Arc 243619 "A Monumental Occasion"

EminentDomain · 07-01-2009 06:51 AM

My first story-arc. I wanted to make it interesting so there are lots of clues and some NPC dialog. I've added mine and my wife's characters as both allies and villains. Full bios are there on the characters for the backstory.

Arc ID: 243619
Keywords: Custom Characters, Origin Story, Mystery
Length: Long
First Published: 06/30/2009 02:57PM
Morality: Heroic
Mission 1: Small size map, level range 30-54, Contains Collection, Ally
Mission 2: Small size map, level range 1-54, Contains Ambush, Boss, Collection, Ally
Mission 3: Medium size map, level range 46-54, Contains Boss, Collection, Ally
Mission 4: Large size map, level range 1-54, Contains, Boss, A Defendable Object, Ally
Enemy Groups: 5th Column, Rikti, Custom Group, Snakes
Description: Help the archeologist find the three ancient artifacts...
Story Status: Looking for Feedback
WARNING! Storyarc May Contain: Archvillains, Elite Bosses

GlaziusF · 07-08-2009 09:46 PM

@GlaziusF

Running on a high 40s spine/regen scrapper, diff 2 for ~goodfights~.

Arc is apparently actually ID# 249003.

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Dubious mission intro. I like it when a mission intro text at least tries to tell me where I'll be going and what I'll be doing there.

I also like it when the mission post-accept text at least tries to tell me where I'll be going and what I'll be doing there.

The hostage's dialogue feels a bit... unnatural. Like she's reading from her stage directions rather than a script. The archaeologist has a name. The artifact has a name. It wouldn't hurt to use them both.

Weirdly enough the glowie I'm looking for spawns just outside the last room.

So why have the Rikti got these things? Were they planning to use them in a doomsday device? Did they get caught up in the gears of an excavator?

Guess I'll never know.

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Off to pick up the next plot coupon.

...that's cute, intro text, but I'm not a Snake and neither are you.

The Snakes have their own tileset. Some reason you're not using it?

Mrs. M handily slaughters her captors with her damage aura while I'm typing up comments on the intro.

Oh, so that's how chained glowies work. The object spawns in but isn't interactable until the objective is cleared.

...kinda weird when it's a display case in a cave. That just don't look right.

Also is there some way to give it text that isn't "Can'tCompleteThisObjectiveYet"? That just looks wrong.

The artifact's actually halfway through the mission, not in the boss room. Deliberate?

....okay, I thought maybe I was picking up bits of an ancient alien battlesuit but it seems more like random trophy stuff.

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Yeah, these missions really need more in the briefing about where I'm going and what I'm doing there.

The "rescue" animation for the hostage here is just more energy field. Kinda looks odd when I get pegged by burst damage from the silent boss and then have to run back to wake him up again.

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Mrs. M wipes out her captors again. She seems to be set on pacifist follow for whatever reason.

Putting Instant Healing or a similar "god mode" power on a boss is basically an incentive for me to duck behind a wall and grab a drink since there's nothing I can do to wear whatever's running it out.

I defeat Monumental Pain... and the navbar still wants me to "defeat Monumental Pain"?

Mr. M is thankfully inclined to hit things.

Oh. There she is again. And this version actually says things. I think I'm seeing a bug here.

Monumental Collapse... has a description that's exactly his name. Um. Okay.

Oh boy, it's Rage. Good ol' defense-ignoring one-shotting Rage.

I will say this for him, at least he appears to be wearing the stuff I picked up for him.

...looking for the archives, I duck down a side passage on a previous floor and find two copies of The Pain standing about ten feet from each other. What?

Oh. There it is, on the second floor. A defendable object, not that this is hard to defend. (its description says it must be destroyed. Might want to look at that.) But, uh, backtracking through an empty building is not my idea of a fun time after the end boss. Why not just have it be a glowie active from the start?

I mean, it's not like "this was all a trap I'm really here to END YOU" is a terrible way to take this.

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Storyline - *. So there's this husband-and-wife team of super archaeologists who teach at Winthrop U, are rather open about their powers, and have a kid following in their footsteps. Unbeknownst to them there's a secret society on campus dedicated to the pursuit of power via artifacts from the Precursors. The head of the society - one of their departmental colleagues - sends them out, under the guise of putting together a collection for a revolutionary exhibition, to find the last pieces of the ensemble that will turn him into a Precursor warchief.

That's a pretty neat story.

But it's not this arc's story. (I mean, it might be, but I'm pretty sure I made most of that up.)

This arc's story is a piece of Silly Putty slapped on top of that story, peeled off, and then pounded down on some blotting paper.

It's got the same rough shape as that story, but there's so much missing. What are the artifacts? Why do the various villain groups have them? Why am I getting them? Who are the Monumental Family and why are they involved? Does that secret society have to come out of nowhere? What's giving them their powers? (maybe there's an interlude in mission 4 where Monumental Girl's been captured by them and you answer her SOS and discover The Fiendish Plan but too late to stop The Rage from pulling it off.)

Design - ***. Overall the maps do more to tell the story than the story does. Which is okay as far as it goes, but they're rather lifeless aside from the required objectives and some of the things I generally expect to show up - like introductory boss rants or boss dialogue at all - just don't. And what was with those four The Pains in the final mission?

Gameplay - ***. Backtracking through a base after a boss fight, in search of the objective that'll actually complete the mission, is kinda annoying. Instant Healing and Rage are just general pains to go up against.

Detail - **. One of the reasons the story's so weak is that there's pretty much nothing beyond the basics in the way of detail. Everything gets a small, minimal description that doesn't really explain much.

Overall - **. As a skeleton it's promising. But right now there isn't any meat on these bones.

EminentDomain · 07-09-2009 06:08 AM

Thank-you for the review. I will take your suggestions and try to implement them. I was afraid that too much info to read would scare some players away. My first instinct was to add some info, should have went with my first instinct. Add some more meat on the bones.

I tried to leave the artifacts as un-named to add some mystery to the story. So that the player didn't know exactly what it was until he/she found it.

Like I said, it's my first arc. Not sure why the number changed at all. Possibly when I republished it. I must have messed something up with that.

The 4 of the same boss at the end I'm not sure about. There should only be one. Possibly a bug. I only had one when I solo'd it.