Purple Lovin's highly sarcastic review pit

Arc #60327: There's Something in the Water

Thanks to PKDauntless for offering his arc for Sarcastic Reviewing on the Champion MA channel. (which may become obsolete come I15, which has a game-wide MA channel. Oh well). Rest assured that I enjoy satirical arcs at least as much as regular ones. Actually the 'normal' arcs tend to blur together after running too many. I've saved the world for the 8th time today, woohoo. To quote Mr. Incredible, "I wish the world would just... stay saved!!"

1) The contact is Dr. Aeon (the arc is written for villains). He is looking into the curious 'rubber civilian' effect; where Paragon City civilians can fall off a 5 story building and walk away, be untouched by a hero's Nova, and so forth. I like stuff that subtly pokes fun at the game itself. Even the devs have done this on occasion (remember the 'Ishmael' plaques?)

We are off to capture some civilian test subjects, who have been lured to a generic office guarded by PPD. At lvl 50, this means Peacebringers. The Lt.s self-rez, which depending on your point of view is either an annoyance, or extra inf. At level 30, this likely means those annoying PPD Swat and Ghosts. Funny dialog throughout.

2) We have the subjects, but their skin cannot be pierced by needles! So, we're off to raid Statesman's doctor's office. A nit-picker could say that the citizen's own doctors must have needles that work, but... eh. It's for teh funnay.

Off to a lab to click glowies with more funny dialog. Ms. Liberty is there as an optional fight. Interestingly, even though she was a hero (not EB) she went down easily.

3) A courier with Dr. Aeon's stuff has been held up by Arbiters. Solution? KILL EVERYONE! Yup, it's a kill all, although the map isn't too big. More funny dialog.

4) Dr. Aeon has found out the cause of the syndrome (which was given away in the title) so we're off to the Faultline dam to find out who's behind it. The ending was a bit disappointing.

There's Something in the Water has no FAILings except for the small defeat all. However, what starts out as a great premise doesn't get carried to the finish. It kind of runs out of funnay as it goes on. Like, you go to a sub shop and order a 3-foot hero sandwich and start eating it at one end, and it's really great, but as you go on the guy making it started running out of salami and swiss cheese, so it gets thinner and thinner as you go on until at the end it's just bread with mayo and mustard and a few olives.

Rating: FM

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[ QUOTE ]
Thanks to this arc, I've added 6.15 points to my loathing score for the Circle of Thorns. A DM/WP scrapper at level 14 versus Spectral Demons. I think I'd rather have a colonoscopy administered by a blind doctor. (My chance to hit never got above 30% in one fight.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I've taken a Dark Melee scrapper, brute and stalker all to level 50. For four years now the devs have been saying that DM has no tohit penalty... THEY LIE!!!!!!one!!!

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Okay, decided to run both the other ones since they're related and I'm just gonna blow through them on my main since I'm more interested in the story than anything else. Here's my impressions as I'm playing.

Two Chicks at Once:

About halfway through. Rather enjoying the mood of it so far. Also enjoying that I could just stealth through the first two missions. Y'know, Crey maps are kinda surreal at 50. Nothing but dudes in power armor all over the lab. How do they get anything done with no scientists? Oh well, whatever.

As I said, enjoying the overall tone. I can see some people getting upset that the Arachnos bigwigs are acting a bit OOC, but screw them. I am greatly amused by any story that assumes that any character, no matter how fantastically evil, is still just another character at the end of the day, and sometimes they're gonna be smart-[censored] or just act kinda goofy. I mean, nobody can be over-the-top evil 24/7.

Third mission has some minor nitpitcks for me. Johnny Sonata's /info assumes that I ran his arc, which I wouldn't necessarily have done even if I was playing a villain right now. Also the smily in the clue I got seems a little out of place.

Fourth mish gave me the same problem a lot of people seem to be having, Ice Mistral spawns behind Silver Mantis. Probably not much that can be done there. I'm not sure I understand the presence of Praetorian demons. I mean, they're as good a mob as any, and I guess it was just supposed to be an arena, but why demons? Oh well, whatever. Time to wrap this up.

LOL at Queen.

Okay, enough stealthing, let's make with the smashing. Turned around for a couple moments to free Ice Mistral and saw that Mantis pretty much cleared the rest of the room while I had my back turned, the little scamp. Oh well, I'm an Illusion controller, I'm used to having pets do all my work for me. Also, it just hit me: Shouldn't the Longbow Spec-Ops be Lieutenant class?

You know, now that I can actually get a good look at Silver Mantis while she's not trying to cave my head in, I get the feeling I'd rather like to see this calendar.

Normally I'd gripe about the surprise AV/EB, but since I've got two more on my side as back-up, I'll let it slide. Hell, they're still fighting in the background while I write this.

Okay, overall quite enjoyable. Noticed a couple of typos, but none that haven't been pointed out in this thread already. Now onto the sequel...

Curiouser and Curiouser:

First thought: "Mako flashes you a disturbing grin." Does he have a choice? I've seen that shark-faced creep before.

Tiered difficulty? Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I like how there's /info text for pretty much everyone and everything. Almost feels like I'm finding easter eggs. Also, LOL at Manticore. Hope I didn't interrupt anything.

I have to agree with people that you're taking a bit of a risk including scripted responses for the PC, but I don't have any problems with the words being put in my mouth in either of these arcs. If you wanna portray my character as a rather laid back smart-[censored], you go right ahead.

Aaaaand now I understand the Tarantula Becky joke in the last arc. Love the dazed animation on the Longbow surrounding her.

Next mish... could've done without the boss dropping in right behind me just as my Phantom Army was taking their union break. Actually had to burn some of my inspirations, you jerk.

Well, of COURSE it's a plot by you-know-who.

And I take a several hour break to go have dinner and come back to find that I had hilariously bad timing, as the arc was pretty much over. The ending seemed rather abrupt, but then I haven't had time to read the souvenir yet. Presumably that ties it all together. Or something. Dunno, kinda had a few beers at dinner, so I'm a little past caring now. Anyhoo, I declare both arcs a out of out of freem. CONGRATURATIONS.

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Arc ID 181244 - Waves of Chaos
Arc ID 260113 - One Tough Cookie

Arc #131430: The Starfare Chronicles

The contact is a moderately shapely green-skinned alien named Tari, who launches right into how she is a representative of the "Starfare", who are battling the Zrak'Tah, aka the Dominion, who are really really evil and planning to invade Earth. The 'Dominion' gives me Star Trek vibes, Zrak'Tah possibly a reference to the Jem'Hadar. Tari can't talk to the governments, so she is asking the help of heroes.

Already, I can tell what's coming. Space Nookie. I'm going to make it with someone, possibly Tari, then find she is really an alien shapeshifter and be forced to betray her, or she betrays me or something. Tari tells me to go to Steel to 'make contact' with the Zrak'Tah, and in Star Trek lexicon, 'make contact' means 'make whoopie'. James T. Kirk's tallywhacker brought more alien races into the Federation than all Starfleet's diplomats combined.

1) I'm sent to the Midnight Club, where Zrak'Tah are holding Midnighters hostage. Since the group name is "Zrak'Tah invaders", they're obviously not going for a sneaky, shapeshifter-esqe invasion, or else the name would be "Zrak'Tah just having coffee" or something. There are about half a dozen types of them, mostly melee with one rad/rad, with cool costumes, although about half have generic minion text. I rescue four hostages and get a clue. No nookie yet.

2) The Zrak'Tah have acquired the Codex of Infinite Evil, and hope to use it as an incentive to get the Rikti to ally with them. Or maybe it's the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. Definitely Codex something. Anyway, I go to a lab, pummel the Rikti and Zrak'Tah leaders, and get the Codex back. No booty to be had here.

Unfortunately, this is a minor case of Did Not Do The Research. (I'm stealing from Venture again, but then he got it from TVTropes). Tari says the Starfare and Dominion have both tried unsuccessfully to ally with the Rikti before. However, the Rikti are not from outer space; they're from another dimension, the gateway to which was open only briefly before being magically barred by Hero 1 and the Omega Team.

3) The ship is under attack, so I beam up to fight the badguys. 3 glowies, locate Tari, defeat the commander, and oh yes, defeat all invaders, which brings me to a greater problem.

Up until now, when someone had a mission that required the player to defeat all enemies, I borrowed from South Park and said "Kill-alls are bad, mmmmkay?" However, no one pays attention to Mr. Mackie, and it seems people aren't paying much attention to me either. I need a new catch-phrase, something which people will remember when hunched over the MA console. I thought of "Kill-alls will kill your chance of becoming Dev's Choice", but there aren't any new Dev's Choice coming out lately anyway. I also considered 'Making a kill-all will make your peener shrink", but there are a few people who claim to be women IRL, so that won't work either. Feel free to post suggestions here. In the meantime, I'll go with "The 'defeat all enemies' objective makes a mission take significantly longer while adding little to the story, so please don't waste the player's time this way", although that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

Anyway, I Kill All, click the glowie for some interesting messages, and discover that Tari has been killed. No action here, although I briefly consider taking liberties with the body.

4) In very well written narrative, Tari tells us that she has uploaded her consciousness into the ship's computer, and now _is_ the ship. This puts a damper on my plans for makin' bacon, unless I can upload my own mind into another ship, and, er, dock with her. (with Blue Danube Waltz playing in the background.) Her crew has been captured, and supplies taken, so I go to warehouse to get them back. This is a timed mission, although the time given is way more than enough.

5) We've located the alien leader, so I beam into a cave to administer a Severe Pummeling. Along the way, I discover that Tari has created a solid hologram of herself and projected it down to help me. The hologram is grav/emp, which helps a lot.

After disposing of the nearby aliens, Tari causes the hologram's clothes to disappear except for a tiny bikini. She beckons me into a dark corner, and slips a green-skinned finger underneath my-

OK, OK, that last bit didn't happen. We actually pummel lots of aliens, smash 3 crates, and free 3 Rikti hostages. Amusingly, the info text for the Rikti says that they are shapeshifters who are impersonating Arachnos troops. See, I knew there were shapeshifters here! Finally we pummel the EB leader, who is easy for the Kitty, but might pose a challenge for non-awesome types. (the AV/EB _was_ mentioned in the description). The ending text is excellent, and leaves things wide open for a sequel.

Despite the lack of alien poontang, and few boo-boos including a defeat-all, Starfare Chronicles tells a great story. Well worth playing.

Rating: F

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Arc #181244: Waves of Chaos

1) The contact is named Bloodstreak, who informs me that his arch-nemesis Stryker and his army of cybernetic ninjas has stolen the Zodiac stones, and although he doesn't know what they're for, we can't let him get away with that, can we? I smell a vanity arc, but decide to plow on anyway.

Things look up inside the mission. The ninjas are a custom group, with well written and often funny descriptions. An ally, Plasman, says, "I always wondered what being rescued feels like." All the dialog is well written and funny.

2) The Circle has the last stone, so we need to go get it- not Oranbega, but the sewers, filled with CoT and ninjas fighting each other. More funny dialog; a CoT boss says "I just know I'm going to be reassigned to a rooftop in King's Row." The only sin is Hiding The Real Glowie Among Fake Glowies Without Any Real Reason For It, but there's only about 4 fakes.

3) One of the Saints (the contact's SG) has betrayed them and stolen the stones, so we go to an outdoor map to pummel him. It's Plasman, who isn't too hard to beat, and gives a dramatic clue when beaten. The text is well written, although it's a bit awkward when juxtaposed with the funny stuff before.

4) To a cave to defeat Stryker, but in a rare display of brains for a Big Baddie, he is merely acting as a decoy while his minions do the ritual! Afterwards, we find the waves of chaos are flowing over Paragon. Longbow are robbing a bank, and Swan is wearing a frumpy dress.

5) To the Infernal map to defeat Chaos himself. Chaos is a fire/energy AV/EB, who fell to Purple's squid form and purple fluffies with the help of half a dozen purples.

Waves of Chaos is very well written, funny in places and dramatic in others. The dramatic stuff is a bit jarring coming on the heels of the funny stuff, but that doesn't spoil the overall experience. Well worth playing.

Rating:

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Arc #131430: The Starfare Chronicles

[ QUOTE ]

The contact is a moderately shapely green-skinned alien named Tari, who launches right into how she is a representative of the "Starfare", who are battling the Zrak'Tah, aka the Dominion, who are really really evil and planning to invade Earth. The 'Dominion' gives me Star Trek vibes, Zrak'Tah possibly a reference to the Jem'Hadar. Tari can't talk to the governments, so she is asking the help of heroes.


[/ QUOTE ]
Hrmmm, should be showing "The Domination", will check...

[ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, this is a minor case of Did Not Do The Research. (I'm stealing from Venture again, but then he got it from TVTropes). Tari says the Starfare and Dominion have both tried unsuccessfully to ally with the Rikti before. However, the Rikti are not from outer space; they're from another dimension, the gateway to which was open only briefly before being magically barred by Hero 1 and the Omega Team.


[/ QUOTE ]
My bad, I thought other dimensions had outer space too. And for another dimension that is supposedly closed, the Rikti hit Paragon with surprising regularity - with their space ships.
I can buy shutting off a dimension to Earth ... but not to the rest of the Universe...

[ QUOTE ]

Up until now, when someone had a mission that required the player to defeat all enemies, I borrowed from South Park and said "Kill-alls are bad, mmmmkay?"


[/ QUOTE ]
99.9% of the time, I'd agree with you. But this mission essentially is "repel the invaders from the ship". Leaving any aboard would not make sense from a story perspective. The map is medium sized and really doesn't take that long to clear.

[ QUOTE ]

Anyway, I Kill All, click the glowie for some interesting messages, and discover that Tari has been killed. No action here, although I briefly consider taking liberties with the body.


[/ QUOTE ]
Ok, thats just gross...

[ QUOTE ]

4) In very well written narrative, Tari tells us that she has uploaded her consciousness into the ship's computer, and now _is_ the ship. This puts a damper on my plans for makin' bacon, unless I can upload my own mind into another ship, and, er, dock with her. (with Blue Danube Waltz playing in the background.) Her crew has been captured, and supplies taken, so I go to warehouse to get them back. This is a timed mission, although the time given is way more than enough.


[/ QUOTE ]
Yep, I wanted the slow readers to have plenty of time to read the narrative, and took into account soloing controllers or tankers.

[ QUOTE ]

Despite the lack of alien poontang,


[/ QUOTE ]
Oh well, have to wait for the sequel

Thanks for the review.

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131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )

I'll cop to the vanity arc bit, but to be fair I'm writing for characters that I and a couple friends created long before CoH was even announced. In fact, there's a couple of plot points I cut out partially because of space considerations, but mostly because they started treading a little too closely into 'let me tell you about my awesome characters' territory.

I suppose the sudden dramatic shift is a bit jarring, but I've never seen any reason why drama and humor arcs have to be mutually exclusive.

I'm glad you bothered to find the boss in mission 2. I don't believe in forcing the players to fulfill an objective if there's no good reason for it, but I definitely had fun writing the encounter.

Anyways, thanks for the review, glad you enjoyed it.

EDIT: Almost forgot. You said the final boss was energy/fire? I could've sworn I had him set to energy/dark. I guess either works, but I need to go check that later.

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Arc ID 181244 - Waves of Chaos
Arc ID 260113 - One Tough Cookie

Qr - I can access coh again now, but I've decided to redesign my arc The Audition into two three-mission arcs, as the filesize elephantitis has made it impossible to fit into one arc.

It's my birthday today, so I won't have time between drinks to play your arcs, but I will definitely do them tomorrow.

When I have, please could you subject my first arc The Echo, arc ID 1688, to your marvellous reviewing wossname?

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - OK, I just ran #1945: Positron's Task Force: the Remix on my 50 en/en blaster. I sent you feedback tells as I played it, but just to recap here, IMO its a short, fun, easy arc with a few tiny spelling errors (I pointed them out so I assume they'll be gone soon) and no other bad points as far as I could see. I especially liked the vomiting mage, and posi's dialogue and actions (with the hand mirror for example) had me chuckling.

It's not world-beating comedy, but it's a country mile ahead of a lot of the crap that clogs up the MA. It's a 'nice little arc', if i can skirt with sounding patronising.

Not sure what I'm going to do with the souvenir after a while, though

I'm starting another of your arcs now.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - I just ran Two Chicks At Once, and sent you a PM with my feedback. I'll try Curiouser and Curiouser later this evening.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

I made a few changes to my missions today based on feedback received in this column...

Positron's Task Force: the Remix

Fixed some spelling errors.
Changed text to reflect how Posi is now jogging in place, instead of on all fours :-)
TODO: when I15 comes out, hopefully I can eliminate the level reduction.

Two Chicks at Once
Tweaked text and fixed some spelling errors.
Removed Devices from the minions in the custom group. This should reduce Web Grenade spam.
Standardized the colors for the lieutenant's dialog. Changed Scirocco's text to a more legible color.
Mission 2: switched to a slightly smaller map.
Mission 3: enemy group is now Elder Snakes.
Mission 3: Silver Mantis will now spawn _after_ the player meets Ice Mistral.

Curiouser and Curiouser
Tweaked text and fixed some spelling errors.
Removed Devices from the minions in the custom group. This should reduce Web Grenade spam.

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QR

OK, so after failing to defeat Silver Mantis on my stalker (I hope you got my long forum PM) even with Ice Mistrals help, I figured i owed you one more attempt, so I tried again on my 50 en/en blaster. I dont normally like playing Villainous arcs on my heroes or vice versa, but here we go.

A minor quibble - Sometimes Ice mistrals dialogue has speech marks inside her speech bubbles.

The SM fight was hard, died twice, but SM went down eventually.

Next mish..hm, no warning opr explanationn of miss liberty (hang on- it says Miss liberty in the nav, but the mob is Ms Liberty) being here? - one thing-having the allies spawn so close to the start makes it a defeat all, basically. i left them there and got to miss liberty and had to come back for them.

Your custom LB are funny and well-balanced imo.

Right, the Ms Liberty fight. didnt go well at all Im afraid. She's much too hard for my blaster. i waded in with the two chicks giving support and Liberty killed me in short order. I came back and started the fight again and she kiilled me again, but I had RotP so rezzed and left the chicks to it. She killed Ice Mistral and then I just hovered above them watching SM and ML slug it out. It took SM about 5 mins to kill her, and it was really really boring for me.

It's a damn shame, cos the humour is good, the rest of the arc flows well and apart from the minor typos here and there (easily rectified), its a great arc. But those EBs ruin it for me. The Silver Mantis fight was horribly unpleasant, and the Ms Liberty one was tedious and i felt basically superfluous.

Now that I have finished it, though, i can go back to my Stalker and do the sequel.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Sorry about repeated deaths... when I made this, I assumed that Sliver Mantis would be easy with you having an ally, and Ms. Liberty would be effortless with two. Up until recently I had Ms. Liberty summon Longbow ambushes as well, although the main reason for that was to have them shout "Chick Fight!"

Neither of them is available as a boss, so the only way to make the mission easier would be to make them optional, or eliminate them altogether. If anyone has any suggestions for working that into the storyline, please post.

P.S. The original plan for the final mission was for the player to infiltrate the Vindicators' base and plant a hidden camera in the showers, but that's a bit too pervy even for me

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[ QUOTE ]
Sorry about repeated deaths... when I made this, I assumed that Sliver Mantis would be easy with you having an ally, and Ms. Liberty would be effortless with two. Up until recently I had Ms. Liberty summon Longbow ambushes as well, although the main reason for that was to have them shout "Chick Fight!"

Neither of them is available as a boss, so the only way to make the mission easier would be to make them optional, or eliminate them altogether. If anyone has any suggestions for working that into the storyline, please post.

P.S. The original plan for the final mission was for the player to infiltrate the Vindicators' base and plant a hidden camera in the showers, but that's a bit too pervy even for me

[/ QUOTE ]

Make a custom mob that looks identical?

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131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Neither of them is available as a boss, so the only way to make the mission easier would be to make them optional, or eliminate them altogether. If anyone has any suggestions for working that into the storyline, please post.



[/ QUOTE ]

Make a custom mob that looks identical?

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought of that, but IMHO there's no way to cut 'n' paste costumes, so I would no doubt get it wrong. Of course I could just put her in a bikini or negligee...

Eagerly awaiting Super Booster XVII... "Dans la Boudoiur"

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Arc #1262: Attack of the Space Clowns

Another arc submitted for Sarcastic Reviewing on the MA channel, this one by Champion's Ashcraft. As an aside, it seems that people are actually _reading_ this column and mentioning it in the game. I suppose that even if no one plays my arcs, it's still worthwhile if I can save people from playing Crappy arcs, except for some lulz.

Ah, who am I kidding... PLAY MY STUFF!!! Especially 'Curiouser and Curiouser', it's only been starred 9 times. Oh, and read the mission souvenir before rating it. The souvenir ties the whole arc together.

Anyway, the contact for Attack of the Space Clowns is Dr. Forrester, who sends you into a lab filled with... wait for it... clowns. There about 6 different ones (not counting bosses, if any) with varied powersets and cool costumes and bios, although one has generic minion text. You fight the clowns, and... that's about it.

There are four missions, but I won't give a blow-by-blow because, well, you've heard it all already. There's Rikti in one, and a minor Plot Twist at the end, but that's about it. Mashing it all into one mission would work, but there's just not enough funnay to sustain four missions.

I searched TvTropes for 'Stretching a Joke', but couldn't find anything, so I'll make up one here. Those of us draped in front of the tube in the mid 80's no doubt remember Mr. Belvedere, a limp sitcom about an erudite, upper-crust Englishman who finds himself as a butler for a generic middle-class American family. Each week, he would serve the kids macaroni and cheese, they would pout and whine, and he would say something that passed for wit with a British accent. That was the entire joke, but they somehow spread it out for six years.

There's nothing wrong with Attack of the Space Clowns; no kill-alls, minions with control powers, or naked catboys; it just spreads one joke too thin.

Rating: BELVEDERE

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One of the minions had a generic bio? That isn't right.



Thanks for the review, Interface!

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A Guide to Champion Drama
My Videos
Ashcraft been published.

Okay, I did "Curiosier & Curiosier" yesterday and rather enjoyed it. My pointers first, though.

Played solo start to finish on 39 elec/kin corruptor on diff 3

Mission One:

When the "optional" boss spawned, he was directly in my path in a small room where it would have been very difficult (or likely, impossible) for me to avoid him in order to complete the destroy computer objective. I did defeat him and didn't actually die, but it was one of my usual knock-down drag out EB fights that this toon can accomplish (elec/kin end sapping ftw).

I'm guessing this was not your intention as precise spawn location is difficult to predict. If Manti is on "middle", you might want to make it "front". It would cause some backtracking, but at least it comes off as more "bonus content" than something you must confront in order to proceed with the rest of the mission. This is a small map, or a medium one at best, which means there's not much room to avoid notice by mobs.

Glad to see Well Equipped LB again.

Mission Two:

No problem here. However, Becky pretty much ran the show once I picked her up. I don't so much mind, 'cause as a /kin I'm used to being a SB/Healz plz spambot, but other players might be crying "kil steezl!" and wanting to know why they aren't getting tickets. I don't have a recommendation for this, other than to say F** it & leave Becky as she is. Oh, in case you were wondering, SB + Siphon Power on a Tarantula Mistress? Roflcoaster of one-shotting +1 minions. I would have used Fulcrum Shift on her too, but she was killing things TOO FAST! /e evillaugh

Becky also came in handy with Sister Psy, which ended up being a little dicier for a battle, but with BuffSponge Becky tanking for me, it wasn't too bad. Sister Psy conned as a purple EB.

Oh, Dr. Plaht's body was found underneath one of those transition ramps that go from the regular hallways into the sunken "corner rooms" in the arachnos map. This wasn't a problem, but it did foreshadow a problem I had later on in the Arc.

Mission Three:

Sausage works joke was GOLD. I didn't catch it until the patrol, of course, which made it even funnier. This was the mish I had the most problems with, both with difficulty and other design issues.

On clue "Plaht Research Notes", the text states that he was "too fond of chronic himself". This phrase isn't logically supported by the context. Too fond compared to whom? The player? Someone else? There's really no other mention of chronic until you get to the boss (who was extremely well named). I presume that this was supposed to refer to the player, since the arc takes liberties in assuming particular player behavior (South Park, getting a latte, etc) - but I had to grope to make the connection. Man, I'm so leaving myself open with that last bit. My only suggestion here is that the reference to the reefer come a little earlier or in some other critter text.

Boss "4-2-0" has a text error in his player defeat text. "See if $he has any munchies". This should be $heshe, I think.

On Objective: Find Another Clue - this one was a rat [censored]. I spent at least 10-15 minutes looking for the clue, a body bag. I don't have the screen cap here, but it was stuffed in one of those small nooks along the left side wall ("left" relative to where you enter the room) and was hidden behind some of the boxes/tech parts that are on this map. I had gone through the entire mish two or three times looking all over the place and finally turned off iTunes, yanked up the sound all the way and listened for the glowy. Again, this is an item placement spawn issue, and YMMV depending on where the RNG decides to place the clue. Still, I might avoid this completely and just make it a "middle" placement rather than "back".

Fake Nemesis wasn't too difficult, again thanks for wicked end sapping and my leeetle friend, the Voltaic Sentinel. I did get into a little trouble once Fake Nemi put on that damned personal force field, but prevailed without any deaths.

Frustratingly, Fake Nemi was way easier to deal with than the Malta Boss, which caused me to have about three or four deaths even after I mopped up his pals. I was popping a lot of greens and break frees, but wtf, that's malta for you.

Mission Four:

No real issues. This was straightforward, actually. I was expecting a little more in the way of explanation during the mission, some more substantial clues. Given the conclusion, this plays well, 'cause it builds a sense of disappointment in the player. Now, normally this wouldn't be a good idea, but you used this well to set up the conclusion.

As I sent in my in-game tell, I finished the objectives before tackling the bonus boss - which turned out to be a bad idea since I had him on the ropes when he finally hit Personal FF & bled me through my insps. I had to go to the hosp, but (of course) could not get back into the mission. So, I didn't get to see the bonus clue for defeating Nemi at the end of the Arc.

Conclusion/Souvenir:

Some people might find the ending cheap, that there's a lot of tacked on exposition to "solve" things. But, that's how real life works, sometimes you don't get all the clues or you get the clues and they don't make sense anyway. I appreciate that. Execution counts for a lot, though, and the souvenir took that Expo-Speak and made it just as good as the content itself. Besides, anyone who gets Nemesis to say "makin' bacon" is freaking awesome. And, another tip of the hat for pointing out that Nemesis ALWAYS puts the cart in front of the horse (after reinventing the wheel for the cart, from trees grown from a pastureland which had been levelled from a pre-existing forest) when putting his plots together.

There is at least one typo in the souvenir. In the phrase, "relieving their boredom", 'their' is misspelled. I wasn't looking for any other typos, so I might have missed them.

Overall:

I liked "Two Girls at Once" better, it had a higher comedy-to-action frequency, but this was more of a Plaht..er..Plot driven arc rather than an excuse to take us from joke to joke. And for once, Nemesis actually shows that he can be a Chessmaster without requiring that the hero or anyone else hold the Idiot Ball. Let me clarify that I liked 2GAO better than this in so much as I like sashimi better than a regular sushi rolls. I love both, but if I have to pick a favorite...

I still like the short, quick missions, I was glad to see WELB back again, and I REALLY liked the idea of the Bonus Bosses (which is an idea I was toying with but hadn't fully formed). You executed that option very well, I and liked that it was clearly stated in the beginning. Good use of the text customization options, color well used. The Arachnos Lts were a little less, I dunno, outstanding on this arc - but that might be 'cause I was used to their characterization in 2GAO. I will be using "As The Spider Spins" in my RP with my characters now, though. Just a quick suggestion, Veridian's Margaritas should be strawberry.

I'm recommending this one again to my SG/VG mates, and five stars on it (no points off for spawn issues mostly out of your control, easily fixed, nothing broken, and great manipulation of player expectations to deliver a great punchline).

I wish I had another Arc for you to QPQ, but consider this a raincheck for when I have another Arc prepped (which may not be until i15 to use the new tweaks).

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"...his madness keeps him sane.": My Profile on VirtueVerse
Can You WIN the Internet? MA Arc #85544
Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
Task Force Mutternacht #349522 <-- 1st AE Challenge

QR - I just finished playing Curiouser and Curiouser too (I sent you an ingame tell with my feedback).I'd also like to add that i think your dialogue is golden in many places, I also loved the 'makin bacon' line, and the Viridian and Margaritas sequence was hilarious.

So that's all three of your arcs I've played now - looking forward to you putting the Echo through the wringer

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Arc #1688, The Echo

I played The Echo a week or so ago, and was eagerly waiting for the QPQ post so I could review it. This is totally one of the best arcs I've played since MA began. The devs really need to begin nominating more Dev's Choice arcs, since this one really deserves it. Of course, the devs are no doubt busy doing, uh, dev stuff, so maybe they should appoint people from the community as 'Dev's Choice Choosers' or something. I wouldn't mind helping to point out arcs that Don't Suck for nomination, even if it means wading through pools of crummy ones. More fuel for the fire, as they say...

1) This starts out light, with a call for a hero to rescue a hostage from the Freaks. The Freak hideout is tastefully decorated, with throw pillows and tasteful potted plants on tasteful end tables. Well, OK, those aren't actually there, but if they existed in the editor, they would be. Maybe that's coming in I15. I go in and defeat 'En Vogue', who has cute dialog, and free the hostage, who does not need to be led out.

2) Some overheard dialog gives us a clue about 'The Monitor', so we go raid a Crey archive for information. What would normally be a cliche mission is livened up by a very funny custom group, and some funny clues as well. Interestingly, one clue relates to the 'Habitual Criminals', a group seen briefly in another of the author's arcs, 'The Audition'... except that the latter is published about 180000 missions later!! Foreshadowing at it's best...

3) We've found out that The Monitor is actually a hero (!) and he's dead (!!) So to get more information, we go raid another Crey base, built on the site of the Monitor's old HQ. This is a bit of a head-scratcher, tho.

"Hey Joe-Bob, we've finished demolishin' the building. Whacha we do 'bout them there com-puter boxes?"

"Be too much work 'ta unplug an' move 'em away, Vern. Leave them right where they are an' build the whole base aroun' them!"

Anyway, we enter the base to hear a funny announcement, kill patrols with funny dialog, and find funny clues on the aforementioned com-puter boxes. All in all, it's funny.

4) Piecing the clues together, we find that the Monitor is planning to build... A DOOMSDAY DEVICE!!! Since some of the com-puter boxes had in fact been updated yesterday, we know where to go, so we're off to a warehouse to smash five crates. Each crate has a cute name, funny description text, and gives a descriptive (and funny) clue when smashed. The level of detail is superb.

We've been getting clues about 'The Monitor' all along. At first, I thought he was something like a high school hall monitor who got super powers from drinking from that cruddy water fountain too many times, and now stops villains who run too fast. Or something. But as the issue goes on, I get the feeling that he's not right in the head, but in a way that can't be ignored.

If I can digress for a moment, let's look at Batman. In particular, two of his biggest foes, the Joker and the Riddler. Both of them are clearly a few olives short of a full deck, but they come across quite differently. The Riddler is always hatching some nefarious scheme- in 'Batman Forever', he was trying to drain the city's resident's brains- but there's never any sense of menace. One feels that the worst he would do is invite you over for crumpets and a quick round of hide-the-salami. The Joker, however, backs his insanity up with something tangible; knives, guns, bombs, and menacing thugs. He's nuts, but you can't turn your back on him. I eventually got the same feeling from The Monitor.

5) We go to a cargo ship, and proceed to defeat FIFTEEN FREAK TANKS, one by one. Normally I would decry FIFTEEN FREAK TANKS as a huge waste of the player's time, but here each one has a unique name and funny combat dialog, and most importantly, each one gives the player a piece of the Monitor's speech, delivered over the loudspeaker as you fight. This tells a compelling story of what happened to the Monitor and how he came to be as he is. After you get the whole story, you encounter the Monitor himself. I can't remember whether he was a boss or EB, but he wasn't too hard regardless.

The Echo is one of the few arcs that is funny AND tells a great story. As soon as the Devs appoint me Official Dev's Choice Chooser, I'll nominate this one first off.

Rating:

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O.O

Wow. I'm not normally at alossfor words.

Thank you so much for playing The Echo and for this wonderful reaction!

I had to pull The Audition as it's filesize jumped suddenly to unmaneagable lengths, but I'm going to expand it and publish a Directors Cut version (LOL) in 2-parts, (with an extra mission) soon.

Thanks again.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Qr - the 'head-scratcher' - LOL I hadn't thought of it like this up till now LOL. I guess it might be considered strange. What I had in mind was more that crey didn't one day just gut the place and start from whitewashed Walls, but that the base was left empty fir some tine after The Lifesavers...er, event lol, and then crey came in and took over, appropriating any data on their systems, probably updating the hardware for sure, but, well, the Lifesavers had a lot of information that might be useful to an organisation interested in superhuman tech.

And obviously The Monitors been tinkering as well.

Thanks v much fir avoiding spoilers btw.


Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Feel free to pick any of the arcs in my signature. They're ordered by personal preference, but you can choose one based on what gets you your jollies: Time travel, werewolves or orcs. kk have fun

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Arc #2622: A Tangle in Time

First off, I'm gonna admit that I came into this arc prejudiced against it already. Time travel is way, way overused as a plot device in MA, CoX, and sci-fi in general. It's filled with cliches, and it's full of things that people who spend hours searching for nitpicks will point out. But most of all, 99% of comic-book time travel stories ignore one basic paradox.

Let's say that at 12:34 PM, Jimmy buys an ice cream cone. At 12:35, a bully jumps out of the bushes, steals the cone, and runs off. Distraught, Jimmy runs across town to Capetini's, and tells his story to the superheroes hanging out there. At 12:45, Timescream travels back in time to 12:31, drags the bully out of the bushes and kicks him in the nuts a few times, and travels back to 12:46 for another whiskey sour.

Therefore, the bully never stole the icecream... which means Jimmy never went to the heroes... which means Timescream never went back to stop the bully... which means the icecream DID get stolen, which means...

This is (IMHO) the most basic time travel paradox, possibly even more basic that the old chestnut about killing your own grandfather. Some stories address this using one plot device or another, but many ignore it, or just drop the 'Timey-Wally Ball". Or something.

1) You speak to Azuria, who tells you that an excavation has discovered the Donut of Forever, and you need to go neutralize it, using an amulet that Azuria just happens to have handy. The text is a bit odd here... she says "We're all counting on you, $name" even though there was no danger or urgency.

I clicked a glowie, rescued two PPD officers (unique names, descriptions and appearance) and kicked a CoT boss in the nuts. Interestingly, I got the 'Show Off' badge immediately upon entering the mission.

2) OH NOES! Azuria doesn't recognize me and is telling me to do the exact same thing! Everything in the mission is the same, except the boss has different text as I kick him in the nuts again.

3) I talk to Azuria, who... er... actually I'm gonna stop narrating the story here, because doing so would give away too much of the story, and I don't want to do that because it's a really good story. Suffice it to say that it doesn't fall into any of the major time travel paradoxes, and doesn't ape any well-known tropes. Or at least none that I read. I suppose, given enough time, TVTropes will expand to cover every possible storytelling device. Then, it will be a trivial matter to script an AI author, add a 3D renderer and speech synthesizer, and sit back as TV shows are generated automatically. Until that day, all we have are Star Trek reruns and CoX, so go ahead and give A Tangle in Time a try. As a bonus, the enemy groups (CoT and PPD) both scale to very low levels, so this should theoretically be playable as low as level 5.

Rating:

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I sent you this review of "Two Chicks at Once" in game, but I figure I'll put it here as well because I'd really like to see this arc fixed quickly. Well... that, and I'm going to want a review of my arc once I've actually got it finished. ;-)

Great arc. Good use of clues, in-game speech, etcetera. A few spelling errors, but I lost my notes on those and will have to find them when I play through again.

So I'm cruising through on my level 39 brute; all is going well. I'm getting LKed up a few levels, but I've got all my defenses already, so I'm not missing any important powers.

And then I hit a brick wall. No, not one of the EBs you warn about; I'm typically pretty good at being able to solo EBs. The problem is the snakes in mission four. (I think it was number four?)

So, you look at the snakes group. Level 1-52. Great - so I get LKed up to level 41, I fight level 41 snakes, right? Wrong. See, the actual level range of the snakes is 1-35 and 46-52. So, at level 41, I'm running into groups of level 46 snakes. Which happily rip me to shreds.

Now, if the final answer is "I'm too close to the file size limit and can't put in a custom group to lock that mission to level 46+" - well, ok. I know that in i15 you'll be able to manually set level limits, so it'll be trivial to fix this problem then. And maybe I can get through it before then by eating a tray of insps and waiting for my uber defense buff for every group. Maybe. But if you *can* fix this before then, I'd certainly appreciate it.

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