Arc 212069/212073 - The Consequences of War

Ok... re. The Carnival of Shadows -- according to Paragon Wiki, Vanessa Devore and her ghostly friend *did* have forces involved at the end of the Rikti War, and helped the Alpha Team. They did not form the Carnival of Shadows -- with the carnival theme and atmosphere -- until they went rogue, however. So, no CoS in my CoW CoH arc. I'll probably leave the tents... I just like that map. But, then again, if I find one I like better, you never know.

Still mulling over your second suggestion. I won't feel too bad if I decide to leave it, though. You were, after all, the impetus behind my complete revamp of the Vanguard and several missions tied to them.

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Storyline - ****. The only thing I really take issue here with is the whole "translator" plotline. Rather than them being a Paragon product, the Rikti seem to have developed them on their own, to communicate with the Lost in the years after the war if nothing else. Just having it kind of activate when I hit the right panel on a battlesuit seems a bit weird. Maybe the subplot that gets me distracted can be about some other side-effect of the psionic communications?

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I missed where the translators were a Paragon product. Do you recall where you saw that so I can look it up? If so, <insert muted cursing here> I'll look into making changes. Was this the only reason it dropped from 4 to five stars?

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The impression I got from the arc was that smacking a panel in Sewer Rikti's battlesuit somehow turned on a translator, which was then extracted and refined by Dr. Brinell so we could intercept Rikti communications.

This is apparently not what you wanted to convey.

That's why I say just skip the translator issue entirely and send us to Dr. B for another reason.

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Design - ***. The fourth mission was rather a confusing mess as I've documented. The clues looked to be at odds with who was actually following me and who was running for the nearest exit-like substance. Completing the second mission without even going "inside the Rikti base" as it were also seems off.

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Like I said, I'll look at map placement and see if I can at least force it (and the decoys) back into the Rikti tunnels. I'm also going to clean up the confusing dialogue. Was that all that dropped this to 3 stars?

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Yeah, when I'm not sure if the allies I'm rescuing should actually be following me around or not that's kind of a drag.

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Overall - ****. I'm not sure what to do about mission 4, source of my animosity. Obviously there are upper floors that I can't get into for... some reason, but just listening to the hostages and reading the clues gives me the impression that entirely the wrong people are staying behind to help me.

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Part of my goal is to introduce six particular heroes. You'll see why in the second arc. Early versions of the arc had them all introduced in the first two missions, and then recurring later. Unfortunately, that was way to many NPC heroes and way too much firepower. The player character became almost redundant, and boy did I hear about *that*.

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As far as MA goes, I generally don't mind being redundant as long as I'm "on the winning team". If I'm redundant AND the storyline's being written so that I'm either losing, or winning at orthogonal purposes to victory? Yeah, that's a pain.

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The impression I got from the arc was that smacking a panel in Sewer Rikti's battlesuit somehow turned on a translator, which was then extracted and refined by Dr. Brinell so we could intercept Rikti communications.

This is apparently not what you wanted to convey.

That's why I say just skip the translator issue entirely and send us to Dr. B for another reason.

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Actually, that's exactly what I'm trying to convey. Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometime during the pummeling that was required to take out Tro'Naht, the external output for the translator was tripped, cluing the heroes in on the fact that the Rikti have been able to understand their battle commands the entire time -- or at least the Rikti leaders have. So, our hero gathers up the broken armor and takes it back to Lazon, who later has him take it to Brinell.

In the mean time, Lazon's been trying to figure out how the Rikti are jamming our communications. Brinell has info that can help with that. The two (translator/jamming) aren't related, but both provide more opportunity for the player character to contribute in a meaningful way, and both come into play in the second arc.

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Yeah, when I'm not sure if the allies I'm rescuing should actually be following me around or not that's kind of a drag.

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Gotcha, and fixed.

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As far as MA goes, I generally don't mind being redundant as long as I'm "on the winning team". If I'm redundant AND the storyline's being written so that I'm either losing, or winning at orthogonal purposes to victory? Yeah, that's a pain.

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Well, in this case "the winning team" is the Rikti, and that's established CoH canon I'm not messing with. It's the point of my story. My first incarnations of CoW were really bummers, and the player character really took a back seat to the SOLUS heroes. Both on my own and with input from dozens of people like yourself, I believe I've found a fairly good balance. You can't win because history says you don't. The SOLUS characters have to die because history says they do.

But within those limits, you, the player character, help keep a few city block from being blown to cinders; you're critical in finding out about the Rikti translator tech; you manage to save several younger heroes, citizens and defenders outright that would have otherwise been toast, and probably help contribute to keeping some of the gold and yellow group alive a little longer; you save Brinell and her research -- research which leads to good things later down the road (both in established CoH canon and in CoW Part 2); and you generally make the situation far better than it could have been.

Is that a win? I guess it depends on your perspective. Is your character redundant? Not in the slightest. Like I've said. This is like "Saving Private Ryan." There's simply no happy ending, but a job gets done that wouldn't have if it weren't for you, and in the end when the good guys *do* win, you played a part that made a difference.

Now for a bit of divergence from the "It's all about me" tone of this thread, I bring you a very brief review of an arc written by a convert from the dark closet of CoW critics to the bright light of CoW fandom.

'Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face' - Tryouts (Arc #190060)

Even if this hadn't been written by Airhead (@Aehaed), or even if he had not been such a help with CoW, I'd have loved this arc. Frankly, it takes a lot for me to enjoy comedy arcs. I just take my superheroing very seriously and feel like most comedy arcs are demeaning to the genre. So, for me to actually 5 star a comedy arc (which I did), it has to be special.

When an arc starts of with compass text that says...

SPOILER WARNING! The rest of this review thing contains spoilers, so read with your spoiler filter glasses on!

"Save the Cat, Save the World!"

You have me hooked from the get-go. I'm a HUGE Heroes fan, you see... but I digress.

This arc is laced with some great one-liners. It's got a solid plot and a really interesting take on the AE that I won't go into here because I don't want to spoil it. In fact, if I have any complaint (which I really don't), it's that the "interesting take" that involves some AE reprogramming gets a little confusing at times.

When is it the original program and when is it modified? Red letters are obviously a clue, but there are some things that I couldn't figure out if they were real or Memorex. For example, the wonderful e-mails... were they really writen by GF to CD, or were they part of the corrupted program? Did GF put them in the program to embarass GF and CD, or... See, I'm confused again.

There are a couple of these instances, but -- being the big picture guy I am -- they were still so funny, I just sidelined my confusion and kept on going.

I'm not certain how some of the "Is it real, is it real but not supposed to be there, or is it totally fabricated by Captain S?" issue can really be clarified without detracting from the fun, though, so -- as far as suggestions go -- I have to break my own rule. You get a criticism without a suggestion as to how to fix it. I write drama, bud, I can't get my head around what goes on in the head of a comedic creator enough to make suggestions.

The good news is, I bet my wife can -- and she'll probably be adding her two cents later.

In short, for anyone that visits my thread to read reviews I never said I'd be doing, I give this 5 big techie taffy stars out of 5, and absolutely recommend it to your friends and neighbors.

Back to me.

Thans to a few friendly suggestions, I've made some minor text changes... nothing that most people would even notice. Thanks to the latest patch, I changed the plasma bombs in the first arc to a-bombs and the "jammers" in the second arc to some kind of neat-looking Rikti gadget or the other. Neither does damage any more, so all you have to worry about is the "shellheads" themselves.

Not to flip-flop your thread, but -

Thanks!! for the glowing review of my arc. I suggested you post here as the arc's thread got a bit out of date, and had just one unsolicited review from someone who didn't want to be there .

I've made some minor tweaks to help clarify what's going on where you were confused, but if that doesn't cover it, there's a completely updated souvenir (still written in character). Thanks again for your glowing praise!

Cheers, airhead [now back to the far gritter consequences of war]

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!

PoliceWoman wrote the following review in her thread. Rather than clutter that wonderful thread with my comments, I thought I’d do it here. So, without further adieu, I give you PoliceWoman’s review of “Consequences of War” – Part 1 with response by yours truly:

The Consequences of War - Part I review
Arc ID: 227331
Keywords: Challenging, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 38-54

The premise seems connected to the Rikti war; the arc is flagged with warnings about AVs, EBs, extreme EBs, extreme bosses, and extreme lieutenants. Whew!

I wonder at the programming that actually determines these warnings. After all, there is only one EB and one AV in the entire arc. How can it have AVs, EBs, and extreme EBs unless it considers an AV as an extreme EB if you’re set low enough.

I ran this on the Rikti invasion weekend, which seemed particularly appropriate.

I tried playing a 38 SS/will brute on Malicious (difficulty 2).

Mission 1
Briefing: The contact seems to be some kind of fiery entity, the leader of something called the "SOLUS Collective", which has been battling the Rikti invasion. He's lost contact with two of his operatives, fighting Rikti in the sewers, and he sends me to help. A decently written briefing that explains the situation and what I'm expected to do.

Actually, the contact *was* a fiery entity as noted in his contact description. You don’t get much fierier than a being that comes from the sun, I don’t think.

Good clue at the beginning of the mission explaining the history of the Rikti war and explaining the SOLUS Collective. Vanguard is mentioned here; I wonder if this arc should perhaps be Neutral since Vanguard is a neutral organization that fights Rikti? Heroic works fine too though.

Done. Both arcs are now set as “Neutral.”

Inside the mission: The Rikti talk in weird indecipherable symbols, which is cool but is different than the typical way we see Rikti talking in other story arcs.

Thanks to LaserJesus, I did my homework on this. According to established canon, the Rikti translators as we know them in CoH lore didn’t exist. Based on this fact, I created the alien dialect which is used through the majority of the arc. Like the retro Vanguard uniforms, I was going for something new that seemed realistic.

I destroyed one of the bombs and got the "Bomb Placement" clue, which had a nice explanation of what was at risk.

I found Billy Bad Boy and he was surrounded by Rikti holding wooden crates, which I thought was an odd animation for them to begin in. (Billy's clue later explains this a bit more, but it still seemed odd at first glance.) I like Billy's sassy dialog.

The reason I went with the crate animation was because the Rikti are putting bombs in place, and one would assume the components came packed in something. Since there’s no animation available with Rikti crates, this was the best the MA allowed. The few animations that would work for the Rikti get rather repetitive. I was just trying to add some variety. In any case, I switched back to the default menace animation – at least until someone suggests I put it back, I guess.

Found and rescued Captain Superior...I really like his look. Very heroic. A shame he couldn't stay!

Thanks, and you haven’t seen the last of him.

Found the Rikti leader and he starts off spouting symbols, but then actually starts talking intelligibly in the normal Rikti syntax, which was kinda cool, like they're just learning to speak the human language. In order to trash talk me, admittedly.

Hmm, I got "Tro'naht's Translator" as a clue, which was well planned as I was just thinking about why he changed languages on me.

I like the "Radio Transmission from Lazon" clue and how it's described as blurry due to the jamming; nice description. "but it's use this close" should be "but its use this close".

Fixed.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact asks me to try and plant some kind of virus on the Rikti computers, and says that two more of his team will meet up with me. Starting to think this is a series of cameos from someone's SG.

Actually, you were hacking into the system with a heuristic program that was designed to eventually break through the Rikti firewalls in order to gather data that might help with the jamming problem (or anything else, I assume). It’s really pretty well explained, but I know how you can miss things when you’re trying to play and take notes at the same time.

Inside the mi ssion, I rescue Empathy, and she talks about Eric as if it's someone I should know. Perhaps Energy Blastion? If I'm supposed to know him, maybe his name should be mentioned earlier.
OK, I find Energy Blastion, and his description DOES say he's named Eric; still would've made more sense if I knew that before seeing Empathy's dialog.

I modified some text to clear that up.

Mission seems to finish fairly straightforwardly after finding the right glowy and releasing the two allies.

Mission 3
Briefing: This briefing mentions they are puzzling over some "battle suit parts" that I had apparently recovered; I did get an encrypted file, but don't remember bringing battle suit parts back. Possibly I missed it, but in any case, if this is an important clue, you may want to add an official "Clue" indicating you brought this back in a previous mission. Although looking back at my clue journal, I wonder if these "battle suit parts" are meant to be the same as the "parts" describe d in the "Tro'Naht's Translator" clue; that might make sense, but the connection isn't entirely clear.

You did get them in the first mission. I modified the clue to clear that up a little.

The contact wants me to rescue a scientist in Galaxy City and give her these battle suit parts. This seems reasonable, though I wonder what happened to the encrypted file that I found in mission 2? If the battle suit parts are, indeed, from Tro'naht's Translator, then I got it in mission 1 and maybe should've immediately done this new task?

Lazon got the encrypted file that contained (as we later learn) false information on the location of the jammers – a ruse to lure more heroes from the base and leave it vulnerable. The reason you didn’t do this immediately was that Lazon was looking at it first. All explained in one place or another. With the shear amount of text that makes up this story, it may have gotten lost in the effort to take notes. Again, from experience, I know how hard it is to run a mission and catch everything while you’re trying to take notes.

Inside there's a nice little battle between Rikti and Vanguard. One of them says:

[NPC] Vanguard Soldier: $name! Several shellheads just got past us! Get back to Brinell! We've got this!

...without actually using my name, so I'm guessing maybe fighting the Rikti triggered this dialog before I got within range. Maybe rephrase to not include the player name.

I’d already fixed this. Must have been after you selected the arc.

I like the map choice, it gives very much a damaged air raid shelter sorta feel.

I found the Jammer Info Data File glowy and clicked it; it spawned an ambush, but didn't give me a clue (which seemed surprising).

I’ve used 99.86% of my allotted memory. Some clues just had to go. This one (as well as the ones I’d had for both the rookies) got the axe, and I tried my best to fill in the info gap in other places.

Debriefing: Basically empty, as you can't get through to Lazon. Though this is explained by the mission exit popup, which warns of an attack on the SOLUS base. You might briefly recap this in the mission debriefing, though, to make sure the player sees it.

As per your suggestion, I’ve re-worked that entire sequence. It should be clearer now.

Mission 4
Briefing: It looks like I'm asked to help fight off the Rikti attack on the SOLUS base, with some name dropping of more SOLUS members that are about to be introduced.

Inside, I have 9 heroes to find, wow.

[NPC] Lazon: 22nd Century Man and Translucent Girl, if you can read me, team up with Mega!

There's an extra space between "if" and you"

Fixed.

[NPC] Lazon: They're hitting the residential section! The less experienced heroes are getting chewed up up there!

"up up there" maybe should be "up over there".

It now reads, “…massacred up there!”

Found the various bodies of dead heroes, killed in the attack, getting "The Ultimate Sacrifice" clue, which is well-written and a nice touch.

I found and rescued Prince Nigel IV, who has pretty nice dialog that helps characterize him as one of the "rookie" heroes that got caught flatfooted by this attack. He asks me to get him to a door, but I don't have an objective to lead him out, and unlike Penthouse, it doesn't seem like he helps fight; yet, he IS following me. Not sure what the intent there is.

An AI glitch which I’d dealt with, apparently (again) after you accepted the arc. I also fixed the compass text problem. It’s frustrating because I really wanted the type of “missing heroes” to be somewhat vague, but it just didn’t work right.

I rescued Commissioner G and oddly he ran off rather than helping me, despite Lazon's previous instructions for Penthouse and G to work with me.

Priorities change during war. The bottom line with all the hero “abandonments” as they were, was that I was getting way too many complaints about the NPCs hogging battles and claiming tickets. They are supposed to be level 50-type heroes, so powering them down and letting them fight wasn’t a real option. So, I had them take off to do other things, leaving the player character to handle the battle.

Once I got down to "Find the last hero", I searched the whole base without finding any more heroes; then I finally led Prince Nigel IV to the door, which completed the objective. This is a little unintuitive (since I had already "found" Nigel) and I'd suggest you make it so that when you rescue Nigel, it changes him from a "X heroes to find" objective to a "Lead Nigel to safety" objective.

As I said, fixed.

Debriefing: Seems awfully short, but perhaps this is justified by the situation, as it implies that the Rikti attack is continuing on (into the next mission).

Mission 5
Briefing: The final mission seems to be to save the "upper floors" of the SOLUS base and warns of an AV.

Map selection: the burning office is cool, but looks very different than the "lower floors" so it requires a little extra suspension of disbelief to imagine this is part of the same base; especially with all the pentagrams and cabalistic looking stuff. The burned-up tech lab map in the villain arc where you fight ARCH-A would've been perfect, but doesn't seem available.

It’s still the best map for the job. Unfortunately, we live with the limits of the MA. I made a choice between the burning Hellions hideout or yet another generic, office. Someday, they’ll give us more variety and I’ll change it.

Objectives: another 8 heroes to find! Wow, feels like a lot.

I rescued Translucent Girl; had to lead her to the door before I got credit for "finding" he r. Same suggestion as for Nigel, change her from a "hero to find" to a "Lead Translucent Girl to door" when she is rescued. Although I am surprised she wants medevac after her brave dialog about the nature of heroes; I can understand that Nigel (as a newbie) needed to get out, but wouldn't Translucent Girl want to help save the rest of her friends? I guess she is being depicted as "too wounded to help".

The compass text issue’s been fixed. I also changed some dialogue to reinforce the fact she’s too exhausted to keep fighting and needs medical help.

I found and rescued Lazon; he has some nice dialog. I think you might want to reinforce that Lazon's powers are overloading here somehow; perhaps use one of the animations where he's in an energy field, or change his model so that the aura is more pronounced or a different color, or maybe just have him exposition a little more about "I'm overloading!" after "You don't understand!" and maybe add "I've got to get out of here, fast!" before he says "Tell Captain Superior to get the data...". I very much like the "Lazon's Ultimate Sacrifice" clue, though.

Modified some text in the briefing to make it more obvious he’s about to go nova.

Found and fought Hro'Dath. Wow, he looks HUGE in this little, low-ceilinged office! I beat him, but he "teleports away" in the "Hro'Dath's Escape" clue upon defeat. Grrrr.

I searched a body and got the "Deceased Heroes" clue, which says "you didn't even have time to look at her I.D. card"...but the progress bar for searching the body actually says "Searching for identi-card", so this seems to be inconsistent. May need to change one or the other, to match.

I see this as being similar to dog tags in war. You find the necklace and yank the tags free, but you don’t have time to do more than tuck them into a pocket before you’re dodging more bullets and back in battle.

Got the "Lazon's Last Orders" clue on mission complete, which was actually pretty nice.

Mission exit popup seems to recognize that this is a pyrrhic victory, at best.

Debriefing: Not bad; but I liked "Lazon's Last Orders" a bit more. Consider repeating some of that clue here, though I think you should keep the clue so that other team members will get to see it, too.

Memory issues have got me at the moment, but it’s on my list.

Overall
This arc did a good job of portraying the brutal violence of the Rikti War an d the sacrifices made by the people who fought in it. The final two missions were particularly compelling, as they depicted a desperate struggle as you rescue who you can, but you find many have given their lives in defense against the Rikti.

The first three missions seemed rather generic fights against the Rikti by comparison, however. There was a good introduction to the arc, but it seemed like the plot thread about researching the translator never really went anywhere.

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is a single story told in two arcs. While I’m well aware that each arc needs to be self-contained (and I think I’ve done a fairly good job of that since it *does* get its share of 4s and 5s), some things aren’t fully explained until the second arc. It’s kind of like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or more aptly, the upcoming Hobbit films. Good on their own, but the entire story is what shines. I think that becomes clearer after both arcs are run.

Countless heroes that were SOLUS members made brief cameos in this arc, appearing for one mission and then never being seen again; I felt this really made it impossible for any of them to get enough character development, except for Lazon himself, who was handled pretty well. It occurred to me that these may be guest appearances from members of the author's SG. For sake of the story, though, you might consider reducing the cast size, and instead focus on developing the story for a fe w recurring characters. Perhaps one could be one of the rookie heroes who works with the player in the early missions, but ends up dying against hopeless odds in the later missions. This would give you a stronger connection to what happens in missions 4 and 5, where you find a LOT of body bags, but they're (as currently presented) mostly nameless statistics. Even the one that IS named isn't anyone you "know".

”Countless,” hardly. There are seven signature heroes, plus two rookies and a slew of bodies. A lot, but hardly “countless.” And, again, for reasons learned later, I’m going to stick with what I have here. I may sacrifice the occasional 5 star rating because of this, but the end result (fairly consistent 5’s for the second arc and pretty uniformly nice comments about the entire story) is worth it.

I did really like Lazon's final scenes, though, which I thought gave him a pretty heroic ending.

I was rather disappointed that even though I beat the final boss, he "teleports away" so you don't really win against him. Despite beating back the Rikti attack, due to the enormous loss of life the final mission has a sense of failure. Considering some of the final clues and debriefing, this may be your design intent. I might suggest you let the final boss get "really" defeated, though, to partly balance the deaths of Lazon and the others, and al low the player to have some sense that she accomplished something beyond survival.

You can’t kill the villain in the middle of the story. Patience, Weedhoppah, patience.

Anyway, I did like the arc overall, but thought there were a few things that could be improved. I rated it 4 stars.

Thanks, PW. A great review. Very helpful, personable, and informative.

I started this thread to support my two arcs (or three or four or...), but I've found that, in promoting said arcs, I've happened on opportunities to review other arcs. In many cases it's a quid pro quo thing. In others it's "just because." Many of them have their own threads, but in the cases of ones that don't, I'll just handle the reviewing chores here. So, with all that said, I've made a recent friend that has a couple arcs I'm more than happy to help out with. That friend goes by the Global of @Griffin. The first arc I'm looking at is...

Rise of the Shadow Guard - #259657

Now, since I'm primarily looking at it from a position of helping him to make it stronger... rather than to provide spoilers... my comments aren't going to be terribly lengthy. I also don't see the point of publicizing the rating I gave the arc. Suffice it to say that, even as a work in progress, it's well written and Griffin obviously has what it take to make it a 5 star arc, if it isn't there yet.

OK, enough preamble.

Mission #1 - I like the custom group. It has a background that makes sense, good character descriptions and nifty costumes. We've discussed whether or not you should add another lieutenant to the mix. If the memory's available, it can't hurt, but if it comes to sacrificing exposition for the extra body, I'd leave the body out.

When you cross paths with the first NPCs you get the following chatter: "Don't forget the stolen to tell them..." I'm pretty lost as to what the intended dialogue was, but I don't think this was it.

Battle Ground's description should read, "Robert abandoned Vanguard, taking..."

I'll make a quick comment here - Vanguard traitors, you gotta love 'em. Griffin'll know what I'm talking about.

The exit pop-up has the word "make," but it should be "makes." The association is with the word "number," not the word "cells."

Mission #2 - The intro should read, "...it appears, now that..."

Mission #3 - The intro should read, "...major player in Paragon, have..."

I'd suggest adding an ambush or two to the statues if you have the memory. It'll make them seem like more important objectives. I'd also add some more text to reinforce why these are so important. It's sweet that they're historical and all, but in the big pidture, I didn't feel the love as compared with our other needs. Maybe it's just me.

Mission #4 - Yikes! I'd scream the fact that it's a timed mission a lot louder. I flat missed that , and since it was baby-feeding time I can tell you that I had one unhappy five month old by the time I was done.

We discussed the problems with Mr. Mayor getting offed. Hopefully you've found a work-around for that bug.

Mission #5 - If there remains a chance the Mayor can die, then you've got a problem with your mission intro. It works fine is he's rescued, but if he *does* bite it, your intro for mission five doesn't work. It is no longer an assassination *attempt*, but an assassination. That being the case, you'd think he'd be a whole lot more bothered by it. The best fix, in my opinion, would be to fix it where Mr. Mayor can't be prematurely terminated at all.

The mission entry pop-up should read, "...fortified, with..."

That huge Arachnos transport is really sharp looking. Polished to a sheen. What? Good question. Why did we take an *Arachnos* transport? Yeah, I know the map demands it, and it's a great map to use, but that's an awfully big elephant in the room to expect people to suspend disbelief over.

I'd also include some exposition during the mission briefing or thereabouts that told folks where the door into the big honking warehouse is so they'll a) know you should probably try to get into teh warehouse, and b) know which of the 87 doors actually works. They did it in the official CoH mission they used it in, probably for those exact same reasons.

The exit text should read, "...remaining, but..."

Overall, as I said in my preamble, tis is a good read and a good start. It's very reminiscent of the earlier versions of CoW in that it's apparent you have a good story to tell and have the ability to tell it. With a little more exposition (which shouldn't be a problem for us writer-types), spit and polish, I'll be fighting you for players.

Thanks for the arc, and for connecting. It's great making new friends 'round here.

@GlaziusF

Running on a spine/regen scrapper, high 40s, diff 2 for real boss fights.

Wonder who the contact's gonna be now.

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Oh, that guy.

Man, "as you know" is kind of a weird thing to say in a briefing. If I already know why bother telling me? (you can probably say "ever since the start of the Rikti invasion")

Well, all I can say is it's a good thing I have an immobilize.

...aw. I thought that intro clue was gonna be the false datafile.

Hmm. Boss objective should probably be just the boss. His escort can spawn in the back room behind a couple walls.

Good thing he doesn't run, otherwise he could throw down detention field...

The Rikti communicators have apparently come a very long way in sophistication of message. Unless they were actually trying to call out for pizza and Traitor McBackstab here just has a big imagination.

Also these guys are recolored Longbow and I just fought a Ballista, didn't I?

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Hmm. Accept text doesn't even need to be in "my voice" if you're using it to restate mission objectives.

Lots of repetitive character mash in here, both from Rikti patrols and from the Vanguard battles. Still, good to see the Garibaldi twins doing something with their lives.

The lack of exit points on this map makes the rescues kind of hilarious. They just stand there with a vengeance.

Man. Seems like every other spawn's got a dang boss in it. Freakin' diff 2. And this map is huge and the stuff is hard to pick out in general.

I would really rather have somebody's help here.

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Oh boy, it's the asylum map. The only-one-of-its-kind, terrible-ally-pathing asylum map.

I don't like this one much, if you can't tell.

Hmm. I think you got the escort/find text for the Vanguard guy reversed.

Oh, this is another one of those "this map is the first half of a building" things. Okay. Okay. Still throws me a bit to hear people worried about something in the "next mission".

Thanks for sticking around and helping me fight, guy who completed the mission when I rescued him! Kind of bleakly hilarious this is the first guy to do so.

---

Hey, it's the burning office again!

The assault suit parks his fat behind in a doorway right into the second floor, so I can't really slip past to find anyone, and the doctor who is apparently supposed to help me just tags along and never heals me or attacks anything.

And what became of the vanguard soldier I may never know, as the bugged intersection of captives (Empathy) and timed objectives boots me out of the mission.

---

Sigh. Red Atlas.

I know, I know, but... Red Atlas.

Can't find anything in Red Atlas.

It's got a minimap now, but everything hides behind broken down walls and nothing will follow you more than 25 feet without having to detour around a chunk of rubble or wall or...

Huh.

Well, looks like I actually don't have to find much. One of the patrols wanders into the big boss and I follow the dialogue bubbles, and a quick loop around city hall gives me the bittersweet relief of not having to hunt anything down at all.

Looks like I have to break the big man down all on my own, and so I do.

---

Storyline - **. Yeah, it seems unreasonable, I know. But I'm just thinking about the plan as presented. This whole thing was supposed to be a feint to draw this one group out, but judging from the aftermath they just got mowed down in the same sort of general street fighting and dropship lasering that wiped out so many other heroes. And as the one person who actually followed the feint all the way through, I... miss the dropship pass completely and jab spines into the fleshy bits of the guy who masterminded the whole thing? I mean, I realize everybody's got to die at the end (THE SHIP SINKS!) but I showed up too late to catch it, just like I showed up too late for everything else.

Design - ***. The last map's got all the game trappings of a climactic final boss fight, but the real action has already happened. I'd prefer... well, either a truly empty fight, against a guy who came out of his battle armor to gloat (no ally patrols in this case), or a 5-10 minute "impossible timer" that actually puts me in the fight with the collective so I can get a feeling for the impossible odds. (I wonder if you could reframe this as a holo-recreation of sorts, so that you could actually "get obliterated" in the last battle and still have that in the frame, so to speak.) That plus all the hero rescuees that never actually helped -- well, I felt detached, like I wasn't allowed to be involved in events as they happened, and that puts a damper on any combat high.

Gameplay - ****. Mostly for doing laps and laps around the giant circus tent map without ever managing to find anything but boss fight after boss fight. I really need to learn where stuff is on that mess.

Detail - *****. Generally solid, with exceptions as noted.

Overall - ***. My main beef here is that, for something that's supposed to be an experience of the original Rikti Invasion, I spend a whole lot of time either backstage making sure the people who experienced the original invasion can get out there, or on stage after the production is over sweeping up.

Warning! Terribly verbose response ahead. Continue at your own risk!

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, that guy.

Man, "as you know" is kind of a weird thing to say in a briefing. If I already know why bother telling me? (you can probably say "ever since the start of the Rikti invasion")

[/ QUOTE ]
The title of the arc is “The Consequences of War – Part 2,” and while I’ve written the two arcs to be playable independently, it might be commonly assumed that they’re played in tandem, or at least by the same character. That said, and if I’m correct, the character does know what Captain Superior is telling him. In fact, the character knows all the NPCs in the arc, at least that’s the plan. At one time I actually had it written in the intro text, but I had several people tell me it wasn’t necessary.

Edit -- Even at that, I left it there just for this circumstance. Here's what it says (cut and paste directly from the MA text): "*It's assumed you've run the first arc of this series, during which your character took part in the events that led to this arc. If that is a problem, please PM @dalghryn."

I guess I should assume it was a problem?

And therein lies the reason I’ve decided to clutter this arc with a lengthier reply than usual. It comes down to having to decide between conflicting desires and expectations among players, and which of these conflicting items best fits what I’ve envisioned for the story. In this case, should I use valuable memory explaining that it’s assumed the character participated in the first arc, or should I use the space in other ways and assume the player either has run that character in Part 1 or will give me and the arc the benefit of the doubt. Either way, someone is happy and someone else isn’t. I chose the second, since it is, obviously, a two part arc.

For the sake of the rest of this reply, let’s call this an Editorial Conflict Decision -- I have two options based on player preferences, either of which would work for some and not for others, forcing me to choose one over the other.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, all I can say is it's a good thing I have an immobilize.

...aw. I thought that intro clue was gonna be the false datafile.

Hmm. Boss objective should probably be just the boss. His escort can spawn in the back room behind a couple walls.

[/ QUOTE ]
So, you’re saying I should make the objective just taking out the boss, but not necessarily his minions? If so, I’ll consider it, but it isn’t like the map is huge and makes it hard to actually find and deal with said minions.

[ QUOTE ]
Good thing he doesn't run, otherwise he could throw down detention field...

The Rikti communicators have apparently come a very long way in sophistication of message. Unless they were actually trying to call out for pizza and Traitor McBackstab here just has a big imagination.

[/ QUOTE ]
I’m not certain what you’re getting at with the last two statements. Are these bad things? Not trying to be deliberately obtuse, but before I can claim ECD with an explanation, I ‘d prefer to make sure I understand.

[ QUOTE ]
Also these guys are recolored Longbow and I just fought a Ballista, didn't I.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yep, they are. Previous reviewers noted that Vanguard as it exists in 2009 is completely different than Vanguard as it existed during the Rikti War, and rightly so. Since creating a real custom Retro Vanguard would have cost me an arc’s worth of memory, I opted to take advantage of I15’s new innovation and customize an existing group to act as the Retro Vanguard group. As for “Traitor McBackstab,” yeah, he’s a re-tooled Ballista. They were supposed to be superpowered, after all, and someone intelligent enough to pull this type of traitorhood off wouldn’t be a slouch when it comes to self-protection, either. Generally, both Retro-V and McBackstab have been well received, despite the difficulty of a successful mission.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm. Accept text doesn't even need to be in "my voice" if you're using it to restate mission objectives.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, it doesn’t, but it certainly can be. I’ll call ECD on this tiny little nit, if you don’t mind.

[ QUOTE ]
Lots of repetitive character mash in here, both from Rikti patrols and from the Vanguard battles. Still, good to see the Garibaldi twins doing something with their lives.

[/ QUOTE ]
I guess I might need to re-write the text and eliminate the nods to two of my favorite sci-fi television characters thanks to the limitations of MA that keep me from being able to provide multiple dialogues for multiple battle spawn. This is the first time it’s been brought up, but technically you’re absolutely right. I guess this can be considered an ECD, since some people have no trouble suspending disbelieve for this kind of limitation, while others do, but I’ll be taking your comment under advisement.

[ QUOTE ]
The lack of exit points on this map makes the rescues kind of hilarious. They just stand there with a vengeance.

[/ QUOTE ]
I hope you’re not holding thisMA limitation against me. One would think they’d have a “NPC really and truly leaves” option, but unfortunately they don’t.

[ QUOTE ]
Man. Seems like every other spawn's got a dang boss in it. Freakin' diff 2. And this map is huge and the stuff is hard to pick out in general.

I would really rather have somebody's help here.

[/ QUOTE ]
And I quote, “Running on a spine/regen scrapper, high 40s, diff 2 for real boss fights.” (italics mine). The new bright orange arc description warnings that came with I15 that say all that really scary stuff about mondo lieutenants and bosses and elite bosses and AVs was supposed to eliminate the need for us to waste valuable description space writing such things as, “Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger! You might want to run this on heroic, otherwise, be ready for a lot of scary NPCs that may be able to kick your rear and make life difficult!” Maybe the new I15 addition has become too easy to ignore.

As far as help is concerned, I’m going to scream ECD! at the top of my lungs. For every player that wants the help, I have two others that hate it. And for every player that wants it to be easier to get past this kind of map, I have two others that love it. Either way, I get gigged. All I can say is, it is a war, and one of my objectives has to be to make it realistic simply because of the story I’m trying to tell. Realistic war requires realistic troop numbers, ambushes, and really ahiry battles that make you wonder if your character’s going to get out alive. Such is the nature of the beast.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh boy, it's the asylum map. The only-one-of-its-kind, terrib le-ally-pathing asylum map.

I don't like this one much, if you can't tell.

[/ QUOTE ]
ECD

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm. I think you got the escort/find text for the Vanguard guy reversed.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks, I’ll look into that. Sometimes my mind goes numb when I try to implement suggestions and make changes to make the arc stronger.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, this is another one of those "this map is the first half of a building" things. Okay. Okay. Still throws me a bit to hear people worried about something in the "next mission".

[/ QUOTE ]
I find that all the better player-created arcs find ways of doing more than what’s been done by the devs. Realistically, characters will know that they have a future, and that there will be paths and consequences and decisions and… well, stuff that happens beyond this mission. I’m kind of proud of this type of text, myself.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for sticking around and helping me fight, guy who completed the mission when I rescued him! Kind of bleakly hilarious this is the first guy to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]
Again, ECD. Like it. Hate it. Have them help. Get them the heck out of the way. Gaaah!

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, it's the burning office again!

[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, earlier you said “…as you know…” was a bad thing, insinuating that “you don’t know,” but here you’re remembering that the burning office was used in the first arc. Either you know or you don’t. Besides, it’s one of only two burning maps, and the other one is just sucktastic. Yet another ECD moment. Some people like it and have no problem suspending disbelief, others not so much.

[ QUOTE ]
The assault suit parks his fat behind in a doorway right into the second floor, so I can't really slip past to find anyone, and the doctor who is apparently supposed to help me just tags along and never heals me or attacks anything.

[/ QUOTE ]
I had to come up with a way of building the Retro-Vanguard you dislike, so Dr. Lexis the hero became Dr. Lexis the plain ole human so I could reclaim some memory. ECD forced me to decide if more players want help (and the ticket sacrifice that comes with it) than didn’t. I made that call. I may sharpen the dialogue to make the player understand Lexis is just hanging as a consultant or something.

[ QUOTE ]
And what became of the vanguard soldier I may never know, as the bugged intersection of captives (Empathy) and timed objectives boots me out o f the mission.

[/ QUOTE ]
Effin’ A! I really hate the MA-don’t-save-the-mission-two-times-in-succession-or-you’re-screwed bug! I dropped the timer off that mission already. I’ll go back in and fix it. Otherwise, I’m looking at some changes to the first arc that might eliminate Dro’Vidt and cut the number of NPCs, leaving me more comfortable with making them more active in both arcs.

[ QUOTE ]
Sigh. Red Atlas.

I know, I know, but... Red Atlas.

Can't find anything in Red Atlas.

It's got a minimap now, but everything hides behind broken down walls and nothing will follow you more than 25 feet without having to detour around a chunk of rubble or wall or...

Huh.

Well, looks like I actually don't have to find much. One of the patrols wanders into the big boss and I follow the dialogue bubbles, and a quick loop around city hall gives me the bittersweet relief of not having to hunt anything down at all.

Looks like I have to break the big man down all on my own, and so I do.

Storyline - **. Yeah, it seems unreasonable, I know. But I'm just thinking about the plan as presented. This whole thing was supposed to be a feint to draw this one group out, but judging from the aftermath they just got mowed down in the same sort of general street fig hting and dropship lasering that wiped out so many other heroes. And as the one person who actually followed the feint all the way through, I... miss the dropship pass completely and jab spines into the fleshy bits of the guy who masterminded the whole thing? I mean, I realize everybody's got to die at the end (THE SHIP SINKS!) but I showed up too late to catch it, just like I showed up too late for everything else.

[/ QUOTE ]
I’ve likened this to “Saving Private Ryan” several times. “Titanic” is also a good analogy. In the first, you save Ryan, which is your objective, but in the grand scale of the war it wasn’t much, and you lost a lot of friends in the process. In the second, Rose has some great memories and you get to see a neat sketch of Kate Winslet nude, but ultimately the ship sinks and everyone dies. It’s a CoH story that hasn’t been told, so I decided to tell it. The idea is for the player and their character to see the consequences of war from that perspective. It works for a whole lot of people, but it won’t work for everyone. With every review (like this one,) I find ways of making it work for a few more people. I guess time will tell.

[ QUOTE ]
Design - ***. The last map's got all the game trappings of a climactic final boss fight, but the real action has already happened. I'd prefer... well, either a truly empty fight, against a guy who came out of his battle armor to gloat (no ally patrols in this case), or a 5-10 minute "impossible timer" that actually puts me in the fight with the collective so I can get a feeling for the impossible odds. (I wonder if you could reframe this as a holo-recreation of sorts, so that you could actually "get obliterated" in the last battle and still have that i n the frame, so to speak.) That plus all the hero rescuees that never actually helped -- well, I felt detached, like I wasn't allowed to be involved in events as they happened, and that puts a damper on any combat high.

[/ QUOTE ]
The MA completely limits my ability to tell the story I’m trying to tell the way you want me to tell it. I can’t have you fighting beside the SOLUS Collective and yet force them to die. If I could, trust me, I would. Of course I’d tick people off then, too. This is the best way I could come up with of telling the story I want to tell. It works well for many people, not as well for others. ECD, my friend, ECD.

[ QUOTE ]
Gameplay - ****. Mostly for doing laps and laps around the giant circus tent map without ever managing to find anything but boss fight after boss fight. I really need to learn where stuff is on that mess.

[/ QUOTE ]
ECD again. I wish I could please everyone.

[ QUOTE ]
Detail - *****. Generally solid, with exceptions as noted.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you very much for that. I guess it’s still a work in progress, but I’ve learned that – as noted – I’ve chosen a path that will just not work with everyone. So be it. I’d love a Dev’s Choice. Who wouldn’t? I’m not certain these arcs will get me there, but I’ll be proud of them nevertheless.

[ QUOTE ]
Overall - ***. My main beef here is that, for something that's supposed to be an experience of the original Rikti Invasion, I spend a whole lot of time either backstage making sure the people who experienced the original invasion can get out there, or on stage after the production is over sweeping up.

[/ QUOTE ]
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in 3 stars. I appreciate the time and effort you put into the review, though. Despite disagreements, I love getting them because I always find something that tightens the story a little more. Time will keep making it better, and that’s all anyone can ask for.

I'm hunting for opinions. After several discussions with my lovely wife, who is far smarter than I about such things, regarding a series of reviewer's comments about the number of NPC's I have, I am considering dropping two of the NPCs.

I'm considering this for two reasons. First, I need more memory space in order to better clarify some things that a couple reviewers have noted as being a little weak. Second, reviewers both friendly and not so much have suggested that I'm spreading the wealth too thin, and I need to sharpen the focus on fewer characters.

In 2004, I wrote "The Fall." It was the story of the final moments of six heroes known as The SOLUS Collective and the rebirth of one of them. It was my motivation for starting these arcs. I started out married to many parts of that story. Thanks to continued input from my wife and many of you, I have slowly divorced myself from some of those things that made that story strong, but made the arcs weaker.

The one idea I've been married to the longest is the need to have Captain Superior, Energy Blastion, Empathy, Billy Bad Boy, Commissioner G and Penthouse all continue to be part of that story. It may be time to divorce that idea, too.

In short, I'm thinking about taking Penthouse and Commissioner G (or perhaps one of them and Billy) out of the story as active NPCs so I can tighten the focus on the others, have less clutter for the player characters, and free up space for more important story-telling things.

To those of you that have followed the arcs, I ask... What do you think?

Hi Dalghryn,

I'm not averse to the demise of two of the arc's demisens. This isn't something I've suggested, but I can see the advantages.

You'd want to keep folks who recur the most often, as each encounter provides opportunity for character development. I think I remember only meeting Blastion and Empathy once (it's been a while though). You could replace, say, Penthouse, with Empathy, to give Empathy more play time.

Isn't there also a New York Gent? My knowledge of the arc may be way out of date.

I'd ditch Penthouse (for the name), and look at how to have characters recur (which won't cost much space) and how, if at all, they could "develop" through the challenges they face, and in light of developing a rapport (or not) with the player. A consistent story is more important than the number of characters. You could evolve 5 characters, it'll just take a lot of literary work to weave most of them into each mission. For that reason, you might ditch two.

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!

I havent played it yet, i'm starting it this evening, hopefully.

But could you maybr combine 2 into 1 or 4 into 2?

Someone who kbows nothing about Solus won't notice, sort of thing?

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

Man, "as you know" is kind of a weird thing to say in a briefing. If I already know why bother telling me? (you can probably say "ever since the start of the Rikti invasion")

[/ QUOTE ]
The title of the arc is “The Consequences of War – Part 2,” and while I’ve written the two arcs to be playable independently...


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh no, this isn't about how the arc should stand on its own. It's that "as you know" is most often a practical way to say "you don't actually know this, but I don't want to make you feel dumb when I tell you".

When what comes after the "as you know" is "ALIEN SPACESHIPS ARE INVADING THE PLANET AND BLOWING HOLY HELL OUT OF EVERYONE" that just sets up this hilarious mental image of the most oblivious hero ever.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Boss objective should probably be just the boss. His escort can spawn in the back room behind a couple walls.

[/ QUOTE ]
So, you’re saying I should make the objective just taking out the boss, but not necessarily his minions? If so, I’ll consider it, but it isn’t like the map is huge and makes it hard to actually find and deal with said minions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I say this specifically because I was worried the objective might have broken when I mowed down the boss and the stuff around him but it still didn't complete. Some of the small maps like this and the PPD station are very generous about what they consider acceptable spawn placement.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Rikti communicators have apparently come a very long way in sophistication of message. Unless they were actually trying to call out for pizza and Traitor McBackstab here just has a big imagination.

[/ QUOTE ]
I’m not certain what you’re getting at with the last two statements. Are these bad things?

[/ QUOTE ]

How did this guy get started narcing on the Vanguard? Either the Rikti explained things to him on the kindergarten level they're currently speaking on, or he just kinda decided to all on his own for... some reason. Either way, hilarious mental image.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lots of repetitive character mash in here, both from Rikti patrols and from the Vanguard battles. Still, good to see the Garibaldi twins doing something with their lives.

[/ QUOTE ]
I guess I might need to re-write the text and eliminate the nods to two of my favorite sci-fi television characters thanks to the limitations of MA that keep me from being able to provide multiple dialogues for multiple battle spawn.

[/ QUOTE ]

One talky battle dialogue, N silent ones. The "broadcast radius" of NPC dialog seems to have gone through the freakin' roof with I15, so don't worry about it being missed.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh, this is another one of those "this map is the first half of a building" things. Okay. Okay. Still throws me a bit to hear people worried about something in the "next mission".

[/ QUOTE ]
I find that all the better player-created arcs find ways of doing more than what’s been done by the devs. Realistically, characters will know that they have a future, and that there will be paths and consequences and decisions and… well, stuff that happens beyond this mission. I’m kind of proud of this type of text, myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, there's no actual way to force people to take up the next part immediately, unlike the devs who can actually chain missions, so I tend to frame MA missions as being their own self-contained worlds.

Specifically, whenever an NPC talks about something happening in "this building", I read it as "this mission".

[ QUOTE ]

The MA completely limits my ability to tell the story I’m trying to tell the way you want me to tell it. I can’t have you fighting beside the SOLUS Collective and yet force them to die. If I could, trust me, I would.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure you could. That is, it's possible.

- bill it as a holo-experience of (hero X) of the SOLUS collective
- 5, maybe 10 minute timed final mission, defeat all, several AVs and heavy suits, framing device is some giant mothership-mounted cannon charging up
- fail popup: "suddenly green light floods over you and you feel as much pain as the system will allow. The next thing you know you're outside the simulation."
- maybe some kind of fourth-wall-breaking success dialog if you actually manage to win about how they still don't know and can't model everything heroes faced in the first war

But then, maybe presenting it as explicitly a simulation would take some of the edge off the impact.

[ QUOTE ]
In short, I'm thinking about taking Penthouse and Commissioner G. To those of you that have followed the arcs, I ask... What do you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, those were the least developed characters for me as well as the least memorable. So losing them wouldn't hurt your tale very much. IMHO.

OK, having done my best to figure out these new forums, I finally managed to find my own thread, anyway. I still have no idea how to make it a favorite (let alone any of the other dozen or so that *used* to be favorites), but one day...

Anyway, Part 1 - Version 6.0 is up and running. Here are the changes:

1. Mission #3 - added clues to both Rebecca Brinell and the Computer that give more insight as to the story behind the jammer file and the translator components, both of which will play into the second arc (and both of which will likely draw criticism from the next reviewer because those sub-plots don't resolve in this arc. So be it...)

2. Mission # 4 - Major re-do! Penthouse is gone. She never caught on and so was most expendable. Her disappearance gave me memory for othe things. Commissioner G has been promoted to SOLUS Mentor (training officer), with new dialogue and a new role that will hopefully make players more empathetic toward him.

The mission itself is now a "Rescue the Rookies" mission. All the rookie rescuing takes place here, which allows the mission to be better distinguished from the next mission. Nigel and T.G. are both here (with new clues), as well as the dead rookies. I've also added a civilian rescue and re-arraned ambushes and such. Intro dialogue, mission entry, exit, etc. has been modified to suit.

3. Mission #5 - This is the battle. No rookies to distract. Commissioner G stays with the player character from mission #4. More bosses. More ambushes. Dead veterans are now optional. Mission intro and entry has been modified to suit.

I'll hit Part 2 when I get time. Penthouse will be pulled from it as well in order to allow for more detail and some changes.

Please, since this has only been play-tested, any feedback would be wonderful. Thanks.

I believe I remember seeing somewhere that you would like some feedback on part 2 as to how well it stands on its own not having played part 1. I'll start off by saying that it stands alone just fine.

Played as a level 44 fire/fire brute on challenge level 4. This arc is a war story following the SOLUS Foundation and their battles with the Rikti during the 2002 Rikti war. I'm generally not a huge fan of war movies in general, but I really liked this one. Also one fault I tend to have on occasion is to alt+tab to the internet while I play if my short attention span gets the best of me. This happened very few times during this arc, and typically only between missions.

The first mission has you in an abandoned pawn shop where you are getting information from a Vanguard traitor and planting false information to the Rikti in order to draw some Rikti away from your next operation. This is honestly my biggest gripe in this whole arc. The Vanguard traitor is Force Fields, and has the cage power where I just sit there and watch them hit me for no damage as I wait for the cage to wear off. I would suggest removing this power, I'm also not a big fan of all that knockback, but I can live with that if I have to.

Next up is an outdoor map in the carnie tent section of the city filled with more Rikti than you can shake a stick at. I had a lot of fun with full amounts of fury attacking Rikti after Rikti. Most of the battles were over and done with before I got to see them, as usual, and the Rikti were often the ultimate victors. I'm also taking out Rikti alteration pods, referred to as jammers here. I believe there is a more interesting and visible object you could use for this, check out the first mission in MrCaptainMan's the Audition part 1 to see what I mean.

Next up, I'm tasked with clearing out the lower floors of a MASH unit hospital, rescuing anyone still around and taking out as much Rikti as possible. It is the infamous hospital map, which I do enjoy myself, but some feel is overused. I think it works for this arc myself. In the hospital, I find a few members of SOLUS, who don't stick around, only thank me and move on to another part of the battle. There are also two non-heroes: A nurse, and a Vanguard Soldier, who I must escort to the entrance. They seem to be non-combat, so I just dragged them along with me until the end. The escort text for the Vanguard Soldier said "Find the Vanguard Ranger" after rescuing him but before dropping him off, which threw me off a little bit at the end.

Next, I have to clear out the upper levels of the hospital, which is now on fire, and by my contact text, it appears that my contact is having his own troubles inside as well. I enjoy this map, and use it myself in one of my arc. There is always a spawn right near the entrance, and in this one, it's a raging battle in full effect. Excellent choice to not only help curb what is usually an entrance ambush, but also a chance to see a battle from the start, where most AE battles are over and done with before you ever get to them. Another thing I like the most is how auras look in the distance, including the Rikti Heavy that I have to take out.



I also find a few other SOLUS members here who also run off to continue their own fights with the Rikti.

The final mission is after the hospital tower has collapsed in flames and this section of the city is ruined. The ruined Atlas Park to be more specific. And this mission is where I'm to find the Rikti AV, who is downgraded to an EB for me. It's a tough fight, with one or two ambushes coming in for me, but I manage to take him down without having to hosp. I've already cleared most of the map and don't see any of the heroes I'm supposed to save according to the nav bar. I hear a glowie in the distance, and my fears are soon confirmed, along with some very well written and touching clues for each fallen hero. They all give a very nice sense of personality to heroes that you don't get to interact with very much. There is also an end of mission clue (I believe) that details their last battle, recorded in your contact's holo-recorder.

This isn't saying much when I say that this is the best war themed arc I've played in the Mission Architect, but I can't imagine another one being much better than this. You have a real sense of war in several of the missions, from the raging battle in front of your face in mission 4, to the touching after-effects in mission 5. I will definately run part one whenever I get the chance.

I loved CoW. Most immersed I've been in an arc in years.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Thank you for the review and the comments, Bubbawheat (And MCM ). I'm flattered and very pleased that the arc accomplished what I'd set out for it to accomplish. As I mentioned in my reply to your feedback tell, I've fixed the Vanguard escort dialogue. I tried to fix the space issue in the mission #2 accept text, however the MA has 2 hidden characters there that it won't delete. I'll keep trying.

As far as the traitor is concerned. In order to create the retro-Vanguard group, I had to retrofit another existing NPC group. I simply didn't have the memory available to make a custom group with the variety that was necessary for my needs. That said, I needed an EB/AV for the traitor, both because I felt that someone with those connections and clandestine skills needed to be top notch and because I needed the challenge for that mission on a game-play level. The only Longbow NPC suitable was the Ballista. Unfortunately, at least right now, we can't modify their powers - so I'm stuck.

Comments regarding that character run 50/50, with half saying he's overpowered and half saying he presents a good challenge - especially for the story. I'll keep looking at other options.

In any case, thanks again for the kind words and input!

I use a recolored longbow in my arc, and I *still* didn't make the connection. I love how versatile the longbow costumes are when you recolor them - removing the star pattern.

One other thing I was thinking about earlier today is the description of the final battle through the holo-recorder. I don't think it's necessary. The clues are really enough that you don't have to "see" what really happened, it works just as well to leave it at that. The only other thing I might suggest is to at least trim it down considerably, possibly just have it be a sound record without full video catching every important moment, just having a few notable sound bites to sell it without spelling it out completely.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bubbawheat. I'll mull it over and see if I can come up with something I like better.

Now, on a "give them an inch" note, the author of the "Rotten CoHmatoes" thread asked me if you had run CoW Part 1. Now I would *never* push my luck on my own after such a nice review of the second arc, but since it *was* someone else asking...

I haven't played it yet, as I mentioned at the beginning, I decided to play this one first to see how it held up on its own merits. The first one is on my invisible queue in my head of arcs that I plan on running at some point in time. And as I enjoy writing reviews, I will write one when I play it.

In other words, I haven't played it yet, but I plan to sometime soon.

Folks, I've been mulling over a couple changes to the second arc. Police Woman's due to play it soon, so I'll be getting some feedback from her, but I was curious about what you think about:

a) Changing the traitor from a cloned Longbow Ballista to something else. The options would be a Longbow AV (such as a Crimson clone) or a plain Longbow Boss. The complaints about the Ballista clone stem from the fact he has that hold field thing (I'm not good with technical names of powers) which sometimes causes problems with an escaping bad guy. Personally, I think he's fine - he should be challenging - but if he's the cause of too much frustration I need to re-think it. Because I think he should be challenging, I hate going with a plain Boss, but would an AV be too much this early in the arc?

b) I really like the idea of the abandoned circus in the 2nd mission, but I've received about 50/50 feedback on it. Half the folks seem to really like it while half seem to hate it. I looked at a couple other outdoor maps, including the Rikti War Zone map where you appear in the fortress thing and the mothership's in the background, but nothing really piques my interest (and I think the RWZ map, though really neat for the arc, overshadows the final map too much.)

Thoughts?

I think AM would have had some nice dramatic comments on the closeness of the Rikti mothership if he'd been on that map. Without actually comparing them, I personally think I'd have preferred the RWZ map. I think the story is the star, so IMO the map wouldn't overshadow the last map.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."