Citizen Razor's Attempt at a Review Thread

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I have a question for you. I received some input from several who have played the arc, that it would be more fun if the same villian group wasn't the main feature of all 5 missions. So here goes the question. You said: "The warning states that the story arc may contain: Elite Bosses, Extreme Elite Bosses, Extreme Bosses, and Extreme Lieutenants! I gulp, but I go ahead and accept the mission. I am playing this on CL 2, so the bosses will be bosses and the EBs will be EBs. Sounds like fun."

I am not quite sure if this was purely sarcastic or if you enjoy a challenge.....But I am considering changing my main villian group for my future mission. I may create a mixture of non-custom villians, or if that can't fit, use a non-costum group.
Do you have any types you enjoy fighting, or you think would make sense for a leap into the future.

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If I remember right, the villain group ended up not being too frustrating to fight. The only time I felt a little bit frustrated was when there were two of the "Fear Followers" mobs who were stacking ToHit debuffs on me, dropping my accuracy. But popping a few yellows and taking them out took care of that.

Really, my tanker is pretty durable and can survive most anything. I was a bit worried about the "Extreme Elite Boss" warning because some powersets make EBs tedious to fight (Willpower, Regen, Super Reflexes, etc.) None of your EBs had that problem, though.

The sheer amount of warnings on your arc might scare off potential players, though. But since it's a high-level arc, you do want your mobs to prove some challenge instead of being a complete walk-over.


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Just wanted to point out, those warnings are not necessarily for the mobs you fight. Allies are also placed in that list, you could easily get Warnings about Extreme EBs, and at the end the player is going, "Wow, I must be really tough!" not realizing the Extreme EB was the Ally from the first mission.

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Just wanted to point out, those warnings are not necessarily for the mobs you fight. Allies are also placed in that list, you could easily get Warnings about Extreme EBs, and at the end the player is going, "Wow, I must be really tough!" not realizing the Extreme EB was the Ally from the first mission.

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Yeah, I know that. But when you start the arc and check out the description, you have no idea if the "Extreme Elite Boss" will be your ally or your enemy. Although my toon can handle most anything tossed at him, he can't handle everything. Some powerset combos would annihilate him. So I was a bit concerned when I started the arc. Especially when I also saw "Extreme Boss" and "Extreme Lieutenant."

It turned out to have been a moot point at the end, as none of the mobs were too overpowering.

Thank you very much for the review Citizen. I appreciate your helpful commentary. Also thanks for helping me fully understand the editing bug in anachrodragon's thread. I will be making changes this weekend based on your thoughts.

That's pretty funny that Edison died in the lava, I haven't experienced that one.
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It seems as if the primary point of this story was for the architect to beat up on a lot of robots and get his toons to Lv33.

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You got me pegged . I'm the first one to admit I'm not a writer. I'm a player, I come up with what I think are fun missions/baddies, and then try to make a story that allows these things to happen.

I did originally want the arc to be set for level 25-35 but ended up needing it set to 33. Long story.

Thanks again Citizen. A very helpful review.

-Feiz

Matchstick Women #3369
By @Bubbawheat

Description: Follow the trail of fire to its tragic source. A mysterious flame shows you the story of a cult of women arsonists, and their crazed leader.

My rating: 3 stars

This story arc has 3 missions and is level ranged 25-54. I want to give my Lv50s a break so I decide to bust out my Lv20 Broadsword / Regen Scrapper, Fab Four Razor. He’s a bit below the level, but I think he’ll be fine.

Why, yes, yes, I do have a toon named Citizen Razor, and another toon named Fab Four Razor. And yes, they look the same. Why do you ask? You got a problem with that?

In any case, the warning states that the mission may contain Elite Bosses and enemies with custom power selections. Judging from the story arc description, I get the sense that the custom critters probably have fire powers. Let’s see if my scrapper can blow their fire out. Since my Scrapper is 5 levels below the suggested level range, I’m playing this on Challenge Level 1. The bosses will be lieutenants and the Elite Bosses will be mere bosses.

The contact is the Rikti thingy that looks like it’s on fire. The contact tells me that I see things in the fire, something like a young girl that changes into a young woman who then makes copies of herself. It tells me that I should look closer. “Look closer” is done in red / orange fonts, so that “Lo” and “er” are in red while the other letters are in orange. For a brief moment I think it’s calling me a loser, but the red words spell out “loer” and that doesn’t make any sense. So I look closer.

Apparently I see a bomb, and I feel beckoned to step into the fire. I think this would probably be a better arc for my fire/thermal controller, but he’s only Lv11, so ...

I walk into the fire, feeling like I’m in a Billy Joel song, and I’m in a burning Arachnos map full of Council mobs. The objective is to stop the fire from spreading, and I have to destroy explosives.

I see a Council guy wearing a fire fighter uniform. Although the objective says I should be stopping the fire, and the Council guy seems to be trying to put out the fire, I decide to “arrest” him by slicing him repeatedly with my big sword instead. Then I stop the fire by making the explosives blow up. Well, I’m not exactly sure how that works, but whatever.

When it goes all ka-bloomey, I see some dialogue from a “Greenstick Match” and a “Pyromaniac” wondering which Council idiot it was that blew up the bombs. Umm err ... In any case, apparently the explosion exposed a water valve, but the sprinkler system is not working. I need to find the water mains.

The objective is now to open 4 sprinkler valves. I see a Greenstick Match saying that the whole world must be cleaned with fire as she was. All of a sudden there’s a group near me. I defeat them, and the objective now reads “3 sprinkler valves to open.” I guess the group was one?

While I was typing this, the objective somehow reduced to “2 sprinkler valves to open.” I’m guessing there’s some patrol somewhere doing my dirty work for me. I run into another Matchstick Women group, defeat them, and now the objective reads “1 sprinkler valve to open.” There’s also a random Council Vortex Fire guy who’s spewing fire everywhere. I defeat him, then I find the last valve, which is a fire hydrant, and destroy it.

You know, I honestly have no idea if the patrols were a part of the objective, or if the patrol somehow destroyed all of them for me. In any case, I only saw one fire hydrant. The mission is over. I return to the Rikti fire.

Council should be capitalized in the Mission #1 briefing.

Mission #2 tells me that the flame begins its dance again, that there are women moving together in harmony searching for something, and that there are small dots of fire being drowned out by the women. Again, it tells me to look closer. So I do.

I see some women struggling, so of course I have to go and help them. The objective is to find 4 girls and to defeat 2 leaders. I’m on an Outdoors map. Seems simple enough.

I find one girl and free her. I then wander around a bit and find a leader. She mentions something about getting potentials for the ceremony. I try to take her down, but the damned green matchsticks keep on healing her, and she hands me my [censored].

Undaunted, I come back to try my luck again. This time I take out the greenstick match first, then I turn my attention on the “perfect match leader.” Without her buddy helping her, she’s a bit easier to take down. After I defeat her, her personality suddenly changes and she says that the leader, Emily, is crazy. Emily took her in but now she wants to burn them all in some cleansing ceremony.

I’m guessing that’s probably not a good thing for those women. In any case, I have 3 more girls to save and 1 more leader to defeat.

After wandering around for a little bit putting out various matches, I find the next boss. This one seems a little bit more loyal to Emily. I snuff her flames out.

There’s still 3 more girls to save. After I save them, the mission is over. I read the clues. Basically, the Matchstick Women is a cult, and the leader, Emily, enjoys burning them. One of the girls that I saved doesn’t feel anything and said she’d be a “Perfect Match.”

Back to the Rikti Fire. The mission briefing informs me that the turncoat leader showed me her face and ... well ... let’s just say that this is what she looked like after the surgery. She’s too afraid to tell me where this Emily is. Guess I’ll have to wait for the next mission then.

I look into the fire again. I see what I’m pretty sure is Emily now. She’s leading women into a very bright flame. I look closer. I’m now in a burning building, but this time it’s calm.

The objective is to seek clues and find “the woman I saw in the flame” (aka Emily). I find the clue quickly, which turns out to be Emily’s journal. Apparently she was trapped in a fire when she was nine years old. She was saved, but her face was horribly scarred. Poor girl. I’ll be sure to make her feel all better -- by repeatedly stabbing my sword right into her face. Maybe that’ll fix her scars.

I find Emily herself soon enough. It’s a close battle, but I eventually quench her flames before she can burn the building down. She seems to be happy about this. Mission over.

I go back to the Rikti Fire one last time. I see Emily again, but this time her face is perfect and unscarred. See, I told you that repeatedly stabbing my sword in her face would cure her of her scars! I knew it! She is happy now and says “thank you” then disappears in a puff of smoke. Story Arc over.

Final Summary: My apologizes if the review seemed a bit lackluster. I’m fighting off what may or may not be whooping cough. In any case, this story was decent, but honestly, look at the description. That's pretty much the entire story right there.

I noticed a lack of variety among the custom critters. I did note by the arc id number that this was a fairly early arc, so this was probably created before the changes in the AE interface made it so that you could fit more custom critters into the arc. The “Greenstick Match” was somewhat annoying, especially if you were unlucky to get two of them in the same spawn. I think she was an empath. Wouldn't it make more sense for her to be thermal, considering the fire theme?

Thanks for the review, all the comments about "arresting" and the final fight with Emily really made my day, thanks for that The Greenfire Matches are Thermal/Fire blast and like any healers, it's a good strategy to take them out first. I've been considering adding more customs, but I'm not entirely sure what would be a good fit, as I've used pretty much all the fire combinations, as well as two re-colored standard mobs (longbow flamethrower - "Pyromaniac", and Carnie Senechal - "Flame Dancer")

Future Skulls #4727
By @Justice Blues

Description: Mirror Spirit has sent you a message. She has found some disturbing information about the Skulls and something they are planning. She needs your help to save them from themselves. Along with the rest of the world of course.

Number of Missions: 4

Level Range: 1-14

Character I’m using: Horsemen Brute, Lv13 Stone / Super Strength Tanker

Challenge Level: 1

I’m changing the format of my review a little bit to provide some more information. As you can see, I’ve added the number of missions, the level range, the toon that I’ll be using, and the challenge level I’m playing the arc at. I’ve also moved the rating to the end of the review. Still, if you look at the post title, you’ll see how I rated the arc by the number of stars in the title.

This is the first part of a three-part storyline. There’s apparently a feature where if you rate two (or more) of an architect’s missions within a certain time period, the person only get tickets from the first rating. Since I want the architect to get the full amount of tickets that he/she should be getting, I’m bumping this story arc up the queue. I’ll play Part 2 in a few days when it comes up in the queue.

In any case, it’s time for Horsemen Brute to start cracking some Skulls. The contact is Mirror Spirit (the trainer in Faultline). She doesn’t have a bio. If I remember right, she was created when CoH was released in Korea, but I’m not really that familiar with her storyline. I head over to ParagonWiki to refresh my memory. Ah, she’s with W.I.S.D.O.M. and she’s the manifestation of a sacred mirror that used to do crimes until she was defeated by Foreshadow.

With that out of the way, it’s time to begin the story arc. Mirror Spirit saw the future and it was horrible. To prevent that, I have to beat up on some Skulls. Sounds like a plan.

I *think* there’s a comma splice in this sentence, as the second comma is unnecessary:

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It was horrific, the city was in ruins, with large sections flooded.

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I accept the mission, and Mirror Spirit tells me to hurry, as she does not know when the Skulls will begin the course of action that ends up destroying the world.

The objective is to find the information that Mirror Spirit sent me after. I’m in a burning building. I think this is the fifth time I’ve been in a burning building in the last week. In any case, I find Bonesnap. He says something about not needing a sacrifice for a few hours. I defeat him. Alas, he refuses to say anything about the ritual. I guess I’ll have to read some of those glowing books. Alas, none of them have the information I’m after, and I guess I’m disgusted. They’re stacks of Playgirl? The final bookcase I search through shows me something frightening. The cover of the journal has a cover that feels like leather … but not like any leather I’m familiar with. Uh oh. It’s the skin of ring-tailed lemurs! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Mirror Spirit is happy I found the book. She likes the feel of dead lemur skin? Freak. Apparently the Skulls are trying to raise Merulina, the deity of the Coralax. The Midnight Squad are doing research on Coralax. Mirror Spirit wants me to go to one of their hideouts. My question is, if the ritual is a little bit of Circle of Thorns, a little bit of Coralax, a little bit of Hellions, and a little bit of the Banished Pantheon, why is the Midnight Squad not researching all four groups? Surely every tidbit of information help?

In any case, I guess I’m going to pay the Coralax a visit. Mirror Spirit approves. Of course she does. I’m doing her job for her.

I enter some caves. The objective is to search for information. The place smells like fish. Mmmm fish. I see some glowing urns, but alas, there is nothing in them. There are also a couple of patrols that say something about guarding something. I’m guessing that I need to find this thingy that the patrols are trying to guard.

I find a boss named “The Guard.” He’s one of those Coral Sentient critter. He screams something about keeping “it” safe. I throw rocks at him until he runs away crying. I then look at urns until one of them break, showing me nothing. The clue tells me that I kept a fragment of this urn to remind myself that failure is always a possibility.

I return to Mirror Spirit empty-handed. She tells me that she thinks the Coralax there were under a “Guardian” spell and were forced to protect something that was very powerful. This sentence in the Mission #2 debriefing is awkward:

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One of the others will be able to find something we can use Horsemen Brute.

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I’d just drop the name from that sentence completely.

In any case, we’re running out of options. We don’t know how to prevent the horrific future. It’s time for one desperate gambit … we have to use the Crystal of Time and Space to send me into the future that Mirror Spirit saw. (Saw should not be capitalized in that sentence.)

Mirror Spirit says that she will try to send me to a place and time where somebody that knows what might happen will be. However, if there’s no one that matches that description, I’ll be stuck in time forever with no way of returning to my present time!

So to prevent a vague, possible future I am risking my life and sanity? Sure, I’m game. Mirror Spirit warns me that if I fail, there will be no resource and life as we know it will be DOOOOOMED!

Wait, are the Skulls trying to bring Jack Emmert back to City of Heroes so that he’ll undo all of the cool things added to the game since he left that he said was impossible to do? OH NOES! That must be prevented AT ALL COSTS!

I grab the Crystal of Time and Space and rush to my possible oblivion. Thankfully I manage to find somebody who knows what’s going on. The objective is to find the Bride. I guess the objective for Mission #4 will be to Kill Bill? I’m on the Faultline map.

So I’m in the future now. There are a bunch of Future Skulls, which are reskinned Skulls with grey skin. There’s also a custom group called “Highest” here that “looks like angels but fight like devils.” They seem to want to wipe all life from this world as “this time must not be.” That’s a little bit confusing. I’d change that into “this era must not be.” By the way, there are some normal-looking Skulls in the “Future Skulls” group. I don’t know if that’s deliberate or an oversight.

While looking around for the Bride, I level up to 14. Yay! I find the Bride of Death. Wait, I thought I was supposed to find somebody who was going to help me out. The Bride of Death’s bio states that the Skulls are forced to kill constantly in order to keep their lives going. After I defeat the Bride of Death, she does a face turn and thanks me for stopping her. She then tells me what she knows of the way this time came to be. She tells me the time of the ceremony and gives me a dagger that is infused with magic and could be used to trace the location of the ceremony itself.

I head back to give Mirror Spirit the good news. Mirror Spirit takes the dagger and goes to work her magic on it with the rest of the Midnight Squad. After some time, she comes out and tells me she was successful. They have found the location and time of the ceremony.

Just as I am about to bid them adieu and wish them luck in stopping the ceremony, Mirror Spirit informs me that the spell showed that *I* am involved in stopping the ceremony. Curses. Foiled again!

I need to go and stop this ceremony. I have an hour to do this. None of the Midnight Squad can help me. Very well. Guess it’s up to me to save the day yet again. But first ... I run off to get my Level 14 travel power!

I come back, and accept the mission. I have 60 minutes to do this! I have two sacrifices to stop and I need to defeat Bonesnap.

I find one of the sacrifices ... and it’s Penelope Yin! The Clockwork King will NOT be amused. I look around to make sure he’s nowhere in sight, then rush in and take out the Skulls around Yin. Yin thinks that the Clockwork King sent me. She’s so wrong. After I free her, she informs me that the Skulls were blocking her power somehow.

The second sacrifice is Yanamari of the MAGI. Never heard of her before. After I save her, she informs me that somebody was draining energy out of her body. Stopping the sacrifice did not restore this energy, however. Somebody was leeching off Yanamari and Yin. Judging from the objectives, I’m guessing this somebody is Bonesnap.

I run around a little bit and find Bonesnap, who is in the middle of a green magical energy. He says he’s being filled with magical energy and that he will marry Death today. I beat him up. He really doesn’t seem that much stronger than the first time I met him in Mission #1. After he’s defeated, he reverts back to his normal ugly self, so I guess the ceremony was unfinished, and I saved the world. Go me!

I return to Mirror Spirit. She congratulates me and tells me that she will try to find out who it was that the Skulls were trying to contact. Wait, I thought she already said they were trying to contact Merulina. Huh. In any case, the destruction has been prevented.

Final Summary: Overall I found this story arc to be entertaining. The missions were all of appropriate length, and the gameplay was good. The dialogue was good. The story logic was internally consistent, other than the small plot hole at the end. The reason this is 4-stars is because there’s no really “wow” factor that made me go “This arc is awesome!” But this story arc is good and entertaining. After playing this arc, I am definitely going to play the sequels. I also want to see more of the Highest (the custom group) and I assume they'll be showing up in the sequels.

My rating: 4 stars

Thanks for the review, I am glad you liked the story.

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In any case, it’s time for Horsemen Brute to start cracking some Skulls. The contact is Mirror Spirit (the trainer in Faultline). She doesn’t have a bio. If I remember right, she was created when CoH was released in Korea, but I’m not really that familiar with her storyline. I head over to ParagonWiki to refresh my memory. Ah, she’s with W.I.S.D.O.M. and she’s the manifestation of a sacred mirror that used to do crimes until she was defeated by Foreshadow.

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I have put her bio in there. I know I did. Copy and paste, straight from ParagonWiki. The MA hates me, it really does.

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I return to Mirror Spirit empty-handed. She tells me that she thinks the Coralax there were under a “Guardian” spell and were forced to protect something that was very powerful. This sentence in the Mission #2 debriefing is awkward:

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One of the others will be able to find something we can use Horsemen Brute.

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I’d just drop the name from that sentence completely.


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I will do you one better. That entire sentence was not supposed to be there. One of the changes I made right before you ran it was changing that section of the return text. Some of the other changes definitely did make it in, from what you said in the rest of the review, so I don't know what is going on. Told you it hates me.

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It’s time for one desperate gambit … we have to use the Crystal of Time and Space to send me into the future that Mirror Spirit saw. (Saw should not be capitalized in that sentence.)

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The capital is to indicate it was done via prophesy, scrying, or some other paranormal means, rather then just seeing it by looking out the window.

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The objective is to find the Bride. I guess the objective for Mission #4 will be to Kill Bill?

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I just have to say, I really, really wish I had done that on purpose.

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I return to Mirror Spirit. She congratulates me and tells me that she will try to find out who it was that the Skulls were trying to contact. Wait, I thought she already said they were trying to contact Merulina. Huh. In any case, the destruction has been prevented.

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Actually, she says she thinks that is who they are trying to contact. Based on the Coralax involvement and the flooding, it is a good bet, but she does not know for certain.

I am glad that the last Bonesnap is not too much stronger then a regular Bone Daddy. It is for low level characters and I didn't want to overwhelm them. Which did happen when there was no way to choose the powers for customs.

The good news is, I have a full group of the Highest done, right up to an AV level character. The bad news is, the Skulls took over the story when I started the second arc and it took off in a direction I wasn't planning on. So the Highest do appear again, but only glimpses. A more complete exploration of them exists in my head, but I have not created it yet.

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I have put her bio in there. I know I did. Copy and paste, straight from ParagonWiki. The MA hates me, it really does.

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Did you put it in the "Story Settings" section? In the "About Contact" area, there's a field for "About Contact." That's where the bio should go.

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I will do you one better. That entire sentence was not supposed to be there. One of the changes I made right before you ran it was changing that section of the return text. Some of the other changes definitely did make it in, from what you said in the rest of the review, so I don't know what is going on. Told you it hates me.

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Sounds like you were probably hit with the editing bug. I mentioned it in another thread, but basically, it goes like this:

You have the "first draft," so to speak, of a published arc. Let's call it Mission A.

You notice errors. You make the edits. You then republish it with the changes. Let's call this Mission A1.

When that happens, you *need* to refresh the search engine to make the most recent version of your story arc show up. If you don't, then the AE interface shows you the old version.

So say you've republished the arc, but you didn't refresh the search engine. You see some more errors. So you make some edits and republish it.

Unfortunately, you just republished from Mission A, so all of the changes you made for Mission A1 is lost. So changes that you thought you made are suddenly not there anymore.

It's happened to me a few times. Bloody annoying bug.

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Actually, she says she thinks that is who they are trying to contact. Based on the Coralax involvement and the flooding, it is a good bet, but she does not know for certain.

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Ah, OK. I must've misunderstood that part then.

Aries (3/21 – 4/19): Danger lurks around every corner this week, hopefully you know martial arts or else you might be in some serious trouble. You will find thrills in Impossible Kung Fu Mission! #111367 by @Spiral Architect

Description: No corny disco songs. Just flying fists, flashing blades and Technicolor blood. Fight your way through the “progressively harder” Five Deadly Chambers against custom critters of classic Kung Fu cinema.

Number of Missions: 5

Level Range: 1-54

Character I’m using: Jack Ketch, Lv50 Ninja Blades / Super Reflexes Stalker

Challenge Level: 3

Since this is a martial arts themed arc, I decided to use Jack Ketch as he uses ninja blades. This is the first of 11 “Horoscope Reviews” I plan on doing. All arcs are taken from here. I’m doing this to bring some exposure to the AE Horoscope and hopefully get more people to play the arcs there.

So why 11 arcs? Because one of them is mine, and I’m not going to be reviewing my own arc. In any case, this is going to be a light review and won’t be as detailed as my reviews usually are.

The premise is essentially you fight through a gauntlet of martial arts enemies. The first mission has a bunch of Shaolin monks you have to defeat. You have to defeat all of them, but the map is small.

The second mission you have to defeat the Daughters of the Lady Dragonfly. They hit *very* hard. I suspect their power sets are set to Extreme, and the architect hasn’t updated this arc since Issue 15 was published. Still, debt is meaningless to an Lv50.

The third mission you take on the Bronzemen. They are very hard to take down. I think they are Super Strength and Regeneration. I have to employ the strategy that I haven’t used since my lowbie days -- slash and run. It takes me a while, but I eventually defeat the Bronzemen.

Time for the Fourth Chamber. I have to beat Lung Singe (who can breath fire) and clear the fourth chamber. Lung Singe is an Elite Boss Fire Controller who calls in ambushes of Demon Lieutenants. Using Elude, Water Sprout, and a few inspirations I take him down.

I go to the Fifth Chamber. Surprise, surprise, the contact is the guardian of the Fifth Chamber, along with the Lady Dragonfly from the second mission. The Lady Dragon is, surprisingly, only a Boss. There are patrols using the Bronzemen, Demons, and Daughters from the earlier three missions. One such patrol sends me to the hospital. They’re nasty. I come back, defeat Lady Dragon, then defeat the Blind Master. The Blind Master is an Elite Boss, but I find him considerably easier to defeat than Lung Singe, even with all of the ambushes he sends my way. After I defeat the Blind Master, the objective tells me I need to find Ping Pong (who had been appearing constantly through the arc and looks like Bruce Lee). He spawns right next to me and is surrounded by Shaolin Monks. After defeating them, the story arc is over.

Final Summary: The arc does what it says in the description. There isn’t much story here, but this was designed to be primarily a challenging arc. I was initially going to give this 3 stars, but I must admit I did enjoy the challenge provided by this story arc. Some of the mobs kicked my behind around, especially the Bronzemen and the patrol with all of the Lieutenants. The final battle was a bit anti-climatic as Blind Master went down a bit too easily. Still, a fun story arc to run through.

My rating: 4 stars

Nice, thanks for trying to bring light to it, but it seems like it's probably not going to continue due to lack of submissions. Which is disappointing, because they were enjoyable.

Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name.... #178774
By @Silvers1

Description: Patrolling in Croatoa one night, you notice a little girl wandering aimlessly on the edges of a cemetery and decide to stop and help. Experience a tale of love, sorrow, and betrayal as you attempt to unravel a mystery.

Number of Missions: 5

Level Range: 33-34

Character I’m using: Crazy Girl, Lv36 Illusion Control / Radiation Emission Controller

Challenge Level: 2

Although Crazy Girl is a few levels above the level range, I haven’t played the character in a long time. I plan on using her for a few arcs in the future, so I figure this will be good “practice” so to speak. This will allow me to relearn Crazy Girl’s playing style.

The warning informs me that the story arc may contain: Archvillains, Elite Bosses, Higher level villains appearing at a level lower than design intent, and enemies with custom power selections. I hope I didn’t make a mistake in choosing this arc to be my “training grounds.” We’ll see.

The contact is a little girl named Rose. She is shocked that you're talking to her, as most people just run away when they see her. She asks you to stay and talk with her. I think I can see the outline of graves behind her. I stay and talk with her.

We exchange pleasantries and Rose informs me that Meanies with caps and pointy ears (aka Red Caps) have taken her friend, Billy, away and locked him up. Rose asks me to free Billy.

I check Rose’s bio. There’s no bio. I’d add a bio here, something simple like “Rose is a lonely little girl that you met while on a patrol in Croatoa.” Something that establishes Rose without spoiling the storyline.

In any case, I enter the mission. The objective is simple – find Billy and defeat the Red Cap leader. The architect seems to switch back and forth between “Redcap” and “Red Cap.” Since the faction is named “Red Caps” I’d go with “Red Cap” and stick with it, for consistency’s sake.

I find a pile of bones. I assume this is Billy, and am shocked when I find nothing. There are several piles of bones on the way, all of which I am unable to identify. There are also a few treasure chests. One is full of iron, which can harm the Red Caps. I wonder why they’d keep something like that around.

I find a large treasure chest. I destroy it, and the mission is over. I didn’t even need to defeat the Red Cap leader to complete the mission. I do it anyway, mostly to practice my strategies and to prepare for the upcoming Elite Bosses that I’ll be facing.

After I defeat Fei Darkwood and his pals, I check the clue. Apparently “Billy” is a stuffed teddy bear. Why would the Red Caps keep this? I speculate that they’re just doing this to torture a little ... ghost.

I return to Rose and give her the stuffed bear back. She is happy, but wonders why she hasn’t seen her Mommy and Daddy in a long time. She then sees her own grave stone and she begins to cry. Poor girl.

The next mission is Hide and Go Seek. Rose remembers her father and wants me to find him. His name is Patrick and he used to work at a warehouse during the night shift. Patrick would bring Rose to the warehouse and she’d play “Explore” and various games. Mommy worried that a box would fall on her, but Daddy worked so much and wanted to see his little girl every once in a while. Aww, how sweet. Sure, I’ll go and find Daddy for you, Rose.

When I go in the warehouse, I note that no one has worked here in a long time. The objective is to find 4 skeletal remains and 2 clues. The map is full of Ghosts. I find some bones. One of the clickies says that the bones are dry and brittle ... and glow. To my eye, that sentence, while grammatically correct, looks awkward. I’d probably go with something like “The bones are dry and brittle and give off a soft glow.” I don’t know if you can fit that in the 100 characters limit, though.

In any case, after I’ve cleared the map, I’ve found 3 skeletal remains and 1 note, meaning I still have 1 of each to find. Time for my least favorite part of the game – playing “Hunt for the Last Glowie!” Ugh.

I decide to check out the clues that I’ve gathered so far. The glowy skeleton says that the man died by magical means, and that the ending was not pleasant. Another skeleton indicates that not even the women were spared. The note that I found says “She is coming. Adriana, you must” and is cut off abruptly. I’m guessing the note was very likely written by Patrick, and Adriana is the mother. As to who this “she” is ... I’m speculating that she is Rose herself. Let’s see if I’m right or not.

Back to the “Hunt for the Last Glowie!” *sigh* I really, really hate this part of the game. Although it’s dark, and glowies do show up relatively well, this map is full of all sort of nooks and cranks for glowies to hide in.

I somehow stumble over a pile of rubble. There’s a piece of witch hat in it. Apparently the Cabal was behind this massacre. But this is out of character for the Cabal.

OK, one more pile of skeleton to find. *sigh* So far everything has been in the back of the map. I really, really hope this last skeleton is in the back as well. Finally, after something like 30 minutes of searching, I find the last skeleton. This skeleton is clutching a crowbar, but obviously using his physical might didn’t help him. Mercifully, the mission is over.

I return to Rose to tell her that I didn’t find her father, but I did find a piece of witch hat. Rose informs me that her mother used to wear such a hat, but stopped when Rose asked if she could wear it. Then witches stopped by and made Rose’s mother cry. Those mean witches!

Rose then tells me I should seek out Jack. Jack doesn’t like most people, but he likes Mommy and Rose. Rose thinks that if anybody knows what happened, Jack would.

I hope this Jack isn’t Jack of Irons. Rose informs me that Jack is in a cave in the Misty Woods. She can’t come with me as she blacks out whenever she tries to leave the graveyard. So I go off to find Jack, bringing Billy with me.

I enter the mission. The objective is to free 3 Fir Bolg and to find Jack. There are Fir Bolg fighting the Cabal in the cave. Oh I think I get it now. I’m guessing that Jack is Jack O’Lantern.

There’s a custom group here that looks like the Cabal called “Cabal Sisterhood.” Checking their bios out, it seems as if the “Sisterhood” is reanimated / resurrected Cabals. There’s a regular Cabal patrol going around. I don’t know if this is deliberate or an oversight, since all of the other mobs here are the “Cabal Sisterhood” group. The Fir Bolg is confused by this attack, as the Cabal has traditionally left them alone.

I find Jack O’Lantern soon enough. The Cabal around him are asking about some amulet. Jack refuses to tell them anything about it, and tells them that what they did to Adriana and her family was despicable.

I meet Jack outside and show him Billy. Jack tells me that Adriana was once merciful to him. Adriana married a man called Patrick and left the Cabal. The Cabal was not amused, but would’ve left her alone if she hadn’t taken the Amulet of Amiri. It belonged to Adriana’s grandmother, but Rhiannon considered it her property. Rhiannon is now the leader of a rogue sect of the Cabal that generally disdains life and practices the magic of necromancy.

Adriana stopped to visit Jack a day earlier and now speaks of retribution. Jack tried to dissuade her, but was unable to.

I return to Rose, who is upset at this news. She sobs at the floor and wails that her gentle father never did anything to them or anyone and now her mother was all alone. She then tells me to go away and to leave her alone.

As I stand alone in the graveyard, I find something mysterious inside Billy, the Teddy Bear. It’s the amulet! A feeling of power comes over me, and I understand why Rhiannon wants it. I vow to keep it safe.

Since Rose is not cooperating with me, I vow to beat the stuffing out of various Cabal witches until I find out what I want to know.

I enter the mission. The objective is to free Patrick and to disrupt 3 ceremonies. Wait, I thought Patrick was dead! Or at least, it sure was heavily hinted at. I’d probably tweak this mission so that you disrupt the 3 ceremonies (one of which has a hint about Patrick being alive), then chain it to the “Free Patrick” objective so that it shows up after you’ve disrupted the ceremonies.

I quickly find Patrick Callihan. Ah, he’s a ghost. Well, guess he’s dead after all. He says it’s too late for him and I must save his beautiful wife. I inform him of Rose’s state of mind, and Patrick goes to find her immediately.

I find a ceremony. Oddly enough, the “iron cauldron” is a treasure chest. Might want to change that. The “bubbling cauldron” and the “mystical cauldron” are also treasure chests.

In any case, I disrupt the three ceremonies. The Cabal are summoning dead people and using them as catalyst for their spells. I use “enhanced interrogation techniques” on one of the witches by dunking her in water. Which is kinda amusing, considering I found one of the ceremonies in the water. Those witches didn’t seem to mind the water too much. Also, it’s called “waterboarding” not “water dunking.” In any case, the waterboarded witch tells me where Rhiannon is.

I return to the graveyard to revisit Rose. She’s happy, and her daddy is with her. Aww, how sweet. In any case, Rose remembers Rhiannon and the fact that the pointy-hat women were scared of her. She’s concerned that her mother went off to stop Rhiannon all by her lonesome self. No worries. I’ll be there to help Mommy Dearest out. Rose says that her father wants me to bring Billy along, even though she doesn’t know why. Oh, I have a hunch. It’s probably because of the insanely powerful amulet that’s inside Billy.

In any case, it’s time for the final showdown. The objective is to find Adriana, find Jack, and defeat Rhiannon. Adriana and Jack both are optional objectives. Seems simple enough.

I find Adriana, who is an Elite Boss, and free her. She is upset with me for interrupting her self-destruct spell. I shrug. She’s a bit overpowered for an ally, especially considering that I have a Phantom Army and Phantasm to help me out. I leave her behind.

A patrol mentions that Rhiannon wants to supplant Mary MacComber. So clearly the regular Cabal patrol in one of the earlier missions was an oversight. In any case, I find Rhiannon Darkraven. She’s an Archvillain scaled down into an Elite Boss. It’s a close battle until I take care of Rhiannon’s guards and the ambush, but once those are dealt with she goes down fairly quick.

The mission, however, doesn’t end. I guess the optional objectives aren’t optional after all. I go and find Jack, free him, and now the mission is over. I wonder why “Defeat Rhiannon” was in orange text while “Free Adriana” and “Free Jack” were in white text. Ah well.

I return to Rose one last time. She informs me that Mommy just left and she was so sad, but she should not be. Rose and Daddy both are in a happy place now. Rose then gives me a rose and fades away. Story arc over.

Final Summary: I enjoyed this story arc, and the final battle with Rhiannon was interesting. I did find a few problems, outlined in the review above, but overall the story was well-written and enjoyable. Unfortunately, it was a bit difficult to make this a funny review due to the mood and tone of the story arc. In any case this was a good “warm up” for Crazy Girl.

My biggest gripe was with Mission #2 and all of the clickes in that cluttered map. I’d either go with fewer clickes or find a smaller “abandoned warehouse” map. As it was, I very nearly rage-quit this story arc out of sheer frustration, which would’ve been disappointing. That one mission is what knocks this arc down to a 4.

My rating: 4 stars

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Nice, thanks for trying to bring light to it, but it seems like it's probably not going to continue due to lack of submissions. Which is disappointing, because they were enjoyable.

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Kinda a bummer. I think it's a good "marketing" tool for those who want to get their arcs out in the public eye.

How many more arcs do you need for the next round of Horoscopes? I should go and submit "The Wolfpack Chronicles" for it.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20): This week will be a little bit twisted as unexpected things start happening to you. Carry a good luck charm with you just in case. You will find mystery in Deal with The Devil’s Pawn #207266 by @Alari Azure

Description: An evil Circle of Thorns mage has stolen some ancient relics, including a scroll that contains a spell that may be devastating for the people of Paragon City. Can you keep him from translating that scroll?

Number of Missions: 1

Level Range: 5-54

Character I’m using: Crazy Girl, Lv36 Illusion Control / Radiation Emission Controller

Challenge Level: 2

This is the second AE Horoscope review that I’m doing. Since I was already on Crazy Girl for my earlier review, I’ll stay on her. Only one mission long. Should be short and fun.

The contact tells me that a CoT mage, named “Devil’s Pawn,” has managed to get his hands on a spell called “Lucifer’s Scroll.” He’s trying to translate and unlock all of it’s secrets. “It’s” should be “its.” Lucifer’s Scroll has an evil spell of submission.

PPD wants me to go in so I can defeat “Devil’s Pawn” and recover the scroll before he can translate it. Very well. Sounds simple enough.

The objective nav bar is redundant. On top we have “Defeat the Devil’s Pawn, find & recover all the artifacts & Lucifer’s Scroll.” Then on the bottom we have “Recover Lucifer’s Scroll, 5 Ancient Artifacts to find, Search for clues about the accomplice.” I’d just change the top part to “Stop Devil’s Pawn” or something simple like that.

Also, "The Devil's Pawn" doesn't really seem like a good name for a Circle of Thorns mage. I get what the architect is trying to do, but it doesn't fit with the CoH canon.

In any case, I take care of the objectives, except for one last “Ancient Artifact.” What, I can’t use the one in my salvage inventory? So my favorite game of “Hunt for the Last Glowie” begins yet again. Eventually I find it, and the mission (and story arc) is over.

Final Summary: Well, where to begin. There was a *ton* of exposition in this mission, and the story was a fairly clichéd “person gets corrupted by evil artifact, tries to become powerful, is thwarted by the hero” story. At least it was only a single mission. Oddly enough, I think it would’ve worked better if the story was spread over several missions so that the story progression made some sense. As it was, it felt as if the architect tried to cram way too much stuff into this one mission. Some of the objectives were pointless. Why did I need to get all of the artifacts? What relevance do they have with the overall story?

Honestly, this felt more like a 2-stars story arc. The reason why I gave this a 3 stars is because it seems as if the architect did put some work and effort into this, and I feel that the work and effort should be rewarded with some tickets. Still, this arc needs a lot of work.

My rating: 3 stars

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In any case, I enter the mission. The objective is simple – find Billy and defeat the Red Cap leader. The architect seems to switch back and forth between “Redcap” and “Red Cap.” Since the faction is named “Red Caps” I’d go with “Red Cap” and stick with it, for consistency’s sake.

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Hmmm, thought I had changed all those. I'll go back over it again.

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When I go in the warehouse, I note that no one has worked here in a long time. The objective is to find 4 skeletal remains and 2 clues. The map is full of Ghosts. I find some bones. One of the clickies says that the bones are dry and brittle ... and glow. To my eye, that sentence, while grammatically correct, looks awkward. I’d probably go with something like “The bones are dry and brittle and give off a soft glow.” I don’t know if you can fit that in the 100 characters limit, though.

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I'll think about it. The addition "... and glow", makes it stand out a bit ...

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Back to the “Hunt for the Last Glowie!” *sigh* I really, really hate this part of the game. Although it’s dark, and glowies do show up relatively well, this map is full of all sort of nooks and cranks for glowies to hide in.

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I think I've had one complaint about this map being too large. I experimented with a number of maps, and this one gave the best results as far as spacing out the glowies and the 3 patrols. Never had much trouble personally finding the glowies, but I could see where some random runs might potentially give some trouble.

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I hope this Jack isn’t Jack of Irons. Rose informs me that Jack is in a cave in the Misty Woods. She can’t come with me as she blacks out whenever she tries to leave the graveyard. So I go off to find Jack, bringing Billy with me.

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You're the second person to mention Jack of Irons. This character must not have made an impression on me - I just cant remember him from any arc...

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There’s a regular Cabal patrol going around. I don’t know if this is deliberate or an oversight, since all of the other mobs here are the “Cabal Sisterhood” group.

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This was intentional, not from a story perspective, but due to a MA mechanical issue. If I only included my custom group, it would either show only the standard Cabal mobs OR the custom mobs - never both together. I had to add patrols from the regular Cabal group to force it to show a mixture. Not sure if they've fixed it yet - I'll have to experiment to see if I can remove this "kluge".

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I’d probably tweak this mission so that you disrupt the 3 ceremonies (one of which has a hint about Patrick being alive), then chain it to the “Free Patrick” objective so that it shows up after you’ve disrupted the ceremonies.

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I'd do that if the 3 ceremonies were a single objective, but they're 3 separate objectives, each with their own text. Nice idea, but not possible until the Devs implement the ability to chain a new objective from completion of more than one source objective.

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Oddly enough, the “iron cauldron” is a treasure chest. Might want to change that. The “bubbling cauldron” and the “mystical cauldron” are also treasure chests.

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No clue what happened there. They were cauldrons the last time I played through it. Good catch though, I switched the objects back to the correct item.

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Also, it’s called “waterboarding” not “water dunking.” In any case, the waterboarded witch tells me where Rhiannon is.

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Actually, this was a play on words on "waterboarding". I had a picture in my mind of the hero grabbing the witch by the scruff of the neck and repeatedly dunking until she talked. Just some mild humor.

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I find Adriana, who is an Elite Boss, and free her. She is upset with me for interrupting her self-destruct spell. I shrug. She’s a bit overpowered for an ally, especially considering that I have a Phantom Army and Phantasm to help me out. I leave her behind.

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Actually, at the lowest power set levels, she's not too bad. She's set at elite just to ensure survivability. I'd tried setting her to boss level, but she became a Lieutenant on heroic. I felt it was important that she survive to the final battle - it's her fight as much as mine. I wish they would downscale elite boss allies just like they do boss and AV level allies.

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The mission, however, doesn’t end. I guess the optional objectives aren’t optional after all. I go and find Jack, free him, and now the mission is over. I wonder why “Defeat Rhiannon” was in orange text while “Free Adriana” and “Free Jack” were in white text. Ah well.


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That is very odd - I'll recheck. They should be optional.

Thanks for the review. Some very good suggestions.

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You're the second person to mention Jack of Irons. This character must not have made an impression on me - I just cant remember him from any arc...

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He's one of the Giant Monsters in Croatoa.

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This was intentional, not from a story perspective, but due to a MA mechanical issue. If I only included my custom group, it would either show only the standard Cabal mobs OR the custom mobs - never both together. I had to add patrols from the regular Cabal group to force it to show a mixture. Not sure if they've fixed it yet - I'll have to experiment to see if I can remove this "kluge".

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That's an interesting bug. Never heard of that one before.

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I'd do that if the 3 ceremonies were a single objective, but they're 3 separate objectives, each with their own text. Nice idea, but not possible until the Devs implement the ability to chain a new objective from completion of more than one source objective.

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Ahh, yeah ... that makes sense. Well, you could chain Patrick off one of the ceremonies -- the one that provides a hint about Patrick. But that'd still look awkward. Yeah, that is one of the "features" of MA that I find annoying. I have a few missions where I want to chain one objective off multiple objectives, but that's not possible yet. Ah well, you gotta work with what you have. Hopefully they'll add that functionality in later.

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Actually, this was a play on words on "waterboarding". I had a picture in my mind of the hero grabbing the witch by the scruff of the neck and repeatedly dunking until she talked. Just some mild humor.

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Ahh OK, I get it now. Heh.

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I wish they would downscale elite boss allies just like they do boss and AV level allies.

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Same here.

Glad you enjoyed the review.

I'd like to submit the Arc in my sig for a review by you:

"Is It Live Or Is It Memory-X" (Arc ID: 70210)

Level Range: 40-54

Keywords: Chalenging, Sci-Fi, Save the World

Key Notes: Generably soloable by 'non-squishee' ATs of the appropiate level; althiough a nfew well speced Blasters have commented to me that they did in fact manage to solo.

I've just done some changes and updates (to Contact text, Clue text, and my Custom Group) based on recent player feedback since I15 went live, and would like to get a review/analysis of this 'newer' version if and when you have a chance.

Thanks,

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I have put her bio in there. I know I did. Copy and paste, straight from ParagonWiki. The MA hates me, it really does.

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Did you put it in the "Story Settings" section? In the "About Contact" area, there's a field for "About Contact." That's where the bio should go.


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Yeah, that is where I put it.

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I will do you one better. That entire sentence was not supposed to be there. One of the changes I made right before you ran it was changing that section of the return text. Some of the other changes definitely did make it in, from what you said in the rest of the review, so I don't know what is going on. Told you it hates me.

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Sounds like you were probably hit with the editing bug. I mentioned it in another thread, but basically, it goes like this:

You have the "first draft," so to speak, of a published arc. Let's call it Mission A.

You notice errors. You make the edits. You then republish it with the changes. Let's call this Mission A1.

When that happens, you *need* to refresh the search engine to make the most recent version of your story arc show up. If you don't, then the AE interface shows you the old version.

So say you've republished the arc, but you didn't refresh the search engine. You see some more errors. So you make some edits and republish it.

Unfortunately, you just republished from Mission A, so all of the changes you made for Mission A1 is lost. So changes that you thought you made are suddenly not there anymore.

It's happened to me a few times. Bloody annoying bug.


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Yes, I am familiar with that requirement for republishing arcs. Unfortunately, that sentence was removed/rewritten at the same time I did the other changes in the arc you did see. So unless it has started just affecting random bits of the edits we do, that can't be the explanation.

And by "at the same time" I mean I did a copy and paste of all the changes on one republish. I selected the entire text fields and deleted them, then pasted the new text in. Much easier and faster then trying to remove particular sections of text. I have checked my source for the C&P and it has the correct text in it, so I do not know how this happened. It really does hate me.

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Actually, she says she thinks that is who they are trying to contact. Based on the Coralax involvement and the flooding, it is a good bet, but she does not know for certain.

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Ah, OK. I must've misunderstood that part then.

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I will look at it and see if I can make it clearer that she is only guessing.

ArcID# Arc Title - Architect

#114284 Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend - FredrikSvanberg
#70801 Simple Times - Justice Blues
#255895 Future's End - Justice Blues
#227331 The Consequences of War - Part 1 - Dalghyrn
#241496 The Consequences of War - Part 2 - Dalghyrn
#227436 Halloween Night - BinkDeBook
#77311 The Ballad of Murky The Cat - BinkDeBook
#3463 Marked Man - Zikar
#250480 BE Prologue: Gangs United - Ozzie Arcane
#262739 The Superadine Revolution - SpaceNut
#70210 Is It Live Or Is It Memory-X - Armsman

AE Horoscope Reviews:

#5349 Childhood Horrors - Lord Xenite
#185425 The Terrible Plan of Doktor Kannoenfutter - Eraserdog
#101165 Too Many Bunnygirls! - Clave Dark 5
#60280 Dr. Dave and the Copper Legion - the Hedoren
#55715 Freaks and Geeks - El Condor
#61013 The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space - Aliana Blue
#21391 Enter the Father Hat Gant - Backfire
#221240 The Audition - MrCaptainMan
#6143 Escalation - FemFury

If you're still taking submissions I'd like to add mine to the list. I've finished updating it for i15 so it's ready for review! "The Fracturing of Time" arc id 171031. Thanks for your time!

Blight #140423
By @Witch Engine

Description: Arachnos has been spreading biohazardous material around Atlas Park. You’re on the case, but cleanup might not be as simple as it first appears...

Number of Missions: 5

Level Range: 40-54

Character I’m using: Citizen Razor, Lv50 Invulnerability / War Mace Tanker

Challenge Level: 2

I had been hearing some good things about this story arc on the forums, so I decided to give myself a “treat” and check this story arc out. This will be a “short and sweet” review. Apologizes to those who were on my queue. I promise I’ll get to your arcs.

So anyway, I fire up the holodeck and enter the mission. The basic premise is that Arachnos is trying to spread biohazardous material around Atlas Park and I have to stop this from happening by destroying the canisters. I’m not exactly sure how making a canister explode and destroying the outer shell of it will prevent the biomutagen from being spread. That seems somewhat contradictory to me.

Destroying one of them informs me that a canister had a small leak in it before I destroyed it. I’m guessing this is not going to end well for me. In any case, I destroy the rest of the canisters, and the mission is over.

Alas, the clean-up crew didn’t return, so it’s up to me to go and find out what’s happening. At this point, I remember an earlier comment by a reviewer. I’m pretty sure I figured out the twist. In any case, I return to Atlas Park, only now it’s completely and utterly ruined. Oh noes!

In any case, I am off to find Miss Liberty. Nitpick time, but it’s Ms. Liberty, not Miss Liberty. Miss Liberty is the daughter of Statesman and Ms. Liberty’s mother. They’re two different characters. Unless this story is taking place during the 1970s.

Anyway, this map is full of custom-made zombies. One particular mob is a Thermal lieutenant that “burns zombies to make them scream.” So whenever the Lt buffs his teammates, they look like they’ve caught on fire. That’s actually pretty clever.

In any case, I find Ms. Liberty (correctly named), who is, not surprisingly, all zombie-ified. She’s an Elite Boss. I clear her zombie buddies, then take her down. Mission over.

I inform the contact. The contact is upset, and tells me that Atlas Park will have to be quarantined. Including me, since I might be infected. Except I’m standing right there in the AE building, all un-quarantined. And if I’m infected, then so is the contact as well. So already, that little problem has hit some snags.

And here there be snags. The blight has spread like wildfire all over Paragon City. Now it’s all over the world. Synapse got it, and like the annoying little virus he is, he spread it all over the world. Strangely, I’m uninfected, so it’s up to me to stop the whole thing. We conclude that I need to go to Mako’s guys and have them create an antidote.

I’m in a burning Arachnos lab, in the middle of Grandville. My objective is to find Captain Mako. I think that’ll be a new EB/AV for this toon to solo, actually. There’s a surprise mob in the mission, somebody I was not expecting to see, and I suddenly have an unexpected ally. In any case, the unexpected ally and I both take on Captain Mako. Captain Mako informs me that there’s no cure. Curses. Foiled again!

When Captain Mako is defeated, he screams “Code White! Code White!” and asked for some doctors to come and that the patient is out of control. Well, now that’s fairly odd. I exit the mission.

I talk to my contact, and all of a sudden the story takes a plot twist. I guess I’m now a mentally unstable person named Morgan Cook who thinks I’m Citizen Razor. My contact informs me that I’ve been having extreme delusions and begs me to take my medication. He promises it’s not a Nemesis plot. I take my medication.

He allows me to wander the hospital. I go and do that. I enter the mission fully expecting to find the infamous “psych ward” map that I dislike so much. I don’t. Instead I’m in some tech map, and I have 6 clues to find.

OK, I have to admit, this mission is extremely well-done. Apparently I’m cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and there’s all sort of clues here indicating that I’m actually Morgan Cook and that I am completely insane. The map is full of non-hostile doctors and nurses. There’s even a zombie in the map who cowers in terror when I walked close to him. When I get all the clues, the mission is over.

I leave the mission, and the contact basically says “See? There’s no super-villains running around. You’re in the hospital. Now be a good boy and take your medicine and maybe your mommy can come and visit.”

I, however, am not buying my contact’s story, so I pretend to take my medication so I can go all insane again later. This strikes me as being very similar to that one “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode in its sixth season where Buffy thinks she’s insane.

In any case, I am allowed to walk the hallways again. Of course, since I didn’t take the psychotropic that the contact tried to give me so that he could “take me out of the game,” I can see things for what they really are again.

I go off to find my contact and inform him that I can still save the city. I am in that psych ward map. When I find my contact I inform him ... quite violently ... that I am leaving the hospital so that I can save Paragon City. My contact is not amused and begs me to stop. I ignore him and leave the hospital.

Final Summary: Although this story arc uses the MA in clever ways, there were a few flaws in the story. Flaw #1: How does beating up a canister full of biohazard materials make any sense? If I see a canister full of biohazardous materials, my first instinct is to carefully remove it and allow the experts to take care of it. It is not to beat it up so that it explodes, allowing the toxic fumes to enter the air and in my body. Flaw #2: Miss Liberty and Ms. Liberty are not one and same. That is a minor error and easily fixed, but it’s still an error nonetheless. Flaw #3: I’ve seen this exact same story before on an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” titled Normal Again. It’s the exact same premise. The hero is exposed to some drugs and starts to hallucinate that the world he/she is in is not real and that everything is just a fantasy. Then at the end, the hero escapes back into the violent fantasy world while it’s left ambiguous which world is the real one. Those flaws knock the rating down to a 3.

Mind you, there *are* some good aspects to this story. The architect did something clever with the custom critters in Missions #2 and #3, and mission #4 was well-done. I think that if I had never seen that Buffy episode before, I'd probably have given this arc 4 stars.

My rating: 3 stars

While I didn't ask for this review, uh, thanks, I guess.

Some nitpicks - I just checked my arc again, and nowhere that I can see does it call her Miss Liberty, it's consistently Ms. Liberty throughout.

Blowing up the canisters - pretty much all destructible objects in the game explode, so I made the best of it and notedin the mission that you're disposing them by breaking them before they can be deployed, and incinerating the contents. I dunno, use your imagination I guess.

The quarantine thing - I think you're truthfully being a little nitpicky here. If you are going to suspend disbelief in the story enough to say 'I'm not in quarantine I'm in the AE building', you might as well just ignore anything that's happening, since you're acknolwedging you're in AE, and therefore it's all a hologram anyways.

Having never watched Buffy the Vampire slayer in my life, docking marks because something else had a similar plot which is in no way related to the game itself seems kind of petty. If you look hard enough, I guarantee you I can find something out there that any arc in AE "rips off".

Finally, if you're docking marks because the ending is ambiguous, I think you missed the entire point of the arc.

EDIT: You also seem to be treating this as if this is exclusively an elaborate set up by one of your various enemies. That's one way to look at it, but you're missing the point, I think.

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Some nitpicks - I just checked my arc again, and nowhere that I can see does it call her Miss Liberty, it's consistently Ms. Liberty throughout.

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Check the nav bar for Mission #2. It says "Find Miss Liberty."

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Blowing up the canisters - pretty much all destructible objects in the game explode, so I made the best of it and noted in the mission that you're disposing them by breaking them before they can be deployed, and incinerating the contents. I dunno, use your imagination I guess.

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There's two ways to work around this.

1) Make the canisters a clickie, and have them disappear when done. This makes it look more like you're disposing of them safely. The clue can mention the leak.

2) Make them defendable objects. Arachnos is trying to break apart the canisters to spread the biogens. You're trying to prevent this from happen. This does have the side effect of making it possible to fail the mission, but since you're going to be exposed to it anyway, one way or another, the final result is ultimately the same.

In any case, setting up a "highly violate canister" that needs to be protected ... then having the player beat up on it until it explodes or breaks apart ... is a "WTF" moment for me, and I do dock stars for that. If it was the only way in the game to "remove" something, I'd deal with it. But it isn't.

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1) Make the canisters a clickie, and have them disappear when done. This makes it look more like you're disposing of them safely. The clue can mention the leak.


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The only problem with this is that you can't have guards for a glowie, and some of the dialog from the guards is nice.

A third alternative is to have a mob serve the same role - the mob is carrying the mutagen in his backback, along with the triggering mechanism - you have to defeat the mob before he gets a chance to set it off.

OK, I just checked AGAIN since I'm still on, and no, it says Ms. Liberty.

Nowhere in the arc does it say to protect those canisters. You're projecting something that isn't there on to the arc. The contact actually says that they're still in the process of setting them up right in the mission dialog. Nevertheless, I added a line just for you, that adds 'Destroy the canisters before they can be activated, then incinerate the contents inside".

Furthermore, none of your suggestions would actually work in the AE, since the Atlas map does not allow ground clickies, nor defendable objects.

I still think it's pretty ridiculous for docking stars for it resembling some TV show or extremely selectively nitpicking that yes, you have to go back to the AE building between missions, while doing the arc.

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OK, I just checked AGAIN since I'm still on, and no, it says Ms. Liberty.

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*sigh*

I ran through the first mission again so I could check the second mission to see if I was imagining things. I wasn't. Check here. I pointed it right out for you.