Made some minor changes to the arc, would love some feedback on the story.
More small changes were made, mainly various texts, including the description.
"Become emerged in the contacts story: A tale of a downward spiral filled with self destruction, rage, desperation and a hint of love. Fill his shoes as you experience his madness first hand, live the story of a hero and a madman. "
Huh? Eh? Nudge nudge. Any better? Yeah, no? Don't care? That's cool.
4 stars at 4 plays. If you play and rate, I'll return the favor. Just give me an arc #.
The Day I tried to Live review
I started this arc and attempted to solo it as a lvl 24 blaster. First off even though I was a little lvl 40, the lowest level of the arc, I was able to solo it up until a certain good doer said hello.
The narration in this arc is brilliant. I actually found myself getting into the narration style and really paying attention. The narration style is gritty and dark, something like Max Payne or Sin City. It is also told in the past sense, which makes sense and seems to fit with the story. The narration also keeps constant, even when you are doing bad things.
Spoilers Follow
The introduction to the arc is great. You wind up in a creepy abandoned hospital and are searching for a girl. Not a lot of special events happen but the mission is short and the clues you get are narrated well. The first mission is great.
The 2nd mission things start to get jilted. Your contact starts referring to things that do not make full sense and the story becomes convulted and cryptic. I realize you are trying to do an intenal power struggle between the character and his other selves. I never KNEW the other selves existed though. Their are continuity questions which makes following the plot very hard, as you relate to Red, Crowley and other characters that have not been mentioned. As well I found that while I was able to relate to the character in the first mission, his train of thought in the 2nd mission turned me off. The story makes it seem he is out to kill god. Only in the 4th mission did I realize he was trying to destroy his other selves?
As stated the narration style stays great, the content of the narration gets confusing.
The 2nd mission is a Kill-all mission in a medium map. Typically kill-all missions are not well liked because they can be frustrating. I am not adverse to kill all missions and did the mission. The difficulty was just right, a little threatining. The clue description was great. Having Mr Crowley as a rescuable prisioner was not. I didn't know what he was doing there, I assumed that this was him destroying the place... This setup a precedent that prisioners we see are Red actively doing the mission we are on.
The 2nd mission was a little long to my liking but nothing to prevent me from going on. I picked up the third mission.
The third mission starts off with a very convulted narration. I had no clue who the diety was, who the ruiner was and was overall confused. The narration style was again awesome but at this point I could not understand your story. I started up the mission and it was a destroy 3 tubes, this was on a large Rikti Map.
The map was far too large for my liking and I was slowly getting frustrated. I moved on and rescued prisioners and using the precedent from the 2nd mission believed that the prisioners I was rescuing was Red actively doing the mission. This proved incorrect as it was apparently an internal power struggle being played out. The dialouge mentioning that were too vauge and too cryptic. You may want to expand more on that.
The 3rd mission was by far my least favourite. The map was far too large and the events that did happen just confused me.
The fourth mission interesting. I abandoned all hope on understanding who or what the diety was. Instead we have the hero now rampaging across Steel Canyon. The dialouge was helpful stating statesman would show up. As well you mentioned in your story description that an Ally was present. I loaded up the fourth mission and found it to be an outdoor map. Outdoor maps are rarely loved. In story context it made sense for it to be outdoors. After a so-so 2nd mission and an aggravating 3rd mission I wasn't thrilled to face an outdoor map. It took me a while to search for the Statue and I destroyed it. The custom heroes didn't seem to be too hard, though I wouldn't want to face more than 1-2 at a time. Unfortunately since I was soloing I was unable to kill statesman ((nearly did, he broke my immoblize!)). Due to the fact that it is an outdoors map I was unable to find the ally.
Pros:
Narration is excellent and I liked the character.
Mission 1 is great!
Clue description helps move along the storyline.
Cons:
The story is confusing, told in cryptic sentences and is hard to follow
Mission 2,3 and 4 are frustrating and the pacing slows down in these missions.
The events are hard to follow and need more information on whats going on.
A big YAR for pirates!
Changed second mission to a smaller map type and is now only a kill all in back room, text changed to refer to this.
Smaller changes to mission three. I could not find a map suitable to be an interior of a Rikti ship. Will continue using 'The Seer' for now. Removed the 'battle', the point was their dialogue but it was too chaotic to even notice.
Mission Four map changed to outdoor Steel Canyon. This appears smaller and easier to maneuver around than the other outdoor map. Upgraded the Allys secondary and gave him a 'Casting Fire' animation making him easier to find due to the green explosions.
Updated character descriptions to further help in relations to each other.
Updated mission text throughout all five missions, seems to be a little smoother now.
Comments - Spoilers will follow
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his train of thought in the 2nd mission turned me off. The story makes it seem he is out to kill god. Only in the 4th mission did I realize he was trying to destroy his other selves?
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His train of thought in the second mission kicks off the rest of the arc, it's the point. He will try to escape his own pain at any cost, blame anyone other than himself, no matter who he hurts. The contacts thought process is twisted, we are seeing his mental health breakdown in the very final stages, hence the downward spiral. Things were never meant to be clear cut at this point. Remember, the contact is telling you a story and you are imagining yourself there, as him.
I wouldn't say he has 'other selves', this is not a story about an identity crisis. If more people don't understand this part of the story I will elaborate on it more in the arc, but it all has to do with God. I felt it was told well enough at the end of mission 2 and beginning of mission 3.
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The third mission starts off with a very convulted narration. I had no clue who the diety was, who the ruiner was and was overall confused
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A Deity IS a God. I used the word Deity in place of the word God, I kept getting errors. It seems fixed now though and the word God is put in the correct places. 'Ruiner' was just an adjective the contact gave the deity.
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I moved on and rescued prisioners and using the precedent from the 2nd mission believed that the prisioners I was rescuing was Red actively doing the mission. This proved incorrect as it was apparently an internal power struggle being played out. The dialouge mentioning that were too vauge and too cryptic. You may want to expand more on that.
[/ QUOTE ]
You are more or less hearing the contacts thoughts at that time, it's also a reason I made them all black and white. Some have small bits of color. It was meant to visually show what was happening to the contact and his thought process.
Thanks for playing it (Can I return the favour?). Talking to you in game was helpful to me, as was this post. Hope you play it at least once more and finish it, you missed the ending!
As I told you before I became too involved in writing the story and was unable to stand back and see what made sense or not. It all made sense to me, heh. I also struggled with the file size limit and getting things that mattered into the story.
The more feedback I get, the more I can tweak it.
The plot of this story in no way reflects my attitude toward religion.
Feedback from a low 40s DB/fire brute on diff 2. Engineer aint gonna earn itself.
Hmm. Okay. First-person narration and I get Max Payne HUD for a while then? I can buy that.
First missions kind of empty though. Fortunately I could get through this hospital in my sleep.
Ah, and this is when the snapping happens. Youve got default text for the clear out the last room objective though.
Default text for most of the destroyables, too, as well as the hostage. Shame really. I want to see what I think of all this.
Its a shame there arent any pure Rikti base maps. You work with what you have, I guess.
One of the amusing observations about many online games in the age of customization is that you spend an hour in the character creator picking from eighteen gajabillion combinations of eyebrow, scar, lip shape, and nose groove, and then you look like a unique and beautiful snowflake
for anybody whos looking directly at your face
in the 5 minutes before you put on your newbie helmet.
The point is, the face is small in relation to both the screen and the rest of the character, and with most of the changes of the missions internal narrator being visible only on his face, they go unnoticed.
Maybe his shirt explodes off him in the vacuum of space?
Hmm. An enemy group composed entirely of lieutenants, huh? This might get a bit problematic.
I really, truly, do not like this map, especially this map with chained objectives. Theres just so much terrain to cover and so many places to check. At least the allys a bit of help in the cleanup and he can follow me easily.
I clean out the entire map, to find States alone in a vacant lot Id already cleared out. What the heck. Classic outdoor overspawn, I guess.
Hmm. Freaklympics. This is one of those maps with a special spawn in the entire back room, the upshot of which is that nothing will ever show up there. If you wanted the mechanical to show up on the podium, well, no such luck. Maybe use the shorter Freak warehouse? I think that one has normal spawns in it.
The Shadow Shard Reflections work well in this last map, though.
Storyline - ****. As far as the storyline goes, about the only thing Im wondering is: whats the state of the contact telling me this? Some kind of ghost? Maybe he needs some fog effects or something. And talk more about the clarity of the grave or how hes beyond the insanity or whatever. Also, was I supposed to sympathize a little with the machine? I guess part of it is that I reflexively sympathize with anything that doesnt go I MUST REMAKE THE UNIVERSE SO I CAN BE AT PEACE.
Design - ***. Show, dont tell. After every mission the contact rails at me about the philosophical realities he was confronting - but if Im really taking part in his madness along with him, then shouldnt I be seeing them too? Maybe even fighting them? As it is that doesnt happen until the end. If nothing else, solo pacifist allies work nicely as, I guess you could say, actors.
Gameplay - ***. That Steel Canyon map is responsible for most of this, first because Im running all over creation trying to find the dang end boss, who apparently has no unaware dialogue or animation, and second because radiation debuffs are all click powers for the AI, meaning as soon as I jump into a group of 3-5 lieutenants i get a couple rad debuffs that make it a lot harder to take on the rest of them. Itd probably go a lot easier if the rad hero and, say, the insect were just minions.
Detail - ****. This arc tries to do something interesting, so this ranking is higher than it might be - it attempts to rewrite the HUD and the description windows to conform to the model of internal narration, but some of the HUD objective text and descriptions are their standard selves, more consistent with an objective observer. If it was supposed to feel schizophrenic, it really just came across as confused and incomplete.
Overall - ***. I feel like I know what this arc is trying to do. But the occasional afterimage of the contact in the throes of madness aside, the missions are really too pedestrian. Most of the psychological drama just comes in waves of text from the contact, detached from the action of the mission. The use of the interface to establish internal narration is a nice tool, but its unevenly implemented across the arc. So the final impression: an arc that tried to do something novel but executed unevenly.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Thanks for the feedback.
-Changed the custom group. Changed some from Lt's to minions.
- Added better descriptions
Comments -
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Youve got default text for the clear out the last room objective though
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For some reason I see no way of changing the description for this.
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Default text for most of the destroyables, too, as well as the hostage
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There wasn't supposed to be one for the hostage, on purpose. I changed the destroyables though, I did overlook those.
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Its a shame there arent any pure Rikti base maps. You work with what you have, I guess.
One of the amusing observations about many online games in the age of customization is that you spend an hour in the character creator picking from eighteen gajabillion combinations of eyebrow, scar, lip shape, and nose groove, and then you look like a unique and beautiful snowflake
for anybody whos looking directly at your face
in the 5 minutes before you put on your newbie helmet.
The point is, the face is small in relation to both the screen and the rest of the character, and with most of the changes of the missions internal narrator being visible only on his face, they go unnoticed.
Maybe his shirt explodes off him in the vacuum of space?
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmmm, I expected more backlash for this mission. I'm happy with the way the hostages look though. I only changed their faces for those who cared to even look, just a small detail.
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Hmm. An enemy group composed entirely of lieutenants, huh? This might get a bit problematic.
I really, truly, do not like this map, especially this map with chained objectives. Theres just so much terrain to cover and so many places to check. At least the allys a bit of help in the cleanup and he can follow me easily.
I clean out the entire map, to find States alone in a vacant lot Id already cleared out. What the heck. Classic outdoor overspawn, I guess.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is my biggest problem concerning the design as well. From a story stand point it has to be outside, but I can find no maps suitable enough to make it fun too. Perhaps I will remove the chained objectives. I also added 'casting' animations to the EB to make him easier to spot.
Spoilers -
The contact is dead, hence all the black and white, but I do not feel he is a ghost. I did not think this was important enough to elaborate on. Perhaps its his consciousness, after all he still feels trapped in his insanity, it just changed its direction.
There wasn't exactly supposed to be sympathy, but if there were, it definitely wouldn't go to 'The Machine'. It's the cause of the contacts every bad decision.
Based on what you said of the design, I am feeling I wrote the synopsis wrong again. I'll have to think it over. The only part of the madness you see is in the form of the hostages, their clues and descriptions. It's all I ever meant to show of it, until the last mission.
You are more or less observing all the important turning points of the story...with yourself acting out...what happens...Yeah, I have to think this over more.
Added text to the first mission to start everything off and hopefully give the player a better understanding as to the context of the narration.
Changed the synopsis to better reflect that you are hearing a story told by the contact.
Other minor text changes have been made.
- Changed the second map to - Abandoned Tech Small. Removed defeat all in back room objective, changed to clickable objective.
- Changed the map on mission four from outdoor 'Steel Canyon' to 'Atlas ruined'. Removed destroyable objective.
The ally and Elite Boss have green auras that make them easier to find against the dark red landscape.
[ QUOTE ]
- Changed the map on mission four from outdoor 'Steel Canyon' to 'Atlas ruined'. Removed destroyable objective.
The ally and Elite Boss have green auras that make them easier to find against the dark red landscape.
[/ QUOTE ]
Red Atlas a) has no minimap b) has broken terrain over half the map with two-story walls. It's a worse outdoor map than that offshoot of Steel Canyon.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Title: The Day I Tried To Live
Arc ID: 131780
Morality: Neutral (Might lean more to the Red side of things)
Difficulty Level: 40+ Medium, -40 hard (just a guess)
Enemy Groups: Crey, Rikti, Custom Group
Number of EB/AVS 2 EBs, the first EB mission has an ally that is not needed to complete the mission, but will help with the fight. The second EB is required to finish the mission, no ally help provided.
Story Type Serious.
Mission Count: Five
Estimated Time to Play: I have no idea...Probably more than an hour depending on how you play it.
Synopsis Listen to the contacts tale; experience the story of his life, a tale of a downward spiral filled with self destruction, rage, desperation and a hint of love. No mystery, no humor, just a story about a hero and a madman.
Note One kill all on a small map (due to the plot). The level range is wacky because of the groups I used, two missions are 30-54, two are 40-54 and one is 41-54. Also, throughout the missions are hostages that don't need to be rescued, but might make more sense to the story.
Custom group has not been tested a lot.
Arc has a lot of text. It was written about my main character and adapted to fit in the MA, but you dont need to know who it is to grasp the story.
Be as critical as possible. Constructive criticism of course, but still, dont hold back.
If you wish, Ill play and rate an arc of yours in return. Leave an arc ID#.