Ozzie's Arcane Asylum (Review Thread)

Thanks Arrowrose. I'm amazed you picked that of my arcs to run since it's much harder then my other two. I'll make sure to get to your arc after I get a few others on my list.

Arc ID#246464 "Hooray for Hamster Hell!" by Eraserdog

I started running this on President Evil and ended up doing it on Ultimo Girl for reasons explained in the review

Ok... to start off with this is kind of amusing. The contact is a body bag. Not only is the contact a body bag but the thing hangs out of the hologram field.

This is a rather interesting way to open things up. The contact is dead and I have to investigate what happened to him.

Mission 1

I was going to try an in character review. But the first mission completely threw me out of that idea. Becaus the custom group is so bloody anti Mastermind that it's not funny. Between blinding me so I couldn't tell my pets what specifically to attack, blinding my pets so they run around like chickens with their heads cut off, rain or arrows and whatever else was messing with my control over them. I was banging my desk in frustration. I was less irritated then this soloing Lord Recluse on Invincible. I might rerun this later on a different character to see if it's any better but man those powers are nasty.

On another note, this is an outdoor map, an outdoor map where objectives appear after another objective is completed. There are at least 2 objectives that weren't there at the beginning and by the time I finished the mission I had to have run back and forth across the park a good 4 or 5 times.

Storywise far as I can tell people are mutating into some monster things and there seems to be a cult involved. Alright then... off we go.

Mission 2

Cult pamphlet says something about the tormented spirits of dead hamsters being the cause of the people going crazy. I suppose I'll go pummel these cultists senseless to find some answers.

Gather books and from what I can gather a defeat all... gathered all the books and now I have to fight the Cult Leader. This is something you really need to avoid. I already had to search the whole warehouse to find the books. There isn't much logical reason to have been able to run around the whole place and not find him before the objective so you should keep the glowies near the entrance and him at the back if you really want the player to get the glowies first that bad. Instead they were all over the map.

Elite Boss is a necromancer. Sadly he's still much easier then the park rangers I dealt with in the last mission. Name's Evermanns, at least he looks pretty cool. One of the better looking wizard customs I've seen.

And another linked objective. Now I have to run around saving scrolls. This felt needlessly tacked on. As did the defeat all objective with how much running around you already have to do in this mission.

Mission 3

At this point I had to take a break from the game to take care of something... unfortunately for me this ment I had to start all over again cause this mission had a time limit. So I redid the first two with Ultimo Girl since she usually steamrolls things.

Now I'm in Hamster Hell to defeat the monsters behind the whole nonsense and close the place down.

This mission has an annoying objective string. Boss - Boss - Boss - Destroy Object - Boss. Oh ant a 45 minute time limit!

Hamstray?! The evil monster behind the whole thing is named Hamstray?!

Dealing with 4 enemies that are Elite Boss or higher with a 45 minute time limit, may lose you a lot of players. Especially people that don't have the damage output they need. The only reason I managed to defeat Eversmann it seemed was because for whatever reason he suddenly made a run for it and stopped healing himself.

My overall thoughts

You tried too hard to cram too much into each mission it felt. There was a story there though at times I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be funny or serious. But the way you set up objectives was increasingly irritating each mission. People hate to backtrack because they missed something, but you make them backtrack multiple times in every mission. Just because a map has 9 possible objectives doesn't mean they all need to be used for objectives that are required to complete the mission. I understand that you wanted things to occur each mission in a certain order, that was obvious but in that event you should try to make them to appear on the map in the order you want them to be dealt with rather then having each objective spawn the next. Especially since from a story standpoint some of these don't make sense like with the bosses and the warped wheel. Clearly plotwise they were there the whole time, so it doesn't make sense that they might not be on the map when you pass that area till you've done something else.

Now for the factions. First the group from the first map that consisted of people who I assume were turning into Hamster monsters. Some reason even though they felt the least important storywise, they were the most powerful of your custom groups. I know there were a few standard enemies in there but this group had the ability to immobilize, hold, stun, and blind players. I imagine if I did this on anything without pets or mez protection that I'd have been crying for my mommy because President Evil already face planted against them multiple times cause all their powers were messing with my ability to control my pets. Ultimo Girl only died against them in the second mission when an ambush joined in, though even in the first mission I saw her health dipping a lot more then it does against Malta.

The other factions were perfectly fine balance wise as far as I can tell. I have to admit the description for Gansu made me laugh. But this group makes me wonder if you actually play tested your arc since you used the Thorn Wielders from the reflection group. You do know that all those enemies look ghostly right? Yet for their description they seemed like they were just supposed to be regular cultists.

I can honestly say you might wanna think about some things I said before anyone else tries your arc (I saw it had no previous ratings) cause I know some other people will be a lot harsher on it. The only reason you're not getting a lower rating is because I can tell you were actually trying as far as the story was concerned, but the arc needs some adjustments to be what I'd consider fun.

Rating: ***

Hey hey. Thanks much for the thorough attention. Glad you enjoyed the theme, the mechanics I can tweak.

Muchly appreciate the comments on the character design and bios. I was really proud of the dead contact ;P As for the tone of the story, it's supposed to be funny in an occasionally-goes-too-far dark way. I didn't expect that anyone would consider that there was a possibility the story of a dead hamster cult could be serious until maybe the sneak aesop at the end, but I guess there is what could be interpreted as a lot of death and mayhem .

Point well taken about the backtracking - I've got a couple ideas for boss battles I wouldn't mind developing, if the objective-hunting's as overkill as it sounds like I can easily make room. The last thing I wanted to do is make an unintentional tribute to Donkey Kong 64. I've spent a couple powers of ten more time in the character designer than I have playing anyone else's arcs (boo, I know), so I gotta admit I'm not entirely sure what works in this regard. As for the playtesting, I did the majority of it before the tweaks to the editor in 15, which is to say I played bits and pieces in test mode. I definitely appreciate having someone else take a close playthrough.

I had no idea about the mez stacking or the ghostly enemies - thanks for the heads-up on that. I saw guys in hoods, and was hella baffled by the min-max level rules, so I chucked in what I could. I'm going to fix both of those, and seriously nerf the PPR Rangers (the PPR Animal Control may, sadly, lose their stealth). Would you believe I actually thought I was choosing moderately easy power combos for the first group?

Much appreciate the advice re: the goal triggers. This, Team Fortress 2 and Nethack are basically the only PC games I play, so I'm really coming at this from a more linear console game mentality. Three years and counting playing City, but it's the only MMO I've played so far.

The Warped Wheel is kind of explained in a vague fashion, but I'm thinking maybe adding some stuff when you're reviewing the books from the compound or something. Thoughts? The story stuff seems to be this mission's hook, I want to make sure it all gets across.

Also, I should probably point out in case you didn't catch it, everything is a hamster pun. Tscherski, Eversmann, Gansu, like everything.

Thanks again for the review - anyone who's interested in checking out the first set of revisions, I'll be pulling HFHH down for the weekend, but it'll be back under the same name on Monday, hopefully along with my even weirder new arc "Weep Day". I'm always looking for more feedback. Now that my slots are full, I'll even play other peoples' arcs in exchange!

- Eraserdog
Watch for "Molly Monochrome" on Champion, usually in the AE in Atlas Park. If I'm lying dead by the contact hologram, chuck me a rez and say hi! :P

If you have the time I would enjoy a review of 17006 - End Game. Link is in my sig.

There are a lot of robots in it, however it is a high level arc.

So Ultimo Girl has a grudge against Trolls?

She'd might like to try out my arc then. Just pop the review here, I don't mind.

Supa Rumble In The Park
No: 60092
Recommended for 38+, though mission will autosidekick to 50 if required.

It's sort of save the world near the end, but on a lesser scale.

Note: I'm a UK player, so naturally, it's UK spelling. :3

Arc ID # 221240 "The Audition" by MrCaptainMan

I ran this arc on Ultimo Girl

Apparently I'm trying out for a spot on the Freedom Phalanx roster and the contact is Synapse. And I gotta admit, his text leading into the first mission got a few chuckles out of me.

Mission 1

Apparently on my way to save Skyway City I somehow ended up on another planet with some crazy scantily clad blue women who don't want me to leave. They seem to share a hive mind and rattle on about how they love me as I beat them senseless. Makes me feel kinda bad.

BTW, having all the nodes spawn seperately made this mission a little more annoying then it needed to be.

Mission 2

Once again Synapse teleports me to the wrong place. Someone needs to get Scotty in here to tell him how to do it right. Now I'm in a cave and I venture in to see what's... HOLY CRAP IT'S LORD RECLUSE! I gather my nerve and run up delivering a foot stomp and... ok he's not an enemy. Finish clobbering his men surrounded him before he tells me that he's going to follow me around because he finds me amusing. Oddly enough I don't find this idea out of character for him. "Yes, beat my minions senseless for my amusement! MWA HA HA HA!"

I had to go in a bit further before I stopped wondering why Recluse's secret hide out was a standard cave, and then I realized it wasn't. Just out of curiousity, what map is this?

Mission 3

This time Synapse mistakenly teleports me into a Praetorian base. I'm not gonna say much because I don't wanna spoil the plotline for the stage too much. But..



That got a lot of laughs out of me.

Mission 4

Now I seem to be facing a group of evil nuns from the future attempting to steal gold from a bank. Not much trouble for Ultimo Girl.



Is that the best you got?!

Mission 5-6 involved some interesting enemies but I don't have much to say about them.

Overall I really enjoyed this arc. An interesting way of doing things, each mission felt like it's own individual story and had plenty of amusing moments. Didn't have much of a sensible plot but it didn't need to cause it was fun. Helped cheer me up while I'm sick anyhow.

Rating: *****

LOL thanks for the great review, Ozzie! I'm really glad you liked it.

The map used for Mission 2 was the Faultline Submarine Base map. It's great for that mission i think, as it's totally linear and the large chamber at the end is perfect for the mayhem that can happen with all the patrols.

Thanks again.

Eco.

EDIT: Also, thank you very much for treating it as a single 6-mission arc, ie as intended. That's highly appreciated.

Quote:

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

Just letting people know I will still get to all the arcs posted so far but I will not be taking anymore submissions for the time being. I got a new computer that I need to set up and various other reasons that I'm not going to be taking on anymore arcs.

I've come to realize, arcs don't feel as enjoyable to me when I'm trying to review them. So once I finish up my Queue, I won't be doing anymore unless it's in someone else's review for a review thread.

Arc ID#221702 In Pursuit of Liberty by @Gypsy Rose

Rating: ****

This will be a short review. Ran on Ultimo Girl. Starting dialogue was weird. The way Ms. Liberty kept saying her in a sentence where she should have been saying she.

Overall it's a good arc. The story is interesting and the villain group has a well designed look. But the villains don't have much of a motivation that's explained. Yeah they don't like the Liberty League. Why? Why the Liberty League in particular? I'm sure there are plenty of other heroes willing to knock them on their bum as well. This could use some explaining.

So could why MAL is such a major threat, he's such a threat that he can cause an apocalyptic future, so this could use some explaining as well. All I got in regards to these things was a little bit of a summary when I clicked on MAL to look at his info, but not everyone is going to do that. Lots of players may complete the arc scratching their head not understanding why half of these things happened. You've got a good story here, but the backstory portion for the villains could use a little explaining.

Just thought I'd let people know that for the time being I won't be writing anymore reviews. However I have made sure to still at least play your arcs. I have one left to play still. My main point, this thread is over with. After I take some time away from running peoples arcs and take some time to work on my own, I will open a new review thread with a different format. If you still want a real review at that time I'll be more then happy to accept the submissions.