'Captain Dynamic Faces The Great Face' MA190069

MArc # 190,069: 'Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces The Great Face' - Tryouts

POSTER IMAGE

Here's an opportunity to contribute to the Captain Dynamic phenomenon! If you haven't seen the three awesome Captain Dynamic videos (at www.captaindynamic.com), you should probably check those out first. This is a story involving multiple architects.

Solo-friendly; Complex mechanics; Meta; Heart Felt
3 missions, Medium length, Snakes/Council/Rikti/Custom
Levels 5-50, Heroic, Low-Medium difficulty

This arc explores the personalities of Captain Dynamic and Great Face through their collaborative story-telling. It's only just finished (although someone found it and played it a couple of weeks ago) and I am really looking for feedback.

1. It's a simple story with very complicated execution. Does it make some sort of sense?

2. Can it be funnier (at least in the first two missions)? Of course it can. Will you help me?

3. By the end (including mission 3), how does it make you feel?

3. Should it be more/less challenging? (I've run it solo with 6 different ATs, at levels from 4 to 50).

4. In a word, what is the theme? If I have been too subtle, you might see this as Just a Bunch of Stuff That Happened.

I hope to get some rigorous feedback before I submit this arc to one of the reviewers.

Thanks, airhead

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
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Thanks Jophiel for the first written review of this arc (and to @Cwth for a detailed review-by-tells).

Jophiel's review

A largely positive result, scoring a five by the skin of its teeth, owing to some considerable confusion in the third mission. I've made some changes:

[ QUOTE ]
The ally (initially captive) originally did ask you to return to him with the collection. But another reviewer also found the scattered emails confusing (again, were they fake?), so I'd changed the tiny dialog box to try to show they were real. That meant taking out the critical information that you should return; and you still weren't convinced it wasn't a hoax (fair enough, so much "uniqueness" going on).
I hope I've fixed this now using another text field ("Completed objective") which gives me another 100 characters to make sure I cover both pieces of information.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hopefully it'll run much smoother now. As Jophiel highlights, the story does require that you know about Captain Dynamic, which can be accomplished through 12 minutes of video at www.captaindynamic.com.

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
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Okay, I ran this between last night and this morning. Since the levels were accomodating, I decided to run this on my level 7 dominator (which is a redside version of my blueside main). Used diff 1, since that's usually where I put my lowbies before level 10.

TL;DR: Three stars - functional arc, just not really entertaining.

I'll start off by saying that I wasn't really impressed by the original Captain Dynamic videos. They were faintly amusing but I never found them actually funny. I also thought it was sort of dumb to post the videos directing viewers to try out the Mission Architect several weeks before the feature it actually launched, but hey, that's just me.

[u]Mission One:[u]

Briefing looks fine, nothing outstanding.
Unfortunately, I didn't think to reclick the contact before going into the mish in order to check the "still busy" text.

I didn't know the tutorial instance was actually available as a MA map. For this "mission", I suppose it works.

How the hell did you get a non-destructible, non-clickable object to spawn where it did? Once you perform the first rescue, there is a nav bar error that causes the compass point to direct you to the wrong place in order to deliver the escort. I suppose that was the rationale for placing the object where it was (to prevent you from backtracking with the escort). It didn't take me long to realize that you need to do what the objective text is telling you to do (and what you do in EVERY OTHER escort objective) - take her back to the entrance.

I'm trying to figure out how you got an escort with no actual guards spawning around them.

The text on the escort is as belabored as one would expect for disgruntled writers, but since the "god why am I writing this" bit never returns again, it's sort of a throwaway gag. This gag was a little better executed in another Arc, "The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space!" (Arc #61013) where it was a recurring theme.

As there were no enemies, there was no XP/inf/tickets/etc for completing the mish. I really didn't care (you didn't do anything worthy of a reward), but others might be annoyed by this. There are no Snakes in this mission, so I don't know where the MA interface is pulling that data from.

[u]Mission Two:[u]

The hacking bit got a lol.

Still busy text references the old Go Hunt Kil Skuls meme, but spells "kill" correctly. Not sure that this couldn't be replaced by a better joke or just tweaked since the hacker has already demonstrated a poor command of spelling in the briefing text.

Now we have Capt Dynamic presumably "hacked" as enemies named after Council groups. These all spawned as LTs for me, so I don't know if they were supposed to be bosses or what. They had boss dialogue (which was unique to each version of CD, that was good), so I presume this to be the case. I wasn't aware that the MA would let you name a Custom Group the same as a regular critter group. Now that I think about it, I can't recall of the group name for The Council is "Council" or "The Council". Also, I suppose you could name them "CounciI" - since the text font will make an I look like an l.

Why are the Lost marked as "Rikti?" Why not use the Lost group and just add in a boss Rikti for the singular use of an actual Rikti in the final mish? ... Furthermore, how did you get a Rikti Boss to spawn when I was on a level 7 char?

The custom critters weren't too awful as they were, but at my level, the effort needed to get past their heals was a little challenging. I'm not sure how a non-control lowbie would have done, but meh. They didn't kill me, so I'm not going to worry about it.

I think there were battles between the Council and the "Rikti", but I only saw their text and really didn't ever see a battle between them. This is consistent with my experience of the AI on the battle feature in MA. I generally recommend leaving them out entirely.

Otherwise, the Mission was unremarkable.

[u]Mission Three:[u]

...more hax. Hmm. And repeating the same joke in the still busy text. I feel fatigue here.

There is a typo in the objective text, some additional/hanging periods and commas. Looks like an error when you were editing the objectives. Should get cleaned up.

I went through the whole mission, got the collection, killed a boss, and THEN I have to run all the way back through three (short) floors to the first floor and re-rescue a hostage/ally - who then tells me that we have to go defeat a raid leader? My thoughts: "Didn't I already do that?" And the Nav Bar text doesn't help because all it is doing is screaming "KILL GREAT FACE". I intuit that we have to go back to the Back of the mission to find this extra boss. Along the way we run into a patrol which has no discernable text to justify why it is there (outside of recharging my Domination Bar - kthanx).

We make it back to the Back (again), and find the architect of this calamity and thrash him pretty soundly while he rails against fate and generally providing some explanation for why he's involved in this at all. I'm not sure about his powersets since I slapped him in a dom'd hold throughout the fight 'cause I was just about tired of this BS and wanted it over with.

The emails were the definition of superfluous.

[u]Overview:[u]

I was bored during most of this, actually. The arc is functional, nothing broken or necessarily unworkable and the custom groups are not overpowered (although their heals, again, are annoying to deal with). I spent most of the time just kinda puzzling over how you executed certain details in the MA.

The plot is meh. I know this is supposed to be a humor arc, and most of the humor is that the Mission Arc has been hacked and derailed from its original intent as a battle between CD and GF - but I just really didn't care. In the original videos, Captain Dynamic is a tool and the Great Face is sort of an obnoxious loser (traits he has in common with the Captain). The emails in the third mish sort of drag that out, along with a really unnecessary (and repetitive) commentary by the hacker in question. I could tell that GF was a loser by the content of the emails, I didn't need big red letters telling me that. Of course, that could be a recursive bit of introspection. Am I as much of a tool for thinking that the Great Face is a loser as I feel the hacker is for pointing it out?

I think you had the right idea by making the hacker the final boss, 'cause while I don't particularly like either the Captain or the Face as characters (or even, really, comedic vehicles) I sort of feel bad for them that they have to be saddled with an even bigger jerk looking to cause them trouble. This threatens to put both of them in Woobie status, which I think is a pitfall, but at least there was some satisfaction in bringing some justice to bear on this guy who just obviously wanted to Kick the Dog (or Poke the Poodle, I'm sorta unclear on which it would be).




Anyway, to answer your questions:

1. It's a simple story with very complicated execution. Does it make some sort of sense?

Um. Sorta. The hacker is angry at CD causing him to have a pretty lame Hero Name & decides to get revenge by ruining the Captain's mission arc.

2. Can it be funnier (at least in the first two missions)? Of course it can. Will you help me?

Um, yeah, but I really can't help ya here. I just sorta found the jokes stale. The idea in general isn't bad, but might be better executed in a single mission rather than over the whole arc.

3. By the end (including mission 3), how does it make you feel?

Relieved that it was over so I could do something else. And then I went to work. :P

3. Should it be more/less challenging? (I've run it solo with 6 different ATs, at levels from 4 to 50).

*sigh* That's two question #3's. The challenge is fine, but I really don't look for UBER challenge missions. It appears to solo just fine.

4. In a word, what is the theme? If I have been too subtle, you might see this as Just a Bunch of Stuff That Happened.

You know, this is almost like uncomedy, actually. I felt like I was in one of those Jim's Journals comics, where [censored] happens and no one really cares and that's the point. It's funny because it's not funny and it's not funny 'cause nothing is really happening. I wouldn't call it JABSTH (I firmly hate that criticism - you could say most of the major works of literature are the same; 'O HAI I IZ WAR N PEEZ, LOL NOOBPOLEEN PWND'), 'cause I could tell you had a point here, but its sort of buried under...dross, really. It's sort of a bait and switch, you go into the mish, expecting to see sort of a logical extension of the fictional world of the Capt Dynamic character and sort of build on the rivalry between him and the Great Face - but then none of that really happens. In fact, the Great Face doesn't even ever show up in person - you just get a Rikti Boss that his avatar has been hacked to look like.

I gave the arc 3 stars, nothing was broken with it mechanically and it played straight enough. But it really wasn't fun, and the jokes were sort of...bleh. Euronators? Sorta weakly juvenile, and a pun that would only earn a sigh, not a groan. Honestly, I would have given the arc 2 stars, but I felt that was sort of mean since my only real gripe is that your sense of humor is not the same as mine - which caused a lot of the jokes to subjectively fall flat.

Anyway, that's what I gots for ya.

Twelfth, I have to wonder, why did you bother?

You ran a Heroic arc with a villain, with a theme that you already hated, complained about every unusual twist of its architecture, and did not even read the story. The entire plot has Great Face building his own suit of Rikti armor, that is not a hack.

The tutorial map, the unguarded escort, the odd reference to Snakes in the MA summary, the indestructible destructible, the group names for customs that match actual groups, the Rikti boss at low levels, they're all just existing features. Others saw this as inventive, not issues.

Unsurprisingly, you missed the key theme of 'bullying' that takes this odd couple story into new territory. But then content is 'superfluous'.

Jophiel seems to have hit the nail on the head, suggesting this is a niche story. If you have such serious issues with the videos, then you shouldn't play this arc. From my perspective, I didn't find them hilarious, just amusing. But I liked the characters that were starting to develop, and there's far less 'canon' involved in them. So I built on their personalities to create this arc.

If anyone would like to approach this arc with an open mind, I'm still looking for feedback.

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
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* Updated some text to make it clearer that emails are real (G.F. acknowledges this)

* Run through in about 20 mins, quite short

This is a story arc involving architects, any humour is subjective and incidental to the personalities involved. Still looking for constructive feedback.

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!

Did it, loved it, 5-stars in my book as it is a niche story which not only builds upon the awesome (imo, of course) work already done by the creators of the CD vids, but adds to it a flair of its own.

Airhead asked me to post my review of this arc on my thread (and I did), but I wanted to drop a quick note to say that I, too, ran it and gave it 5 stars. Is it a niche arc? Meh... If comedy is considered a niche, then, yeah, I guess so.

But there are so many comedy arcs out there that it's a *huge* niche. And this is one of the better comedy arcs out there. That's one of the things about reviews that can sometimes be bothersome. Instead of approaching an arc from a "big picture perspective" and rating an arc based on it's overall technical and story competence and appeal to the broader CoH audience, some reviewers tend to let their rating be affected almost solely on whether it scratched their personal itches.

While that is certainly *part* of what should go into a review, it shouldn't outweigh overall technical and storytelling superiority. Personally, if I play an arc that has good playability with a solid plot and good prose that I also enjoy on a personally level, it'll get 5 stars. If it is otherwise equal, but just doesn't grab me because of the groups involved or the time period or some other reason, I'll drop it to 4 stars.

It'll never get kicked down two or more star levels simply because it's not my cup of tea. But then I don't have time to start my own review thread, so it's only an opinion.

Thanks Lord Xenite! I'm glad it all tied together. I've tidied up some things you noted in game too, very much appreciated.

Thanks Dalghryn, I accept this arc (like most arcs) cannot suit everyone (hence "niche"), although I hope to keep that group as small as possible, and sufficiently inform players with my arc description so that I meet the needs of the players open to enjoying it. Seems to be working most of the time, which makes it all worthwhile

Cheers, airhead

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks Lord Xenite! I'm glad it all tied together. I've tidied up some things you noted in game too, very much appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]
Always glad to help!