Shifting through time! In-character reviews!

Carl is a curious type.. he was the only guy not to run screaming out of the bank when the Freaks arrived, just going on his knees to get a story without getting hurt. And he's following on purpose, a hero in front of him means even more free pictures.

Paparazzi!

The idea was that Carl met your character before (but *after* the time of the bank heist) - started comparing pictures (which never got run in the papers originally obviously with an invasion staring shortly after the Heist and got forgotten) and in the end (somehow) came to some conclusion about time travellers amongst us, which snowballed into a full scale exposure of the Menders.

And the cross between Ace Hanlon (mentality-wise) and David Beckham (look-wise) in the picture is the dazzling Captain New York, he loves two things more than anything... New York City and Himself -probably not in that order. (I wanted people to feel good about beating up these heroes)

Thanks for taking a peek inside

Cleaned up some text.
Added some verbs to the Mission 1 Directives.
Made the Crates Mandatory.
Sadly is doesn't seem as if War Hulks can be recolored (to Steel).

Hey Bubba, when you get to 35+ you can give one of mine a try:

Arc Name: Of Mentors and Legacy
Arc ID: 1589
Faction: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Aliana Blue
Difficulty Level: Medium-Rare (35-50, AVs and allies to help with them).

There's enough time travel there to make Venture quit after the first mission! (Kidding, kidding... ).

Thanks!

Arc Name: The Ouroboros Initiation
Author: The Pilgrim
Arc ID#: 823
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 25-50 / 1 / 25-50 / 25
Played at: lvl 25
How I Found it: I took the Ouroboros portal and the Pilgrim was standing right in front of me.

Today, I decide once again to take a short break from the Architect Entertainment building and try out my Ouroboros portal which I finally have a high enough level clearance to use.


So long losers!

My contact today is the Pilgrim, who tells me that he is one of the first to travel through time, which is why he chose the name Pilgrim. Although later on I'm told that Pilgrims are low ranking members of Ouroboros which is why he is the one introducing new members to Ouroboros. He tells me to go introduce myself to the other menders here in this place to let them introduce me to their version of time travel.


How does this fire keep burning while it's encased in ice?

My first stop is Mender Lazarus who doesn't seem to be quite used to the whole time travel thing, as he keeps forgetting whether or not he has met me before in the present or the past. Anyway, he sends me back in time 20 years or so with a 5 1/2 inch floppy disc to retrieve some data from a 5th council, I mean 5th column computer.1 And while I'm there, I find a handwritten note from an anonymous person warning me that the Ouroboros organization might not be as altruistic as they are making themselves out to seem.2 Although who am I to trust a mysterious letter over those who talk to me in person?


I don't think this is how you're supposed to open a crate.

My next stop is to talk with Mender Tesseract to learn about temporal scaling. She likes to use the most extreme example possible, so she sends me back to what could have been my first hero assignment had I decided to help out with it at that time: Outbreak. Being powered down to security level 1, I only have a couple powers available to use to rescue those originally tasked with cleaning up Outbreak. Luckily, I also snuck with me a revolver found during my exploits to help with the arresting.


Dueling it out with the contaminated.


Dead? Nope, still breathing.

Next up is a visit to Twilight's Son, the last Kheldian. He's from the far future and has come to warn of the coming storm. His task is for me to take out a Rikti general here in the present in order to possibly affect some change in the future timeline. So I go and meet up with Mender Lazarus inside to take out General Loc'Danan.

Finally, I pay a visit to the leader of Ouroboros, Mender Silos. He claims to be not only over one million years old, but also well past his temporal tether, or further in the past than he is supposed to be able to travel. And he sends me into the near future, where Shivans have invaded Atlas Park through a meteor crash like those in Bloody Bay.

Four stars: Recommended.

(I like this arc pretty well, and run it with most every character that I take through Ouroboros. I even got Isolator while I was in outbreak even though I'm not really badge hunting on this character. It does a good job of foreshadowing what is hopefully a story element they are finally going to get around to in regards to the coming storm.)
1 Originally a typo, but I decided to run with it.
2 I half remembered this letter, but reading it again reminds me of the device used in Crystal Blue's arc, which I think is a pretty good recreation.

Arc Name: Smoke and Mirrors
Author: Twilight's Son
ID#: 456
Moraility: Heroic
Level Range: 25-34
Description: Hello. I knew the time was right for you to seek me out. We have much work to do if we are to save this plane of existence. It is only with your help that we have a chance of setting things right, in this time and others. Steel yourself, hero, as what is to come will test every bit of your strength and resolve. For this task, you will be required to travel into the recent past and restore the natural order of the Chronoverse. Your quest is to stop the Circle of Thorns from opening a portal to the netherworld and bringing their demonic master here to Earth. If not, all is lost. You must seek out three individuals who serve as the 'cosmic key', and keep them out of the Circle's evil hands. If they succeed... well, I can't bring myself to think of it...

Editor's Note: Story and dialogue by City of Heroes' favorite comic book author Troy Hickman. Originally published in issues #4 - #6 of the City of Heroes comic book.

Played at: level 25-26
How I found it: He's in Ouroboros, just inside the building.

Twilight's Son is my contact for today, and he has a grand task for me. I must stop the Circle of Thorns from capturing and sacrificing three individuals who are 'cosmic keys' in order to bring forth their demonic master. My first task is to rescue Cyrus Thompson from the Skyway City train station. When I make it to the station, I see Cyrus and Malico - a random CoT boss - talking with each other, but when I make it to Malico and defeat him, Cyrus is gone, and I assume he has been captured... by someone else apparently.


Generic CoT Boss named Malico

So I failed at my first task, but there's still two more keys that I can protect. My next stop is one Jimmy Preston... a... ch - i - l - d? What's a child? I've never seen one of those things before. Anyway, he is in a warehouse and it's up to me to rescue him. This time when I get to Juikon, another random CoT boss, he talks about already having Jimmy but I don't actually see him. So once again I am too late even though I crush Juikon to little pieces.


walking the red carpet

So two failures in a row, maybe I should tell Twilight's Son to send me in about 30 minutes earlier than he was going to for the last rescue, which is during an Atlas Park fashion show, where I have to rescue Candy Lebeaux, as well as the other Fashion Victims. I also get to beat on random CoT boss number three: Sitrix. At the end of the runway, I find Mandy Lebeaux instead of Candy, who tells me that once again, I have come to late to save her sister from the Thorns. There's also another handwritten letter in a trash can convincing me of the possible double dealings and misguided direction of the official Ouroboros organization.



Fashion Victims

So, I have failed all three times to rescue the cosmic keys, but with all the clues I have recovered, Twilight's Son tells me that they will be able to divine where the final ritual will be held so they can maybe finally send me there before something happens, instead of afterwards. And I'm sent down into the depths of Oranbega, where I search for quite a while before finally finding the final chamber where Jimmy Preston and Candy Lebeaux are being held by Baron Zoria. When I get there I find that Cyrus Preston, also known as Breakneck, either wasn't captured, or has escaped, and has made his way here to fight Baron Zoria. He may be old, but he's still a hero, and at least he might be able to buy some time. But even when I go straight to Baron Zoria to fight with Cyrus, he just stands there looking dumb. I thought he was a hero? Anyway, the baron proves to be too much for me, and even with a full helping of inspiration, I am unable to defeat him proper, and so have failed for a final time.


You might hate Oranbega, but you gotta love this view.

Four Stars: Recommended

(I enjoy this arc pretty well and have defeated the Baron solo on other characters before, but not being able to mez him cuts into my damage so much I was barely able to get him to half health before being killed myself. Though it is quite annoying that you fail all three of the first missions. I understand that it's necessary to setup the final mission, but it still feels pretty bad. Aside from that, there are some great maps that I wish we could use in AE - from the first map with the train station, to the fashion show map, to the final Oranbegan map - which might actually be included, but I'm not sure. Will definitely try this again at a higher level, or with a team.)


Hey look, it's a kid in CoX! I found him!

For what it's worth, Baron Zoria kicked my backside at least a dozen times before I finally beat him. I have only myself to blame...

Arc Name:Entrusted with the Other Secret
Author: Parkin/ @ObsidianDevil
Arc ID#: 120462
Morality: neutral
Enemies: 5th, council, custom
Description: Mender Tesseract has a task for you which leads down a winding path through the time-stream which reveals many of the Mender's secrets, and rewrites the future of Ouroboros. Is designed to be run after the normal Ouro' arcs. [SFMA]
How I found it: PM'ed as a request quite a while ago, suggested to play after the Ouroboros arc, which I just finished.
Played at level: 26

BTW: Heya Troy, thanks for stopping by. When I was reviewing the Ouro arcs for this thread, I didn't expect one of those authors to pop in and say hi.

My contact today is Mender Tesseract and she is her usual grumpy self, though it sometimes feel like she's a bit over the top on her condescension. And her task is for me to find out who has blocked the menders out of the timestream. She has determined that the people behind the disturbance are from a group called Timelock: Time's Arrow, Clubbor, and a name that sounds awfully familiar, Time-Shift. While I'm there, I also see someone named Alpha who isn't required, but seems like he could be important. There's also a virus transmitter device that I destroy, but I happen to see video of my future death.


Timelock minions

Unfortunately, I failed and the menders are still locked out of certain points of the timestream. Next up it's time to head over to Time-Shift's inner sanctum in order to get more information about what they are really planning. I find some disturbing information, apparently future me is working for Time-Shift, and I run afowl of them for some reason. I defeat Time-Shift yet again and return to Mender Tessaract to find out what damage and/or repairs I have made.


Time's Arrow

Well apparently I have failed once again, and Meg Tesseract makes no qualms of reminding me, and not only that, but she insists on coming along for the next mission to make sure it gets done right. She has managed to track Time-Shift's time-jamming device to a 5th column base in the past before their war with the Council. I free her and together we find a small drive that was used to create the jamming virus.


Tessaract fighting with the 5th Column.

Successful for the first time, I am now sent to check on the near future from the first mission to check what changes have been made while Meg investigates the drive on her end. But when I get there I feel a pain similar to temporal scaling, only much worse. I think the timestream is trying to tell me something. Time-Shift is here, but his other minions aren't. And Omega is here as well, also optional, and also with some interesting information. What disturbs me the most though, is the three bodies I find: Twilight's Son, Mender Roebuck, and my contact, Mender Tesseract. Also after I defeat Time-Shift, I find that he is in fact a Mender himself, commended by Mender Silos even.


Clubbor, he was brought back in time and bashor'd the time machine.

Having studied the drive, she realizes that she herself will be Time-Shift's benefactor, who will work to protect Ouroboros from rogue menders who will be trying to take over the organization. And we have just undid all the work that she will end up doing. So now we have to re-do that work once again by replacing the drive into the 5th council base in the past. Things are mostly the same as I remember it, though there are some council here and there extolling the virtues of their organization over the 5th column.


Alpha, and later, Omega

And after all that work, Mender Tesseract forgets everything that we just did, as I have altered her own past, though she did give me a letter to return to her explaining what happened, and I finally get a word of thanks and the title of Mender.


Time-shift, not to be confused with Time Shifter.

(I enjoyed this arc pretty well. It did have a few annoyances, like Time-Shift spawning later in both of the large outdoor maps. Also, I know Mender Tesseract is condescending, but I think this arc takes her a little over the top. Although I could just not be remembering her very well. She only gets a couple paragraphs in the Ouroboros Initiation arc. Also, Alpha and Omega seemed like a little hidden easter egg, I was hoping something more would payoff from it, and I also noticed a few random Alphas in mission 2 which I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be there.)

Arc Name:Of Mentors and Legacy
Author: @Aliana Blue
Arc ID#: 1589
Morality: heroic
Enemies: Circle of Thorns, Nemesis, Devouring Earth (Mission 4 is 33-50, you should think about normalizing it to 35)
Description: Have you ever heard of the word "Ouroboros"? If you have, you may also know the word "Mender". Now we must save the future to save the past. (AVs inside! And allies) CLASSIFIEDS: Looking for heroes to run a military simulation against Freakshow, please contact Collin Larson at your nearest AE center.
Played at: level 26
How I found it: look a few posts up.

I found a classified ad today that lead me to Collin Larson in order to run a training simulation against some Freakshow. I know it had nothing to do with time travel, but I had a feeling about it. And when I first stepped into the portal my instincts were correct as I find myself in the future. And according to my nav computer, I'm supposed to find a dead body. I'm not sure why, or who it is, but I do end up finding it and a letter from someone calling himself Mender Paelin. Also, I didn't know it but I'm very skilled at forensic investigations. Apparently he is manipulating the AE system to send me into the future. And the body belongs to a young man named Phillip, the son of two heroes who died when he was just a baby, but Paelin will send me to save his parents to prevent his death and allow him to grow up to become a great hero in his own right.

I return to Collin and while he is perplexed at what happened, he is also very curious as to how it happened, and he acquiesces to my request to run the simulation again in order to further Mender Paelin's plans while Collin stays back and studies the temporal portal on his side. Once again, I go in fairly blind besides the knowledge that I'm eventually going to rescue Phillip's parents, and the information my nav computer tells me. Besides rescuing Phillip's mother, there's also another letter from Mender Paelin telling me after the fact what this mission will accomplish, along with a hint of how I'm going to rescue his father.


Edge, back from his own edge.

Back to Collin and he believes that he only needs one more point of data in order to triangulate their data and track to portal to its source. This time I'm in a graveyard freeing Phillip's father Edge from more Circle of Thorns as well as some ghosts. But before I rescue Edge, I also have to rescue several other identical hostages being used in some sort of ritual I know nothing about or why I'm stopping them. I also defeat a Circle mage, and find a weakened, but living Edge, now Phillip should have a stable family of heroes to guide him into his own superheroism and lead a fulfilling life to help push back the darkness that closes in during the future.


Asoulx, a demon summoned by the CoT.

Things should be over, but neither myself, nor Collin thinks we should just leave it at that. He would like to test out his datapoints, and I would like to see if this plan really did make any sort of difference. So he configures his computer to recreate the time travel portal created by Mender Paelin to send me about fifty years into the future, in what they call a temporal convergence point if I remember correctly. That is to say, it is a point in time that has seen a lot of temporal activity, which would insinuate that it is an important point in time in the future course of history. Although I don't think Collin explained the theory quite as well. When I get there I find the world is ruled by the steam-powered brass fist of Nemesis. Also while I am there I find some information on their computer systems. I find some pictures of Mist and Phillip just before their death, though I'm personally curious as to who took those pictures and why they are sitting on the computer. All the other information I find leads me to the information that Phillip did grow up to be a strong hero, but his parents were still killed, it just took several extra years for it to happen. Phillip was a young, strongheaded superhero and went after the Circle's stronghold. In a rage, he managed to take out the majority of the Circle's leaders, but at the cost of his own life. And without a central power center, the Circle of Thorns devolved into chaos which spread out through the world, allowing Nemesis to step in and create his own order.


Mist and Edge, in full health this time.

This wasn't what I signed up for, and Collin agrees. So they use this additional data point to refine their system and send me to another temporal convergence point where they believe is the when of Phillip's parent's deaths. And their calcuations are correct as I find Edge and Mist in short order, as well as Phillip who knows me already from my earlier dealings with his parents. There is a demon named Asoulx, as well as a stronger demon named Olurtenep, who curses me as well as Mender Paelin as he is defeated, which for some reason leads me to believe that Paelin is working with the Circle of Thorns. And I also happen to find him in here as well, ready to be taken down a peg or two for his deception.


Olurtenep - a name just begging to be an anagram, or backwards, but great look.

My task is done, and while I'm still curious as to the effect my newfound presence in the future has had on the further future, Collin informs me that the temporal attributes of the AE portal are gone now and they are unable to re-open the portal into the future anymore. But he did happen across another letter addressed to me while he was looking away for just a moment. It is another message from Paelin who tells me that my work was indeed a success, working better than his original plans which made Phillip into a strong, but reckless hero.

Four stars: Recommended.


Mender Paelin in his first and last appearance, notice the ninja on the far right.

(This is partly a personal gripe that I don't like calling the AE for what it is. It's just a little too meta for me. In my estimation, the AE is a simulation of a real mission, and when that mission is a simulation, then I'm playing a simulation of a simulation. I can look past that, but in this instance, the simulation is used as a framework for the real story. The only problem is that all the contact text goes to the frame and not the story, so every mission I'm going in blind with nav bar, and sometimes even pop-ups that don't make sense to me. I.E. mission 4 with Nemesis, the pop-up says "This is unexpected..." but when I'm entering the mission all I see is a perfectly normal looking base. How is that unexpected. It's not until I see Nemesis around the first corner that I understand what that pop-up meant. But this is a lot of time being left in the dark. Like the first mission, I'm supposed to find a dead body, but until I do, I am in the dark as to the relevance of the body. Also, this framework moves all of the text for the real story into the letters you find from Mender Paelin which are all mission complete clues. And mission 4 when you're working outside of Paelin, you're even more in the dark.

There are two solutions that I can think of that would solve a lot of these problems. One is to make the nav bar hints more generic - changing find the dead body to find a clue, or figure out what happened. The other is to get rid of the framework altogether, make Mender Paelin the contact and move the real story into the forefront. Personally, I don't really see what the framing story adds to the real story anyway, it feels like it's just there for it's own purposes. I liked the real story, but I didn't really feel anything from the framework story, and it feels like it just gets in the way of the storytelling instead of enhancing it.)

Thanks for the review! Couple of things (general, I'm not nitpicky).

1. Regarding the navibar objectives. In principle, I don't mind being vague; in fact, that's how I had the clues at first. One of the things that I gathered from the early feedback I got was that people didn't seem to like vagueness in the objectives. Getting thrown in Orangebagel with "Seek Clues" as an objective seemed to put people off. So I went more specific. It's something the regular game does without embarassment, I have walked int a map with the objective of "investigate warehouse" (for example), only to have "3 hostages to rescue, defeat Bonefire" or somesuch appear there.

As I said, I'm not opposed to vagueness ("my character doesn't know that!"), and on the other hand I have to think that this is, at the end of the day, a game. Still not sure how to go about this one.

2. About the framework, and the Mender's mysteriousness. The reason I originally did the arc this way is that I feel there's not enough "detective work" in this game, so to speak, with the hero (the player, you!) taking initiative. In that sense, that's what I try to accomplish when you stop following the Mender's directions and do your thing, with the contact merely being a plot device to achieve it. Glazius suggested something similar, having the player talk to the Mender directly and afterwards hijack the pillar and do your own thing.

Thing is, I just can't do anything like that with the MA. If it were a regular world mission it'd be trivial to do like that, I could chain missions without having to talk to the contact, have a fedex "click the portal" to progress the story of you hijacking it, and so on. But in the MA you have the chosen contact sitting there at the hologram projector for the whole arc, no matter what. Doing your own thing by talking to the Mender and somehow hijacking the portal would feel incredibly forced, moreso if he's supposed to betray you at the end.

The sense of mystery, or rather, of being left in the dark, is part of the character I wanted to give the mender, and tried to cultivate some mistrust in the mind of the player in their dealings with Paelin by having him acting so vaguely. If he doesn't trust you, why should you trust him?

Basically, the reason for the framework can be cut down to: Having a sense of investigating yourself (instead of following the contact), having the Mender's motives be untrustful, having the betrayal of the Mender be somewhat of a surprise without handing you an idiot ball. Vagueness was the best avenue I could think of.

Some minor details:

- The hostages in mission 3 were clones because "random" for civilians has been bugged for some time, and would pick models from enemy NPCs and even take after the guarding group. I had to have a single encounter with X hostages if I wanted to trigger something off the completed objective since otherwise it triggers on the FIRST rescue instead of the LAST (bloody retarded >_<). Chaining was done because the navbar looked very cluttered otherwise.

A chain of unfortunate events That said, I'm going to cut it down to 4 and remove the chaining, so I should be able to have 4 separate encounters. Space permiting *crosses fingers*

- "This is... unexpected" in mission 4. It used to be the case that the first spawn point of that map was always within spitting distance of the entry, so you saw the Nemesis soldiers as soon as the map loaded. Now apparently they spawn around the corner, I'm guessing there were complains of accidental aggro before finished loading... Easy enough to change though.

- Mission 1 and the forensic examination. At first it used to say that and when the clicking finished it'd say "Yep, he's dead." Bit of humor. Then I changed the second part because of complains of vagueness on the text in general

Hm, I think that's it. Thanks again for the great feedback!

Another compromise on the nav-bar hints - add clues in the mission pop-up, like "You smell death when you walk in the door." and "You hear the screams of several hostages in the distance."

Arc Name: yaD sdrawkcaB
Author: @GlaziusF
Arc ID#: 329000
Morality: Villainous
Enemies: PPD, DE, Arachnos, custom(25-30)
Description: Unfortunately, the final ritual failed. The ultimate knowledge was lost forever, and Diviner Maros held prisoner in the depths of time. ...at least, that's what he's telling you. As far as you know, that hasn't happened yet. Maybe you can make the future go your way? (SFMA MLMA goon arc for Shevat)
Played at: level 26-27
How I found it: I heard Glazius was making a new arc featuring time travel, in a way, and saw him advertising it recently so I went ahead and tried it out.

Well my contact today is Diviner Maros. I've heard a lot of interesting things about him, and when I talk to him, I see that they are all true. He is talking about how we've already done all this before and it failed. I believe he is trying to fix himself as it were, as he is currently backwards in time and he seems to want to be going forwards in time like everyone else. But as he is still quite backwards, it's up to me to piece this together and work this out from the wrong end so we don't fail. He gives me an old pendant, and mentions where I had originally found it, in a small cave near Villa Requin. So that's where I go. In the cave are Slag Golems and Devouring Earth fighting it out, as well as a small group of family working for Blood-stone Jimmy, and a small group of Freaks working for M03, though I'm not sure if they will have any bearing on the future at all. And when I finally find the pendant, it's the same pendant that I already have, only brand new looking, but when they come close together, they split the difference and become only slightly old looking.


Why are they digging in an office building?

Next up, Maros mentions wishing that we hadn't performed that ritual inbetween talking about something else that I have no idea about. So I deduce that it's time to head to his scrying cave to perform this ritual. His place is swarming with Circle of Thorns, as well as another group of Family working for Blood-stone Jimmy, and another group of Freaks working for M03. When I find Maros, he informs me that the ritual amounts to me killing him, and I later find out that his death actually helps to break himself up into smaller essences of his self in order to help him in the Vault of Time.


Odd bedfellows.

Now it's time to scale a tall tower to find one of these parts of Maros. Inside is an amalgam of creatures put together, as well as one of those Freaks, Mainframe who comes along with me to help this time. There's all sorts of different people spouting unusual things along the way before finding an interesting version of Maros at the very tip-top of the building. It's a long haul, but at least it was interesting, if not entirely clear.


Maros? Is that you, or your grandfather?

Next up it's time to recover the Loupe of the Long Now, whatever that happens to be. He's talking about it in the future now, but he has already mentioned it in one of our earlier conversations. Inside I find 4syte, but unfortunately I'm supposed to be looking for Foresight. He follows me for a while, but eventually turns on me. I'm also taking out different temporal anchors or similar device all while searching for this Loupe of the Long Now.


4syte


The guard at the gate, I don't think they want me to leave with the Loupe de lou who.

And finally, it's into the vault of time itself to find the current essence of Maros. But it is filled with false copies who are out to attack me. And when I do rescue the real Maros, there are also other fragments of Maros that come along with me to help take out the Timekeeper in order to escape. And when I come out, Maros actually tells me the end of the story instead of the beginning. Apparently one of the ways he was trying to fulfill his plan was intentionally misdirecting me to misdirect the Timekeeper in order for us to truly be successful.

So things are now back to normal, well as normal as Diviner Maros can be.

Four stars: Recommended.


The real Diviner Maros from the depths of the Vault of Time?

(This arc is definately not for everyone. It's well constructed to intentionally be misdirecting. It takes a cue from Memento in its non-traditional storytelling by telling the story in reverse, but still telling the important bits to the player so you know what to do, as well as some internal monologue that explains what you are actually going to do. There is also a ton of text in all the briefings, as well as an extra one in the busy text which is supposed to be the intro text of the mission going backwards. I did cheat a little and copy/paste them in the correct order to see if it holds up that way, and it does pretty well, though I noticed there's mention of the Legacy Chain which are nowhere in the arc, but it could be an intentional misdirection that is explained somewhere in all that text, but I know I missed it both times around. Which isn't hard as I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be looking ahead of me or behind me. And as the first intro is the failure final text, and the final return text is the successful final text, there isn't anywhere to actually put a true intro anywhere, so you're never sure why this actually started on this path in the first place, just the ultimate events.


Maros, Maros, and Maros.

Things are definately a bit clearer on the second runthrough, though I never fully understood what part the Family and Freaks had to play, unless they were just red herrings. Which they were fairly interesting red herrings. Also there are several quite large maps in a five mission arc where you have to go to the final room, and come back to the front. And I played this twice, and had a couple bugs and a couple distractions, so I feel like I've been playing this arc forever. And technically I've been playing this on and off through about 8 playsessions. That's a lot of time to devote to an arc. It was definately interesting the first time around, but I think it's fair warning that not everyone will enjoy a mindtwist as much as the next one. I've got no real suggestions on improvements, it's hard to suggest something in a story so complex.)


The Timekeeper

I can't remember if I suggested the one in my sig or not, but I think it still might be a tad rough at the end since it pops you up to level 45+ due to who you have to fight at the end.