Arc 298290: Papers and Paychecks

Papers and Paychecks
Arc ID: 298290
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Complex Mechanics, Comedy
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 32-45

Description
JOB OPENING: Entry-level position available in dynamic, fast-moving Fortune 500 company. Seeking flexible, motivated individuals, self-starters willing to think outside the box. Excellent salary, benefits, opportunities for rapid promotion. Qualified applicants, contact Crey Industries HR Dept.


Designer Notes
My original idea for this arc was to create a “Countess Crey Patron Arc”, since it’s always bothered me that you can only choose one of the Arachnos lieutenant AVs as your patron, and I thought it would be cool if you could pick some of the other canon AVs as your patron instead.

A bit later I fixated on the idea of making a “player choice” determine the final ending of the story arc. A “player choice” is something I’ve seen a couple arcs attempt, but I usually didn’t like how it worked out, so here’s my attempt at making one.

I came up with the overall plot and some of the mission details while doodling in my notebook during an incredibly long and boring meeting at my work. This resulted in a healthy amount of cynicism being injected into some of the office scenes.



As of this writing, I haven't had anyone else play through this but me. It's less polished than I'd like, and consequently I'd welcome any player feedback.

I'll put it on my list, which is empty at the moment. I need to get my new arc reviewed and the Flower Knight TF frankly scares the hell out of my squishy-loving butt, so I'll give this a try!

Sorry for the delay on this, the last week has been pretty intensive so I haven't put in much time in game. I did a runthrough on this on my 43 corr, and found it at a final draft level. I have some comments, but I am delaying posting in detail until I finish a second runthrough on my 39 stalker to catch things I know I missed and to re-run the final mish.

Played through it on a lvl 25 Stalker. No difficulties anywhere. I rated it a 5 star arc, mainly because I can imagine this arc being put in the game. Pretty easy arc and funny as well. I may play through it again on my 41 dom to see how it scales and get the other ending.

*keeps photocopy of Stalker's scaly lizard butt*

298290 - Papers & Paychecks

Okay, I ran this solo on my 43 elec/kin corruptor, Synge Cabiri, who can solo EBs (slowly) if necessary. The second run was on Celine Dioscura, 39 claw/WP stalker.

TL;DR: I think this is in a final state, I don't see any major problems, and very few minor issues. Frankly, I think it's ready to fly. Gave it 5 stars, which is probably a leeetle too much, but since i can't give it a 4.80, I figure what the hell.

Mission One:
My only problems with the whole of the text in this arc is whether the brackets around the yellow OOC text are really necessary. The yellow text would stand out enough since no other text is marked with color. The brackets just look like remnants of an earlier markup phase of the text. On the other hand, with the exception of the finale debriefing, there is also no 3rd party narration - so it might break some of the immersion of the monologues. Meh.

Heading into the mish, I hear a lot of battles going off - which usually signals to me that something's broken and I'm going to miss some chances at plot points, but it's immediately apparent this won't be the case since Crey and Longbow are going at it with almost completely disregard for me. I don't really bother to correct them, and let them slug it out. Still, there's a lot of text that fires off at the beginning.

On the other hand, it's nice to run into Paragon Protectors that aren't punching me in the face.

The objectives brought a smile to my face.

Ah...so, we're mirroring the Manty SF? I'll admit up front I have not done it, so some of these references are going to miss the mark. Still, I get that I'm probably interfering with the canon storyline. The descriptions of our generic hero antagonists got a smirk, although I did forget to check them on their first appearance.

Found Jenny, rescued her...and she's a follower. Okay... Time for an RP moment.

Jenny: Thanks!
Synge: No problem. *lights post-combat cigarette*
Jenny: You can't smoke in here.
Synge: Why not? You've been smokin' since I first walked in here.
Jenny: <_<;;;
Longbow Nullifer: *rifle bash*
Synge: OW! Goddammit! Why ya gotta mez me in front of the ladies?!

The crates and clues got a lot of smiles. You know, I've actually worked this job RL.

Debriefing: Promoted? Alright! I should be 45 minutes late to my first day on the job all the time!

Mish 2:
The Accept text needs a period after "I can handle that".

Synge: Screw the dress code!! I'm showing up an hour and a half late too!!

Ah, I see Jenny is a fan of <a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CheekCopy>the Cheek Copy</a>. This is my kind of girl: exhibitionistic and reckless.

Synge: *looks at copy* We need to do tequila shots after this.
Jenny: But I'm a naive girl from a small town in the midwest!
Synge: ...Bourbon?

Immediately after this, we rob Crey Industries blind for their office supplies. I'm old enough to remember when this was required for publishing your crappy scenester zine. I fully approve of this to this day. Incidentally, there was no chatbox text for the objective, but that might be a stylistic choice as it has been commented on the forums that some people don't read them. I'm not one of those people, but whatever.

It's at this point I notice my new objective: Photocopy your butt.

Yes, I approve of this too. Honestly made me lol irl.

At lvl 43, I was running into a lot of Police drones, and not that many actual PPD. Those that I did, I was able to handle pretty readily. Celine (at 39) had more varied groups with PPD Shells and Psi Cops/Lts, which made the dialogue seem a bit more natural. I can imagine that a Police Drone might have a speaker on it through which someone offsite could speak, but I don't recall if this happens in the regular content.

I'm noticing there are no popups at the mission exit. Again, some people like these, some don't.


Mish 3:

Now I'm a research scientist? After shredding documents?

Synge: You know, I didn't even finish high school. I don't have any kind of credent--
Manning: *hairy eyeball*
Synge: You know, eff it, I can mix chemicals with the best of them. Hook me up.

I didn't catch it immediately, but my second run did confirm that Experiment C is from the Manty Hero team, which was sorta funny. Also appreciated that her clicky text changed as well. On Synge's run, Most of the Experiments were already in battle with the research scientists and other friendly mobs long before he got to them. Celine did better and could actually fight them, no real problem. Not sure if that's a function of her Hide power, though.

We meet up with Jenny again.

Synge: Hellllooooo Nurse!
Jenny: *Looks uncomfortable, guilty*
Synge: Seriously, I totally still respect you after last night.
Jenny: But...what about the rash?
Synge: Totally goes away after a week. *snappy pointy fingers*

I noticed on this mish, I didn't have a lot of mobs available to fight with, and those that were around were conned pretty low (-1 and +0's on a diff 3 setting) . I didn't really mind, but others might. This is sort of why when Synge ran into Summerfield, I totally got owned 'cause I was not actually ready for a Boss fight (he had conned as Red Boss, which is still a +1 technically, I think?) I managed to come back in afterwards and wipe him with my usual sapping strategy.

Celine's run was sorta the same, although the groups appeared to con around even or maybe +1. I did get some purple bosses and Summerfield's fight was a little more trouble, although I didn't faceplant on him.

Didn't have a problem finding the computer afterwards, and on Celine's run I did notice that there was some backtracking needed but (since I knew what to look for) I didn't have problems with this.

No pop up again.

Mish 4:

Middle Management?

Synge: T.T
Synge: No good can come of this.

On Synge I immediately noticed that some of the Nemi Automatons were tougher than others, and upon inspection, I saw that one of the Lieutenants was a hidden custom critter, AR/Elec Armor (I didn't figure out the Elec armor part until Celine's run when I could get close enough to them). This made Synge's run a little more difficult, 'cause I really had to work to whittle past their resistence (elec/kin remember?). Celine's attempt at this made them about on par for custom critters.

The "TPS reports" dialogue repeats a lot in the mission. I don't mind so much, I just "toned it out" - but others might be annoyed by the repetition.

Another run in with the Manty TF... I didn't get the reference to Kimberly or the significance of Kellerman (I missed checking his clicky text the first time), but guessed that's referenced in the TF. I got figured out on Celine's run that he was the Kellerman in the "Kellerman Process".

Barbie took a metric eon for Synge to whittle down, but again, she isn't as difficult when you have a damage type that they don't have uber resistence to. On Celine's run, Barbie spawned where the Warhulk spawned on Synge's run. I was a little concerned I was going to have a boss spawn on top of a boss, but luckily this did not occur.

FYI: Barbie ran at 25% health or so on Celine, but never budged on Synge. Not sure which behavior is intended.

Mish 5:

Variant objectives sounds cool and ...

AH CRAP 15 MIN TIMED MISH

This was the only mish that Synge saw a purple boss, and it was on the last one. I lost about 2 mins at the first of the mish 'cause I was PM'ing in game with someone, so I barely made it to the end with a few seconds left.

Police Woman was actually considerably easier than the last Crey boss, which probably was intended in order to allow you to skip her to run to the exit if necessary. I had time on both runs, so ended up defeating her without much difficulty.

Aw yeah, got a Panty Shot Defeat on the author avatar

Synge: *headtilt*
Synge: You know, I was gonna make a joke about whether you wore police issue lingerie, but then you kinda wrecked the comedy when it turned out you did...

Anyway, so we get to the crucial moment. Do we turn in the mole to Crey or not?

Mole: Oh please, Synge Cabiri, don't turn me in! Think of all the times we've had!
Synge: Uh..yeah. um.
Mole: *twinkle eyes*
Synge: Uh, look, I'm sorta undercover here and supposed to be digging up dirt on Crey, and I sorta got caught up in all of this success and promotions, and I sorta forgot to get any information for my commander. So...uh...I'm gonna kinda take the info you found and ...uh... *hands over to Crey*
Mole: O.O
Synge: But we'll totally be back for ya! *zoinks!*

Celine's run was a little easier since she could just Hide and lose the Mole, so there was really no need to have her tagging behind. I liked that the escorts were never necessary to keep them with ya, which helped.

Finale:

I liked the parallel endings, and I'll admit that I liked the "good guy" ending better 'cause it didn't suggest that you were a good guy but that you were just capable of turning a good deed once in a while.

Conclusions:

Good arc, quite fun, and not long really. I think I ran it in about 75 mins or so - about 15 mins per mish, which is paper/radio mish duration. Not much to suggest in the way of improvements (thus all the dramatizations), so I think you've got another straightforward winner here. It's gonna suffer a bit for being a Villain-oriented Arc, but I'm already recommending it to folks in my SGs & VGs.

Thanks much for the detailed review, twelfth! Glad you enjoyed it. Your review was hilarious, I laughed a lot reading it. Though I'm not sure whether to be flattered or disturbed by the screen shot.

I'll look at adding some mission exit popup dialogs and chat window text for clickies (it's so easy to miss these in game text spam that I didn't bother originally).

You're right that some of the Nemesis Automata are actually custom models; I had to add a few custom robots because none of the regular models count as "bosses" that you can add as mission details. The only boss in the standard Nemesis Automaton group is a Warhulk, and he definitely doesn't look right for an office setting. I made them elec armor because "it made sense" for a robotic duplicate, and it gives them an interesting looking electric aura when their powers are running; I guess this DOES make them hard for an elec blast character (who is almost purely energy damage I think?). Do you think it's bad enough to warrant changing their defense set to something else? I think Electric Barbarella has to keep elec armor, though, just due to her name.

Mission 5 admittedly has a really short timer (15 minutes), but I thought this was justified because I wanted to make it easy for the player to let time run out if desired. It's a pretty small map and in my testing I could finish the mission with time to spare; I could bump up the time limit if some characters are having problems with it though.

I'm glad you liked the "nice" ending; I've tried a few "choose your own ending" arcs before and I usually found that the "fail" ending didn't have as much writing in it, so I tried to make sure both branches of the story had a solid ending.

Though I'm not sure whether to be flattered or disturbed by the screen shot.

It took me a minute to remember whose arc this was, so I actually thought: "Police Woman? That's an sorta odd, generic name for a critter. Oh well...OH WAIT."

Do you think it's bad enough to warrant changing their defense set to something else?

Nope. Since the ones you run into most often are LTs, they mezz pretty readily or can be controlled in other manners. They weren't a massive threat, it just took forever to whittle down their hp on an elec blast set. But hell, EM/ brutes deserve to have a little challenge in their day too. For once.

Barbarella is fine, and it obviously fits thematically.

It's a pretty small map and in my testing I could finish the mission with time to spare

I did okay on both, since I didn't catch it immediately, I did lose some time of my first run, but managed to squeak it by. I did just skip several mobs, which I think is a reasonable strategy for this level. If there was a 20 minute mark, I'd recommend bumping it up a smidge. Since there isn't, I say keep it at 15 mins, let folks sweat it out.

In-game feedback so far

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-11 01: 13:37 Message From @Zamuel : Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: Enjoyed it. Didn't see any typos. I'll give more in depth critique in a moment but one quirk is referencing Jenny as cute regardless of the player possibly being female *shrug* [Tell] 2009-08-11 01: 14:33 Message From @Zamuel : Pretty good. Might have a different view than some since I ram this with my Stalker and got to bypass some things. In the first mision you may want to tweak some things because Longbow cheats as usual. All Crey were slaughtered except for one. [Tell] 2009-08-11 01: 15:02 Message From @Zamuel : Mission 2 and Crey seems to lose out against the police here. More are left stading solely due to spawn point locations. Don'y know if you should edit the groups to remove some types of heroes or make customs to help aid Crey. [Tell] @Zamuel: Crey seems to be doing much better third mission as far as survival. Jenny in a nurse outfit caused an odd eyebrow arch that I don't think you intended (or did you?). One of the lab outfits seems like it would be slightly more fitting. [Tell] @Zamuel: Nice job on the chained objective. That new function in the MA is quite good. [Tell] @Zamuel: Final mission worked fine. Let Jenny live (because escorting hostages on a Stalker is a pain) but I heard that timed missions with escorts are bugged if done correctly. Have to find time with a different AT to lead her to her demise.

Well, ideally I would've had the NPC be a gender appropriate to being a romantic lead for the protagonist, but this isn't really possible (and would maybe be problematical on a team with characters of different genders). I figured "cute coworker" would kind of get the idea across for male players, while being a weak enough adjective that female players wouldn't be too bothered by it (while a word like "hot" probably would be too much).

Regarding the Crey vs Longbow and Crey vs PPD battles, I'm actually not too bothered that the Crey usually lose these battles; they're meant to be background scenery and it's not important that the Crey survive. Since the Crey are marked friendly for most of the arc, the player can help them out, if desired; and if the Crey ended up winning more often, it would end up meaning less exp for the player (if the player is the fighty type).

Quote:

[Tell] @Baler: Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: Enjoyed the story but did see the ending coming pretty early. Gonna have to replay to see the other outcome. Nice humourous bits. You might want to consider changing the job in the third mission from scientist to researcher. Scientist just makes me think advanced degree and most villians wouldn't have that level of education. And I think Manning told where I was being promoted to after the first mission, so his "Dont forget..." in the second mission sendoff rubbed me the wrong way. [Tell] @Baler: ps Shouldn't Manning mention "detaining" me since he doesn't have the right to actually arrest me?

Sounds reasonable; I had another person say his villain never finished school, too. I'll change "research scientist" to "Crey researcher" throughout. I'll also make some minor edits to drop the "Don't forget" and change "arrest" to "detain".

Quote:

Message From @twelfth : Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: Augh..now I have to play it over again to find out what happens when you don't betray Jenny!  Pretty much in a finished state from my perspective. soloed on 43 elec/kin corr on diff 3. No real problems, although I got down to about 3 seconds on that last mish. Also, got a great pantyshot on PW after I defeated her. XD More on the boards when I finish my write up. [Tell] 2009-08-17 21: 48:24 Message From @twelfth : Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: Hmm. I like the "good person" ending a bit more. Little more satisfying, and a little less cliched, I think. Especially the final part. I liked the parallel uncertainty of each ending. =D Hope your inbox is less spammed.

I'm really liking that people are interested enough in the story to run it twice to see both endings. I'm adding mission exit popup dialogs and making other minor tweaks that you suggested.

Quote:

Message From @Djinniman : Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: This was a fun arc, though it was extremely difficult for a level 10-12 corruptor (my Crey-related character). I particularly enjoyed the Manticore TF faction and the first mission's clues. I'm not sure about the final mission. Options are always good, but making one of them "fail" might frustrate some people. (FWIW, I failed due to both lack of time and the desire to stick it to the people who assigned Agent Walters to fight so many Lethal-resistant enemies.) An easy 5 stars for this one!

I can see it being hard for a level 10-12 character; most of the enemies are mid 30s to low 40s, after all. But I can see how playing your Crey-related villain would make the most sense for the story.

I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting for the final mission; providing a "success" and a "fail" outcome seems like the only way you can let the player change the outcome of the story. At least, as far as I know.

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-20 11: 04:45 Message From @Lethal Guardian : Feedback on Architect Mission Papers and Paychecks: (Pro Payne) Extremely well done story - I enjoyed playing through it a great deal, and especially liked the touch at the end (since I was really a hero 'playing' a villain, I let Jenny go, but rest assured when I play this with my real villain - and I will - she's so getting turned in...). Very, very well done - I honestly have no comments or ideas about how to improve the arc; can't think of any ways to make it better!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!!

----

Changes made:

* Upgraded status from "Work in Progress" to "Looking for Feedback".

Mission 2

* Changed briefing, "but don't forget, you've been transferred to the front office now" to "but as of today, you've been transferred to the front office".

* Added a period to end of mission accept message.

* Added mission exit popup message:

It's quitting time at last, and you shuffle towards the door with the rest of the office zombies. You make sure to hide the filched office supplies safely inside your briefcase before reaching the security checkpoint, though.

* Changed debriefing, "working as a research scientist" to "working in Crey R&D".

Mission 3

* Changed mission name from "A Day in the Life of a Research Scientist" to "A Day in the Life of a Crey Researcher".

* Changed briefing, all "research scientist" references to "researcher".

* Added mission exit popup message:

As you're leaving the lab, all the other researchers congratulate you on "your" brilliant discoveries. Jenny proposes a round of margueritas at El Super Mexicano to celebrate your first publication in a refereed journal. You simply smile and nod.

Mission 4

* Added mission exit popup message:

After a long day of interminable meetings and crisis management, it's finally quitting time. Your assistant Jenny hands you your briefcase, and you stumble out the door. So this is what the outside of the office looks like! You had nearly forgotten.

Mission 5

* Changed "fail" debriefing, "arrest" to "detain".

Jenny proposes a round of margueritas at El Super Mexicano...

Although Marguerita is a woman's name, margarita is generally the spelling for the drink.

Your assistant Jenny hands you your briefcase, and you stumble out the door.

That's a lot of y-o-u in that sentence. Just scans awkwardly.

So this is what the outside of the office looks like! You had nearly forgotten.

It's 7:15pm and I'm still at the cube farm. I KNOW THIS PAIN.

EDIT: It occurs to me that it might be amusing to reference the "Crey Employee" Day Job badge somewhere in the text of the missions...wait, is it in the Souvenir? I forgot to check for one!

I really loved this arc. Oddly, it reminded me of my office! Five stars.

Here are my comments:

I loved the story description. They always SAY they want people who think outside the box.

Mission 1:

What I liked:

Loved the intro - what happened to Bob!

The promo criteria - so funny because sadly it is true.

Love the mission goals.

Nice costumes on the customs - blaster , scrapper and troller.

I wonder what they are doing there.

I thought I was going to have to fight Hopkins.

Loved the tie in to your Celebrity Kidnapping Arc

Enjoyed Nemises Plot Reference

Possible typo: I was not sure if the "War Wolf"? in crate 1379 was intentional or if you meant "Werewolf"


Mission 2:

Loved the dress code comment in the send off!

So many nice touches - Stolen Office supplies

Should Simmons have a custom bio?

Love the surprise final objective.

Mission 3:

Typo on popup? – should be formaldehyde

Loved test subjects

Take credit for someone’s work – never happen.

Mission 4:

Nice to see the TF members again

Love the NPC dialog

TPS reports – another nice touch of humor.

Loved Barbie's name.

Love how objectives trigger others.

Ah so it was a Nemises Plot


Mission 5:

Reorg huh. You hit on the solution to every company’s problem – reorg

Not crazy for timed missions but especially not in MA . It did add excitement and fun but did not let me savor the details.


My overall comments:
I didn't like the fact that the last mission was timed because I didn't get to enjoy the details of it.

I really loved this arc. I especially loved how you mixed in humor and how you have one objective completion trigger other objectives.

I ended up reworking the "Manticore Task Force" faction a bit, in response to some of the exp changes made by I16. Formerly there were 3 mob types, all of whom were lieutenants.

All three of these (Scrapper, Controller and Blaster) got demoted to "minion" level.

I added a "Defender" lieutenant and "Tanker" boss to the Manticore TF faction, so that there would be something at each enemy rank.

The guards surrounding Hopkins were upgraded to a "hard" encounter, in order to compensate for most of the mobs being downgraded to minions. Ran a test while solo and a soloer on low difficulty will typically see 3 minions guarding him.

The enemies still don't give full exp (since I'm rather leery of raising them all to be "Hard" difficulty on both powersets) but they don't get the big penalty for not having mobs of certain rankings, at least.

Going to work on updating Papers and Paychecks a bit, since I think it could qualify for the specified theme of Dr. Aeon's 3rd challenge.

Compiled list of suggestions from reviews and feedback (so far):

1. Reduce number of friendly spawns in mission 3 so there are more bad guys to fight. (Glazius)
2. Change office workers in mission 4 to be initially friendly, but then go berserk after some trigger event. (Glazius)
3. Come up with an evil but funny Crey plot for the Crey in mission 5 to be working on. (Glazius)
4. Need another recurring character to help tie missions together. (Glazius)
5. Tie missions together better, currently it's more like 5 individual vignettes. (Rakeeb)
6. Fix typo in accept message for mission 5. (Rakeeb)
7. Need more characterization for minor characters (other than Jenny). (Rakeeb)
8. Too easy, need to increase challenge level; maybe add an EB? (Rakeeb)
9. Provide more "named" mobs with special info. (Johnni)
10. Reword "Chat with cute coworker" to be less flirty and to make sense for female toons. (Dsarvess Rientel)
11. Put a few more minutes on the timer. (several feedbacks)
12. Make a custom Automaton group with no Warhulks. (Archdemon)
13. Need to add more clues and more writing overall. (PW)

Just posting this here to keep track of my "to do" list. Happy to take more suggestions from anyone who is interested.

I didn't think that P&P was "too easy", I thought it was as challenging as it needed to be for a comedy-based adventure. However I haven't run it since a very early incarnation of it.

I felt the difficulty was fine. The only problems I had were in the final mission because all-tank Crey spawns suck worse than anything has sucked before when you're an AR Blaster. So the only thing I would suggest to make it a bit easier is to maybe cap the arc at 44, so there will be no all-tank spawns at all. It doesn't need to be harder. Not every arc needs an AV.

Issues addressed (9/25):

1. Reduce number of friendly spawns in mission 3 so there are more bad guys to fight. (Glazius)
- Changed 4 "friendly" spawns to be 3 hostages guarded by Escaped Experiments, resulting in lots more mobs to fight.

6. Fix typo in accept message for mission 5. (Rakeeb)
- Couldn't find any typo in this message. Left it alone.

8. Too easy, need to increase challenge level; maybe add an EB? (Rakeeb)
- Left overall difficulty alone due to multiple players saying they think the challenge level is fine.
- Adjusted level range to 33-44 for all missions, to avoid possible boss-only Crey spawns.

10. Reword "Chat with cute coworker" to be less flirty and to make sense for female toons. (Dsarvess Rientel)
- Changed to just "Chat with co-worker".

11. Put a few more minutes on the timer. (several feedbacks)
- Increased mission 5's timer to 30 minutes.
- Rephrased mission briefing to specifically state the time limit is 30 minutes.
- 30 minutes actually feels a little long to me, but it's the next shortest duration after the 15 minutes it was before.

12. Make a custom Automaton group with no Warhulks. (Archdemon)
- I made a custom group excluding warhulks, the mission should only spawn humanoid automata now, at least until Deckard shows up.

Still to do:

2. Change office workers in mission 4 to be initially friendly, but then go berserk after some trigger event. (Glazius)
- initial ideas (not yet added): add a ton of optional allies that betray, plus some ambushes?

3. Come up with an evil but funny Crey plot for the Crey in mission 5 to be working on. (Glazius)
- initial ideas (not yet added): Crey-Z-Glue? Creyola Creyons?
- rework dialog from managers in mission 5 to reflect evil plot.

4. Need another recurring character to help tie missions together. (Glazius)
5. Tie missions together better, currently it's more like 5 individual vignettes. (Rakeeb)
7. Need more characterization for minor characters (other than Jenny). (Rakeeb)

9. Provide more "named" mobs with special info. (Johnni)
- add a named Longbow officer to mission 1
- add a named PPD officer to mission 2

13. Need to add more clues and more writing overall. (PW)

Some more changes.....

Story Parameters:
* Changed to "Work in Progress" since I'm modifying it heavily.
* Changed from "Complex Mechanics" (such a boring keyword) to "Canon Related" (since it heavily borrows from the canonical Crey story arcs and TFs).

Mission 1:
* Added Fusionette as a Manticore TF boss (to address action item 9).
* Moved all glowies from "middle" to "back" (formerly were "middle" because of the middle/back spawn point bug).
* Changed all glowies to "do not remove on complete" (in response to player feedback)
* Added "Tommy the mailroom clerk" as a hostage (a new character, to address action items 4 and 7).
* Added a clue for Jenny (to address action item 13).
* Wrote out the text of an actual letter of recommendation as a clue (to address action item 13).


Uh oh! It's the leader of the Manticore TF!


Fortunately, it was just a pickup team.


This should look good in my personnel file!

Some more edits....

Mission 2:
* Added Tommy the mail clerk as a required hostage, with "Memo to Simmons" as a clue. (To address action items 4, 7, 13)
* Added Agent Bell as an optional boss, with "Bell's Journal" as a clue, mostly for color. In the canon story arcs he's an EB, but I thought an EB might be too hard, so I used a Longbow Officer model instead. (If anyone would have severe heartache over Bell being represented as an ordinary boss, though, let me know.) (To address action items 9, 13)
* Rephrased "Indecent Photocopy" clue, making it a little longer and more dialog-like. (To address action item 13)
* Added "Formal Recommendation" as a mission end clue. (To address action item 13)

Crey-Z-Glue is definitely for the win.

Also, I gotta play this tonight, if only for 'Nette and the letter.

After sleeping on it, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense for Agent Bell (a Longbow officer) to show up in mission 2, which is basically a PPD raid on a Crey facility.

I replaced him with Gordon Stacy (a Paragon Police using a custom boss model) and adjusted his dialog and clue to suggest that he's been corresponding with Arthur Bell. I kind of like this better anyway, because I get to tie in another Crey-related canon NPC, and it avoids the potential complaint that the player might "kill" Agent Bell twice (once here, once in Kelly Uqua's arc).

On the downside, I don't really develop this plot thread beyond defeating Gordon Stacy, so it's more like a cameo than a plotline. Will have to think about whether it's reasonable to add any more support for this thread in later missions.

Also, thanks to twelfth for giving the arc a test run.

A few more changes:

* Reviewed all the mission briefings and color coded significant phrases in yellow.

Mission 3
* Added Tommy the mail clerk as an optional objective. He also drops a clue foreshadowing the possibility of plagiarizing Summerfield's research.
* Rephrased Jenny's dialog a little, to better match the story.
* Gave Dr. Summerfield some more dialog.
* Added a mission end clue, a "Letter of Complaint" from Dr. Summerfield to Human Resources about how the player basically manhandled him and stole his research, along with a response from upper management that essentially says this just shows the player is clearly management material.

More changes:

* Now introducing Crey-Z Glue, the miracle adhesive made from 100% post-consumer waste products! Remember, Tuesday is Crey-Z Glue Day!
* Crey-Z Glue is now the product that causes the "company restructuring" depicted in mission 5. (To address action item 3.)
* Dialog for all managers in mission 5 modified to reference Crey-Z Glue.
* Clues modified or added in missions 1, 2, 3, 4 to foreshadow Crey-Z Glue. (To address action items 5 and 13.)

If anyone is interested in playtesting, I could use player input on whether the way the Crey-Z Glue plot gets introduced and resolved makes sense or not.


Planned for near future:

* Need to give Tommy the mail clerk an appearance in missions 4 and 5.
* Need to modify mission 5's debriefing and arc souvenir to reference Crey-Z glue.
* Need to rework mission 4 to be more interesting.
- I'm thinking I may leave the office workers initially hostile, rather than initially friendly then turning hostile; it feels better for the pacing of the mission.
- Pondering adding some optional hostages for the sake of color and extra dialog though.
- I'm thinking I may rewrite Jenny so she's more aware of what's going wrong in mission 4, rather than the vague "people are so weird here!" statement she has now.

More changes:

* Added Tommy the mail clerk as a hostage in mission 5.
* Adjusted mission briefing and added some glowies to mission 5 to foreshadow Jenny's reveal.
* Added 2 "Marketing Poster" glowies to mission 2, one for "New Crey Cola" (a shout out to the Crey Cola mission offered by Gordon Stacy) and the other for "Crey-Z Glue" (more foreshadowing).
* Added 2 "Motivational Poster" glowies to mission 2 and another 2 "Motivational Poster" glowies to mission 4 (mostly for the LOLs).
* Added a "Laser Printer" defendable object to mission 4 (not a required objective, added mostly for fun).
* Switched arc parameters from "Work in Progress" to "Looking for Feedback".