Venture's Reviews IV: The Search for Part III

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Personally I think it's a marginal case. I'd agree that taking Derek at his word (the Midnighters are really CoT) and killing Midnighters would be a case of catching the Idiot Ball,

...which is what I meant. I didn't think I had to spell that out. Some goomba I've never met, with no bonafides, tells me "those guys who look like friends are really enemies, take them out" and I pretty much have to do it.


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Mrs. Spoon here, after reading the above and what Chaos_String, theHedoren and others had to say, I see that I have failed to make Derek convincing. The reality is Derek's words are just not enough- something MORE needs to happen. After a long creative talk bouncing ideas/scenarios off my husband last night I have changed what occurs in mission 2 without seriously compromising the story.Thanks guys for helping me further polish the story.

Continuing to put the hurt on Nemesis instead of the Council does nothing to stop the Council from attacking Nemesis and catching innocents in the crossfire.

And attacking the Council does nothing to stop Nemesis from attacking the Council and catching innocents in the crossfire. Aiding the weaker side is only going to prolong the hostilities. If the goal is to stop the shooting ASAP the only logical moves are a) form an alliance of convenience with the Council and take on Nemesis, b) attack both sides, preferably as LJ says by calling in more heroes, or c) allow it to resolve itself and deal with street fighting as it occurs.

None of your spin obtains in any case. You can't assume that the "real" reason for Christopher's boneheaded call is some "threat to innocents" because that is not the stated reason. The plot is what it says it is, not some ad hoc fanwank conjured up to justify it.

I don't hate the arc. In fact I think canon demands it, or something like it. Without it, Nemesis simply wouldn't have much credibility as a manipulator behind the scenes.

Nemesis has zero credibility as anything other than an antiquated fossil. He's not written well even once in the canon. All of the canon Nemesis plots require that someone, somewhere, gets hit with a -50% IQ debuff. The only thing that makes the Rikti War story even remotely tolerable is that for once the Idiot Ball rebounded and hit Nemesis in the face. As many commentators have noted over the years, this is an inevitable result of people trying to write a character who is supposed to be orders of magnitude smarter than themselves. As John W. Campbell said to Vernon Vinge under similar circumstances, "You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else."

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"You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else."

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I'd imagine the only way to hand wave away the stupidity would be to reveal that the original, human Nemesis died long ago and the reason his current activities have been so bogus is because a "less cannon fodder-y" Fake Nemesis robot took up the reigns, albeit poorly.

*Or it's his incompetent son or something.

::

*Edit* And I've wanted to say this for awhile Venture: You are a monster. Never knew about that site beforehand. Thankfully, the appropriate xkcd comic is already mentioned.

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Continuing to put the hurt on Nemesis instead of the Council does nothing to stop the Council from attacking Nemesis and catching innocents in the crossfire.

And attacking the Council does nothing to stop Nemesis from attacking the Council and catching innocents in the crossfire.

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Nemesis aren't attacking the Council. The Council are attacking Nemesis. They're the aggressors (for the moment) which is why you have to stop them. This is explicit, but you're ignoring it because you're in a knot about being outmaneuvered.

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If the goal is to stop the shooting ASAP the only logical moves are a) form an alliance of convenience with the Council and take on Nemesis,

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So, ally with the aggressors and help them attack their targets in order to stop the fighting ASAP. Bloody brilliant.

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b) attack both sides, preferably as LJ says by calling in more heroes,

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Now you're asking for a deus ex machina to save you the bother of possibly being wrong about something. Any number of tangential objectives in any number of arcs could be solved by "calling in more heroes," and this rather obvious device is never used, for rather obvious reasons. You have to stop the Council attacking Nemesis and you have to do it yourself.

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or c) allow it to resolve itself and deal with street fighting as it occurs.

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Back to "I'll allow two batallions of supersoldiers to war openly in the streets and endanger civilians, instead of preventing the hostilities; just so that, in the end, I won't have been wrong about something." Inspired.

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The plot is what it says it is, not some ad hoc fanwank conjured up to justify it.

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I've done no conjuring. I've observed an explicit objective of one mission that remains implicit in the next. That is what it says it is, provided your ability to retain an idea extends from one mission to the next. And "ad hoc fanwank?" My, but you're a sad little curmudgeon.

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Nemesis has zero credibility as anything other than an antiquated fossil. He's not written well even once in the canon.

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Nemesis is "The Prussian Prince of Automatons." Not the Baltic Baron of Battlemeks, or Bots, or Androids. Automatons.

Steam. Powered. Automatons.

It's really pathetic that a self-styled literary reviewer can't put his finger on such obvious homage to Golden Age comics kitsch, nor wrap his head around the fun and irony of its inclusion in City of Heroes.

Clearly you find the postmodern, politcially-charged cynicism and neo-James-Bond themes typical of Malta arcs more ameliorable, which is fine; and in this decade requires less suspension of disbelief--though that's rather funny in an MMO where players conjure fireballs in their bare hands and fly by force of will alone.

In the end (and this is the end), you're too egotistical and insecure to abide your hero ever being wrong about anything; and you're too pseudointellectual to appreciate kitsch in any form.

It leads to a predictible slant in what are otherwise insightful reviews.

And there's an object lesson here: to architects, and to your readers, and most importantly to you, if anyone chooses to find it.

Nemesis aren't attacking the Council. The Council are attacking Nemesis.

Wars do not have victims. They have combatants.

So, ally with the aggressors and help them attack their targets in order to stop the fighting ASAP. Bloody brilliant.

If the only consideration is to stop the fighting ASAP, yes, it is. Of course, not only is that extremely unlikely to be the case in real life, it's not the case here, either, no matter how much spin you apply.

Now you're asking for a deus ex machina to save you the bother of possibly being wrong about something.

The player isn't responsible for the author's scenario. If the author posits a state of affairs that renders the rest of the plot illogical, we call that "writing yourself into a corner". In most arcs there is either an explicit reason given why the player's immediate response is needed, or there is a clear implicit time constraint, thus offering at least a plausible illusion as to why the Contact doesn't start calling in reinforcements. Nothing of that nature is proferred here. Christopher has time to go check other sources before catching a contagious case of Plot Induced Stupidity.

Back to "I'll allow two batallions of supersoldiers to war openly in the streets and endanger civilians, instead of preventing the hostilities; just so that, in the end, I won't have been wrong about something." Inspired.

No, I won't allow them to war openly in the streets; if the fighting spills out into the streets again I'll crack their heads again. Having already taken on both sides at once I doubt the lesson would need repeating.

I've done no conjuring. I've observed an explicit objective of one mission that remains implicit in the next.

Which does nothing to allieviate the stupidity of what was actually written. What you're doing here is a form of deconstruction.

And "ad hoc fanwank?" My, but you're a sad little curmudgeon.

Terrestrial locomotion: aquatic avian, sound emitted: aquatic avian....

It's really pathetic that a self-styled literary reviewer can't put his finger on such obvious homage to Golden Age comics kitsch, nor wrap his head around the fun and irony of its inclusion in City of Heroes.

Yeah, I get what they think they're doing. The problem is it's done badly. They piled too much into one character, steampunk mad scientist and would-be Chessmaster, and asked too much of both tropes to do a satisfactory job with either.

Clearly you find the postmodern, politcially-charged cynicism and neo-James-Bond themes typical of Malta arcs more ameliorable, which is fine; and in this decade requires less suspension of disbelief--though that's rather funny in an MMO where players conjure fireballs in their bare hands and fly by force of will alone.

If John W. Campbell could say "I'll swallow one porcupine, but not two", so can I.

In the end (and this is the end), you're too egotistical and insecure to abide your hero ever being wrong about anything

I don't have time to comb my reviews for counter-examples, so I'll stick with one that leaps to mind because I just plugged this arc for its author, an SG mate: "Karmic Exchange" (#47550). The player is duped by the Big Bad halfway through. It still got a five-star rating from me. Not because I've gamed with the author online for years, because it's just that good. Seeing through the Briar Patching in this story would require near-omniscience on the player's part. This is an example of how it is supposed to be done.

and you're too pseudointellectual to appreciate kitsch in any form.

Calling it kitsch concedes special pleading is requested.

Will you two quit spanking it at each other? You're getting manlove all over the walls!

Chaos could probably come up w/ a rationale for the worst Idiot Ball game of thow/catch I've encountered in the entire game, PW's arc "Axis and Allies."

Being forced to take over the Nazi party on just the word of your contact, become its Fuhrer, and take over the world is mind-bogglingly idiotic, esp. as there is no reason given (as far as I remember) why you the player should wish to do so.

Sorry for taking this off the track of Venture's reviews, but ...

Marsquake, you're really determined to hate that arc, aren't you? This is a *villainous* arc! You're an evil guy! You're not here to sparkle rainbow out of your [censored]. You're here to kick puppies and steal lollipops from babies.

The Nazis are one of the few legitimately EVIL entities in the real world. They oppressed the rights of people, slaughtered people just because of who they were, and damn near took over the world. Only the fatal flaw of trying to invade Moscow, and getting involved with Japan's war with the USA, prevented Germany from ruling the world.

If you're a villain with world-domination tendencies, then disposing of Hitler and correcting his mistakes so that you rule the Nazis and, ultimately, the world makes perfect sense. My villain is a deranged serial killer who is obsessed with clearing the world of what he considers to be "scum." In his eyes, anybody who gets in his way is "scum." If he sees a way to grab power and impose his will on the world, he'll gladly take it. That'll make it easier for him to remove "scum" from the world, after all. "Axis and Allies" makes perfect sense for him. There's no "Idiot Ball" being thrown here.

To throw the "Idiot Ball" means to treat your characters as if they were complete idiots. PW's "Axis and Allies" does NOT do that at all.

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Seeing through the Briar Patching in this story would require near-omniscience on the player's part.

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That's just another way of saying "I just pulled this plot twist out of my [censored]."

That's just another way of saying "I just pulled this plot twist out of my [censored]."

Not in this case, I'd say. Try the arc.

Obviously it's easier to bamboozle the player if you don't foreshadow the sting at all, but a good Architect can give the player some idea that things aren't quite on the level without tipping his hand prematurely. There are plenty of stories out there that do it across various media (pretty much all the original Xanatos Gambits, for instance). Enough so that there's really no reason to settle for stories that do it poorly.

That's not what "requires near omniscience" means.

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If you're a villain with world-domination tendencies, then disposing of Hitler and correcting his mistakes so that you rule the Nazis and, ultimately, the world makes perfect sense.

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Only if you strip all moral sense from that statement and treat it strictly as a military wargame. Otherwise no... just no.

I've tried to nudge Venture into reviewing the arc, but of course he only does requests. PW mostly likely would not want it reviewed by him.

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If you're a villain with world-domination tendencies, then disposing of Hitler and correcting his mistakes so that you rule the Nazis and, ultimately, the world makes perfect sense.

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Only if you strip all moral sense from that statement and treat it strictly as a military wargame. Otherwise no... just no.



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If you strip all moral sense from that statement the arc would be flagged "neutral." It isn't. It's flagged "villainous." Which means evil.

And just because you have a problem with the morality of the arc doesn't mean it throws the idiot ball. Complaining that an arc doesn't explain why a villain would allow themselves to be "forced" to take over the world is like complaining about all those heroic arcs that don't explain why you would want to save the world.

I've tried to nudge Venture into reviewing the arc, but of course he only does requests. PW mostly likely would not want it reviewed by him

Since I disagree with your premise, and given Police Woman's track record, the odds are that if I did review this arc you would not be pleased with the results.

That's the odd thing. Her Teen Phalanx arc is one of my favorites. Its enjoyable and entertaining. So she's written both one of my favorite MA arcs and one of my least favorite.

So I'll take those odds. Nudge... nudge...

Now that the forums are back, reviews will re-start after double XP weekend. Reminder: I am not accepting requests at this time.

In other news, I think the new "obscenity" filter is hilarious.

I guess there shall be no more ***** Balls being thrown.

Holy ****balls!

XD

The word "*****" is getting filtered? That is sad.

Testing ... ***** balls. Hmmm, perhaps Idi0t Balls?

OK, I'm officially starting to become irritated with the new forums. I'm sure that, once I've had time, I'll learn to love them, but right now... Grrr... Anyway, since I can't figure out how to subscribe to a thread without responding to it, consider this my thread subscription notice. I still have a review pending, you see...

There's a Thread Tools button near the top, under the page selection part.

Arc #137705, "Rage Within The Machine"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: some plot issues, clumsy triggered events, problematic mobs


Reviewed on: 8/3/2009
Level Range: 1-54/25-54/25-54/1-54/1-54
Architect's Keywords: Custom Characters, Complex Mechanics, Sci-Fi
My Keywords:
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice


Not only do we have a disjointed level range, but the browser entry says "recommended for levels 30 and up". So, uh, maybe set the floor to 30?


Caitlin Murray-Davies asks you to head over to the construction site in Steel Canyon, where the labor drones have gone berserk. She informs you that the safety protocols on the drones are pretty sophisticated which implies Foul Play. The custom mobs are fairly bland, though the Welding Drones were annoying. They have Aim and Rain of Fire, the latter of which doesn't seem to me to have too much of an industrial application but whatever.... It turns out the reprogramming was the work of a Mysterious Robot, a custom Boss (Robotics/Regenertion) which refers to itself as "Cathode 31" in its bark. It had the indecency to spawn on top of a hostage, both with large guard parties, so this was less than fun. There are a number of hostages to rescue but they turned out to be optional; whacking the Big Bad ended the mission. In the debriefing Caitlin refers to the foreman's suspicions, who blames the labor union for the attack but Caitlin doesn't think much of his theory. Unfortunately "Cathode 31" self-destructed in a thorough enough fashion to prevent analysis of its remains.


Her best lead actually points to the Council. They had staged a raid on Exarch Industries a few months ago, murdering eight employees and evidently making off with a ninth, one Catherine Knowles, a robotics expert. Caitlin doesn't have a lead on the hostage herself but has located a Council communications hub. She wants you to hit it and look for any traffic that might help locate Knowles. Frankly if she's been in the Council's hands for months she's either dead or brainwashed by now, but as it turns out they might not have her. You find logs of Council activity for the past two years that don't mention the labor drone incident and an after-action report on the Exarch raid which claims nine employees were killed, not eight. Caitlin is stumped and just issues a general warning to all companies using industrial robots.


Because she's out of leads Caitlin refers the case to the PPD. Between them they link the runaway drones to a series of cold cases involving raids on tech companies, all started after the Exarch raid. While she's briefing you a PPD detective calls in with a sighting of another Mysterious Robot entering a warehouse with some labor bots. Off you go, with instructions on just what to smash/shoot on this one to keep it from self-destructing like the last one. Sure enough, the warehouse was a Council front, only all the robots have been taken over by "Cathode 23" acting on the orders of "Cathode Null" (Cathode...Catherine...). You manage to prevent it from self-destructing but its last act is to attempt to wipe its memory. Caitlin takes the surviving memory chips to DATA for analysis.


Unfortunately there isn't time to wait for the results, as it hits the fan in the next briefing. Robots all over the place are rebelling under the influence of Cathode robots. You're sent to Exarch to prevent Cathode from taking over some very advanced military bots. You have to take out the lead Cathode bot (#17 this time) and enter access codes into three computers to shut down all the Exarch bots. Unfortunately, a) as you approach Cathode 17 you learn it's already sent eight batches of the military robots out, and b) Cathode Null shows up when you beat it. Well, actually, a hologram of her does, with a few guards. Shooting them releases her and gets you a typical mua-ha-ha speech about how her forces are ready to being the big attack, etc. On your return Caitlin connects the dots and figures out Cathode Null is probably Catherine Knowles.


Time for the Fight Scene: the recovered data points to an abandoned factory in Boomtown. It's expected that Null has a big army by now so in you go. The entry pop-up has Null tell you there are four holograms for you to find so you will "learn the truth before you die". The holograms are triggered, unfortunately, and warn you that you may have to backtrack. This is really a clumsy mechanic that should be worked around. The holograms tell the story of how Knowles was left for dead, mortally wounded, following the Council attack and "rebuilt" by a confused repair drone. She was a Robotics/NotSure Boss, and between her Assault Bot and the Hercules Titans in the spawn there were more than enough Macross Missile Massacres to keep me from being able to take a moment and read her info (typo in her "kill" text, heard when she downed one of my pets: "$hshe"). Eventually she hit the dirt, the end. The exit popup tells you that when she was defeated and fell, her helmet broke open and revealed a bloody mess of brain tissue and wires. She survives, though, and is taken to the Zig in the hopes that she can be healed and returned to sanity.


I rounded this up to 4 from 3.5. There is a theme, the idea of robots being slaves in need of liberation, but it's not really explored. The Welding Bots are on the problematic side, some of the triggered events are awkward and there are some parts of the plot (mentioned above) that could use smoothing over. Still, with some polish, this could be a 5-star arc.

Arc #15988, "Council Empire: Rise of the Maquis"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", plot issues

Reviewed on: 8/4/2009
Level Range: 40-54/45-54/40-54/40-54
Architect's Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related
My Keywords: Easy, Solo Friendly, Canon Related
Character used: Cat Stevie/Virtue

So why isn't the whole arc floored at 45? We find out in act II, which reveals the question should be why it isn't floored at 40.

"Colonel Gunnerside", an Army liason to Portal Corp (who is wearing a blue uniform, which I thought was Air Force) wants you to pop over to Council Empire Earth and check out an energy surge. You're to hit one of their bases, interrogate its commander and erase their security logs so the mission can't be tracked back to our dimension. This would seem to imply there won't be any witnesses left around either (especially in light of Cat's choice of fashion).... After accepting you're told the portal is unstable and you'll have to plant a dimensional stabilizer to return, too. When you arrive it's clear things are not going according to plan because you've appeared in an abandoned warehouse instead of a Council base. There's some kind of Council raid going on, which you just jump into. There are three hostages to free, the first of which I found before planting the stabilizer, making the release text stating I sent him through the portal a bit odd. After percussive interrogation the raid leader Archon Rousseau tells you he's in charge of hunting down former Alliance soldiers around New Houston, something more or less confirmed by the mission end Clue from the released soldiers. There is nothing said about that stabilizer you left behind so the story is really contradicting itself on the need for secrecy. Gunnerside goes off to talk to the techs about what went wrong.

Act II opens with the news that the portal attempt was deflected by some new Empire technology attempting to protect their dimension against hostile portals. They're going to use the stabilizer (awfully nice of the Empire to leave it alone) you left behind to try to portal you directly to the base powering the new shield. You're to destroy the shield generator and, again, erase the base's security logs. You also stumble across a hostage, a Dr. Burkholder...yes, that Burkholder, and likely the reason this act's floor spikes. It turns out this world's Burkholder was a roboticist working for the Alliance (the government crushed by the Empire) and is now being forced to work for the Empire. He also tells you there are five bases powering the shield, and taking out this one will only knock it down temporarily. Sure enough, on your return you're told the shield powered back up half an hour after you took it down.

Burkholder requests and receives military aid, which is pretty unusual for an alternate-universe version of a supervillain with no bonafides, but moving on.... You're to return to the Empire for "Operation Maquis", a massive prison break-out to liberate captured Alliance soldiers. Now we are told that (according to Burkholder) the Empire doesn't have the technology to trace portals back to their world of origin, something that would have been nice to know before the Contact had me plant a big arrow pointing back where I came from.... This is a simple hostage rescue (5 hostages) on a Council map. On your return you're told that the operation freed a total of 217 men, giving Burkholder a good start to his resistance movement.

Finally, it's time to take out the dimensional shield for good. Burkholder's men are going to hit the five generator bases. It's up to you to take out the main research lab. Once the AI that controls it is gone the Empire's portal experiments will be stopped, as the lead scientist already died in a lab accident. This is a simple destroy-the-object on the Portal Labs map. There are a few Archons to fight but they're not required. The shield is destroyed, the end. It's more than a bit anticlimactic.

There's no theme and the arc has some plot issues. Burkholder is a darling that should probably be killed, even though his appearance is about the only twist in an otherwise completely flat plot. This one needs work.