Venture's Reviews II: The Nightmare Continues
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2009-05-16 24:40 in Mission Architect
[ QUOTE ]
Set enemy group alignment to "Rogue" (Which makes the escort hostile), and set combat abilities to "Pacifist" (So the escort won't aggro on the player). Now you've got an escort that the player can choose to fail, but it won't attack the player so they have a choice whether they want to complete/fail the mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
Huh. Now I've got something I need to try.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
Thanks for taking the time to review "A Simple Misunderstanding," Venture. I was pretty annoyed when I found out you couldn't adjust the level range yourself when MA finally dropped; as you ascertained, I'll be fixing that when i15 hits. I envisioned the arc to be ideal for people 25-30.
Again, thank you.
It was fun.
[ QUOTE ]
As much as I hate to give away my secrets, I honestly didn't think it was that much of a trick to begin with :P (I'm working on something fancier at the moment with er... less success so far).
You create an escort, set it to required. Set the surrounding enemy group to "Single" so that only the escort is there. Set enemy group alignment to "Rogue" (Which makes the escort hostile), and set combat abilities to "Pacifist" (So the escort won't aggro on the player). Now you've got an escort that the player can choose to fail, but it won't attack the player so they have a choice whether they want to complete/fail the mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
That is pretty nifty. Thanks for sharing!
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
Arc #181165 "The Case of the Late Richard Faraday"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", typos, some plot issues
Reviewed on: 6/18/2009
Level Range: 20-54/1-54/1-54/1-54/
Character used: Venture/Virtue
This is a re-review of an arc originally published as #1285 "Training Day". The original review is appended below the line.
Act I now opens with Detective Morgan asking you to help recover Officer O'Leary from the Freakshow. There's an account in the acceptance text of how the operation leading to his capture played out and a warning about a "Dr. Armington" being involved. The various "bad cop" tropes are gone. O'Leary appears to be Claws/Regeneration EB this time with one of the Cultists for a guard; there are some other Cultist spawns present as well. Armington is technically a Rescue detail; he's negotiating with the Freakshow when you arrive and after you beat them ("freeing" him) an ambush wave of Cultists spawns to "cover his escape" as he runs. The debriefing has info from Freakshow 101 in orange text (typo: "thier").
Act II now has you accompany Morgan to the facility they're treating O'Leary at. Most of the info is in the acceptance text again (typo: "optomistic"). The Cultists are already there with hostages, one of which tells you the nanotech the Cultists use is a virus. OK, and this building that is full of people using the stuff is not quarantined...why? Morgan does tell you in the debriefing that O'Leary's nano wasn't weaponized; presumably this was true of the stuff infecting the Cultists but that needs to be spelled out here.
Act III is now a mission to go get Armington. Morgan gives you a little info on Faraday, who's been mentioned by the Cultists a few times (typos: "abotu", "dispursed") and is supposed to be dead now. The map is an abandoned tech base full of Cultists, augmented by a few new models with more nanotech. A Cultist Ascendant's approach text says they're planning to dump the nano into a shipment of the Freak's Excelsior (typo: "compount"). Armington is a Robotics/Devices Elite Boss; he rants a bit as you beat him up then on defeat gives up the location of the transmitter that controls the nanovirus and Faraday's location. This is repeated in the exit popup just in case you didn't get it the first time. Morgan is sceptical about Faraday being alive; this guy is a Paragon City cop, right?
Act IV is the Fight Scene: Morgan and O'Leary accompany you to Faraday's hideout. This is a 90-minute timed mission with an AV warning (typo: "swat", should be capitalized and/or punctuated). You have to take out six "virus bombs" (is it really a good idea to break these things?), the control computer and Richard Faraday, Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV/EB. There are several Boss level Cultists to deal with as well, but it's a pretty straightforward kill-the-Big-Bad run. The souvenir points you to a second part but this arc does stand on its own.
The arc is improved from its earlier incarnation but still has issues. There is no theme, there are some plot holes (noted above) and more than a few typos. It's serviceable but not much more.
* * * * * * *
Arc #1285, "Training Day"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: many plot holes, surprise EB/AVs, spelling errors, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
Detective Morgan of the PPD's Vanguard Liason Office wants your help in tracking down a "Docter Armington". An apparent typo in the first briefing is not a good sign. Armington has taken an Officer O'Leary hostage. Morgan tells you if there's nothing to bring back to make sure he's not suffering, and reminds you there's no such thing as a brutality charge in his unit. Um, yeah.
The warehouse you're sent to is filled with custom-faction bots. O'Leary has been turned into a cyber-zombie Claws/SR EB (no warning, but nice job on the model). Defeating him spawns a new objective: "Rip Armington a new one for what he's done." Um, this is a Heroic arc, right? Armington is another EB, Bots/FF, and may try to run when low...I'm not sure. On defeat he says "Teleport activate!" but the defeat text says you can rest easy knowing a monster has been taken to justice...um, which is it?
In Act II, you learn that O'Leary survived the battle and now has control over his new body. The scientist responsible is adapting the nanotechnology that was used on O'Leary ("Lockgear") for battlesuit use. Hmm, nanotech that warps people body and mind developed by a mad scientist now being adapted into Vanguard battlesuits? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You're asked to oversee a transfer of the equipment. Once on site the objectives are to retrive 5 components, rescue O'Leary (down to Boss) and defeat Armington again. The enemies on this one are Freakshow, with a patrol of the custom drones tossed in for color. Armington is back with a bunch of Freaks for guards; when you start beating on him he hits you with a threat we don't often see in City: "I will make you MY MONKEY BUTLER!"
Yeah.
When Armington gets low on health "Michael Faraday" spawns, a Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV with machinegun-toting "Cultists" and Energy Blast/Dark Armor "Cultist Ascendant" LTs, the latter's info saying they've been upgraded with Lockgear. They spawned Rocks Fall Everyone Dies style. Even the Contact doesn't know who Faraday is. In Act III you're sent to bust up some of Faraday's cultists in an effort to learn more about him. The mission takes place on an Arachnos lab map, with an Arachnos raid in progress. Heard at entry from a Cultist: "Faraday will whipe this world of life!" Um, yeah. You have to search various computers until you find a Clue stating that Lockgear was invented by one of Faraday's cultists and given to Armington in the hopes that it would end up in Vanguard's hands. Sure enough, Faraday now has control over both Armington and O'Leary, so for Act IV you and Morgan have to recover the Lockgear nanotech before it goes all grey-goo on everyone. Somehow, though, the mission takes place in a sewer. You have to destroy three objects. O'Leary and Armington are present but don't have to be fought. Morgan is supposed to be available as an ally, but spawned in the last room.
For Act V you get a letter from Faraday taunting you into a final showdown. This being a comic RPG you're not allowed to call in an air strike. The match takes place on a small sewer map. It turned out O'Leary was available as an ally but he was behind Faraday and behind some geometry so I didn't see him until well after the fighting was over. Faraday spawns as an AV/EB again and calls multiple ambush waves as he dies.
The plot does not make sense in a lot of places and there are more than a few spelling errors. It also assumes the player is a graduate of the Harry Callahan Police Acadamy. This needs a lot of work.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
[ QUOTE ]
Act I now opens with Detective Morgan asking you to help recover Officer O'Leary from the Freakshow. There's an account in the acceptance text of how the operation leading to his capture played out and a warning about a "Dr. Armington" being involved. The various "bad cop" tropes are gone. O'Leary appears to be Claws/Regeneration EB this time with one of the Cultists for a guard; there are some other Cultist spawns present as well. Armington is technically a Rescue detail; he's negotiating with the Freakshow when you arrive and after you beat them ("freeing" him) an ambush wave of Cultists spawns to "cover his escape" as he runs. The debriefing has info from Freakshow 101 in orange text (typo: "thier").
Act II now has you accompany Morgan to the facility they're treating O'Leary at. Most of the info is in the acceptance text again (typo: "optomistic"). The Cultists are already there with hostages, one of which tells you the nanotech the Cultists use is a virus. OK, and this building that is full of people using the stuff is not quarantined...why? Morgan does tell you in the debriefing that O'Leary's nano wasn't weaponized; presumably this was true of the stuff infecting the Cultists but that needs to be spelled out here.
Act III is now a mission to go get Armington. Morgan gives you a little info on Faraday, who's been mentioned by the Cultists a few times (typos: "abotu", "dispursed") and is supposed to be dead now. The map is an abandoned tech base full of Cultists, augmented by a few new models with more nanotech. A Cultist Ascendant's approach text says they're planning to dump the nano into a shipment of the Freak's Excelsior (typo: "compount"). Armington is a Robotics/Devices Elite Boss; he rants a bit as you beat him up then on defeat gives up the location of the transmitter that controls the nanovirus and Faraday's location. This is repeated in the exit popup just in case you didn't get it the first time. Morgan is sceptical about Faraday being alive; this guy is a Paragon City cop, right?
Act IV is the Fight Scene: Morgan and O'Leary accompany you to Faraday's hideout. This is a 90-minute timed mission with an AV warning (typo: "swat", should be capitalized and/or punctuated). You have to take out six "virus bombs" (is it really a good idea to break these things?), the control computer and Richard Faraday, Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV/EB. There are several Boss level Cultists to deal with as well, but it's a pretty straightforward kill-the-Big-Bad run. The souvenir points you to a second part but this arc does stand on its own.
The arc is improved from its earlier incarnation but still has issues. There is no theme, there are some plot holes (noted above) and more than a few typos. It's serviceable but not much more.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ok, I've some points and questions... who doesn't.
First off thanks for the detailed typo assessment, always a plus. If more people did that when they mentioned that they saw typos I wouldn't be fixing one a month, I'd be fixing all of them.
I'm going to take as read you saw no issues with act 1, unless the Freakshow 101 comment meant that it was a little too remedial to require explanation, but as a school teacher I know that the average person is not the brightest person. Better to spell it out sometimes, and introduction is the best place for exposition.
Act II, it is mentioned in the intro that the nano-tech is neutered. I will double check to make sure I'm not mistaken, but I was fairly certain it was. However, you are the second person to mention this so I will attempt to make it more clear. Unfortunately that text box is at 1000 characters, so it will take some doing.
Act III, is it clear by now they needed the excelsior so that the effected would survive transformation? I used the repetition in case someone wasn't watching the dialogue, but since it's basically explained again a third time by Morgan, I can probably nix that.
Morgan is supposed to be a low level contact giving out a high level mission basically. Originally this was made more clear by the details of Faraday's past life. In essence Morgan has dealt with nothing more advanced than low threat Freaks, his average fair being Hellions, Skulls, and small time groups like the Cult, only now the Cult has returned as something more sinister. As I said it was much clearer once, but it was also a wall of text, so I cut large swathes of it. I'll either make things more clear or tweak Morgan's reaction slightly.
That said I would posit that it is within genre convention for characters to assume the dead will stay dead even in a milieu where the dead clearly do not stay dead. I know (or feel I do) your stance on this type of claim though, so we'll leave it at 'I'll look into it'.
I'm going to change Act IV so that destroying the computer spawns the bombs. Without the control signal from the computer they're useless and inert. I'll also make that clear in the debriefing.
Now the 'question' re the theme.
I would concur that the theme in this narrative is weak, but I do not agree non-existent and so I would ask you politely if you could elaborate. I will tell you my 'vision' of the theme so you perhaps may better tell me where you see I fell short.
I saw the theme evolving around a minor threat from the past, emerging in Post-Rikti war Paragon. Now a substantial threat that has cropped up unseen over night, as opposed to a minor nuisance, making his presence known at the worst possible time (with Rularuu , Nemesis, Arachnos, The Coming Storm, etcetera Paragon has a lot on it's plate).
The theme itself is this villain presenting a lose-lose situation to the player. Allow Faraday to win, and doom Paragon City, or defeat him and allow him to sacrifice himself, furthering his deification among his followers. Now originally this was much clearer, and the final mission was to be fail-able, but arc size constraints basically frustrated me into finishing it prematurely.
It was a complete story, but I published it knowing the theme would be well hidden from all but the most careful observations.
What, if anything, do you suggest? Or was your comment 'It's serviceable but not much more.' meant to convey you'd given up on this arc as anything more than time filler no matter what was done to it.
I'm also surprised that the arc only came up one star, but I do see where work is needed as I said. I guess I want to know what you'd want from this arc to call it 4-5 stars. I'm happy with 4, but who doesn't want 5.
Arc #163274, "Return of the Three Fold King"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", some plot issues, trite
Reviewed on: 6/18/2009
Level Range: 5-54/1-54/1-54/1-54/1-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Dr. John Cramer has placed an ad in the Paragon Times looking for a super's help, and you've answered. He's identified the resting place of the "Runestone of El", a Lemurian artifact. Unfortunately, so has the Circle of Thorns. Somehow I don't think it would take them so long to dig it out that he'd have time to get help from a newspaper ad as opposed to, say, calling the Midnighters or MAGI, but moving on.... It turns out there aren't a whole lot of Circle left because the Lemurians have mostly killed them all. These are a custom faction of lizard guys with a variety of powers, mainly Dark, Fire and Broadsword. The map Boss is an Ice Control/Storm Summoning (error: his info says he's seeking "the mace"); he has the Runestone already. You solve this in the usual way. On your return Cramer admits he held back the existence of the Lemurians and on top of that, he's actually a super himself, the Midnight Falconeer. Unfortunately for him his powers come from a Lemurian artifact and thus aren't effective against Lemurians. This makes the "ad in the paper" thing even more egregious as if he's a super himself he should have far better ways to ask for help. The arc also gains the complications of an untrustworthy Contact. Moving on, he claims that he needs four of these runestones to prevent the return of the "Three Fold King", the Lemurian war god. This will let him break the shield around the Three Fold King's temple.
The second stone was last known to be in the possession of the Tuatha, and Cramer expects the Lemurians are there taking it now. You have to beat them to the punch by beating up the Tuatha leader and stealing the Runestone yourself. Ummm...OK.... You're sent to a large outdoor Croatoa map to find Elegor the Brazen, a Tuatha Boss who managed to hit me for about 2000 points in about four seconds. He didn't do nearly so well in the rematch, with a bunch of unintentionally-funny dialog, constantly telling me how I can't hurt him while he's flat on his back. I finished mugging him for his valuables and returned.
The third stone is in the hands of the Legacy Chain and sure enough, the Lemurians are ahead of you. They've already seized the building and taken hostages. It's an office map with a few Rescue details and one glowie, no Boss and didn't take very long. The Legacy Chain hostages are civilian models due to the level range issues I had when using them -- you'll be able to use sub-level models for hostages without screwing up your level range next issue. They don't seem to know anything about the Lemurians, which is a little odd, but no big deal. In addition to another runestone you get a map off one of the Lemurians.
The last stone is in a Rikti base that's been taken over by Arachnos. The base held a number of artifacts the Rikti were studying, presumably in their efforts to understand magic. The Lemurians are already there...negotiation with Arachnos for the stone rather than fighting, and potentially discussing an alliance. Cramer notes that such an alliance would be Bad and wants you to take out the leaders on both sides as well as retrieve the stone. You've got two Bosses to beat (Tarantula Queen, Dual Blades/Willpower) and a few glowies to chase down on a Rikti base map. With the last runestone in his possession, Cramer is able to break the shield around the Lemurian temple.
Time for the Fight Scene: you're sent to an Oranbega map to defeat the Three Fold King. He was a War Mace/Energy Aura Elite Boss...I never saw PToD's come up so he evidently wasn't a downgrade. Since he spent most of the fight on his back he wasn't all that interesting. Cramer thanks you, the end.
The arc has a few plot issues, none of them terribly major, but it also lacks a theme and is not terribly creative. It resembles a run-of-the-mill Zelda knockoff. As a result..."it ain't half bad/it ain't half good, neither".
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Update on the queue:
Hero: 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 161797, 179354, 75386/225318, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 191775, 4824, 171031, 122569, 227331, 41646, 77311, 81043
*Villain: 153720
Neutral: 175675, 156389, 143017, 177826, 67356, 1296, 176180, 215257, 207827
Hero 15-20: 108375, 195149, 185895
Villain 15-20:
Neutral 15-20:
Rerun: 106553
"75386/225318" is because the arc's author has requested that I review the version on Test for i15 if I get to his arc before i15 goes live.
I am closing the Hero queue as of now. I will continue to accept arcs that fit into the other catagories, but I am not accepting any more Hero arcs above level 20 until the list thins out.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
No thoughts re my comments/questions?
Give him a little. Let him gather his thoughts. 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
I'm afraid... someone hold me.
I'm sorry, my hands are kind of full with other things right now.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
S'okay.
*tingles with excitement*
I'm next up on the hero queue for disection!
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
I see from a post Venture made, that he is busy on the test server this weekend tweeking his arcs for I15 and looking at other peoples arcs there as well.
My Villain arc is the one he is set to review next... I think he took a peek at it and started screaming "this is the worst arc ever" and ran away to hide! lol
Anyways, I'm the next one in the crosshairs!
I know, I'm just excited because it's so close. The hero queue is huge and I've slowly been working my way up it for a long time. I want the detailed feedback.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
Hi Venture, your villain queue looks empty, so I'll throw Power Play at you for a sound thrashing.
Arc #225318 (TEST), "The Knights of Rularuu - I15 edition"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", somewhat trite
Reviewed on: 6/22/2009
Level Range: 45-54
Character used: Test/Eva Knight
Since I was checking out arcs for people on Test I let this one jump the queue. The arc's ID on Live is #75386.
Justice-Guy (no, really, and yes, author insert) has a problem: he's doing Crimson's missions. OK, it doesn't say that, but that's his problem: he's working with a "government spy type" who constantly has Justice-Guy meeting with his partner (Indigo, of course) and it's really tedious, etc. So he wants your help. Your first task is to clear out a Malta base. He's arranged for a friend of his, Serras, to meet you there. She spawned front-loaded...and left as soon as I freed her, saying she sensed Justice-Guy was in grave danger. She's called a friend of hers to cover for her here...egads. Serras' friend turns out to be Rebecca...a Carnie Ring Mistress (spelling error: "route"). The hits just keep coming. Rebecca claims to be out from under Vanessa DeVore's control...OK..... Despite the nav bar saying "Clear Out Malta Base" you only have to find their computer files (encrypted) and take out the leader, a Tac Ops Commander. Justice-Guy didn't have much luck with his target...
...so he asks you to help him assault it again in act II. The base turns out to be under attack by some custom mobs attached to the Rularuu, which were pretty much wiped out before I got to them. The Big Bad was an "Obliterator", Broadsword/Shield Defense Boss, which gave me a tense moment before snuffing it. The one glowie was a computer revealing Malta was doing illegal portal experiments at this base. Um, duh?
Portal Corp gets into the action next, examining the Malta base. They find that not only did Malta tap into the Shadow Shard, they tapped into a part of it that's cut off from the rest of the dimension and can only be reached by going through our dimension. There are people trapped there, like everywhere else in the Shard, and you're sent in to try to rescue some of them. You're sent to a caves map to rescue five hostages, each of which gives you a little bit of the history of the Shard, which is not quite consonant with what I know of the canon (but Shard canon isn't all that rigid to begin with). As Justice-Guy summarizes in the debriefing, the new mobs are the personal army of Rularuu himself. A "general" called the Bane tried to lead them in an effort to free Rularuu but only succeeded in breaking the Shard even further, creating the pocket dimension you're dealing with now.
Time for the Fight Scene: the Bane breaks through the portal in the Malta base, smashing it and leaving behind its own "tear" in the fabric of space. Not good. You head in with Justice-Guy and Serras to deal with the incursion. There are two scientists to rescue, one of which triggers a new objective (i15 feature) to activate a "dimensional stabilizer" that will close the Bane's portals. The Bane turned out to be a Battle Axe/Shield Defense AV/EB which killed me instantly on agro but only because the two AI morons agroed it while I was low on health from taking out the Obliterator that was parked in front of it. I combined some insps, rezzed, and took it down without hitting Elude.
The plot is fairly generic and lacks a theme. And I'm not really sure why anyone would think the Rularuu need custom mobs -- frankly, they're about the only faction in the game that's actually scarier than just about anything the players could create in the Architect. The arc's dialog is well-written, though (Justice-Guy is annoying but he's annoying in-character) and the new mobs do have a look that's consistent with the existing Rularuu.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Arc #153720, "A Week in the Life of a Villain"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", very tedious, typos, too many useless Clues
Reviewed on: 6/27/1009
Level Range: 40-54/45-54/40-54/41-54/40-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice
This one comes with a "no squishies" warning in the browser entry. That's seldom a good sign.
The Mistress of Pain or Pleasure, a lady with the Most Common Superpower, wants your help dealing with KillerBunny of SAFE (Superheroes Against the Forces of Evil). Bunny is harassing a business concern of "the Order" and Missy is willing to pay top dollar for you to stop her. Oh, and she may throw in a "special gift", If You Know What I Mean. The job takes place at a convention of sorts where representatives of various criminal factions were to meet with an Order representative (who now will not be showing up). Heard at the door:
[NPC] Lancer: I'm lonely!
[NPC] Lancer Surgeon: Well ask one of the hostesses out on a date. They're hot!
Yeah. The arc is filled with this, and single entendres, and a fair number of typos.
You have to rescue several BunnyGirl hostesses to trigger the spawn of KillerBunny, a Claws/Super Reflexes Elite Boss that was a real pain to bring down. You deliver her to the Mistress for interrogation, If You...eh, I'd have to say that way too often in this arc.
The next day, after the Mistress has determined KillerBunny knew nothing of the Order then magically erased her memory and released her, you are asked to head out to a cargo ship. An "old enemy" of the Order is intercepting an important shipment. They want you to intervene. On acceptance, you're told the ship is being attacked by werewolves and the Mistress wants the lead werewolf dead as revenge for their last encounter. You're also to retrieve the one important crate without looking inside. (There's a cute clue/message on thsi one.) You just have to gun down most of a ship map full of Werewolves, which is fairly tedious for a build that often relies on Wide Area Web Grenade to keep mobs at range.
Your next Herculean labor involves stopping a Banished Pantheon ritual. They are going to sacrifice four sets of identical quadruplets (that's sixteen hostages, for those keeping score at home) in a cemetery. You have to rescue them. Oh, and there's this Adamastor thing in the way, it has to go too. And you have to destroy the cauldron they're using for the ritual. Egads. The only good thing I can say about this is at least it's not the fogged-over graveyard map. I almost quit the arc at this point. Between overlapping spawns, the large guard parties on each...single...one...of...the...sixteen...hostage s...and the tendency of Banished Pantheon maps to spawn extra Bosses, I ended up with 771 bonus tickets for this mission. That should give you a hint as to how much I had to kill. You do get an ally (Jacklyn, a Claws/Regeneration Boss or Elite Boss, I forget now) but you'd have to be insane to try to drag an ally all over this mission so I saved her for last. The Mistress tells you to get some rest afterward since she expects to have a job for you tomorrow.
Sure enough, Malta goons have broken into an Order base and raided the files. Most of the files were destroyed by booby traps but they did get away with four partial files. You're to retrieve them and kill anyone who has seen them like the raid leader. You're smart enough to ask what's going to happen to you after seeing the files...the Mistresses promises you're safe, no, really, cross her heart, etc. OK.... You have to hit four glowies (with clues that reveal "the Order" to be a vampire clan) and take out a Master Gunslinger...with a large guard party. Ouch. Unfortunately for the Order, the Malta leader sent a copy of the files to the Circle of Thorns.
The briefing for Act V has some reveals in it, basically fusing White Wolf and CoX canon. It seems the Order fought on the Mu side in the Mu-Oranbega war and as a result the Circle has it in for all vampires (meaning they're going to be very busy on Virtue). So, you have to go in to retrieve the files. The Mistress and Jackie have to contact the Order's leaders, but the Mistress is sending a "Lady Carmela" to help out. Your goals are to find her and kill the four Arch-Magi. Having used them myself in the first version of "Chains of Blood" I know exactly how tedious this is going to be. Just to extinguish any lingering hope that this won't be like kicking dead whales down the beach, Baphomet spawns when you wax the first Arch-Magi and he has to go too. I couldn't even dent the Arch-Magi (which all spawned at +1) so I had to pick up the ally (which I usually skip; also she's on the SAFE faction). She spawned in back, so I had to run all the way to the back to get her, then backtrack to take out the Arch-Magi, then find where Baphomet spawned which turned out to be even further in back resulting in running over the map three times, mostly dragging a mob that kept getting stuck on the geometry or falling into pits. I finally downed Baphomet and ended the mission. Despite the mission briefing and title saying you have to recover the files you never actually do. The exit pop-up says " Ok this week sucked! Who didn't you fight this week? Council, Carnies, Freaks, Nemesis, Werewolves, Pantheon, Malta, the Circle, Demons, Spectres, a hot Bunny and even a crazy pot! Sigh... You need a vacation!"...really not a good idea to lampshade your arc's tedium. In the debriefing the Mistress offers to make you a vampire. Um, no.
The arc has no theme. It is very tedious, particularly in acts III and V. The arc had, by the end, I think 26 clues, the vast majority of which just told you that you did something you just did -- i.e. you'd kill BOSSNAME and get a clue saying "You have killed BOSSNAME."...um, yeah? Finally (and I didn't really deduct for this but it's worth noting), there is really nothing villainous about this arc. Granted that's a complaint that can be leveled at a lot of the CoV content but since the mistake's already been made repeatedly it should be easier to avoid. The player spends this whole arc rescuing people or protecting what's described as a benevolent order of vampires. The arc should have its morality reconsidered or its action edited to match the villainous intent. Somewhere under here there's a decent story trying to get out, but it's going to take some effort to do that.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
First of all thanks for the review!
I'm sorry you didn't like it.
Did the devs change something in AE overnight?... My arc was at 100.00% last night and is at 81.89% today? WTF?
Edit: LOL I get 2 different readings... at home (on same laptop) and at work (on laptop) both have different file sizes... bizzare.
I'd like to make a few comments though. Because I really think you missed quite a few things.
I'm not sure what difficulty level you played at because many of the things you are describing NEVER happened in over 50 test runs of the mission. (I've only tested at lvl's 1-4 difficulty).
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This one comes with a "no squishies" warning in the browser entry. That's seldom a good sign.
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I thought warning people BEFORE they play a mission was the correct thing to do?
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The Mistress of Pain or Pleasure, a lady with the Most Common Superpower, wants your help dealing with KillerBunny of SAFE (Superheroes Against the Forces of Evil). Bunny is harassing a business concern of "the Order" and Missy is willing to pay top dollar for you to stop her. Oh, and she may throw in a "special gift", If You Know What I Mean. The job takes place at a convention of sorts where representatives of various criminal factions were to meet with an Order representative (who now will not be showing up).
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Well Mistress was wearing a full body dress (yes a sexy one), so I fail to see the problem here. Women have different sizes and shapes, she represent one of them. You seem to be misrepresenting what her "special gift" was (although you don't find out what that gift is until the end of the arc)... immortality.
In case you missed it ... " I have observed you for a long time and I think you might be someone I can work with" , she was looking for someone she could trust and had a similar morality. She was recruiting for the Order ultimately.
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[NPC] Lancer: I'm lonely!
[NPC] Lancer Surgeon: Well ask one of the hostesses out on a date. They're hot!
Yeah. The arc is filled with this, and single entendres, and a fair number of typos.
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I'm sorry you didn't like my humour in the patrols speeches. Well after all humour is subjective.
As for typos... you didn't point any out and I had hoped I had caught all of them. I apologize for any that slipped through. I'll have to double check. Also are you thinking that some words are spelled incorrectly? I'm Canadian and we tend to use British spelling.
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You have to rescue several BunnyGirl hostesses to trigger the spawn of KillerBunny, a Claws/Super Reflexes Elite Boss that was a real pain to bring down. You deliver her to the Mistress for interrogation, If You...eh, I'd have to say that way too often in this arc.
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KillerBunny is supposed to be tough, but I had lowered her SR to below ELUDE level so she shouldn't have been that hard to hit. Also her attack was on STANDARD. She is the only custom enemy you need to face in the arc. Every other enemy is stock COV.
Why do you have a problem with Mistress interrogating KillerBunny? Is that not what villains do? Mistress just happens to get pleasure from hurting (not killing) others.
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he next day, after the Mistress has determined KillerBunny knew nothing of the Order then magically erased her memory and released her, you are asked to head out to a cargo ship. An "old enemy" of the Order is intercepting an important shipment. They want you to intervene. On acceptance, you're told the ship is being attacked by werewolves and the Mistress wants the lead werewolf dead as revenge for their last encounter. You're also to retrieve the one important crate without looking inside. (There's a cute clue/message on thsi one.) You just have to gun down most of a ship map full of Werewolves, which is fairly tedious for a build that often relies on Wide Area Web Grenade to keep mobs at range.
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Mistress determined that KillerBunny knew nothing of the Order and changed her memories so that she wouldn't remember who defeated her. Is that not a smart move for her to do rather than kill a superhero and have KillerBunny's SG out looking for her killers?
As for the werewolves, well depending on your toon's powers you could just "stealth" and just kill the werewolf leader and click on the box. If you hugged the walls, you wouldn't need to fight 90% of them. There was NO need to kill anyone other than the leader's group. And even if you do decide to kill everything, there are not that many to kill. It's the smallest ship map! If your difficulty level spawned more than 3 in a group (1 LT, 2 minions), then you experienced something I never did. I would say that you made it more difficult by attacking everyone, which was not the mission objective.
[ QUOTE ]
Your next Herculean labor involves stopping a Banished Pantheon ritual. They are going to sacrifice four sets of identical quadruplets (that's sixteen hostages, for those keeping score at home) in a cemetery. You have to rescue them. Oh, and there's this Adamastor thing in the way, it has to go too. And you have to destroy the cauldron they're using for the ritual. Egads. The only good thing I can say about this is at least it's not the fogged-over graveyard map. I almost quit the arc at this point. Between overlapping spawns, the large guard parties on each...single...one...of...the...sixteen...hostage s...and the tendency of Banished Pantheon maps to spawn extra Bosses, I ended up with 771 bonus tickets for this mission. That should give you a hint as to how much I had to kill. You do get an ally (Jacklyn, a Claws/Regeneration Boss or Elite Boss, I forget now) but you'd have to be insane to try to drag an ally all over this mission so I saved her for last. The Mistress tells you to get some rest afterward since she expects to have a job for you tomorrow.
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LOL... Herculean labour? Well I can't fault you for saying that on this mission. This is the mission I know people will hate. But until the Mission editor will allow us to group 4 captives into a single rescue objective (thus leaving only 4 rescues needed), I'm stuck at 16. For me, I averaged about 20 minutes to complete this mission. My testing (except for lvl 4 difficultly) NEVER had more than 3 people guarding a captive (1Lt, 2 minions at the worst). There were no bosses to fight in any group. Adamastor should have been relatively easy to kill with your ally's help. (personally I never needed the ally's help). Also it is NOT a kill all, just Adamastor, 16 captives(yes alot) & a destroy 1 object.
[ QUOTE ]
Sure enough, Malta goons have broken into an Order base and raided the files. Most of the files were destroyed by booby traps but they did get away with four partial files. You're to retrieve them and kill anyone who has seen them like the raid leader. You're smart enough to ask what's going to happen to you after seeing the files...the Mistresses promises you're safe, no, really, cross her heart, etc. OK.... You have to hit four glowies (with clues that reveal "the Order" to be a vampire clan) and take out a Master Gunslinger...with a large guard party. Ouch. Unfortunately for the Order, the Malta leader sent a copy of the files to the Circle of Thorns.
[/ QUOTE ]
Has the Mistress lied to the character at any point? Has she not told the character exactly what they would be facing? Has she not demonstrated concern for the character? Has she not demonstrated mercy in each of the 3 previous missions... release BunnyGirls unharmed, set KillerBunny free & asked that you rescue the innocents about to be sacrificed? What part of her actions would lead you to believe that she might be lying (which she isn't)? Also this allows the character to demonstrate trust in the contact... something she is looking for.
Also no bosses spawned during my tests, no group was larger than 3 or 4, only the final Boss Gunslinger group had a sapper spawn. I didn't find it that hard.
[ QUOTE ]
The briefing for Act V has some reveals in it, basically fusing White Wolf and CoX canon. It seems the Order fought on the Mu side in the Mu-Oranbega war and as a result the Circle has it in for all vampires (meaning they're going to be very busy on Virtue). So, you have to go in to retrieve the files. The Mistress and Jackie have to contact the Order's leaders, but the Mistress is sending a "Lady Carmela" to help out. Your goals are to find her and kill the four Arch-Magi. Having used them myself in the first version of "Chains of Blood" I know exactly how tedious this is going to be. Just to extinguish any lingering hope that this won't be like kicking dead whales down the beach, Baphomet spawns when you wax the first Arch-Magi and he has to go too. I couldn't even dent the Arch-Magi (which all spawned at +1) so I had to pick up the ally (which I usually skip; also she's on the SAFE faction). She spawned in back, so I had to run all the way to the back to get her, then backtrack to take out the Arch-Magi, then find where Baphomet spawned which turned out to be even further in back resulting in running over the map three times, mostly dragging a mob that kept getting stuck on the geometry or falling into pits. I finally downed Baphomet and ended the mission. Despite the mission briefing and title saying you have to recover the files you never actually do. The exit pop-up says " Ok this week sucked! Who didn't you fight this week? Council, Carnies, Freaks, Nemesis, Werewolves, Pantheon, Malta, the Circle, Demons, Spectres, a hot Bunny and even a crazy pot! Sigh... You need a vacation!"...really not a good idea to lampshade your arc's tedium. In the debriefing the Mistress offers to make you a vampire. Um, no.
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The Arch-Magi are as the developers designed them, I'm sorry you find them so boring. But they are part of the cannon mobs in COV, so deal with them. The ally spawns in the MIDDLE, not the back and you must pass her on the way so you should not be able to miss her. The 4 Arch-Magi spawn in the middle as well. Baphoment spawns at the back and he spawns AFTER you find your Ally. Your ally flys, so she should not "fall" into anything. You apparently didn't read the clue for the defeat of the Archmage Of Death.. it said you recovered the files from him.
The exit popup summaries who you fought this week and your exhaustion. I wanted to make each mission against different groups to keep it NON TEDIOUS... apparently you had the opposite reaction?
And the "Special Gift" she offers you at the end is immortality.
The contact was honest and straightforward with the character the entire arc. She was looking for someone who could kill when needed, show mercy when appropriate, could follow orders, and was trustworthy. Characteristics that your character shows to her during this week.
She offers your character the CHOICE of becoming immortal and teaming up with a like minded group of Vampires in the "Order". She is offering you the greatest gift she has.
Remember, the 3 Vampires you meet NEVER had a choice in what they became (they were involuntarily turned into vampires). But they did make a choice later on to join a group of vampires who did not kill humans for food and tried to retain their humanity. The are damned, but they do try to restrain themselves.
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The arc has no theme. It is very tedious, particularly in acts III and V. The arc had, by the end, I think 26 clues, the vast majority of which just told you that you did something you just did -- i.e. you'd kill BOSSNAME and get a clue saying "You have killed BOSSNAME."...um, yeah? Finally (and I didn't really deduct for this but it's worth noting), there is really nothing villainous about this arc. Granted that's a complaint that can be leveled at a lot of the CoV content but since the mistake's already been made repeatedly it should be easier to avoid. The player spends this whole arc rescuing people or protecting what's described as a benevolent order of vampires. The arc should have its morality reconsidered or its action edited to match the villainous intent. Somewhere under here there's a decent story trying to get out, but it's going to take some effort to do that.
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Well we differ on what we use clues for I guess. But not a big deal I think. I agree I could remove alot of the clues.
As for being villainous... that's open to interpretation. I consider someone telling you to show no mercy towards scum and kill them to be still villainous. Showing mercy to innocents can also be a characteristic of of villain's personality.
And as for no theme... well you apparently totally missed it!
From your Tvtropes:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ilHasStandards
All throughout the arc the contact has been advising you not to kill innocents. The Order is devoted to peaceful coexistance between humans and vampires. All of these are moral choices. So I think your way off base on that statement.
And it's not a Bunch of stuff that happens. The arc's title is "A week in the life of a villain". These event unfold during a VERY hectic week. They are ALL intertwined because they all involve the Order and it's enemies. And ultimately there is the subplot of the Mistress recruiting the character. She sees over the course of the 5 missions the qualities in the character she is looking for.
Since there is a theme/moral and all the stories have a purpose, there is NO way you can say it is "just a bunch of stuff that happened"!
In your own words from this Thread:
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Can you explain "a bunch of stuff that happens" a bit more?
"Just a bunch of stuff that happened" means the story has no theme or moral to it. It's nothing but a meaningless string of events. It's just about some guys doing some stuff you don't like so you clobber them to make them stop. The plot doesn't say anything or teach anything, making it suitable for use by any of the most vapid Saturday-morning cartoons.
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By your own definition this arc can't be defined as "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
I'm sorry but again your way off base.
But thanks again for your review and taking the time to play it.
Respectfully,
Note: Edited to correct spelling mistakes and clarify a few points
Well, I gotta admit, I took this review like a punch to the gut. Here, in the interest of friendly discussion, are a few points I'd like to get on the record. Respectfully:
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Arc #158678 The Secret of Area 51
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GM, Wall Banger
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 41-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Lemon, the station chief for Longbow intelligence in St. Martial, wants you to look into Malta activity in the Rogue Isles. "Lemon", it should be noted, is Johnny Sonata, presumably on assignment "deep undercover" in St. Martial. Try to imagine Frank Sinatra being revealed today as actually an FBI Agent in the 1960s, reporting directly to J. Edgar Hoover while palling around with the mob -- wouldn't that have made him the greatest "double agent" in all of history? That's my idea for Johnny Sonata. Your tasks are to shut down Malta's security fence, download any computer files you find and avoid the Malta Prisoners. Lemon warns you that if Malta even suspected you were poking around their operations you'd never be safe again. Dude, it is way too late for that.... Act I takes place on one of the instanced St. Martial maps. Hence the call from "Lemon"/Johnny Sonata for help ie. his specific connection to St. Martial as the outdoor map in the Rogue Isles I wanted to use for this story. The first Malta Prisoner I found was Sunshadow, whose info claims to be a third species of Kheldian...right. There are multiple instances of similar named characters, probably due to the Malta Prisoners custom faction containing nothing but, all of which say in their info they have impossible power combinations. Due to file size limitations, I was able to pack only 12 characters into my custom-made group "Malta Prisoners". But, oh what characters they are: "Sunshadow" a Nictus Melee/Nictus Aura Warbringer..."Kid Chernobyl" a Radiation Debuff/Radiation Emission Tank..."Atlantic Bob" a Water Blast/Water Manipulation Blaster...etc, etc...all in all, the "ten new powersets and two new EATs" promised on my Mission Profile page, ALL "impossible" new power combinations -- the idea being, there are dangerous new power combinations emerging in both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles...and the Malta Group has taken it upon themselves to police their emergence... I ended up having to take down a spawn of these guys due to their proximity to one of the fence controls. There are five of these, all destroyable objects guarded by Malta troops. This makes the mission very annoying as you have a map full of Bosses to contend with (I used stealth and flight to avoid almost all of them.) Needless to say there is no failure condition for not avoiding the prisoners, since there can't be (at least not yet). I meant this mission to be largely a smash-the-five-computer-terminals-and-then-get-out stealth operation. The Mission Info even says "Avoid the Malta Prisoners." Should I have highlighted "Avoid the Malta Prisoners."? I thought the fact that they spawn as Lts./Bosses would be enough of a deterrant from engaging them in combat... If there was any kind of computer glowie I never found it. An exit pop-up did say I downloaded 2.7 gigs of data. A meta reference to the 2.7 gigabytes which operate "City of Heroes" -- "Is this the information by which the Malta Group controls the world around them?" I meant as a subtle joke about our beloved Developers.
For your next mission, Lemon asks you to rescue operative Pistachio from a Malta safehouse in the Hive. Malta built a safehouse in a region filled with 50 foot tall monsters and a world-devouring ooze? Sure! When's the last time you saw a group of heroes in the Hive? That's where I'd go to hide out if I was involved with a top secret conspiracy -- in one of the most dangerous places in the world! OK.... Oh, and you get a whole ten minutes to do this in, which the briefing doesn't tell you. I stealthed through the map to find Pistachio, a Radiation Blast/Empathy Boss whose info tells you she's an insert (Auntie Biotic on Infinity), and then had to take out a Master Gunslinger to complete. I figured, defeating "Delta 4-51" in less than ten minutes could be tough, I better give you a Empathy Defender as an ally...so why not make her Auntie Biotic, MY Empathy Defender (yeah, an insert) but expand the game canon a little further by saying she's "Pistachio" (heals = green in-game), supposedly another "deep undercover" Longbow Intelligence Agent stationed in the Rikti War Zone, where from, coincidentally, the Malta Group has been "kidnapping both heroes and villains"...Again, a direct quote from my Mission Profile page in the Mission Architect.
Pistachio's intel says Malta is kidnapping supers from the RWZ and shipping them to Bradbury Island, 400 miles offshore from Paragon City, codenamed Area 51 because no one's ever heard of that before. Most people think "Area 51" has something to do with aliens. The Secret of "Area 51"? "Area 51" actually has nothing to do with aliens, but as a prison site, has something to do with all of us being unable to attain that last single XP point we need to hit "Level 51" in-game...thank goodness for that! Malta has been flying people out daily for the last six months, Lemon says, which makes me feel real confident about air security around Paragon City.... Fair enough. But...Malta IS a top secret quasi-governmental security organization with "unlimited resources". Like, the CIA hasn't been flying terrorist suspects out of commercial airports for the past 30 years, albeit on their own airplanes? Today's flight has crashed into the cemetary in Dark Astoria and Synapse is already on the scene. You're sent in to rendezvous with him. You're warned that everyone is pretty much fighting everyone. He isn't kidding as not only are all the mobs fighting, but Synapse is hostile and has to be defeated. Which is why I very deliberately included potentially 60 allies (20 separate spawns of at least three "Malta Prisoners" defeating Malta Group hostiles on an outdoor map) to help take down Synapse...and, if you gotta pull a member of the Freedom Phalanx into a friendly mob for help, wouldn't it be best to pull superspeedster Synapse after you, rather than Statesman or Manticore or somebody else who just jogs along after you? He claims he's the hero of this story and you're the villain. He triggers one ambush of Malta as his health declines (didn't make it to me) and says Statesman and Manticore are on the way when he falls. If they spawned I never saw them. The exit popup says You tell yourself, it was either defeat Synapse, or join the Malta Prisoners in "Area 51". What were you supposed to do? Surrender to Malta? Like, what? The theme I was trying to develop with this story is, Things are often not what they seem when you scratch beneath the surface of any given situation, you may think you're the good guy, but maybe you're actually the bad guy when two worldviews come into conflict... OK: I was going for the twist ending!
In the final debriefing, Lemon tells you that Synapse and the Phalanx were out there to support Malta, not oppose them, because Area 51 is actually a prison for superheroes that reach security level 51. At this point they are reclassified as Threat Level 51 and imprisoned to keep the world safe from them. He says Venture, I advise you to forget what you learned today. Stay out of the Rikti War Zone. Stay away from Bradbury Island. Don't think about Area 51. Don't challenge authority. Trust the Freedom Phalanx to both know, and do, what's right for the rest of us... What "Lemon" actually says is, "I have often wondered why there are so few Level 51 heroes in Paragon City. Other than the Freedom Phalanx, who else out there is ABOVE Level 50? So let me ask you, when you arrived on the scene, was Synapse fighting the Malta Group, or the Malta Prisoners rioting AGAINST the Malta Group?...Ah, that's what I thought. "Area 51": it is a prison for superheroes..." -- THEN, on a rather downbeat note, "Lemon" concludes, "Venture, I advise you to forget what you learned today, etc..." which the player can take any way they want, but which I HOPE they recognize as food for thought, sort of an ironic send-off from any "authority figure" such as a Longbow Intelligence chief.
That THUD! you heard was the sound of this arc hitting the wall. Fair enough comment. But at least I TRIED to put out a fairly serious story, not just another farm mission. And the gold standard for reviewing ANY artistic endeavour is: What were they trying to do? How well did they do it? And, was it worth doing in the first place? How would you score me on those points, then? Still 1-star? I do have to say this arc is a first: it is the only one I've seen so far that would be improved if it were revealed all the main NPCs were Nemesis Automatons. Truly? Oh boy...
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In closing, thanks to Venture for taking the time and trouble to review my arc. I am pretty sure it will be the only story I ever publish utilizing the Mission Architect system, and while it may not be for everyone (in fact, no one, from the less than five comments I have received in-game) I am happy with it, and quite enjoy playing it myself. (Man, nothing beats Synapse getting dog-piled by the Malta Prisoners! When the Malta Prisoners riot against the Malta Group, almost 120 extremely dangerous NPCs going crazy, battling each other on the Moth Cemetery outdoor map, it's like...World War Five! In the fog! With your very survival as a free man at stake! Hell yeah! It doesn't get much better than that! Not for me...)
Very sincerely,
COLD BOB
Level 50 Ice/Ice Blaster
Infinity Server
Arc #175675, "A Princess of Mars"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: no theme, no plot, almost no writing at all
Reviewed on: 6/27/2009
Level Range: 50-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice
That level range isn't a good sign.
The browser entry is, I'm pretty sure, part of the opening from eponymous Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Befittingly the Contact is John Carter. The entire first mission briefing: " I am trying to find clues on the location of Dejah Thoris. I believe she has been captured by the Jeddak of the green warriors of the Warhoon tribe." The terseness is also not a good sign. The mission takes place on the Thorn Tree Oranbega map; your objectives are to find Deja Thoris' water jug (which has a note inside it but no Clue; pickup message says we know where she is now), meet up with Carter and take down Tal Hajus, a Katana/Energy Aura Elite (info lifted right from Burroughs) who dropped me instantly thanks to BuildUp. Carter himself appeared to be a Dual Blades/Willpower Elite with a gargantuan agro radius. The enemies are a custom Martian faction (alas, with but two arms.) At the end of the mission, either from defeting Hajus or as an end clue, I got a "A kiss from Dejah Thoris" clue saying I had received a kiss from a Martian princess...whom we have yet to rescue.
Act II: "Rescue Kantos Kan before he is led to the arena." That's it. Acceptance text says to hurry because he might know where Dejah is. Um, didn't we find that out before...oh, whatever. The mission, which is also a defeat-all, takes place in a Cimerora cave map. Kan says he knows where Dejah is when rescued but doesn't elaborate in a clue.
Act III: "Rescue Dejah Thoris". That's it. Another Cimerora cave map, this one filled with Cimeroran Traitors instead of Maritans (didn't even bother to stuff them into a custom group so they could be labelled "Martian Soldiers" or such). You hook up with Carter, who Leeroyed the overlapping spawns of Dejah's guards and Sab Than (Katana/Dark Armor Elite Boss) getting us both killed. I was far enough away to combine some insps and rez, then kited him down for the win.
The arc has no plot, never mind a theme, and is less than three newspaper/scanner missions strung together. There's no reason at all to play it, not even for the Burroughs nostalgia.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Some administrative notes:
First off, be aware that issue 15 is now "on deadline", per the recent use-your-respecs warning. It contains a considerable number of changes to the MA system. If you have requested a review it is up to you to make sure your arc is up to i15 spec if i15 has gone live before I get to it. The live database has been copied to Test so if you haven't already I suggest you hop over and see how it plays under the new rules and/or if you want to make changes to take advantage of the new features.
Secondly, I had previously announced that I was not taking any more Heroic arcs over level 20. I allowed one more in because the Architect reminded me that I'd said I would review it. I have since decided that I am not accepting any more requests at all for the time being. The line is too long, I've got to clear it out a bit before I take on more.
Third, if I have counted correctly, I believe the last review posted is my 100th. That is counting one arc I did not rate (#32865, a blatant political rant using real-world people, which amazingly is still in the system).
Finally, an update on the queue:
---
Hero: 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 161797, 179354, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 191775, 4824, 171031, 122569, 227331, 41646, 77311, 81043, 67087
Villain: 113954
Neutral: 156389, 143017, 177826, 67356, 1296, 176180, 215257, 207827
*Hero 15-20: 108375, 195149/225334, 185895
Villain 15-20:
Neutral 15-20:
Rerun: 106553
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
I can see how getting a 2-star review from Venture is pretty depressing, but two things about your response bugged me.
First, many of your responses seemed to be to Venture's generic synopsis of the missions. Although he didn't like your arc, a lot of the stuff you quoted didn't seem to be specific criticism, so my eyes started to glaze over at the responses.
Second, I don't think "Even Evil Has Standards" counts as a theme. It's a character (or faction) personality trait - you'd have to build on that to make a theme. It's especially weakened by the fact that Venture didn't really seem to see the evil in the arc - "people motivated by self-interest have standards" doesn't really count.
Keep in mind I haven't played your arc, these responses are just a reaction from a disinterested observer.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
As much as I hate to give away my secrets, I honestly didn't think it was that much of a trick to begin with :P (I'm working on something fancier at the moment with er... less success so far).
You create an escort, set it to required. Set the surrounding enemy group to "Single" so that only the escort is there. Set enemy group alignment to "Rogue" (Which makes the escort hostile), and set combat abilities to "Pacifist" (So the escort won't aggro on the player). Now you've got an escort that the player can choose to fail, but it won't attack the player so they have a choice whether they want to complete/fail the mission.
Also, the glowie can't have you fail the mission. It actually doesn't fail you on the escort until the body fades for whatever reason, so really it was the escort that caused the fail and the timing was just a coincidence on the glowie.
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today. Arc ID: 337333 - Signal:Noise, where is everybody? Arc ID: 341194
@The Cheshire Cat - Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
12 second horror stories - a writing experiment.