cave snake dwelling. I find an elite boss, a snake man thing, who tells me it was him that spoke through our contact. He wishes to be defeated, and in doing so would give me information, but admits he wont go down lightly. Upon defeating him he hands me a book. It looks the same as the tablet from earlier.
Handing over the book to the contact surprised him of what it contained.
- The sentence of the de-briefing dialogue is a bit confusing.
what, sickened? No, why would I feel sickened?. What is this referring to? The text the book contains?
- There are two clues for the book, it seems redundant.
Mission 5
It appears the book talks about the first of the first snakeman, Xoas. The cult is somehow tied to him, and a real threat to everyone.
The contact exclaims that with the Elite Boss from mission four out of the way his visions are clearer, so clear he can see the face of our mutual enemy. Also, I have a curse on me. Its never explained what the curse actually is though.
The enemy resides in an ancient city, I zone in and see another cave map, perhaps this is what a ruined Snake city looks like?
The cave map here is from one of the Shadow Shard task forces, the one where you cant see anything 5 feet in front of you.
The cave is filled with the Cult, it appears they are trying to summon their lord, Xoas. I need to kill all the cult leaders, about 4 bosses and 1 EB.
I kill the EB and notice the spell is lifted, arc complete.
-The last missions returning box dialogue thing says You have defeated an attempt on your live and a cult. Should it be life? Same typo in the mission debriefing, intentional?
Overall I rated this at three stars. The story feels like its a rough draft, a good story, but not quite complete.
- The threat on my life, how and why, is never explained at all. This appears to be the point of the arc and why I am even helping the seer. I am never even given a hint on why Im involved in all this, it left me scratching my head.
- The curse is poorly explained too, I felt. Sure, there is a curse on me, but what is it and how is it connected to the shadow guy?
- The custom group has every status effect in game it appears, even minions. As a blaster with no natural status effect resistance, this was hell. I was stunned, frightened, held and immobilized all at the same time. Being held until I died was not rare, nor fun.
The custom group as a whole was fun and challenging to play against, but the frequency of the status effects started to get frustrating real fast.
- The last EB ran way too often, he gave me the least amount of troubles actually because of this.
- The last map was frustrating; it gave the arc atmosphere, but still frustrating not being able to see a couple feet in front of yourself.
- A lot of typos throughout the arc, clues and souvenir.
*Points to sig*
Arc ID 64859
Name: The Calling of the Cult. (First Chapter)
Creator: @Misho
Morality: Neutral
5 Missions long, every map is small.
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.
Basically this arc started as an idea I had a long time ago that gave me the idea for my main character. However this arc has no reference to my character at all.
Actually when I created it I wanted to make it so that yours is the main character, involved in something it doesn't even expect. This is only the first part of the three I want to make in total.
First thing I noticed after I made it is that is mighty hard to get people to play your arc.
So I decided to announce my arc here on the forum. And will appreciate if you could all help me improve in any way possible.
You see, english is not my primary language so I might have a lot of grammar errors and typos and what-not. So I always need to proof read everything I just typed just in case.
But I also like to know feedback about other things. Like for example, did you enjoyed the story? Do you think the custom group was well thought out? How you like the contact? Is the story easy to follow or too complicated?
All of this is because in my modest hopes I would like to someday achieve the Writer badge (To receive the accolade:P) by having people play by arc. But I'm only up to author, and from the looks of it, unless I start promoting my arc somehow, I will never get any further.
So please feel free to play my arc, give me feedback either in game or as a reply here and I will play yours and return the favor.
Maybe if you all feel creative, you can post how would you like for the second and third part to continue as I'm still writing them and I could use some fresh Ideas.
Ooh btw, please enter your Arc Ids and names as a reply here so that I can keep a better track of the stories you want me to play.