Story arc for the week of May 17, 2009
Arc #177930: Fighting Freedom
Alignment: Villainous
Suggested levels: 21-30
Difficulty: Moderate except for the EB in the final mission. You have an optional ally to help with him, but you may need to bring a friend along.
Description: A group of young mutants calling themselves the Freedom Militia have banded together to fight against the criminals of the Rogue Isles. Lord Recluse wants them destroyed.
The majority of the arc has you face a custom group. I've tested them rather thoroughly, and they should be rather standard for enemies you face in the 20s-30s. Again, except for the EB. He's a tough one.
Yup I think I will have the same problem you have LJ ... I might start doing something similar (maybe not weekly at first but we'll see)
21-30 ... I have a brute that should give this a try ... I'll get back to you with my impressions.
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Fighting Freedom (by @LaserJesus) (arc id 177930)
Premise is that you're beating up a team of young heroes, which is nicely symmetrical with one of my blue side story arcs, so I thought it'd be a good one to try. Level range is 21-30 red side. I played a 19 SS/will brute.
Mission 1
Briefing: good explanation of the situation. I'm to go help the Marcones against this Freedom Militia hero group.
Mission objectives: "Save Jummy Velasco", should be "Save Jimmy Velasco".
I rather like the Freedom Militia uniforms. The group reminds me of a more heroic Outcasts group. Nice dialog. I kept thinking the fire blaster girl was my Paris Hilton NPC though; it's the orange outfit. 
Anarchist Blaster maybe should be Anarchist Defender with her empathy powers?
I like all the objectives you need to save here (the various drug shipments and labs and the Family guys).
(Leveled to 20 and took Quick Recovery.)
Mission 2
Briefing: contact has me going after a Freedom Militia officer called Ice Queen. I think it would be a little nicer if the player got a Clue about Ice Queen in mission 1; it's clearly from interrogating the Freedom Militia captives, perhaps the boss of mission 1 could give this info?
Ice Queen's description, "She glady helps" should be "She gladly helps".
Ice Queen's dialog seems to show she is talking to someone; I thought maybe another hero, but no one is with her but a Wyvern agent, so maybe she's meant to be talking to him. Regardless, this seems a key point - I suggest that on Ice Queen's defeat, the player should get a clue to the effect that she heard Ice Queen talking with Wyvern agents (or whomever). This clue could also hint at why it's necessary to "Defeat the ambush leader!" which suddenly popped up as an objective.
It seems like 3 patrols spawn on Ice Queen's defeat; it would kind of make more sense for these to be ambushes, since this IS a trap. But 3 ambushes would be pretty overwhelming at this level, so maybe have only one (easy) ambush and several patrols? That would let you mix their dialog up a bit more also, as all 3 patrols generate the same 2 lines of dialog when they spawn.
"Ambushed" clue: how can Wyvern have set this meeting up as a trap for me specifically? Only the contact knew I was going here, since he sent me -- did he betray me? He doesn't act like it in the debriefing, though. Perhaps Ice Queen purposely let herself be seen so that someone would be sent after her? But it compromises her connection with Wyvern, and the Freedom Militia was previously established as being VERY compartmentalized, so this seems out of character for their organization. Needs some more explanation for how this happened, IMHO.
Mission 3
Briefing: the contact's description of Agent Williams' interrogation is pretty chilling, but probably fine for a villain contact. Excellent briefing on the why and how of destroying the Wyvern base.
With the graphic description of how the contact wants me to totally demolish the Wyvern base, I'm surprised this mission isn't also a Defeat All. I know people hate Defeat Alls, but the story seems to point towards one, and the base isn't that large. Your call, of course.
I kind of would've expected something more dramatic to happen after "rigging the generator to explode". Ideal would be starting a timer until the base explodes, but I know this isn't possible. Maybe give a clue describing the base is about to blow up, or generate an ambush with Wyvern or technicians running to stop the generator from overloading? Also, if you leave any Wyvern alive, I'd think they could just stop the generator from overloading once you leave.
I clicked the 4 computers; only the first one gave any info, but it gave a laundry list of different things (commo logs, intel, dossiers, Wyvern base locations). The next 3 computers didn't give anything new. You might consider splitting this clue up into 4 different pieces, and having each computer give a piece of it, so that the last 3 computers are more interesting.
OK, I like the mission exit popup, describing the base exploding.
Mission 4
Briefing: I like that your actions in the previous mission have caused Wyvern activity to drop. You might have Cynthia Wong casually mentioned in the dossier clue in mission 3, though, as a sort of foreshadowing. Shouldn't she have a cool codename like Ice Queen and Liberty's Son, also? Also, "commicate" should be "communicate" here. Good plan on kidnapping Liberty's Son's girlfriend, though, to make him come out; seems very villainous!
It's not quite clear what Cynthia is doing in this warehouse; is she hiding out in a safehouse? Planning a Freedom Militia counteroffensive?
It occurs to me that kidnapping a telepath should be difficult as Cynthia should be able to telepathically call for help as soon as she sees me (instead of doing so while in Arachnos custody as the contact wants). She does generate an ambush, though, which makes sense for this.
Mission 5
Briefing: plot seems a little sketchier here; couldn't Cynthia Wong telepathically warn Liberty's Son that he is being lured into a trap? It seems unnecessarily risky to "knock her unconscious and take her to another location" -- if she wakes up early, anyone sees her being moved, or one of the Arachnos personnel gives up this info under interrogation, the motivation for Liberty's Son to attack this base suddenly vanishes. It would make more sense for Cynthia to still be in this base, maybe guarded by the last Arachnos holdouts.
Found Liberty's Son; he has good dialog and a good description, but seemed a pretty straightforward boss fight, which didn't seem exciting enough (IMHO) for the final mission of a story arc.
Debriefing: kinda chilling how the contact describes the plans for the hero's execution, but fitting for a villainous arc.
I kind of think this mission could use more action in order to make it more of a grand finale. May I suggest: Don't have Liberty's Son initially on the map; add a couple Arachnos/Freedom Militia battles. Add Cynthia as a hostage being guarded by the Freedom Militia, who has just barely been rescued by the good guys, but then you show up and beat up the good guys. Cynthia cries out in despair, telepathically calling all heroes in range to come save her. A Freedom Militia ambush shows up to try and save her again, but you beat them up. Maybe you're given the task to extract Cynthia from the base to a more secure location, but then Liberty's Son spawns along the exit path, vowing revenge against you and to save Cynthia, and you beat him up and finish off the Freedom Militia once and for all.
Souvenir: "Public Note of Execution" seems a rather impersonal souvenir and has a rather dry description. I suggest maybe stealing a gold locket or other piece of jewelry from Cynthia Wong, some item that Liberty's Son gave her as a symbol of their love - the love you used to destroy them. (Muhaha)
Overall
I like the premise, the dialog from both Freedom Militia and Arachnos, and the coldhearted yet detailed style of the mission briefings and debriefings. The design of the Freedom Militia enemies is quite nice. I would've liked a few more clues linking the plot together and/or providing flavor text. I liked the gameplay of the first 2 missions, but the last 3 missions were a bit on the mundane side in terms of gameplay, and could be spiced up a bit, especially the final mission. I never had a "wow, this is awesome!" moment. But it was a good arc overall and I rated it 4 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!"
Considering that we only get 3 arc slots, dev's choice and hall of fame notwithstanding, and the fact that I enjoy making arcs probably far too much, I've decided to start using one of my slots to rotate out arcs by the week.
I will put a new one up every Sunday and make a post here detailing the new arc. Feel free to leave comments about the arc.
Story arc for the week of May 10, 2009
Arc #5260: 'Tis Nobler in the Mind
Alignment: Heroic
Suggested levels: 46-50
Difficulty: I would probably say moderate to hard if you're playing solo. While there's only one EB and one AV, (though it will seem like there's 4 AVs, I assure you, besides the fact that they have purple triangles, they are in fact bosses and will still be bosses on a team of 8.) some of the fights can be rough for some solo characters.
Description: The mysterious Mr. Rutherford has contacted you with information regarding a hypnosis device that Arachnos has developed. Can he be trusted? Can you afford not to trust him?
The story arc primarily has you face Arachnos, with some custom bosses and a custom enemy group, which I have done extensive testing on and hopefully should be well balanced.