LaserJesus' Crucible of Unforgiving Criticism

Looking for feedback on Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate: #367872. Recently tweaked some things and I'd like to see how it turns out for others, especially if you get to run it with a group.

The Golden Scepter
Author: @Mystic Fortune
ID: 9852
Length: 4 missions
Difficulty: moderate to high
Level: 35-53
Morality: Heroic

Plot: The contact is Mystic Fortune, though in the arc he is referred to as the "Mysterious Traveller" and/or "The Watcher". He starts off by asking you to retrieve a recently unearthed artifact (The Golden Scepter) which is discovered by Doc Delilah. The scepter has unimaginable power, and he wishes to banish it from your world before it can fall into the wrong hands. Before long his attempt to banish the scepter backfires, and his mind is ripped apart. From there you must assist the Mysterious Traveller in regaining control over his mind, so that he may track down the Scepter once more. All the while battling the demon Pathos and his Brimstone Legion.
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I think I've done pretty good for the limited space available. I would definitely appreciate some honest feedback. It's been published since April of '09 and I've just been polishing it off and on since. Most of the time people will play it and rate it without leaving any feedback at all.

Time for some more fun with alien lizardgirls!

Arc ID: 347029
Arc Title: Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
Factions:Soldiers of Rularuu, Arachnos, Nagans
Morality: Heroic
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 45-54
Description: A group of aliens may have bit off more than they can chew when an experiment with stolen portal technology threatens the stability of the Universe itself, allowing the soldiers of Rularuu free access to our dimension. (Follows arc #3326, "The Portal Bandits")

All mighty LaserJesus above, grant me the blessing of reviewing my arc. Please?

Arc ID: 357388
Arc Title: The Alien Tyrant
Factions: The Restarian Empire
Morality: Heroic
Level: 45-50
Length: Four Missions
Description: The Restarian Empire is back. This time, you are taking the fight to their home planet! Fight through loyal soldiers, stone-cold cyborgs, and genetically enhanced sword-wielding brutes to reach the the oppressive Emperor himself!

Yeah, this is a sequel to another one of my arcs. I am still trying to work out how to fill players in on what happened in the previous one by using up what little file space I have left, so I'm prepared for the criticism you throw at me for that.

This arc has become a Dev's Choice arc, but considering the fact that the review was requested before it became one, I'm going to do it anyhow.

The Most Important Thing
Arc ID: 266877
Author: Aisynia
Rating: 4 stars

Short Version
An arc with a decent plot that's presented well, but has some issues with the delivery and the tone.

Plot Synopsis
Amy Callahan, a heroine with the power to see the flow of the timestream and prevent changes to it, needs your help to rescue her family from a mad scientist who has been blackmailing her. In helping her, you become involved in a decades long story of tragedy and revenge.

Story

SPOILER ALERT
Oh yeah, you bet we're gonna get into spoiler territory. We're going to blaze a trail all over it.

Ah, time travel and causality loops. Such a dangerous game. Fortunately, this arc doesn't do anything that isn't pretty standard for sci-fi and superhero stories and didn't have any moments that I instantly thought were blatantly stupid. The character motivations made sense, and it served the story pretty well.


Freaking mad scientists and time travel.

While that didn't bother me at all, the story wasn't perfect. I had two main problems with it. The first was the heavy-handed tone that the arc tends to take. While Amy should rightfully be incredibly upset about her family being kidnapped and murdered, for most of the arc the waterworks are on full force. Even before she learns the true fate of her family, Amy is a total mess when asking you for help. While the threat of death is already on them because she refuses to fulfill her blackmailer's demand for her to murder someone, her sadness seemed over the top. It seemed too much like depression and not enough like desperation. After the first mission, after it became apparent that her family had already been killed, her depressed attitude feels more appropriate, but the first mission's emotional outpouring was a bit too over the top for me and weakened the significance of her grief over her family's death. Continuing forward, she continues this same level of grief, and by the fourth mission I just wanted to shake her and tell her to get a hold of herself and get angry at Dr. Albright and use that anger to her advantage. In the end she does seem to come around and work through some of the grief and become determined to stop him, but I can't help but feel that the fact that the mission starts with full throttle emotion and doesn't let up for at least the first three missions makes it so there's no tension to build up to her tragedy.


Yeah, maybe I'm not the best person to go to for emotional support.

It also doesn't help that at times the mission straight out tells you what you should be feeling. The most egregious example that comes to mind is in the first mission, where one of the clues describes footage of Dr. Albright vivisecting Amy's family and then proceeds to say that he's a monster that needs to be stopped. Never tell the audience what they should be feeling. If someone doesn't feel that cutting apart a living person is monstrous, then they're not going to feel any emotional response regardless. When you tell the audience that it's monstrous instead of letting them come to that conclusion themselves and let it sink in exactly what kind of person that they're dealing with, the emotional impact is lessened significantly.

The other main problem I had was a plot point that came out of nowhere, and then was never addressed again. Halfway through the arc Amy is attacked by a hero. Apparently she is wanted for the death of her family, and she thinks that Dr. Albright somehow framed her. There's two problems with that. First, there's not really a motive for her to kill her family. Second, he could have easily just leaked evidence about the actual crimes that she did commit for him to protect her family, like the theft. Plus, nothing comes out of it. She's attacked by a hero, and then you both pretty much just shrug and continue on like nothing ever happened. You never find out if Dr. Albright framed her or why, you never clear her name, or anything.

By the end of the arc, I was getting pretty worried about the ending. The story was leading up to yet more tragedy for Amy, and it would be really easy to completely mess it up and have the ending be lame. However, it was also looking like it'd be pretty hard to have an ending that had any kind of dramatic satisfaction. I figured that the ending would go one of two ways, neither of which would have left me feeling satisfied: Amy prevents herself from being affected by the alterations to the timestream, dying in the process because of the strain on her powers because she felt like she needed to atone for her family's death, or she doesn't use her powers and instead is affected by the timestream, never receiving her powers or having her family go through the tragedy caused by Dr. Albright's schemes.


Genre savvy is another one of my superpowers.

Thankfully, neither of them happened. Amy leaves a note that is protected from the altered timestream that explains that she found out that she wasn't her mother's biological daughter, and was instead a genetically engineered embyro that was implanted in her mother's womb. In order to prevent any catastrophic paradoxes and to ensure that Dr. Albright's schemes never ruined anyone's life, she willingly sacrificed herself. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, since it paid off on the foreshadowing earlier in the arc without the self-flagellating grief that I was expecting. The ending did a lot to help bring me around to liking the arc after some of the earlier issues.

Mechanics
The arc is pretty technically proficient. The custom group is completely reasonable, and the chained objectives worked without a great deal of backtracking. The only bumps I had were with the renamed Maniacs (Holy crap their higher recharge is brutal) and a spot in the last mission where a rescue group spawned on top of a normal group of enemies. Both of these issues were due to game mechanics instead of bad design choices on the author's part, so they didn't really affect my rating much. However, for the future, I find on maps that like to spawn rescue locations right on top of regular spawns, setting the enemy group to empty and filling out the mission by yourself. With a small map like the burning Arachnos base, the player probably won't even notice that the mission is technically "empty".

Final Thoughts
Despite the heavy-handed delivery of the drama, the ending was able to make me enjoy the arc's story. Overall, not a bad experience.

I only just noticed this - it may have been posted when i was away over christmas

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The Echo Arc ID: 1688 Author: @MrCaptainMan Rating: 1 stars

Ouch!

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Short Version The arc begins with comedic tones, with jokes that didn't do much for me, and takes a sharp turn off of an angst cliff in a final mission that was tedious and involved a plot point that left a sour taste in my mouth. Plot Synopsis A kidnapping by the Freakshow seems to involve an old hero called The Monitor, and is only the beginning of something bigger. Story Spoilers ahead, if you care.

There's no need to be so hurtful, is there? That 'if you care' strikes me as being as unnecessary as you say the live fire excercise is later on.

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So I'll just start with my biggest issue. I killed The Monitor? Why? There was no good reason for me to. What, because he had plans and components for a doomsday device? Big deal. Him and every other supervillain on the planet. They get their face kicked and thrown into jail, not murdered. The evil messages written in ALLCAPS and sent as text messages with LOL in them which are "obvious evidence" that he's "gone nuts"? When I saw those I knew that they were either lame attempts at humor or that I was being strung along, and my suspicions to the latter were strengthened by the multiple assurances that he was a "dangerous madman" written out in the clues and contact dialogue. Most superheroes don't kill. City of Heroes assumes that most heroes are closer to Superman than the Punisher. Besides, The Monitor is singled out completely in the arc as to who gets killed. In earlier missions Freakshow bosses are decidedly alive after I defeat them in order for me to interrogate them. But for some reason I decide to run the ex-hero through with my sword? And I don't want to hear "But you thought he would have a medical teleporter on him, so normally you could deal him a lethal blow and he'd be fine." I was never led in the story to believe that. He's been presumed dead for years, he probably isn't even registered in the teleporter network anymore. At least, I would hope that the city inactivates a hero's registration when they die, including their medicom. I'd hate to think that a villain could just get their hands on a dead hero's medicom and have it still work. It's also not if I hauled in a police drone, which as far as I can tell is still the only way for a villain to be instantly transported to jail. Any criminal I beat up still has to be processed the old fashioned way, by police. And even if he would be instantly transported to a hospital, I doubt there'd be a 100% chance that they'd save him from lethal wounds. A non-lethal takedown would always be the best option. To make matters worse, the exit mission pop-up pretty much calls me a dick for killing him. Way to give a big middle finger to the player, by using authorial power to force their character to kill someone and then saying "How's it feel, hero?" If the guy was still a hero at heart like the souvenir claims, he wouldn't have forced another person to commit murder, and instead would have put a gun in his mouth.

Yopu do have a point about the killing being sort of avoidable as the current system stands. I think I need to do MORE forcing to avoid Players wriggling out of it. I'll consider ways to implement this.

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Moving on to the rest of the arc, the humor didn't do much for me. Humor is more subjective than pretty much anything else, so your mileage may vary. It went for complete wackiness, but didn't really jibe with the serious nature of the arc. I mean the first mission involves a woman who's husband beats her. Why The Monitor paid the Freakshow to kidnap her is a mystery, presumably just so a hero would rescue her and learn that he's involved, and start investigating. Still, spousal abuse is serious business, and not like the internet is serious business. It's explicitly stated by the police that she's been beaten by her husband. That doesn't mesh well at all with the wacky humor presented in other areas in the arc.

I haven't played all the humor arcs here, but I'm pretty sure that all of them also involve violence that's more brutal than hitting people on the head with inflatable bananas. Life is both humorous and tragic, in my experience. I'm happy that you do admit that your sense of humor may just not gel with the humor in my arc, however. Other players have found it hit the spot, so yea, you're right, mileage may vary.

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The Crey live fire exercise is completely unnecessary. The level range is 40-54, any hero by this point will know that Crey are a bunch of dicks and villains who will not "understand if you ask nicely" and in fact will shoot all intruding superheroes on sight, whether they're there to investigate or there to stop other villains from raiding their lab.

[quote]

This is a Crey Archive facility, it's supposed to be a decidedly non-combat oriented place. The 'live-fire incursion excercise' is supposed to be funny. Heck, I think the entry popup is one of the funniest bits of text in the arc. Sorry you didn't agree.

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More of a side note, does this take place in an alternate Paragon City in Britain? Or are all the Freakshow just European? I guess British hooligans are a perfect fit for the Freakshow, but it just seemed out of place for the setting of Rhode Island. Not a big deal, just a little strange.

The 15 Freak Bosses are, again for humorous effect, from different parts of the globe, there to attend 'the Conclave'. When you've got 15 Freak bosses to fight, I thought it worthwile giving them individual 'voices' to spice up the route. It also IMO serves as contrast to the increasingly dark monologue from the Monitor that's delivered via the clues after each Boss. I wonder, did you read the clues one by one, as suggested in the briefing, or all at once. For that matter, out of interest, what AT/Powerset were you running it at? Pacing yourself is important if you want to get the most from an arc's narrative, I feel.

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Mechanics Oh god, the final mission. I understand the chained objectives were so the author could put the villain's monologue as clues, but my lord, 15 Freakshow bosses on the large boat map that spawn one at a time? That's just tedious.

One man's 'tedious' is another man's "slow-burn steady drip of clues had me on the edge of my seat, anxious to get to the next Boss to hear what the Monitor had to say next", as one piece of feedback put it. 15 Bosses in a row is indeed a big number, but the limited clue length per Boss forced that many on me. And that's after editing; originally there were 26 bosses

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After I finally got to The Monitor, he seemed to be electric blast/electric armor on high settings. In other words, goodbye endurance. It was a frustrating cap to 15 boss spawns that all needed to be cleared completely before the next one would appear. (So if any of them rezzed before you killed them all, you'd have to go back and kill that one. And if the boss rezzed while you were killing THAT one, then you begin swearing.) I'm frankly amazed that none of them failed to spawn on the map. I was all geared up for having to reset the mission and everything.

What difficulty were you playing at? The description was written way back (see its publish number for exactly HOW far way back lol), and said 'recommended to play at lvl 50 at HEROIC DIFFICULTY setting. Obviously that's OOD now, thanks for makeing me realise - Ive altered the description now. If you play it at the default difficulty, each boss spawns as an lt with ONE additional minion. I made the boss fights 'entire encounter needed' so that when people are fighting their way through them, they don't leave the minions behind and then have extra minions to distract them when they're looking for the next boss - in short, if you're playing it right, if you see a spawn, its the correct next objective. I note you say nothing about my chat comments written to HELP the 15-boss fight process go easier for the player. That's a little unfair of you, IMO. I do understand that a long sequence like this can be a trudge, so I tried to make it as easy as possible under the circumstances. The map is also now set to 'empty' so there aren't any more Freak spawns in the shiop at all. The entire map will therefore contain exactly 32 mobs in total; 15 lts, 16 minions and 1 boss. They spawn in order from the entrance to the ship to the back, so backtracking is minimised, and the chat comments warn you when a cross from 'front spawn' to 'middle spawn' etc is happening. The Monitor hits the deck in about 4 - 6 attacks when I play it its intended difficulty setting.

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In the Crey library mission, the first enemy I ran into was Head Librarian Ray, a boss in a tweed jacket and a power helmet, no bio. Later I found out that the final boss for the mission is also this character, with a bio. I can only assume that Ray was at the beginning by total accident. Either the author made a mistake and added a boss spawn with him in the front and didn't realize it, or forgot to flag him as Do Not Autospawn in the custom group editor.

Thanks v much for noticing this. You're absolutely right, I hadn't set ray to 'no autospawn' (cos it was written back when we couldn't do this and I neglected to change it.

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Other than that, the interact time for the glowies could really stand to be turned down. Especially since you have 4 or 5 in some missions. Final Thoughts This arc really did absolutely nothing for me. I went from not finding the comedy funny to being frustrated at utter tedium to being outraged at the ending that requires your character to do something completely stupid. Based on my own personal tastes I can not recommend it.

'Absolutely nothing' surprises me, I have to say. Apart from not liking the humour, the 15-boss mission or the forced killing of the Monitor, surely the rest of the arc is at least competently designed? I haven't skimped on bio fields or chat messages or the briefings etc. My custom group the Crey Librarians really had zero to offer you? How about their look?

1-star seems awfully harsh, to me.

I'd ask you what you thought about the Monitor's monologue on its own as a piece of writing, but it's been a very long time now, so your recollection is probably just of the Freaks.

Still, thank you for taking the time to play it through. Might I suggest that if you'd like to play any of my other arcs, please at least consider dropping your difficulty to the default. All my arcs are designed to be played at that setting.

Regards,

Eco.

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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."

Both my and my wife's arc could use another play. We're stuck with four stars, so it's been a while since we got any plays.

My Arc: The Power From Out Of Space, ID# 64800
Heroic, 4 missions, level 32-37
"Strange energy is coming from somewhere and is transforming people. Is it dangerous, or can it be harnassed? Light-hearted, soloable. AV/EB in last mission, but you have help. The Custom Group is made entirely out of standard foes."

Mrs. Spoon's Arc: Shades of Betrayal, Acts of Salvation, ID# 59147
Heroic, 5 missions, level 25-35 (25-37 in last mish)
"Thrust into a mystery where betrayal and deceit greet you at every turn. The fate of two worlds rest in your hands. Will you be the hero the Midnighters and Un'se'lie need or a pawn in a Circle of Thorns game? --contains possible Unseele Court origin. **EB in last mission."

I wouldn't change my difficulty settings to play my mother's arc.

Arcs are supposed to function in the general case. That means any number of players from 1 to 8 on the difficulty of their choice.

Just a quick post addressing some of the things you brought up, because I do so hate dissecting someone's post for specific quotes to respond to one by one.

Tediousness of the 15 freakshow bosses

Fighting them as a lieutenant and a minion would not make it less tedious. It would only make it take less time. The player still has to hunt around a map for 15 specific freak tanks that spawn in random areas due to the MA mechanics. These lieutenants would still have dull pain, and would still be able to self-rez.

Okay, so maybe I didn't mention the advice given in the arc. Granted, it's been a few months since I played it, but the advice was pretty much "Check this room to see if any other freak tanks are in it". I didn't really need the advice, since I have a rather good grasp on how the MA mechanics operate. But you do bring up a good point, though. Without that advice it wouldn't just be tedious anymore, it'd be pure ragequit material.

Humorous tone not meshing with the serious tone of what's going on

Yes, there is humor that involves grisly, brutal stuff. It's called black comedy, which your arc definitely is not. The tone of humor in your arc definitely went more for the over-the-top wacky kind. The spousal abuse and the villain's suicide-by-proxy were definitely not played for laughs, either.

The problem here isn't "Uh oh, violence isn't funny!" because the entire history of literature and theater proves otherwise. The problem is that the sudden switch from wacky, silly stuff, to "Hey, you murdered a guy, you dick" does not work well. Hell, I'm even a fan of absurd comedy. I just was not entertained by the delivery, and was put off by the sudden melodrama.

And yes, this is all my opinion, and the people who are a fan of your arc obviously enjoy what you've done with the humor and all of that, or else they wouldn't be fans.

The Monitor's difficulty

Again, been a while, but I recall him being a boss. Meaning that on heroic, or for current standards, +0/x1 No Bosses, he would spawn as a lieutenant. If you mean for him to be a lieutenant, make him a lieutenant. You should only make a custom enemy the actual rank you intend them to be. Never assume that everyone is going to run at heroic, even if you tell them that's how it's supposed to be played. I run at +0/x3 with Bosses in canon missions. If I'm going to give a proper review and critique that involves the overall challenge of the arc and any custom enemy groups that are within it, I need to use the same metric that I use all the time.

Harshness of review

Yes, the review is rather harsh. The thread title isn't just for show. However, I do want you to know that I'm not trying to be hurtful to you. I really didn't like the arc. I actually became very angry when I finished the last mission and saw the pop up. I started shouting obscenities at my monitor, which really isn't that strange for me, but still. I felt that based on the experience I had with the arc, that 1 star was the rating I would give it. (Side note: the 'if you care' was not meant to be hurtful. Poor choice of words on my part.)

Is the arc at least competently designed?

Apart from the last mission's 15 boss chain, The Monitor's power selections, and the oversight with the librarian boss, I feel that the arc was competently designed, at least mechanically. Everything worked, the dialogue and events happening could be easily understood by someone who can read English. But to be honest, competently designed is the bare minimum of what I expect when going into an arc. A competently designed arc that doesn't show any further kind of depth, bring some mechanical surprises to the table, or generally leave a lasting impression on me gets 3 stars from me. Granted, with your last mission you did do something out of the ordinary to achieve a specific goal using the MA mechanics in a unique way. However, that door swings both ways, and it left a negative impression on me.

I guess in summary: I didn't like the arc. Sorry. Hopefully my critique can help you improve upon the arc in a way that you are happy with.

LJ was my first review for "Consequences of War" way back when. I was lucky and got a "3," as opposed to MCM's unfortunate "1," but regardless, his input was instrumental in my making several very important changes that put my arcs on the road to... wherever it is they are.

While I'll probably revert to the same nervous wreck I was during the frenzy of reviews I went through back then, I'll be very pleased when he gets the chance for a re-review of "Consequences..." and his first review of "Casualties..." Like PoliceWoman and a few others, despite the ocassional harsh note, he's always good for a solid crit.

Real Afterlife
Arc ID: 361155
Author: @Tiger Knight
Rating: 1 star (No rating given in game, see below)

Short Version
An arc with a story that has some good things going for it, and could be really good with some more work and polish, but some really, REALLY rough playability problems that seem to stem more from lack of testing and feedback than anything. (The arc had not been rated yet, and the author has only had 5 total rates over all of their arcs. Noting that, I opted not to make the arc's first in game rating a 1, because, as you will see below, the problems that put it down to 1 are pretty easily fixed.)

Plot Synopsis
Azuria sends you to investigate the presence of Circle of Thorns, who seem to be digging for something in Croatoa. What they find threatens to make them a far more dangerous force to be reckoned with.

Story
The story has some solid potential, and the author obviously put a lot of thought into it. The formatting done to differentiate between "stage directions" and dialogue works, and the author uses different colored text to differentiate between different people talking, an idea that I've also used in an arc that I haven't finished yet. The story makes sense for the most part, and though it can border on powerposing (some might say it does powerpose) usually it does it for incidental things, like your character really wanting a cup of coffee because it's becoming a long night. At the end it goes a bit far with the player comforting War Witch while she's crying. That problem is further compounded by the fact that War Witch being upset with being a ghost seems pretty out of character for her. She came back as a ghost of her own free will to help heroes in any way she can. (A side note, Akarist's in mission dialogue seemed a bit off for him. I can't ever imagine him saying "Can't we just talk this out?")

Continuing on the problems with War Witch, though this might not actually be a problem because it's really not documented anywhere, but I always assumed that the War Witch in Pocket D was the same War Witch that was in Croatoa and that being in Pocket D somehow gave her physical form. She no longer says anything now, just the standard trainer stuff, but over time when she did say stuff, it would change from time to time. One of the earlier ones was something along the lines of "Surprised to see me here? This place can even make miracles happen." More recently she specifically mentioned hovering in Croatoa all the time. This implies to me that she is the same person, and Pocket D is just a really weird place and she's somehow able to be alive there. I mean, a floating ski chalet does pop up every winter.

While we're on the subject of canon, there is a problem with the story and it's regard to canon that is definitely real, and I have evidence this time thanks to the magic of the Internet Wayback Machine! The battle between the Cabal and the Circle of Thorns could not have happened during the Rikti War in Croatoa, as Salamanca does not go all Halloween until well after the war. Pretty easy fix, though. Just remove the reference to the Rikti War and everything is golden.

Aside from things that are out of line with canon, or possibly so, the story does take some liberties with the canon, by writing characters and events into the backstory of the game. None of those really clash, however, and the backstory isn't completely laid out in stone for us. There's a lot of room for interpretation, and it helps add a couple wrinkles to the plot.

The story does need a lot of polish, and a solid proofreading. Unfortunately, I try to keep my critique more on general story stuff and not so much on proofing, because I find taking tons of notes as I go through to really burn me out, so I'm only going to throw out some examples that stuck out to me or things that appeared repeatedly.

I noticed a lot of missing or incorrect punctuation, like periods where there should be question marks, and hardly any commas. There were also many misspellings, which a spell checker can get the majority of. The custom faction in missions 4 and 5 (more on that in the Mechanics section) had Oranbegan spelled wrong as Oranbangan. I didn't notice that particular misspelling throughout the rest of the arc, but like I said, I don't take many notes on spelling and grammar and I hardly even caught that one. The still busy text for mission 4 said "Did you find her? What did she say?" even though neither the navigation text nor the mission briefing mention anything about me looking for someone, I was just told that a group of Circle of Thorns have moved into a cave in Founder's Falls and are planning something.

There's quite a few instances of awkward phrasing as well. My general advice on how to fix this, is to read something aloud and see if it sounds natural to say it. I did save an example of this to show what I'm talking about, though:

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Originally Posted by Clue In the dirt you find a large group of stones scattered around. The larger ones have magical runes on them. It looks like they were pieces of something.

This text starts and stops a lot, and reads pretty clunkily. Since it's descriptive text and not a quickly written list that my character is reading, some smooth flow to the phrasing would really help. You could do something like this with it:

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Originally Posted by How I would write it You find a large number of stones scattered in the dirt that look like they probably were pieces of something larger at one point. You can see magical runes on the surface of some of the larger ones.

I can just see people critiquing my re-writing of that sentence, but there you go anyway. Obviously, I'm not saying "change it to that", I'm just trying to illustrate how you can take a bunch of short statements and make it have a little more vibrancy.

From the end of mission 3 and forward, coming back and talking to Azuria will more often than not have you actually talking to someone else instead. Sometimes this isn't explicitly stated, but the author does color code the dialogue, so I was able to figure out who was talking with little work. Still, it couldn't hurt to put a little "stage direction" along the lines of "Akarist speaks to you in a weary voice" at the beginning or something. Even with that, I'm sure some people will be annoyed at the fact that they're looking at Azuria and talking to Akarist, but with the limitations of the system, you sometimes just have to deal with people being upset at your workarounds. (Editor's Note: See review of The Echo by @MrCaptainMan)

As a final and minor note, I just want to mention that it's always refreshing to play an arc where Azuria is the contact where I'm not tracking down some item that's been stolen from the vault and she's not portrayed as a total airhead.


I almost went for /em raisehand and a Honeymooners line, but I decided that was just too crass.

Mechanics
Story-wise, this was solid 3 star territory. Here, however, is where things take a turn for the worse.

The level "range" is 39-39 for all missions. Bravo on the consistent level range, but why only level 39? This is pretty minor, really, just a very weird thing about the arc that I need to ask.

The first mission is a defeat all, though it's not really an annoying one. It's a relatively small "wide" cave map, that seems to be set to empty as its villain group, and is completely straightforward. One tunnel with no branching paths. Only enemies seem to be spawns that were placed by the author.

However, there's a problem with the Circle of Thorns groups that goes throughout the whole arc. For some reason the author decided to make a few custom groups of CoT instead of just using the standard ones. The problem with this, are the Earth Thorn Casters. Now, I *may* be wrong, but my understanding is that all of the thorn casters are split up into multiple instances, some with control powers, and some without, and the ones with the control powers can only show up once in a group. When you make a custom group, this limitation no longer exists, so you can run into groups where you're getting hit with a few quicksands, which have a pretty hefty hit to defense as well as the slows. (For future reference to anyone reading this, that happens with Malta Sappers as well. Please, do not put Malta Sappers into custom groups.)

My suggestion would be to just use the standard Circle of Thorns group and set the level range so players won't be fighting any enemies you don't want them to run into in the arc. Either that, or remove the specific Earth Thorn Caster that has quicksand. You can see the powers that the enemies have in the custom group editor when you select them.

The second mission involves 2 glowies and a captive, with a ton of false glowies. Fortunately all the false ones were the same, so after I found the first one and saw two more of the same kind in the same room I knew not to click on those anymore. However, this could easily get frustrating for a lot of players. Oranbega is definitely not a good place to go glowie hunting.

The third mission though, is when stuff gets total bananas. I keep thinking I know the MA pretty much in and out, but I continually get proven wrong. The custom group for this mission is comprised of various Circle of Thorns demons. Unfortunately, there's definitely some problems here. First, the only minions are Nerva Spectral Demons, with their resistances, tendency to run and stealth, and -tohit and -recharge. The bosses are Succubi, which aren't too bad considering they're bosses and I only saw so many because of my difficulty setting. (Though I would suggest turning down the difficulty on all of the captive spawns except for the one with Akarist, considering all of them but him are option allies and there's a few of them. Captives/Allies/Escorts set to hard almost always have a boss in there.)

But there's more: Blade Princes were spawning like bosses. I'm kicking myself for not taking a screenshot, but I was too worried about whether I'd be able to finish this review or not. Blade Princes, for those who don't know, are Elite Bosses that show up in late game CoV in a few missions. They have some wicked dangerous powers, like a power that summons about 8 floating ice swords that attack you, and terrify. As an SR scrapper, there wasn't crap I could do about the Terrify, and I had so many attacks coming at me from all directions from the spawn difficulty being set so high on the allies that without elude up I was pretty much guaranteed to die. I in fact got halfway to the debt cap before finishing this mission, considering this is also a defeat all. It wouldn't even be a huge problem, since it does make sense for the story and it was on a really small map, but with the problems with the custom group and my difficulty setting, it was like pulling teeth.

Looking at the custom group editor to try and figure out how such a thing could happen (elite bosses should never spawn as an enemy in a regular spawn unless they're the only rank in a group) I saw that the Blade Prince was listed as a boss. The logical conclusion is that the author didn't realize that Blade Princes were in fact ridiculous EBs and just wanted a demon boss of proper level other than Succubi, and then this horrible bug happened. Just goes to show that proper testing is really important. Even without the Blade Princes though, this custom group is just asking for frustration. It might be worth it just to bump up the level range to a 40-45 arc and use Infernal Demons with edited descriptions instead.

Akarist is the omni-mage AV class, but he's a captive instead of an ally. He's also 45-54, which is outside of the level range of the arc. This causes warnings to appear in the description, despite the fact that you don't fight any AVs or higher level enemies spawned at a lower level. Since Akarist's model is just that of a Madness Mage, he could easily just be replaced with one and be renamed Akarist and have its description changed.

In the next two missions, the main enemy group is a faction of recolored CoT enemies. The minions are Earth Thorn Casters, so it has the same quicksand issue. Another weird thing is that the group was giving out reduced experience, and I was constantly running into groups of all recolored thorn casters, and groups of all renamed nerva spectral demon lords. I have no idea what could be causing this, since they all had the same group name. The fourth mission is also a defeat all. There's really no good story reason for this mission to be one and this being the third one in the arc is going to make a lot of people angry, or not even play the arc once they see all the Defeat All Enemies in the mission description. You'd do a lot better if you just restricted it to the third mission, if you fix the custom group. It's a really small map and it's the only mission where I can see it being vital to take out all the enemies from a story perspective.

In this mission and the next, War Witch shows up as a custom boss level ally. The author did a pretty good job at capturing her look with the character creator, and her powersets are correct as well, but set to such a high level as to be overpowered. If it weren't for the all lieutenant spawns wrecking her pretty quickly, she would have made the entire mission pretty trivial due to her high damage output.


I just go for the full on blue hair, myself.

The final boss is a custom enemy with Necromancy set to a middling range of powers (I never saw a Lich) and Dark Armor with what seems to be every power but the self-rez. Personally, I suggest taking away the status protection and oppressive gloom. Those powers are pretty annoying. Cloak of Darkness also causes some people to inexplicably not be able to see the character model, even with +perception. Probably has something to do with graphics settings, I dunno, but the small amount of defense isn't worth some people not seeing your custom character. He was also spawning as a normal boss in the mission, or there was a duplicate boss spawn, since I ran into him twice, once with no dialogue.


At least there's no question whether he's a real threat to the city or not.

So yeah, a lot of mechanical problems. Not too surprising though, learning the ins and outs of the architect system and figuring out what will piss people off or not is a really trial and error thing that takes some time. Hopefully this will help you get it all sorted out.

Final Thoughts
I want to stress again that I did not rate it in game. This is a pretty rare exception, though. The things that made the arc incredibly frustrating were either bug related, or indicative of not knowing the ropes of the system yet. The arc also didn't have any ratings yet, and presumably hadn't received any feedback. So this one gets a pass in game. The 1 star rating in this post though stands for how I feel about it currently. I really can not recommend that anyone play this until the mechanical issues are worked out.

Just noting that as far as I can tell the War Witch in Pocket D is not the same person as the War Witch in Croatoa. Her comment was something like that she is surprised to hear that she's dead but that it's a big multi-verse out there, implying that there are many versions of her.

The Pocket D version is aware of the ghost version hovering in Croatoa, because people visiting Pocket D has presumably told her about the ghost version, but they aren't the same person. Whether the ghost version is aware of the Pocket D version is unknown.

First, Thanks for reviewing the arc. A few comments though:

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Real Afterlife Arc ID: 361155 Author: @Tiger Knight Rating: 1 star (No rating given in game, see below) Short Version An arc with a story that has some good things going for it, and could be really good with some more work and polish, but some really, REALLY rough playability problems that seem to stem more from lack of testing and feedback than anything. (The arc had not been rated yet, and the author has only had 5 total rates over all of their arcs. Noting that, I opted not to make the arc's first in game rating a 1, because, as you will see below, the problems that put it down to 1 are pretty easily fixed.)

Not true. It's been rated before however because I constantly pull down and test the arc, it resets the ratings. Hence why there is no ratings.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Story The story has some solid potential, and the author obviously put a lot of thought into it. The formatting done to differentiate between "stage directions" and dialogue works, and the author uses different colored text to differentiate between different people talking, an idea that I've also used in an arc that I haven't finished yet. The story makes sense for the most part, and though it can border on powerposing (some might say it does powerpose) usually it does it for incidental things, like your character really wanting a cup of coffee because it's becoming a long night. At the end it goes a bit far with the player comforting War Witch while she's crying. That problem is further compounded by the fact that War Witch being upset with being a ghost seems pretty out of character for her. She came back as a ghost of her own free will to help heroes in any way she can. (A side note, Akarist's in mission dialogue seemed a bit off for him. I can't ever imagine him saying "Can't we just talk this out?")

Thanks for the positive comment on the use of color text. In so far as power posing, it has been brought up before but I haven't raced to fix it. Fact of the matter is, CoH has it in various arcs already established in game yet these are still decent arcs. For example, let's say I'm playing a heroic Vampire.... no, wait.. not A "Twilight" kind.. no, um... make that a heroic zombie. Anyway, If I do the arc and get the Vahzilok wasting disease, should it really be hurting me? Well, what if I was a robot? Can I even be diseased? For that matter, can robots be hurt by "Toxic" damage? What is my alien life form get stronger by poisonous materials? (As a side note: If I was a non-twilight vampire, then I should not be allowed to play my characters in daylight so that also goes to waste.)

Thing is not every story is so abstract that it appeals to every type of sci fi class out there. Does this make them bad arcs? No. So why is it a factor for reviewing?

As for the "out of character for War Witch" comment, she has always seemed the emotional type in the comics to me. Hell she risked her entire teams life by heading in headlong into Vanessa's (Carnie's) headquarters where they almost got killed. As such, I don't feel it's that hard to picture that after being a ghost for awhile, she misses all the things she had in real life.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Continuing on the problems with War Witch, though this might not actually be a problem because it's really not documented anywhere, but I always assumed that the War Witch in Pocket D was the same War Witch that was in Croatoa and that being in Pocket D somehow gave her physical form. She no longer says anything now, just the standard trainer stuff, but over time when she did say stuff, it would change from time to time. One of the earlier ones was something along the lines of "Surprised to see me here? This place can even make miracles happen." More recently she specifically mentioned hovering in Croatoa all the time. This implies to me that she is the same person, and Pocket D is just a really weird place and she's somehow able to be alive there. I mean, a floating ski chalet does pop up every winter.

Quick search and copy paste from paragonwiki: "With the opening of Pocket D, another incarnation of War Witch was discovered. Unlike the spectral presence she has in Croatoa, this one is alive and well, since it is in an alternate dimension."

Not the same person.... well, not from the same dimension anyway.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus While we're on the subject of canon, there is a problem with the story and it's regard to canon that is definitely real, and I have evidence this time thanks to the magic of the Internet Wayback Machine! The battle between the Cabal and the Circle of Thorns could not have happened during the Rikti War in Croatoa, as Salamanca does not go all Halloween until well after the war. Pretty easy fix, though. Just remove the reference to the Rikti War and everything is golden.

Oh, that's a good argument. May I point out though that it only says Salamanca finds out about the invaders at that time. Thing is, they existed before Salamanca was even built. Confusing, I know. But if you read that page you posted it says, and I quote:

"Skipper LeGrange has an even more troubling view of the situation. “Back during the whole Malleus Mundi event, not all of the damage was contained. Barriers were left weakened. Inter-dimensional doors left ajar—so to speak. The Banished Pantheon, in their clumsy attempt to awaken certain forces, allowed others to benefit from their efforts.”"

So they come from another dimension due to weakened inter-dimensional doors. So the only question left is when was the Malleus Mundi event?

Another Paragonwiki search tells us: The tome was rumored to belong to various occult teachers and mystics throughout the centuries, but the last individual owner of the Malleus Mundi was thought to have been none other than Baron Zoria's supposed mentor, the infamous Russian mystic Rasputin.

So this book has existed for quite some time but there is no clear defination of when this event happened exactly. They even talk about the book being used in WW2 which was WAAAAAAAY before the ritki war. So is history a little fuzzy at this point? Hell yes. Is it inconceivable that the circle and the Cabal faced off BEFORE the cabal was discovered by anyone in the outside world. I don't think so. The battle wasn't on an epic scale, it was a small group vs. another small group in an area that is for the most part, unpopulated. So it could have happened.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Aside from things that are out of line with canon, or possibly so, the story does take some liberties with the canon, by writing characters and events into the backstory of the game. None of those really clash, however, and the backstory isn't completely laid out in stone for us. There's a lot of room for interpretation, and it helps add a couple wrinkles to the plot.

Agreed. I think I even mentioned that I tried to add onto it a bit in the description.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The story does need a lot of polish, and a solid proofreading. Unfortunately, I try to keep my critique more on general story stuff and not so much on proofing, because I find taking tons of notes as I go through to really burn me out, so I'm only going to throw out some examples that stuck out to me or things that appeared repeatedly.

You should have seen it before police woman proof read it for me. It only helps to have others play test your arc if they can spell/read better than you :P

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus I noticed a lot of missing or incorrect punctuation, like periods where there should be question marks, and hardly any commas. There were also many misspellings, which a spell checker can get the majority of. The custom faction in missions 4 and 5 (more on that in the Mechanics section) had Oranbegan spelled wrong as Oranbangan. I didn't notice that particular misspelling throughout the rest of the arc, but like I said, I don't take many notes on spelling and grammar and I hardly even caught that one. The still busy text for mission 4 said "Did you find her? What did she say?" even though neither the navigation text nor the mission briefing mention anything about me looking for someone, I was just told that a group of Circle of Thorns have moved into a cave in Founder's Falls and are planning something.

Looking into the still busy text. I think I fixed all the Oranbagan mispellings. Will have to look again.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus There's quite a few instances of awkward phrasing as well. My general advice on how to fix this, is to read something aloud and see if it sounds natural to say it. I did save an example of this to show what I'm talking about, though: This text starts and stops a lot, and reads pretty clunkily. Since it's descriptive text and not a quickly written list that my character is reading, some smooth flow to the phrasing would really help. You could do something like this with it: I can just see people critiquing my re-writing of that sentence, but there you go anyway. Obviously, I'm not saying "change it to that", I'm just trying to illustrate how you can take a bunch of short statements and make it have a little more vibrancy.

Noted and will change that as yours does sound a bit better. However, it's not a critical problem as either way still works.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus From the end of mission 3 and forward, coming back and talking to Azuria will more often than not have you actually talking to someone else instead. Sometimes this isn't explicitly stated, but the author does color code the dialogue, so I was able to figure out who was talking with little work. Still, it couldn't hurt to put a little "stage direction" along the lines of "Akarist speaks to you in a weary voice" at the beginning or something. Even with that, I'm sure some people will be annoyed at the fact that they're looking at Azuria and talking to Akarist, but with the limitations of the system, you sometimes just have to deal with people being upset at your workarounds. (Editor's Note: See review of The Echo by @MrCaptainMan)

Yeah, I hate the fact we can't change the contact from mish to mish. Was hoping for that to be in Issue 17... now I'm holding my breath for Going Rogue to sneak it in.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The level "range" is 39-39 for all missions. Bravo on the consistent level range, but why only level 39? This is pretty minor, really, just a very weird thing about the arc that I need to ask.

Honestly, there were two reasons. One involved the baddies as some of the earth/ death mages only went up as far as lvl 39. Second, I wanted to allow those exempting not to lose any critical powers which at level 39, you would keep up to level 44 powers.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The first mission is a defeat all, though it's not really an annoying one. It's a relatively small "wide" cave map, that seems to be set to empty as its villain group, and is completely straightforward. One tunnel with no branching paths. Only enemies seem to be spawns that were placed by the author. However, there's a problem with the Circle of Thorns groups that goes throughout the whole arc. For some reason the author decided to make a few custom groups of CoT instead of just using the standard ones. The problem with this, are the Earth Thorn Casters. Now, I *may* be wrong, but my understanding is that all of the thorn casters are split up into multiple instances, some with control powers, and some without, and the ones with the control powers can only show up once in a group. When you make a custom group, this limitation no longer exists, so you can run into groups where you're getting hit with a few quicksands, which have a pretty hefty hit to defense as well as the slows. (For future reference to anyone reading this, that happens with Malta Sappers as well. Please, do not put Malta Sappers into custom groups.)

Rather intentional from a story point of view. However, the whole quicksand thing I never did receive a complaint about before. Which could be your difficulty affecting it. Not sure what it was on but this arc was squishie tested twice and they completed it without complaining it was too tough so I'm not sure what the problem is.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus My suggestion would be to just use the standard Circle of Thorns group and set the level range so players won't be fighting any enemies you don't want them to run into in the arc. Either that, or remove the specific Earth Thorn Caster that has quicksand. You can see the powers that the enemies have in the custom group editor when you select them.

Hmmmmm...good idea. Writing it down.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The second mission involves 2 glowies and a captive, with a ton of false glowies. Fortunately all the false ones were the same, so after I found the first one and saw two more of the same kind in the same room I knew not to click on those anymore. However, this could easily get frustrating for a lot of players. Oranbega is definitely not a good place to go glowie hunting.

Map's small. It's like 3 rooms. The fake glowies are pretty much the only challenge there otherwise it would be too easy to stealth. Which was brought up twice by two players so the fakes went in.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The third mission though, is when stuff gets total bananas. I keep thinking I know the MA pretty much in and out, but I continually get proven wrong. The custom group for this mission is comprised of various Circle of Thorns demons. Unfortunately, there's definitely some problems here. First, the only minions are Nerva Spectral Demons, with their resistances, tendency to run and stealth, and -tohit and -recharge. The bosses are Succubi, which aren't too bad considering they're bosses and I only saw so many because of my difficulty setting. (Though I would suggest turning down the difficulty on all of the captive spawns except for the one with Akarist, considering all of them but him are option allies and there's a few of them. Captives/Allies/Escorts set to hard almost always have a boss in there.) But there's more: Blade Princes were spawning like bosses. I'm kicking myself for not taking a screenshot, but I was too worried about whether I'd be able to finish this review or not. Blade Princes, for those who don't know, are Elite Bosses that show up in late game CoV in a few missions. They have some wicked dangerous powers, like a power that summons about 8 floating ice swords that attack you, and terrify. As an SR scrapper, there wasn't crap I could do about the Terrify, and I had so many attacks coming at me from all directions from the spawn difficulty being set so high on the allies that without elude up I was pretty much guaranteed to die. I in fact got halfway to the debt cap before finishing this mission, considering this is also a defeat all. It wouldn't even be a huge problem, since it does make sense for the story and it was on a really small map, but with the problems with the custom group and my difficulty setting, it was like pulling teeth.

Blade princes spawning as bosses you say? I didn't think they would size down to bosses as they were only allowed as epic bosses. As for the group difficulties... not sure on that. I'll have to check on it. Again, this could be a difficulty issue though as the last reviewer (Policewoman) said this mission was too easy. However, she had her bosses turned off.

This is part of the problem for me. One reviewer reviews the arc "Oh, this is too easy. Make it harder" The next one comes along with their diff on "Godlike... bring it on!" and tells me it's too hard. So balance is still an issue. As you noticed.

I was happy to read I'm not the only SR who takes elude. Heh.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Looking at the custom group editor to try and figure out how such a thing could happen (elite bosses should never spawn as an enemy in a regular spawn unless they're the only rank in a group) I saw that the Blade Prince was listed as a boss. The logical conclusion is that the author didn't realize that Blade Princes were in fact ridiculous EBs and just wanted a demon boss of proper level other than Succubi, and then this horrible bug happened. Just goes to show that proper testing is really important. Even without the Blade Princes though, this custom group is just asking for frustration. It might be worth it just to bump up the level range to a 40-45 arc and use Infernal Demons with edited descriptions instead.

They are elites. You mentioned yourself you saw succubi. Without the EB's, you get slapped with the whole XP reduction (Which is in my view ridiculous) and with them, they are a chance spawn as bosses apparently. Again, diff affects the arc.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus Akarist is the omni-mage AV class, but he's a captive instead of an ally. He's also 45-54, which is outside of the level range of the arc. This causes warnings to appear in the description, despite the fact that you don't fight any AVs or higher level enemies spawned at a lower level. Since Akarist's model is just that of a Madness Mage, he could easily just be replaced with one and be renamed Akarist and have its description changed.

Didn't look right. Didn't think it mattered.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus In the next two missions, the main enemy group is a faction of recolored CoT enemies. The minions are Earth Thorn Casters, so it has the same quicksand issue. Another weird thing is that the group was giving out reduced experience, and I was constantly running into groups of all recolored thorn casters, and groups of all renamed nerva spectral demon lords. I have no idea what could be causing this, since they all had the same group name. The fourth mission is also a defeat all. There's really no good story reason for this mission to be one and this being the third one in the arc is going to make a lot of people angry, or not even play the arc once they see all the Defeat All Enemies in the mission description. You'd do a lot better if you just restricted it to the third mission, if you fix the custom group. It's a really small map and it's the only mission where I can see it being vital to take out all the enemies from a story perspective. In this mission and the next, War Witch shows up as a custom boss level ally. The author did a pretty good job at capturing her look with the character creator, and her powersets are correct as well, but set to such a high level as to be overpowered. If it weren't for the all lieutenant spawns wrecking her pretty quickly, she would have made the entire mission pretty trivial due to her high damage output.

HAH... To take a quote from the South Park Movie "Here is the biggest beyotch of them all" IF I turn her into a Lieutenant then anyone playing a higher difficulty would find her killed instantly. As a Boss, she kills everything and the mission is trivial. So I am open to suggestion for this one from anyone.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus The final boss is a custom enemy with Necromancy set to a middling range of powers (I never saw a Lich) and Dark Armor with what seems to be every power but the self-rez. Personally, I suggest taking away the status protection and oppressive gloom. Those powers are pretty annoying. Cloak of Darkness also causes some people to inexplicably not be able to see the character model, even with +perception. Probably has something to do with graphics settings, I dunno, but the small amount of defense isn't worth some people not seeing your custom character. He was also spawning as a normal boss in the mission, or there was a duplicate boss spawn, since I ran into him twice, once with no dialogue.

Thought I already removed cloak but not certain. The rest... well, most players who are going in as squishies revoke his boss status and he becomes a lieutenant. Another "War Witch problem" due to her either completely dominating him or getting smacked down in nanoseconds.

Really, the difficulty really hits the way this arc is being reviewed.

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Originally Posted by LaserJesus So yeah, a lot of mechanical problems. Not too surprising though, learning the ins and outs of the architect system and figuring out what will piss people off or not is a really trial and error thing that takes some time. Hopefully this will help you get it all sorted out. Final Thoughts I want to stress again that I did not rate it in game. This is a pretty rare exception, though. The things that made the arc incredibly frustrating were either bug related, or indicative of not knowing the ropes of the system yet. The arc also didn't have any ratings yet, and presumably hadn't received any feedback. So this one gets a pass in game. The 1 star rating in this post though stands for how I feel about it currently. I really can not recommend that anyone play this until the mechanical issues are worked out.

See now, I don't see how there were that many mechanical issues that I can really fix when difficulty dominates what you were fighting. Like in Policewoman's review, she felt the third mission was too easy. You feel it was way too hard. Do you know what I changed in that mission between the two reviews? I added some dialog to Akarist's mob. THAT WAS IT! The only difference between your opinion of the mission and hers is your difficulty. Maybe I should put a "Play at this difficulty" in the header? Any other suggestions out there?

Some quick notes: You do not need an elite boss in a custom group for it to give out full rewards. Just minions, lieutenants, and bosses. I don't know how on earth Blade Princes showed up as regular bosses, because with any group that would have a boss in it, it was either a Succubus or a Blade Prince. I'm suspecting it's a bug with the MA itself. The quick fix is to simply remove the Blade Prince from the custom group and you're golden. They're the only reason the mission was hard at all. Everything else in there is pretty standard. The comment about the nerva spectral demons and succubi was more a note of people possibly being annoyed rather than any note of difficulty.

As far as the powerposing goes, there's a difference between "assuming that everyone is a living human" and "assuming that every character would hug a crying War Witch". Speaking of War Witch, yes she did get emotional in the comic books, but any grief she was feeling was generally expressed as anger rather than getting depressed. Obviously this is one of those points where I can't really say "You're wrong," I can only say that it seemed out of character to me and leave it at that.

The Malleus Mundi event occurred around Halloween of 2004. It was the game story for the first Halloween event.

War Witch's power level has less to do with the fact that she's a boss and more to do with how many powers she has, including build up and aim. If you set her to standard/standard, maybe give her a couple extra powers, then she'd be far less kill crazy. With the custom boss's powers, he wasn't really tough at all to be sure, I'm just giving suggestions based on my experience with making dark armor enemies. Also, you've got to make sure that he's set to "Do not autospawn" in the custom group so he doesn't show up multiple times. Probably another thing that I only caught because of my difficulty settings. Which, you know, is why I run these the way I do.

Also, I don't know what is going on with the Ressurected custom group. It was definitely only spawning one rank of critter in each group and giving reduced experience. Really strange, because I saw a minion, lieutenant, and boss. Try to figure out what's going on there.

And as for the false glowies, if you want to leave them in, at least try and mix them up a bit, each with different flavor text so people aren't like "Oh. More boring bones."

Like I said, your story's got some potential. If you can get the big issues fixed (blade princes, other custom group oddities) then it really won't be too shabby at all.