City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Victims of Architect ratings griefers

Aliana Blue

By Aliana Blue,
Posted on: 2009-05-24 15:28 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

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This arc, perhaps intended to be an epic tale, simply comes across as contrived and boring. Its poor use of difficult themes accompanied by the upstaging of the players due to overpowered NPCs and a plot not focused on them or their abilities leaves little for players to do and no challenge to be had.

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Time travel isn’t a difficult theme unless you’re trying to write like Michael Crichton and need to spend half of a full length novel explaining how it’s done. Some of these criticisms are entirely subjective of course, but when amazon.com has 86,753 results under “time travel,” I’d hardly consider it a “difficult theme . . . “

As far as the player’s character being instrumental to the plot? Well, they absolutely are. At best, you can say that you don’t have a lot to do in one of the four missions. And honestly, you could avoid it in that one mission too (since only one of the NPC’s is actually required to complete the objective). I won’t get into that too much, though. We’ll save that for the specifics later.

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* Text & Grammar: Overuse of commas.

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This is kind of an invalid complaint without specifics. Where were they used? Was it in dialogue spoken by someone, and thus not subject to the same rules? Was it in mission text? Was it there to create a certain flavor or cadence? I can’t defend this without examples, so it comes across as being nitpicky and possibly informed by some grudge or predisposition against enjoying this arc (which trust me, before I had even read this, I knew there was one). I’ve combed over this a thousand times and had others read all of the text with a critical eye and haven’t had anyone tell me they’ve found any mistakes in there. If there are any, I’d like to correct them like I’ve corrected the others.

Of course, this isn’t about helping me improve my arc, so useful specifics are few and far between here.

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* Explain Theme: If you're going to use time travel, you have to explain how it's achieved in detail; what is this time barrier? How had he used it prior to the event in question? What are the ramifications and limitations, if any? It's a tricky theme to use, as it breeds plot holes and inconsistencies; plug them or don't use it.

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No, I really don’t. Do we know what the Well of the Furies really is yet? How exactly did it bequeath anyone with powers? This whole game is created around comic book science fiction and dime novel fantasy. Detailed explanations are not wanted or needed, and when provided tend to ruin the whole thing anyway.

John Byrne trying to explain that Superman actually had a form of telekinesis that let him fly and made him invulnerable was retconned into oblivion for a reason: It was stupid. Superman can fly and juggle cars because he’s Kryptonian and gets his powers from our yellow sun. End of story.

Red Blur runs fast. He says “With no time to gather allies, I ran faster than I'd ever run before. I broke through the time barrier again and collected myself from different moments to assist me in keeping this from happening, but I'm still afraid that won't be enough to defeat this madman.”

A logical person can say “He ran so fast he time traveled.” Do I really need to discuss wormholes and theories on faster than light travel bending space-time? Should my contact be Albert Einstein instead, since most science fiction based time travel starts with his work? Would that really make things better?

Again, the opinion seems to be informed by some pre-existing bias.

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* Exploited Theme: Using time travel as an excuse for an army of EBs ... there's no other way to say it. That's weak.

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This is entirely subjective and at this point, (with 351 votes and 4 stars) somewhere north of 300 people disagree with you. The story actually started with the idea of the time traveler and the army came after, so it’s not an excuse. In fact, it’s explained in bits and pieces before it’s revealed to you, so using the term “excuse” is a little “weak.”

When you encounter the army of Red Blurs, they’re even numbered based on the second they started off from. When you finish the arc, I even spell it out to you that the Red Blur who is your contact is old because of all this time he spent hopping back and forth through time.

Of course, at this point I already have to realize that for this reviewer to be satisfied, I should have had each one give a long discussion on how they had completed this objective, gone back in time to a second later than when they left, done it again, returned to a second later, and so on. I haven’t had another person complain that this was vague, which again leads me to believe that there’s a pre-existing bias against my arc since for someone so detail-oriented, they seemed to miss something that so very many people found so simple.

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* Unholy Spawn of Two Exploited Themes: Your implementation of Time Travel is done poorly. Then you combine it with a poorly implemented cloning theme.

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This seems like the same complaint again and I honestly find it a little vague for me to criticize. Obviously our reviewer doesn’t like stories about time travel. Well, I was upfront about it having time travel so I guess they could have avoided it. As far as the cloning? I’ve not seen any evidence that this is overdone in the MA and my arc has nothing to do with it in the first place.

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* Excess Clues: Keep clues to a minimum, and don't feed us what we can see for ourselves. You repeatedly add clues that provide no benefit to the plot, and in fact inhibit the plot from building properly.

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I have a clue for each objective and mission completion. I have never found that to be excessive in any arc I’ve played (official or otherwise) and this is another place where specifics would be helpful. The text is typically short and the only thing I can assume you’ve “see[n] for [y]ourselves” is a map filled with enemies that you punched, shot, or sent an army of zombies after. Anything more than that has to be spelled out.

Clues and mission descriptions are virtually the only way to advance a plot in a game where all you do is punch things. Don’t advance the plot by advancing the plot? Specifics, please.

Unless HA is talking about the third mission, which is all about having fun. The repeated clues are amusing to everyone else I’ve talked to and the only people who have mentioned them to me have complimented me for them. I would think they’re easy enough to avoid since when you see them pop up with every NPC you free, you’d get the idea and stop reading them over and over again. The NPC dialogue about déjà vu just strengthens this.

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* Red Blur: Much too powerful as an EB. Able to defeat mobs on map solo and upstage the player. Should be no more than boss, maybe LT.

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Our kind reviewer obviously missed the point. The point was to do something you can’t do anywhere in the dev-published content. In this case, it’s watching an army of amusing characters do crazy things. The bigger the team, the more hilarious the mission becomes. The only mission where he fights a significant number of enemies is built around him being overpowered and that’s the last thing I would ever change about this arc. If anything, I’ve considered moving it to a map where there are more of him, leaving him at the same level of power, and cranking up the difficulty on Aeon with more ambushes.

HA is being overly sensitive about something most players never even think about. I’ve only had the same criticism from two other people of the 351 who have played my arc. One gave me 4 stars and the other gave me 5. Both admitted they were overly sensitive about it and got what I was going for. They made some suggestions that I actually followed based on being sure the rest of the arc is squarely on your shoulders.

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Mission 1
* Compass Navigation Text: Bright red text is very distracting and unneeded.

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He’s the Red Blur. Red. I guarantee nobody else’s eyes have been all that offended by this.

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* Compass Objectives Text: Too wordy; should be simple, such as "Lead Red Blur from Caves", or some such.

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“Lead the Red Blur out so he can meet up with his future self” isn’t really a lot longer and catches those who might not be the team leader up to speed. It’s designed so that the whole team can know what’s going on.

For a guy who wants me to explain the intricacies of time travel and temporal displacement, he sure has odd ideas on where I should skimp.

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* Red Blur: A custom character that put Speed Boost on you is a bad idea; some dislike this power for very valid reasons. Very bad when custom mob is a rescued hostage that can't keep up with you once power has been used.

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That same hostage will grab Siphon Speed off of the first mob he comes to, and the cave is tiiiiiiny. It’s the smallest map I could find that fit my criteria so that losing him isn’t going to be a pain.

If you don’t like Speed Boost, then I contend that you are a moron. I said it. That’s right. Seriously, it’s one of the best buffs in the game and my only regret is that when you have an army of Red Blurs, you can only be SB’d by one at a time.

Complete non-issue, there.

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* Red Blur -- Text Inconsistency: Addressing different groups; "Whoops, guess I forgot to wait up for them" & "Try not to fall behind this time, old chum". Select one and use consistently through mission.

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No, it isn’t. “Them” works in the singular and in the plural. I did select one, but HA chose to ignore that thanks to his pre-existing desire to not like this.

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* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: This clue serves no purpose, and interrupts flow of plot; give it the axe.

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That clue is funny and is basically an Easter egg for people familiar with some of the more popular tales of time travel out there. I would assume a reference to the Back to the Future movies would be apropos, but apparently not.

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* Quest Completion Text: Addressing the player and his younger self interrupts plot; Red Blur isn't physically here, don't address him.

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This is something that adds some flavor. For someone who seems so interested in immersion and whether your character gets the proper screentime, I would think that text that exists to further your insertion into the contact’s dialogue would be welcome. Would it be better if it included a generic message where as soon as he says that, the other one runs off too fast for you to see? I personally prefer to not have my hand held that way, but that’s just my tastes coming through.

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Mission 2
* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Goals: Color is traditionally orange, not green. There's no need to be unique here; "K.I.S.S."

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The dev formatting never made any sense to me, so I kind of did whatever “felt” right here. I was really just highlighting the text for those who felt I might have too much text, so in effect, I’m keeping it even simpler than not coloring it at all would be.

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* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Warning: Thank you for warning, but such are not usually orange in color; see above.

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Again, I really don’t care how the devs color it. I’m just trying to communicate to my player what is expected of them.

HA says there’s no reason to, but there’s honestly not a whole lot of reason not to (assuming I haven’t made it unreadable, of course).

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* Conflict of Canon, Plot Hole: 1960s Paragon City was never in ruins as presented. Even in relation to this story, how could I time travel to such a reality; in The Red Blur's past I've already helped him stop this event, so it shouldn't exist for me to travel to in the first place.

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There are many theories on how time travel works. They range from Michael J Fox to Ashton Kutcher to Leonard Nimoy, so until you’ve actually gone back in time, you can’t say for sure how things would be affected.

I’m a fan of alternate realities, personally. But that’s just me.

It isn’t a plot hole, it’s HA looking for something not to like. Time travel is, in itself, completely loopy. It makes no sense. If I go back in time and change something, do I instantly cease to exist because the version of myself that time traveled would never have existed? Do I create another reality? Do I cause the universe to instantly implode? Does Dean Stockwell become my guide on wacky adventures (OH BOY)?

As a storytelling device, it has no real rules but the ones that the current author establishes. Another board poster pointed me towards a book I intend to read called “The Man Who Folded Himself.” Look it up on amazon. It’s actually pretty similar to my approach in this little story.

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* Clue Confusion -- Miss Liberty: You indicate Statesman witnessed his fallen daughter, as if she spawns to fight, but she doesn't appear. There's way for us to know this.

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This isn’t spawning correctly sometimes for some reason. I’m still fighting with it. Probably the only valid complaint.

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* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: Once again, unneeded and distracts from the plot. Get rid of it.

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He already complained about that one. If he meant to say “The Disaster to Come,” then I guess we’ll agree to disagree. I kept it very short, but it is what is going to be your description if you’re not the team leader to help explain what’s going on (since I know that when I’m on a team I never read the descriptions unless I’m the leader).

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Mission 3
* Quest Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: The Red Blur states he traveled to other times and gathered other versions of himself. Especially at EB level, this would be a veritable army (see comments below). If they could not stop this, the player will not be able to.

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Says you. Red Blur says he needs your help and one of the very first things he tells the player is “Thank God I found you so quickly, $name. You may not know who I am yet, but I consider you one of my greatest friends and allies.”

He needed you to help him set things in motion. You were always part of the plan and part of the solution, even before you clicked “Accept Mission.”

Of course, HA is also choosing to forget ¾ of the arc at this point, too.

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* Quest Introduction Text: See comments regarding text color in mission 2.
* Compass Objective Text: Vague and wordy; "Find their mysterious benefactor and take him out" should simply be "Defeat X".

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These are HA thinking there’s only one way to do something again.

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* Map Choice: Poor map selection. Map theme clashes with enemy group; Council did not exist at this point, and never took over Paragon City. Try switching out to alternative city map.

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You know what would be great? If I could create a map from scratch that did exactly what I wanted it to do, that didn’t have any inconsistencies with any other tale that had ever been told in that map, and that allowed me to have every mission goal that I wanted to have be available to me in there.

That isn’t a possibility, so we all do the best we can with what has been provided to us within the system. I could move it to a generic map, but honestly? I’m sick of seeing those.

Oh, and Council never appear in the arc or in the Axis America map, so I don’t know what he meant there.

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* Army of Temporal Clones: If there's anything worse than one overpowered ally, it's an army of them. Especially when they not only overpower the primary EB, but the army of EB clones as well. All being left in the dust as they cannot keep up with the player they just buffed.

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He’s factually wrong here. They can keep up, because they also Speed Boost each other and then hit Siphon Speed whenever they get to a mob. If anything, they move faster than your player can. They just don’t follow very well sometimes.

This mission isn’t about the challenge, it’s about doing something fun. You’re there to guide them through their mission and set the ball rolling into action. If you want to be all roleplayer about it, you’re doing this mission once while the Red Blur is doing it 21 times. You’re there for every single one of them, so to him, you’re what makes any and all of it possible.

Though, to a certain extent this is something people will either enjoy or they won’t. I amped up the challenge at the end of the mission to compensate for how easy it ends up becoming, but I still get complaints that the ambushes kill people off. Obviously, more people enjoyed it than didn’t at this point.

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* Mission Clue -- And Again: This string of clues was humorous the first two or three times. Then it got annoying. Toward the end, it begins to deflate the plot. Not needed; toss them aside.

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“Need” is subjective and a completely superfluous word when discussing any element of a video game. The extra clues are amusing and since he didn’t want to like the thing to begin with, of course he didn’t like anything I was doing by this point.

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* Dr. Aeon: Dr. Aeon being the benefactor behind a time travel plot isn't surprising. Maybe a custom villain would be better.

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So he complains about the map being tied to in-game lore, but then doesn’t want me to tie this in to in-game lore?

He’s just wrong here. Dr. Aeon is the perfect villain for this story and it all ties up in a nice little bow in that last mission HA seems to be ignoring.

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* Mission Completion Text: Save the summary for the souvenir, and keep the mission on track. It's too early for such a dialogue.

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Again, this is partially for the whole team of people that might be playing it. Besides, the souvenir is for the arc as a whole, and the clue only covered what you’ve done so far.

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This mission is designed extremely poorly; if I could rate it separate from the rest of the arc, it would receive 0 Stars.

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That mission is why I have 4 stars with over 350 ratings, so HA’s tastes are not indicative of the majority of players.

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Missions should be designed as a challenge for the players, not so they can watch a show put on by NPCs. I didn't activate any powers during the course of the mission after rescuing the first temporal clone.

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He’s wrong here, too. Missions should be designed to be fun. I have an absolute blast playing my own arc over and over thanks to this mission.

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Mission 4
* Mission Introduction Text : You shouldn't have to describe in such a way why the contact is no more; and having to do so indicates you wasted space that should have been used for plot development.

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I have plenty of space left and have actually padded it a few times to make it get into the 90% range.

All I said was “Red Blur is nowhere to be found and any records regarding his life are few and far between.” Why shouldn’t I have to indicate that if the guy has disappeared, but I can’t physically show that in-game? I can’t make the mission contact disappear, so how else do I express this idea?

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* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How did someone not notice the armies of temporal clones battling it out in the middle of Paragon City?

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Now HA’s just stretching. I wanted to ask him, “Have you been playing this game long?” Whole portions of the town are over-run on a daily basis. It’s not even news anymore unless you’re listening to the traffic report.

Besides, sit in on a real history class some day and listen to all the things that are forgotten or ignored in our own little world I like to call reality.

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* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How do you even know Aeon currently has the research that allowed him to time travel and create his device in the first place? It's unbelievably convenient that such is the case.

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Did this guy even read the mission info? He doesn’t have it anymore. That’s kind of the whole point.

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* Anticlimactic: I'd recommend you remove this mission entirely. After the EB armies battling it out, this is a contrived conclusion at best. The big fight is done, the plot has already come to a head; this mission limps along as an afterthought, and is not a good way to end things.

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So HA complains that your character doesn’t have enough to do, but when I end it on a mission that is all about you, I should cut it?

He’s trying to have his critical pie and eat it, too.

The mission establishes that you and Red Blur were successful (since if you weren’t, that version of Aeon would still be bouncing around time building bombs to hand over to unexpecting zealots) and shows you (since you always show, don’t tell) that the Aeon walking around the Rogue Isles today isn’t the same level of threat anymore.

Again, I don’t think he read these clues he’s complaining so much about.

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* Mission Clues -- Multiple: Too many and repetitive.

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He’s honestly the only person I’ve ever seen post that about any arc ever.

 

Posted

And I laugh.

I said long ago that the anti farmers rabies could only be cured with an injection of writing talent. Now that they have attacked popular content they turn their attacks to the critics.

What next an attack on anyone with taste ? A rating sytem with only 5 stars ?


Bad is bad, and many of the arcs that are even close to hall of fame are only there because many people just won't give a poor rating as it is.

 

Posted

In our tells (which I also kept), HA told me to. I wasn't going to do this as anything but a "Hey, there are people like this out here too" message until he stuck his head out and removed himself from anonymity.

Read the review, dude. Play the arc (don't even rate it if you don't want to) and read the review.

I've gotten plenty of feedback, both positive and negative and have had some great discussions with people about my arc. Some of it even on these very forums (see the thread about my arc for a perfect example of this). This isn't constructive or even valid criticism here, though.

This is someone who I could only assume had some pre-existing grudge against me personally or the arc in question due to something I'd said. When I shared this with a few people privately to be sure I was reading it correctly, they agreed with me.

Now, I've also looked at a bit of HA's posting history and it's been quite informative. It could also just be that he's got a reeeeeeally strange way of looking at things (telling players that making a custom faction without all three of minion/lieut/boss is an exploit and will get you flagged for making farms, telling players that if they have multiple accounts, voting on their own arcs is an exploit and will get you banned, using an AV for any reason other than being the end boss of an arc that spans MULTIPLE MA arc slots is inappropriate, general whining over the fact they're removing the dev's choice badge and now HE'LL NEVER EARN IT DAMMIT, a post that he primarily plays Dev's Choice arcs and avoids all other arcs, because of the Dev's Choice's superior storylines and content). With that kind of evidence, I can concede that this could just be how he views things.

In regards to ratings griefings, I think he's proven that there's a segment of the population that could be giving otherwise stellar content low ratings and truly believing they're delivering an honest critique. They're responsible for a minority of the low ratings on good arcs (especially the flurry of them that comes when you hit the front page) and their opinion is obviously outside the mainstream, but they're out there.

Again, I was perfectly happy to keep it all anonymous. He's the one who jumped out and revealed himself.

 

Posted

TLDR version

WAHHH SOMEONE DIDNT LIKE MY ARC. WHATS WORSE HE HAD A WHOLE LOT OF REASONS

 

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And I laugh.

I said long ago that the anti farmers rabies could only be cured with an injection of writing talent. Now that they have attacked popular content they turn their attacks to the critics.

What next an attack on anyone with taste ? A rating sytem with only 5 stars ?


Bad is bad, and many of the arcs that are even close to hall of fame are only there because many people just won't give a poor rating as it is.

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Actually, I'm all for farming, so whatever.

And I've had my arc reviewed by two different folks with review threads and happily accept any honest, valid criticism I can get. I want to make it the best it can be, but things like "some people don't like speed boost" and "too many commas" don't exactly scream reasonable or helpful.

Even in the worst of the worst arcs I've played, I've tried to send something back about how to improve it. None of this is helpful, though.

 

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Not at all, dude. Not at all. We can disagree about all sorts of things. I have lively discussions all the time, just never with you for some odd reason.

I have plenty of feedback on my arc. I welcome more is what I'm saying. I have at least 35 or so comments I've kept from in-game responses and I'm in at least one review thread here, too. I get responses and I get critiques, but this was something else all together.

The more you type the less it seems you're reading what I'm saying.

 

Posted

Soul, HA asked Geek to post it. And also decided to come out and identify himself when Geek was polite enough to keep him nameless. It's his bed and he made it.

Basically, there is a critique and a non critique. A critique is something like "this is how you can improve your arc" or "here are some things you may want to change." It's polite, has a good delivery, doesn't step on any toes.

The other one, which HA has decided he wanted to start, is basically, your arc sucks because I don't like it. It's rude, it doesn't do anything to help the arc. And this some how proves that everyone will rate Geeks arc as 1 star? How does anyone think this is a nice, respectful, and reasonable critique.

How would you have reacted if someone came up to you and said "Hey about your art, I don't like it. It's highly flawed" and then listed things that basically amounted to: start over. It's insulting really.

If HA really wanted Geek to respect his critique, he might have started with, "I rated your arc a one, but I think it could get better if you made these adjustments. I'm more than willing to rerate if you decide to make these changes."

See the difference?

 

Posted

Okay, I'm mostly caught up but let me say this:

No matter how bad the plot wholes are, based on HA's review I'm not sure I would agree that we're looking at a 1 star arc. 1 star arcs don't feature 'disagreeable' map choices. They feature maps that are totally out of place. They don't feature poor choices in coloring flavor text. They feature flavor text that has portions in all caps.

I've played junk. I've played arcs that had nearly no set up and were just a bunch of custom mobs kicking my butt and continuing to do so as I flogged through group after group after group.

The one thing we need to remember is that there is the truly awful out there and if we down rate the "Don't like so much" down to 1 stars, what do we do with an arc that is nearly unplayable?

I don't expect 5 stars on my epic. It's long, and probably could do with cutting out a mission, or changing one of the gather evidence missions to have 3 different things gathered each with their own clue rather than collect 5 things and get one clue at the end. I wrote it as I would expect a story arc in CoH as such, so I stand by it.

If I got 1 starred, I'd question if it was a grief because I've played far far worse then what I put out there, no matter how well someone documented their complaint. The typoes (if they're there) are minor and easily made/fixed, the story's pretty solid, if a long, and the missions flow. I compare that to the mission of never ending new objectives that was a 'medium' which took me over an hour to NOT finish....

~shrug~

 

Posted

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I've played junk. I've played arcs that had nearly no set up and were just a bunch of custom mobs kicking my butt and continuing to do so as I flogged through group after group after group.

The one thing we need to remember is that there is the truly awful out there and if we down rate the "Don't like so much" down to 1 stars, what do we do with an arc that is nearly unplayable?


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You see I happen to like missions where I have endless mobs coming at me untill they run out or I do. If the mobs are interesting that will get at least 4 stars from me.

If on the other hand, you have some tedious bit where you have done little but feature people from your SG or those you have a gripe against in game. Or there is some weak story played up as being branched when its incredibly linear. Well that gets no rating from me. But I am actually excesively nice in this, in that I give either no rating, 4 stars, or 5 stars. Mostly 4s I think, Don't actually keep track.

This thread isn't even the worst of what has been on this sub forum. The original one on hall of fame was complaining about how even 4 stars were a horrendous handicap on an arcs advancement to it.

In the end it comes down to did someone like it. If they did great. If they didnt too fing bad. If you want to be an author better grow a thick skin.

 

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TLDR version

WAHHH SOMEONE DIDNT LIKE MY ARC. WHATS WORSE HE HAD A WHOLE LOT OF REASONS

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It would have been nice if this is what happened to mine. I could have handled it.

BUT, I received ZERO feedback on what was wrong with my arc. And I will repeat ZERO feedback. All I got were 2 star ratings and not ONE SINGLE person gave me any indication as to what was wrong with it.

How is someone suppose to improved their arc if no one leaves feedback?????

So I just unpublished it and gave up.

 

Posted

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TLDR version

WAHHH SOMEONE DIDNT LIKE MY ARC. WHATS WORSE HE HAD A WHOLE LOT OF REASONS

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It would have been nice if this is what happened to mine. I could have handled it.

BUT, I received ZERO feedback on what was wrong with my arc. And I will repeat ZERO feedback. All I got were 2 star ratings and not ONE SINGLE person gave me any indication as to what was wrong with it.

How is someone suppose to improved their arc if no one leaves feedback?????

So I just unpublished it and gave up.

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Good criticism can be harder than writing good material. It's especially hard when you aren't trying to grief the author. You may want to try to reach out to your audience and actively request feedback. Label it as a work in progress, or ask for the parts that they liked.

Barring that you can let Venture review it.

 

Posted

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TLDR version

WAHHH SOMEONE DIDNT LIKE MY ARC. WHATS WORSE HE HAD A WHOLE LOT OF REASONS

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It would have been nice if this is what happened to mine. I could have handled it.

BUT, I received ZERO feedback on what was wrong with my arc. And I will repeat ZERO feedback. All I got were 2 star ratings and not ONE SINGLE person gave me any indication as to what was wrong with it.

How is someone suppose to improved their arc if no one leaves feedback?????

So I just unpublished it and gave up.

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Republish it. I'll give it a try and I'll give you honest feedback that's not nitpicky, pompous, or self-important. And if you put some amount of effort into writing text, filling in details, and/or some semblance of a story I'll never give you one star either.

 

Posted

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TLDR version

WAHHH SOMEONE DIDNT LIKE MY ARC. WHATS WORSE HE HAD A WHOLE LOT OF REASONS

[/ QUOTE ]

It would have been nice if this is what happened to mine. I could have handled it.

BUT, I received ZERO feedback on what was wrong with my arc. And I will repeat ZERO feedback. All I got were 2 star ratings and not ONE SINGLE person gave me any indication as to what was wrong with it.

How is someone suppose to improved their arc if no one leaves feedback?????

So I just unpublished it and gave up.

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Republish it. I'll give it a try and I'll give you honest feedback that's not nitpicky, pompous, or self-important. And if you put some amount of effort into writing text, filling in details, and/or some semblance of a story I'll never give you one star either.

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All I ever wanted was some honest feedback to tell me how to improve it. Maybe the people that played it didn't like the custom groups I created, shrug who knows.

To Another_Fan - I asked to have Venture review it, his queue was overflowing full.

As to republishing it, it will have to wait til I get home from work.

Thanks for the offer anachrodragon.

 

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Republish it. I'll give it a try and I'll give you honest feedback that's not nitpicky, pompous, or self-important. And if you put some amount of effort into writing text, filling in details, and/or some semblance of a story I'll never give you one star either.

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Well that was the poitn I was aiming for. It's not the slog of villians it's the lack of 'anything' that makes sense beyond a bunch of guys to knock out without any coherent, anything. I've even been on some farms that made some kind of sense for why we were pounding on all these Lt's.

Since 1 star is as low as we go, we should be reserving it for the truly mind bogglingly bad.

In my mind 1's and 5's should be rare things. Sadly so many people toss out 5's like candy so a good arc that is good but not overly inspired that I give a 4 to makes me look like a jerk because it's the first 4 star review.

American Welcome has 20 plays and a 4 star average. Do I think it's hall of fame material? No, but I think it's pretty dang solid and I'm very happy 'running it' for people by saying "Forming a group" and running that mission with them. It's fun and gets exposure.

 

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To Another_Fan - I asked to have Venture review it, his queue was overflowing full.

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I'd review it but I doubt it would be what you are looking for. I am nearly completely unable to appreciate the story telling in MA. On the other hand I have greatly enjoyed challenge mission.

 

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I don't see any indication that the current rating system has any sympathy for decent arcs that aren't pushed to the front. Novem, I would ASK people to play it and rate it, giving you feedback in the process. That is how most of the decent arcs got started is by getting people who might actually be interested play it. Otherwise it just gets lost in all the crud.

I would be more than happy to try your arc. There are others on this forum who do try, rate, and review just from people asking.

There's also the "try mine, I'll try yours" method. This seems pretty popular for getting arcs played and rated.

You don't have to go to the most popular reviewer, either. IMO some of them are a little full of themselves anyway. Just get people to play it. Ask. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

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I don't see any indication that the current rating system has any sympathy for decent arcs that aren't pushed to the front. Novem, I would ASK people to play it and rate it, giving you feedback in the process. That is how most of the decent arcs got started is by getting people who might actually be interested play it. Otherwise it just gets lost in all the crud.

I would be more than happy to try your arc. There are others on this forum who do try, rate, and review just from people asking.

There's also the "try mine, I'll try yours" method. This seems pretty popular for getting arcs played and rated.

You don't have to go to the most popular reviewer, either. IMO some of them are a little full of themselves anyway. Just get people to play it. Ask. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

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I try to run them. Get on a few chat channels, or in Broadcast, and advertise that you're forming an AE team for a story arc. Give the level range and see what happens. You can also go through LFT and ask people there. Build a group, run it and see what happens.

When I wrote mods for Never Winter Nights, I would run my module nightly. Every night I'd get on, build a group, run the module. Make notes. Modify it. Talk to people while it was going. Then when I finally published it to the website I was still running it weekly, just to get revisions and to get it 'out there'.

The reality is that early adopters are now done. The people who made a solid arc in that first few weeks have done so and risen to the top, meaning that the 'top spots' are full. So now comes the challenge of breaking into that group. Until we get a more meaningful search tool (ie dont' show me any arcs with less then X plays or dont' show me arcs tagged as 'farm', or show me only arcs tagged as RP heavy), we just have to really get by on word of mouth.

 

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Regarding the whole meltdown between Geek and HA:

While, after reading HA's review and processing it internally, I have a hard time turning that critique into a 1-star rating, I have to defend HA's right to give that rating. The critique was pretty specific in its complaints. And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).

One of the things about popping to the front page is that you're suddenly exposed to a whole bunch of different types of players. Those people who played an arc when it was on page 415 probably had some interest in the topic or predisposition to enjoy the content presented. When it's on page 1, some people will run it just because it's a mouse click away, and they may be much less inclined to enjoy it.

I'm by no means saying there are no ratings griefers; I believe there are. I just don't think HA is one of them. He clearly played the arc. There's no point in trying to argue him into enjoying it; the best you can do is thank him and move on.

Apologies for necro-ing the threadjack, but I felt it needed to be said. Mutual respect is the only way the process will work.

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

 

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And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).

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Well, first of all he exaggerated that and secondly, if you give the arc a try I think most people will find that mission to be a lot of fun. It's terrible XP, but it's just insane to watch.

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I'm by no means saying there are no ratings griefers; I believe there are. I just don't think HA is one of them. He clearly played the arc. There's no point in trying to argue him into enjoying it; the best you can do is thank him and move on.

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True, he really believes what he wrote. People like HA are out there and I think we should be aware of them is all. It comes down to the "can't please all the people all the time" principle.

Or, in his case, ever.

 

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some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).


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The only issue here is that Geek's arc does have a disclaimer in the description text that XP can be affected by EB/allies. He's very upfront about it, so it isn't like this was an accidental oversight.

Complaining about something you've been warned about is like... I don't know, maybe taking something that says "contents may explode under pressure", banging a brick against it until it explodes, and then yelling about how unreasonable it is that this thing had the audacity to explode.

Anyway, I like Geeks arc but I'm by no means saying that it's the best thing ever. And I do support people's right to like whatever they like and rate accordingly. It just seems that this wasn't so much a critique as a highly rationalized troll attempt.

If anything it exemplifies exactly why the rating system is broken. It should be replaced with a straight "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" vote IMHO... and that would erase a lot of the subjectivism over what qualifies as one star versus other star ratings. It's simple, if you dislike it for whatever reason, just vote "thumbs down", don't quibble over whether one star or two stars or three stars is fair.

 

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Soul, HA asked Geek to post it. And also decided to come out and identify himself when Geek was polite enough to keep him nameless. It's his bed and he made it.

Basically, there is a critique and a non critique. A critique is something like "this is how you can improve your arc" or "here are some things you may want to change." It's polite, has a good delivery, doesn't step on any toes.

The other one, which HA has decided he wanted to start, is basically, your arc sucks because I don't like it. It's rude, it doesn't do anything to help the arc and is basically a troll. And this some how proves that everyone will rate Geeks arc as 1 star? How does anyone think this is a nice, respectful, and reasonable critique.

How would you have reacted if someone came up to you and said "Hey about your art, I don't like it. It's highly flawed" and then listed things that basically amounted to: start over. It's insulting really.

If HA really wanted Geek to respect his critique, he might have started with, "I rated your arc a one, but I think it could get better if you made these adjustments. I'm more than willing to rerate if you decide to make these changes."

See the difference?

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The rating system is strictly how the rater likes or dislikes the arc. That is all. It is a beauty contest and we all have different standards. If we were rating a eating establishment and they served liver and onions. You, liking l&o, might give them 5 stars. I hate the stuff, give it 0 or 1 star. I am not griefing, but I very much did not like the offering. Now if you feel your writing is so awesome, you might want to quit the day job to pursue that. I mean, Tolkien's first story was a hit.

Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running

I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!

You are in a maze of twisty little passages

 

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You, liking l&o, might give them 5 stars. I hate the stuff, give it 0 or 1 star. I am not griefing, but I very much did not like the offering.

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I was thinking the same thing, but from a different perspective. I was at a friend's house last night and she made potato salad. I don't like potato salad, but everyone else did and really liked it. The fact that I didn't eat it or wouldn't have enjoyed it didn't make the potato salad bad.

That's what separates a good reviewer from a bad one. Do you think that Roger Ebert honestly likes every movie he gives a thumbs up? He rates things based on whether it accomplished what it set out to do.

At first I assumed HA's review was entirely due to some pre-existing grudge against me (though there are still likely to be some issues there), but I've come to realize that he's just a victim of being extremely myopic. He has a narrow vision of what is good and (thankfully) very few of the arcs out there are going to fit into that.

 

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Make your origin arc be "my character came from you being awesome and beating this big bad and their evil scheme" and you'll see more success. I.e., make an arc where the player actually has something to do.

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I did something along those lines with my first arc. Made a villain arc where the player is basicly responsible for the origin of one of my characters. It's been pretty well recieved from the few who have played it. Doesn't have a ton of ratings but it's stayed at 4 with over half the ratings being from people I don't even know.

As far as the thing about descriptions going. Either one of two things happened a few days ago with my task force. Either I got griefed or someone ignored that it clearly stated that it wasn't intended for solo. But I also got a 5 star rating from someone who was bragging about soloing it...