City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

KD's House of Second Chances (Reviews)

AwesomusPrime

By AwesomusPrime,
Posted on: 2009-06-04 23:58 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

I've been following Venture's review thread, and I noticed there are quite a few arcs that sounded interesting to me to which Venture gave poor reviews. So I've decided to do an experiment: run only arcs that other reviewers have given poor ratings to, and see how my own opinion of those arcs stacks up against the original.

If you have an arc that garnered a poor review (3 stars maximum) that either (a) you believe is unwarranted, or perhaps overly colored by personal tastes, or (b) you have used in significantly reworking the arc, post in this thread and I'll try to give it a whirl.

When specifying arcs, please include:

Arc name and ID
Recommended character level
Link to original review
Any notes on whether the arc has been changed since that review

Note: I'm only accepting nominations for which the original review was 3 stars or less. If you got a higher review rating, you're probably doing OK.

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

 

Posted

To give an idea of what I'm aiming for I'm doing the first review unsolicited.

Arc #131780, "The Day I Tried to Live"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: Wangst, "Just Because It Happened To You"
Pluses: Creative premise, Narm

Reviewed on: 6/5/2009
Level Range: 30-54/41-54/30-54/40-50/41-54
Character used: lvl 48 nin/nin stalker

The whole premise of this arc is unlike anything I've encountered so far. The contact appears from nowhere (as a deliberate atmospheric move by the author), obviously in a state of hand-wringing despair and begging for your attention (which might or might not be a sly reference to the whole experience of authoring for the MA). The story unfolds as a past-tense narrative, with your character inserted into the action almost entirely in the role of observer: that is, while your character is the one performing actions, the narrative indicates that it's the contact who's doing them instead. The MA is basically a mechanic for delivering someone else's flashback.

Since I like original thinking, I gave the overall arc +1 star for creativity, which may tell you something about its other flaws.

Act One has you searching for the contact's missing girlfriend, upon whom the contact has hung an inordinate amount of his psychological wherewithal. (I had to wonder whether perhaps the poor girl fled from the contact's needy, co-dependent clutches.) You search the Mayhem hospital map full of Crey, and find her in a body bag.

So much for the contact's sanity. "He" (i.e. you) go on a rampage in Act Two on an adjacent Crey lab, which reveals that the kidnappings (the girlfriend was one of many) are part of a plot to mutate the Rikti into some higher state of being. For the first time you encounter the contact as a character - a non-required rescue (or possibly non-combat, fleeing ally). There are also some non-required destructible details with interesting clues.

At this point the story takes a left turn into delusional territory. As Act Three opens the contact declares himself to be God, grows wings, and flies through space to engage the Rikti on an orbiting ship. There was a bugged objective here, as the completion of one set of destructible objects spawns a second set, and one of the items in the second set was un-targetable. Fortunately I had run into that bug before and loaded up a 2nd account with an MM, whose pets could hit it, and I targeted the object through them and completed the mission.

Flush with victory, the contact returns to Earth in Act Four with inexplicable powers. He's completely lost it by this point, feeling himself to have dethroned God and put himself in his/her place, and wants to take over Earth to create a dominion in his own name. Statesman promptly arrives to put a stop to it, and you take him down with the help of the now-fully-combat-ready contact at your side (assuming you can find him on that cursed destroyed-Atlas map).

Gameplay note: the Statesman who appears in this map is actually only EB-class though he still has Unstoppable and Zeus Lightning. In an amusingly ironic twist, once States hit Unstoppable I stopped being able to hold aggro on him, and he promptly gave Red/The Great Destroyer/your contact the beatdown. Red resurrected himself, which I think was a bug since I believe he was /empathy and shouldn't have been able to cast rez on himself - and States promptly gave him the beatdown again. The contact's narrative assumes he won, which is why I referenced Narm in the summary, but I found the development highly amusing. Anyway, once Unstoppable wore off I took States down pretty quickly.

Afterwards the contact is overcome with remorse and self-loathing, and in Act Five decides to kill himself. This is accomplished by defeating something called The Machine, a psi blast/regen EB you have to face alone. The deed accomplished, you return to the contact (was he Skyping you from Purgatory?), who pours out his continuing despair and begs you not to leave him.

There is an element here of what I would call "real art" - my personal definition is deeply-felt emotions that demand so hard to be heard that the artist basically can't stop them from coming out. However, the story has a fatal flaw in that the delivery falls pretty flat.

I don't know if there's a trope for this, but I've been calling it "Just Because It Happened to You" (... "doesn't make it interesting"). In this case, the contact's loss of their girlfriend doesn't generate enough sympathy to carry the weight of all the self-important babble that follows. The narrative reads like the journal of a 17-year-old who's read too much Camus. News flash: every high school kid who's ever been dumped has railed against God, and many people are going to roll their eyes and skim when they start hearing stuff they're now embarrased they used to spout deadpan. As a result, what's supposed to be compelling drama turns into Wangst.

If the contact really is delusional, and all the stuff about sprouting wings and defeating Statesman is just stuff happening in his head, I think you need to rethink the approach. If you're trying to portray someone who's genuinely mentally ill and not just overcome with Wangst, there are things you can do to ground the narrative in the real world - relationships with other people, physical/mental incapacities related to the core problems, etc.

There's a secondary problem in that the whole Crey/Rikti sub-plot doesn't much tie in to anything else. There isn't enough information to conclude it's just the contact's crazy conspiracy theory, and if it's not, it's at best JABOSTH and at worst a canon violation.

Without the creative narrative techniques (and unintentional humor) I would've given this arc a 2, as it would need quite a bit of work to reach its full potential (-2 from max) and even then would probably only appeal to a small audience (max of 4 stars). However, I did enjoy elements of the gameplay, including (surprisingly) the chance to trounce Statesman after he did me the favor of giving the contact a much-needed kick in the pants.

EDIT: As I drove to work this morning it occurred to me that, psychologically, this is basically a retelling of "The Immoralist" by Andre Gide. Not sure if that was deliberate.

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

 

Posted

Current queue:

Arc #84420, "Death to Disco!"
Arc #1152, "The Doctor Returns"

As an aside, please remember I'd like a link to the original review. I will be using it to inform my own review - that's unavoidable in cases that come from Venture's review thread, as I've been (mostly) keeping up to date on that one, and it only seems fair to apply the same rules to arcs reviewed in threads I don't keep up on.

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

 

Posted

Arc #84420, "Death to Disco!"
tl;dr: 4 stars
Pros: Sharp humor, Exactly What It Says On The Tin
Cons: 1st mission a bit flat; some costume issues; possible niche audience

Reviewed on: 6/5/2009
Level range: 30-54,1-54
Character: 48 nin/nin stalker

You've been tapped by the Deity of Rock to prevent disaster: Dr. Disco Fever is attempting to prevent the death of disco by interfering in the events of 1977.

Act One has you correcting Dr. Fever's successful attempt to rewrite history by brainwashing Jimmy Carter into disco-izing the National Anthem. If this happens disco will never die, causing rock to disappear - an evil fate indeed. You're sent into an abandoned lab full of Crey, whose leader Sauer has been hired to do the brainwashing by Dr. Fever. Carter turns out to be a simple rescue; the boss fight is custom, but I didn't notice what the powersets were as I never got hit. Sauer has a few good lines, but the rest of the mission is a little lackluster, and overall I think is the weakest part of this short arc.

After you rescue Carter the timeline is restored, but Dr. Disco Fever is now attempting to prevent the burning of disco music at the "disco demolition". You zone into an open park area with crates of disco music you must destroy, fighting all-custom enemies done up in 70s style. The crate destruction appears to trigger battle details between hard rockers wielding (what else) axes and the disco afficionados, who have a variety of powers. The last crate triggers the arrival of Dr. Fever himself, a grav/something custom boss who spouts appropriate lines and eventually promises to return to fight another day. ("After all, I'm your Boogie man. That's what I am.")

The strongest point of this arc is that it's Exactly What It Says On The Tin: if you think you're going to enjoy an arc filled with disco in-jokes this arc will deliver. (If you don't, you may as well steer clear.)

I do think it could be improved in a few ways. First, the opening mission is somewhat lackluster, as I mentioned. Fighting Crey is a bit of a letdown, especially given that all you see in the upper 40s from that faction is tanks; I skipped most of the mission. Giving Carter a Secret Service escort or some other apropos detail would give a chance for more humor (Carter himself is deadpan dry, as he should be).

Second, I have a few costume nits in the final mission. The Disco DJs look suspiciously mod, and I can't quite figure out what the theme is for the Princes of Disco - they look a little preppy to me.

These details matter when the arc is this short, as everything needs to be memorable. I'd also note that there are at least three other disco-themed arcs I stumbled across when looking for this one. I haven't played any of the others, but apparently there is enough of a draw for this sort of thing to spawn competitors; if the author wants to keep the buzz as the disco arc to run, a little more pizazz wouldn't hurt.

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

 

Posted

Thanks for your review and happy you liked it. My respones to some of your points.

"1st mission a bit flat" - I can understand feeling it might be a little "flat' especially since the second mission is all out mayhem/jokes. I looked at the first mish as a set up really (which is why you don't see Dr. Disco Fever till the second one).

"some costume issues" - I'm not sure this you can really pin on me. I spent a lot of time trying to find stuff in the costume editor that looked era appropriate and there really was a small selection. I had the worse time finding men's outfits and hair styles.

"possible niche audience" - I don't know how much I agree with this. My kids range from 15-19 and they all know enough about the Disco/Rock rivalry to get enough of the jokes to "get" the arc. What I would agree with is if you are one of those people that have never heard a Disco record or have any idea about it's history, you won't get the arc. However as you stated it is pretty clear what this little arc is about so if you play it should should not be surprised at what you find.

Thanks again for the review.

WN

Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
"possible niche audience" - I don't know how much I agree with this. My kids range from 15-19 and they all know enough about the Disco/Rock rivalry to get enough of the jokes to "get" the arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not so much that people wouldn't get the jokes; it's more whether or not they would want to play an arc with that setup. I almost didn't mention this though since, as I said, the arc is Exactly What It Says On The Tin in the best possible sense; if there are people who aren't going to enjoy the arc's theme, they really have no excuse for playing it in the first place. You could probably strike that from the review; it didn't change my rating.

Bottom line, for me, is if the first mission had more zing it'd be a 5-star arc.

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

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]

Bottom line, for me, is if the first mission had more zing it'd be a 5-star arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would love to add more to it, but my arc is at 99.something%. To fit all the customs and mayhem into the second mish I had to make the first one more straight forward. If they ever up the arc size limit I would definitely expand this arc.

WN

Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

 

Posted

Ah, that didn't occur to me. Personally I would almost rather lose a custom mob or two from the 2nd mission - it's the delivery of lines that made the arc for me. But that's personal taste, so YMMV. Issue 15 may shrink file sizes a bit so you may be able to fit in another detail.

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

 

Posted

the arc is hero therapy (TM), id number 119228. the link to the thread is below.

i would probably recommend a mid level toon. the missions are 5-20, 20-29, 30-40, and 40-54. it will make sense when you play the arc. some level 50s have problems because they cannot scale down well. lowbies might have problems with the higher level mobs. mid 30s would work really well i think. this is what i have done the most testing with, though i have use both high and low levels also. i ran with a small team as low as 14s.

link to the venture review...

venture gave me a 3 stars, my main offense was too many unique maps. but if you play it and get into the swing of things, you may undrestand that they were not gratuitous. they were picked for the theme and atmosphere. if you can suggest better maps, i would love to hear it. truthfully i do not know why i got only a 3, but i am not really worried about it either. since then i removed most, but not all, of the custom group. what custom minion is left has a ranged power, but no mezzes. i have greatly expanded on the details in their place. there are numerous new patrols, dialogue and details. i have also recently added clues to help facilitate things a little.

mostly i would like yet another in depth review...

global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
my main offense was too many unique maps

[/ QUOTE ]

Too many unique maps? Is he running out of things to complain about?

 

Posted

Arc #1152, "The Doctor Returns"
tl;dr: 4 stars
Pros: Intriguing plot, Did the Research
Cons: Some sub-plots could be tightened up, lackluster gameplay (no custom factions)

Reviewed: 6/6/2009
Level range: 30-54
Character used: lvl 49 nin/nin stalker

I almost didn't review this arc once I saw what it was about, because I'm developing an arc that has some of the same themes. Because of that, I may have specific ideas about what an arc dealing with the Mission Architect as canon should do. Keep that in mind as I give the review.

As the arc begins, you're contacted by The Doctor, the (literally) disembodied hacker from the Gordon Stacy arcs. She has evidence that Crey is using the Architect for sinister purposes (surprise, surprise) - specifically, re-instantiating heroes as clones when they leave the system, keeping the originals only as backed-up copies. The newly cloned versions are loyal to Crey, so if this isn't stopped - well, you get the idea.

The Doctor sends you into a simulation where the copying/cloning is in progress so you can see for yourself. The map is a Council warehouse, and you discover Fusionette, who's a little confused to see you, plus four clones of Fusionette, whom the original helps you delete. The dialog is cute, and well done. Depending on how quickly you grasp the fact that each of the copies thinks themselves to be the original, the combat can seem pretty disturbing. After exiting you don't see Fusionette anymore and wonder what happened to her.

Now that you're convinced, The Doctor would like to grant you administrator privileges so you can be more effective in the fight. This consists of a crawl through an office-to-caves map called "Testing 4 bugz" filled with Arachnoids, an obvious spoof on poorly done MA arcs, which you can mostly ignore if you choose and just go for the glowy. If you want to fight, there is an ally in the form of Executable Number 6, a reference to the Gordon Stacy arcs, which I thought was a nice touch.

As an aside, the technique of hiding the privilege elevation command in what looks like a bad throwaway arc mirrors The Doctor contacting you in emails designed to look like spam - it's all done to fool Big Brother into ignoring the content. Personally, I'm not sure it's the best approach for flying under the radar (spam gets flagged and examined IRL, for example), but I give the author props for using it consistently.

Act Three sends you into the system to free some supers, now that your administrator privileges allow you to move around without being tracked. This is a sewer map full of Freaks (about which, more later). The supers involved include Fusionette, who apparently you didn't really save in Act One (one of my nits), and Faultline, who got worried after Fusionette stood him up on a date. You also find Ghost Widow, the significance of whose presence is intriguing but never quite resolved. Another nit: your character chooses to delete the copy rather than risk being wrong about copies and originals and having two GWs loose in the world... but this is a neutral arc, so it's not clear that would be bad, plus even a hero would probably free GW on principle. Finally, you rescue Positron, who was copied and cloned during his original tour of the Crey facility, the one where he was "convinced" the AE was safe. So there's one giant plot-hole inherent in the AE deftly resolved.

In addition to the rescues, you have to defeat the Network Administrator, a noise tank hired by Crey to beef up their tech security (which explains the whole premise of the map). He's got some good lines and PMs you in the mission exit dialog, another nice touch.

Act Four has you uploading The Doctor directly into the AE central system. This is a 60-minute timed mission against Crey on a tech map. You need to identify the correct terminal node out of a dozen or so red herrings, some of which bring ambushes of Paragon Protector minions. The ambushes are rather hard, and there are regular Crey patrols around as well; my def-capped stalker had no problems but squishies might get in trouble. Other than that it's a pretty straightforward mission.

The Doctor has one final task for you in Act Five: erase all logs of The Doctor's activities. Once again you're fighting Crey, which by this point is a bit stale, though there are two very interesting bosses to fight in the form of Agents Chalmers and Ruthven - another nod to the Gordon Stacy arcs, and nicely done because they appear out of the Crey tank armor they sport in canon. The two of them give some disturbing hints that you're not really who you think you are. Defeating each of them causes destructible mainframes to appear - these are the log files and the backups. Note: I once again ran into the bug where spawned destructibles can't be targeted. Authors should really avoid this construct to avoid frustration. I didn't dock anything for it as I once again managed to work around the problem by targeting through pets.

The exit dialog and the final discussion with The Doctor reveal the truth: you haven't actually been your real self this whole time, but a copy. You've managed to free yourself by virtue of the system reset in Act Five, but all you remember was walking into a killer-GM map full of Ghost Widows. The Doctor commends your clone for bravery and signs off.

There's a lot to like about this arc, but there were some things that bothered me. The fact that you didn't actually rescue Fusionette in Act One I found first confusing and then frustrating - are you really rescuing anyone then? The Ghost Widow thing threw me for a loop, and while it's an interesting question what would happen if Crey tried to clone a ghost, the story doesn't do anything further with it and IMHO it distracts from the core storyline.

I've gone back and forth about the ending. There aren't really any hints about it prior to Act Five that I saw, which might make it seem a little like a cheap trick. But the more I thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed - if all the heroes really are getting cloned on the way out of the system, there's no one to recruit except for clones. Is this a moment of Fridge Brilliance? Not so fast. If I was a clone to begin with, why wasn't I programmed to obey Crey? Did The Doctor subvert my programming? If so, I think the beginning needs some tweaking - the original setup was that The Doctor blasted her email out to all heroes hoping for a bite, so it's an awkward fit.

Finally, the gameplay left me lukewarm. There are no custom factions to fight, only a few custom bosses in the final mission with fairly standard powers (MA/SR as I recall). Maybe it's because "Death to Disco!" also featured them, but I'm pretty tired of Crey tanks. Council and Freakshow are also pretty ho-hum at this point, leaving only the Arachnoid fights to hold my interest.

Even with these flaws I thought the arc was very strong. When I went back and re-read the Gordon Stacy arcs I realized how much research the author had done - I probably would have appreciated the arc more if I had done that beforehand instead of afterwards. It also does a great job of explaining Positron catching the Idiot Ball in blessing the AE to begin with (though you have to wonder, now that Posi's been restored, why he doesn't fight to shut it down). With a little work, this would easily be a 5-star arc and a nomination from me for higher status.

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

 

Posted

oh yeah... one more thing... do not bring a high level fire blaster. this has been a problem for one of the bosses. other mid level blasters can take it, though it may be difficult. but fire is especially weak, even with the ally help. just a word of warning based on feedback. i do not think i can correct that rare problem at this time without changing the entire feel for the boss.

global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
my main offense was too many unique maps

[/ QUOTE ]

Too many unique maps? Is he running out of things to complain about?

[/ QUOTE ]

i guess i did not have a "gorram" good enough reason... which i, naturally, completely disagree with...

global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
welcome to donut world - 1233

 

Posted

Too many unique maps? Is he running out of things to complain about?


I see on re-reading that a number of other complaints didn't make the tl;dr line, but addressing this: if everything is special, nothing is. Special maps are special because we don't see them all the time. They shouldn't be used willy-nilly, but only because the story really demands it. I felt this arc used them gratuitously.

Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

 

Posted

qr queue:

#2622: A Tangle in Time
#119228: hero therapy (TM)

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

 

Posted

Arc #2622, "A Tangle in Time"
tl;dr: 3 stars
Pros: Intriguing use of MA, some character development
Cons: Powerposing, plot inconsistencies, borderline Idiot Ball, unsatisfying ending

Reviewed: 6/18/2009
Level range: 5-54
Character used: lvl 36 SS/WP brute (pretending to be heroic)

I'm going to keep the summary short on this one, since a lot of the action is somewhat self-explanatory.

Azuria approaches you saying an Oranbegan ruin excavation has revealed a powerful artifact which can affect the time stream. She wants you to visit the site and use an amulet she's given you to "lock" it from use by anyone. You wander the site (which is actually Cimeroran, not Oranbegan, but really that's a good thing), talk to some police officers (actually custom characters), fight a mysterious figure named Mobiosea, and apply the amulet to the artifact, a pedestal. At that point a ghostly voice (nit: I thought it was the 2nd police officer talking to me, since he was right there; that was confusing) warns me to back off. Of course it turns out to be the only way to end the mission, so here goes.

Whoops. Returning to Azuria gives you exactly the same mission text as before, and she sends you back into the same map with the same tasks. The flavor text is different and the map is short so it didn't get tiresome. You go through everything again, though this time Mobiosea (clearly intended to suggest Moebius - kudos for avoiding Significant Anagrams) taunts you more directly, saying he'll only let you out of the loop if you kick out all the PPD from the excavation site.

Third time's a charm? Nope. You follow Mobiosea's instructions and defeat all the PPD this time (?!), but you're still stuck.

Returning to Azuria, you show her all the accumulated amulets she's given you and she suddenly believes you. Not only that, she knows who Mobiosea is and sends you on a mission to stomp him, this time in an actual Oranbegan map (contrary to the mission entry pop-up, I was *not* pleased by the change of scenery). You do so, with the predictable non-result.

Finally you decide the heck with it, you're just going to destroy the pedestal over Azuria's objections (despite her having instructed you to do just that in Act Four, though you never got a chance). You do so and then face Mobiosea one final time, and then you're free.

On the final map you encounter the two custom police officers who'd been present in Acts One through Three, only this time they're clearly borderline insane from having been put through the same wringer you were. The handling of their characters and the transformation between One and Five was quite good, and I gave the mission a plus one star for this.

Let me start off by saying I was initially predisposed to like this arc. I quite enjoyed Groundhog Day, which was clearly an inspiration. But I really feel like the plot just doesn't work. My character fell into lock step with Mobiosea too easily**, when the obvious solutions - showing Azuria the accumulated amulets, or even just going ahead and destroying the pedestal - were staring me in the face. This is the borderline Idiot Ball I mentioned in the tl;dr line. We might also throw it to Azuria for failing to listen to me when I said I was stuck in a loop the first time - after all, we're dealing with a time stream manipulation device! - especially since she turns out later to know exactly who Mobiosea is.

In addition, it's pretty unclear what Mobiosea's power (or its limits) were by the end of the story. It's also unclear why you got caught up in the mess to begin with, since Azuria's amulet was apparently not a threat to Mobiosea. I think there's a considerable amount of Fridge Logic in the plot and if the author sat down and thought things through, they'd realize that events unfolding the way they do here just isn't the most likely outcome given the characters and setup. That's a problem, and one that would require a major rewrite to fix.

I do give kudos for the two custom police officers, though. Their dialog and transformation was the most entertaining aspect of the arc for me. I almost wish the arc were structured as an attempt to free them from their loop, rather than myself - that would have felt more heroic and might have lent itself to solutions for some of the other plot problems.

** I note that the police officers who were being "killed" in the original script are now merely "defeated" and medicom'd out, but still...

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

 

Posted

Apologies for the dry spell. I've had a lot of other things on my mind.

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

 

Posted

As a single point of defense (hey, it ain't my arc...) I'll note that the entry text on the 3rd mission makes it clear that you've "done" the tunnel mission hundreds of times before caving in to the "Get rid of the PPD" demands.

Thankfully, the arc doesn't require you to play through all those attempts.

 

Posted

Hm. I remember that entry popup, and only got the impression that I'd tried to simply not do the mission and gotten "rubber banded" back into it, so to speak.

Either way, though, destroying the pedestal would've been one of the first things I suggested, and Azuria still should have listened to me if I had a whole pile of amulets. If I'd done the mission hundreds of times those things should've come up before.

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

 

Posted

Oh, sure. I was just saying that at least you didn't try twice to escape and then say "What the heck, let's go kill some cops."

 

Posted

Link to original review?

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