Tangler's Review Thread

I can't say I am happy since this is the worst review/rating I have ever received for any of my arcs and surprisingly it's of the arc Venture even gave 4 stars. Responding to some of you comments:

I've just checkd my arc The Audition in light of its nominations for Bubba's Player Awards thread, and to my great dismay i found that Mission 1s objectives had lost an important trigger point. Your 'enjoyment' of it may therefore have been somewhat damaged. My apologies.

Stupid MA

Eco.

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."

I could always use a review for my level 10-20 hero arc in my sig. The other two aren't working the way I want at the moment for me to want people to review them.

The Most Important Thing
ID: 266877
Author: Aisynia
Tags: Hero, Challenging, Drama, Mystery, Time Travel

The Most Important Thing is an arc wrapped around a simple premise, that the most important thing in the world is family. It’s an innocuous idea that drives the characters in this arc, leading to great misdeeds of doom as well as great deeds of salvation.

The arc starts with your hero answering to the call of one Amy Callahan, a teenage mutant with some measure of time manipulating powers who is in serious need of your help. Amy is being coerced by a man named Dr Albright to use her powers to perform acts of theft, under the threat of her harm to her family if she does not comply. Amy is pushed to her limits however when Albright’s next demand is for her to kill someone, and so discreetly turns to you to try and help her out of this mess.

Amy at first asks you to break into Albright’s lab under the guise of a randomly snooping hero, and to ensure that Albright does not suspect treachery also wants you to defeat her in a mock fight, though she was a bit too eager to make the performance convincing when I met her.


One to mediport please...

Further inside you uncover a glimpse of Albright’s depravity and confront Albright himself, though he manages to teleport away before you can arrest him. From here on out, your hero’s adventures will lead you to unravelling a decades long plot as you chase Albright further into his past.


Superhero rule #57: Nothing good ever comes out of opening a fridge.


Dr Albright. A man unfazed by a walking inferno heading towards him.

There are some things that the arc does exceptionally well. The first thing I want to write about is the C.L.U.E. or otherwise known as the Communication Link Uploading Equipment. It’s basically a hacking gizmo that doubles as a comm-link to Amy, that your hero can access by clicking the (wait for it) clues button. It’s a simple and yet incredibly effective story-telling technique, allowing Amy to voice her opinions and provide details without having to have her there present in the mission, which also gives Amy ample character development that isn’t restricted to the briefing pages.



The second thing is that chained objectives were effectively used to create fleshed out missions efficiently out of tiny maps. One mission has you exploring a small tech lab that thanks to the use of some very cleverly chained objectives, made me feel that my hero was doing some actual investigation work, and then for the author’s next trick, he pulls off the same feat but in the even tinier university basement map.


Someone needs to make an entire arc within this map.

A third thing is that the character Albright was an excellently presented villain, as your hero meets the many incarnations of Albright as he travels further into his past. It’s a slow unveiling of Albright’s origins and motives, and reveals the ramifications of his many past crimes and how it effects the present.

The final thing I want to highlight is that the arc’s recurring theme on the importance of family. It drives the plot, in more ways than one, and the entire arc resonates to this theme from the very last beat of your hero’s souvenir.

Was there anything I think the arc didn’t do well? Well yes, there was. One quibble I had can be described in two words – time paradox. I won’t go into details as I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but there is a certain event in the past that I can’t help but wonder how it occurred without meddling to begin with. I can see how it could happen without meddling, but without the author's word on it it’s just wild speculations on my part - which works for some stories, but I doubt was the intention for this particular part.

The arc’s enjoyment also heavily banks on whether you like Amy’s character, and if you can accept the dictated interactions of your hero with her. It’s a major gamble whenever authors attempt this, and I am not one to discourage authors to take the risk as done well or for the right player, the pay off can be huge. That said, I thought the whole thing was too woobie, but ultimately it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the arc. Some may love it, and others may hate it, though you’d have to have a heart of ice to not feel something by the end of the souvenir.

Final Verdict: A brilliant arc. What problems this arc may have is vastly overshadowed by everything else it does right.

5/5 Stars

I'd like it if you could review my arc, The Fall of Rapture (I.D: 299507) and maybe the other two in my Sig if you get time

The university lobby -- where the invention tutorial Contacts live -- is available now? Or is that just part of the "storeroom" map where you fight the Council during the tutorial?

Splintered Shields
ID: 253991
Author: Venture
Tags: Challenging, Canon Related, Drama

Splintered Shields is probably best described as a crime or police drama, though it’s less about good cops busting bad robbers, and more about bad cops and heroes among thieves.

Your hero is contacted by everyone’s favourite Longbow with trust issues, Captain Wilhelmina Marlena Dietrich, who has been taken off the Rikti Countermeasure team after the events in the Vanguard arcs. One of Longbow’s facilities is currently under siege by Arachnos forces at Independence Port, though the leader of the attack has been identified as a bane spider called Operative Kobushi, who until now was known to only operate within the Port Oakes and Cap au Diable region of the Rogue Isles. Dietrich claims she is unable to deploy reinforcements to the area in time and so needs your hero’s help, and so off you go to bash some Arachnos heads.




I don't see how this could possibly go wr- oh hang on, my hero is actually genre-savvy this time.

Everything is not as clear cut as your hero is led to believe however, when the Longbow unit are eager to take you down under the guise of tragic 'friendly-fire' along with Arachnos, and so your hero embarks on an investigation that slowly uncovers possible corruption within Longbow.


This probably isn't how friendly-fire works.

Your hero will meet the Arachnos leader Operative Kobushi, who is a bit of an odd-ball as far as Banes Spiders go. I’m kind of surprised that Arachnos haven’t stamped down on his rebellious attitude sooner, but given how nuked the bane spider lore is anyway I won’t bother going into that.


'But I will turn a blind eye to where my enemy is actually standing!'


It's probably the combination of Daos using the most hilariously nonthreatening threat I have ever heard of, and the 'better learn to place nice with the other kids!' line, but I just found this conversation more funny that it should be.

Your hero will also meet with Longbow Captain Adam Vaughn Livingstone, a decorated and popular personality who otherwise leads the Longbow team that decided to perforate your hero. There is an interesting back and forth between him and Captain Dietrich, as to whose story your hero should believe, that is unfortunately not fully played out for the arc.



This arc also features a few surprise guests. A villain by the name of Victor Praetorius shows up in one of the missions to cause general mayhem. He (it?) appears for a short though entertaining bout with your hero. His appearance doesn’t add much to the arc in terms of relevance, though he doesn't detract from it either.


Because cyber-zombies with lasers make everything better.

Malta also make an appearance, albeit reimagined with the use of customs and under the reason of them using experimental tech. While the customs are well designed, I can’t see the reason why the author did this in the first place, though since it replaces the usual endurance draining, prod stunning, and missile swarm gassing Malta with a robotics summoning, kinetics using, and slow spamming one, I can say that it wasn’t to make Malta easier.

The arc also contains a few optional objectives, though they weren’t as good as I hoped. One objective provided a subtle clue in the chat log, which can be easy to forget by the time it makes sense unless you were really paying attention. There was also an optional defeat, though it was more for completionist’s sake, and didn’t yield any tasty information or colour to reinforce the story.

The arc is on the whole, a well-polished and made arc, and while I did not find that the arc had any real faults in itself, the story just didn’t hook me as well as it could.

Final Verdict: An interesting take on Longbow.

3.5/5 Stars

I'd certainly be interested in a review of Glory of Moment, in my sig. Though I should mention, since you say you mostly play villians, it was written with heroes in mind (and is tagged as Heroic, obviously). That said, it hasn't seen much play, and I'd be interested to see your opinion of it.

I ran Mercytown this evening, and enjoyed it. It was a good lowbie arc, with a nice mix of humor and creepiness.

One thing I found particularly noteworthy is that the second mission is actually something you decide to go do on your own initiative, while the contact is busy with his "research". That's a nice bit of proactive villainy that you rarely see, even in the Isles. I was also very amused by the entry popup in mission 3, and what the squealers had to say.

The journal entries in mission 4 were well-written and had a good Apocalyptic Log feel to them. Combined with the dialogue from Veidt and the Duke, it added some nice gravity and Lovecraftian foreboding to what had been a pretty light arc until then. And in mission 5, of course, things get very bad indeed. (Good use of emote when Veidt is rescued again. Given his description of what happened, I don't blame him.)

I actually stopped fighting the boss at one point to take care of something more important:
"As long as the [redacted] exists..."
"You mean this [redacted]?" *takes it out, dangles it over [redacted]*
*eyes bug out* *grabs for it*
*sploosh*
(Awfully convenient to have that there, wasn't it? There was a typo in the message when the altar is destroyed, though. Better check that.)

The briefing for mission 5 was a lot of fun, and the exit popup was also very nice, though it changes tense at the end; might look at that too. And a pretty good final wrap-up. I wavered on giving this four stars for nits, but ended up awarding a full five.

Thanks for the review! Loved the photo captions.

I've posted a handful of replies in the arc's thread so as not to derail this one.

A quick update: I've edited my first post to state that I will no longer be accepting new submissions for the time being. Reason being that I already have a sizable backlog as it is, and after experiencing some of the enlightening work of others as well as critique on my own arcs, I want to put my free time into developing my own arcs again once I'm finished with my current review batch.

Consequences of War 1 & 2
ID: 227331 - 241496
Author: Dalghryn
Tags: War Drama, Rikti, Challenging

The Consequences of War is a war drama set during the Rikti War, between the Rikti’s initial strike on Earth and before Hero 1 and Vanguard devised a way to shut down their invasion for good (almost).

Your hero follows a supergroup known as the SOLUS Collective, a ragtag bunch of heroes who are just one of many groups trying to persevere against the Rikti, and together your hero experiences the events of the Rikti war such as breaking the Rikti language and the great hero base bombings.

By ragtag, I really do mean so. The SOLUS Collective actually has a hiring policy to take in those that other groups would not do so, which certainly puts a question on how your hero winds up with them. Your hero will meet the team’s leader and founder Lazon, a being of pure solar energy, their second in command Captain Superior, an eight foot tall superman-esque figure and a host of many others in their team. The team is similar to the Justice Society of America, acting as a large club that houses and trains recruits by its more veteran members, and having a family like bond.


Lazon, being of pure energy, leader of the the SOLUS Collective, and master of making everyone feel really uncomfortable as they try not to stare at his flaming crotch.

The missions competently reflect the feelings of war with the cries of commands being overheard and the bodies of the fallen that piles up as the war progresses, though there were a few cases where I thought some of the heroes were more blatantly set up for this.


Pro-tip: in a war, stay well away from the guy who can't stop talking about his wife and newborn, as that guy is marked for death.

The first half ends with your hero becoming an honorary member of the SOLUS Collective, where it is hinted at that your hero will be having a hand at reforming the SOLUS Collective after the events of the first chapter, though only just in time for when things get truly serious by the second chapter.

One thing you can say about this arc is that it is epic in both feel and length. The entire arc runs at a whopping 10 missions long, all of which are on large maps with equally large objective lists, there have certainly been a few times where I ended up taking a break because I found it to be draining.


Holy Chao, how did this guy get inside?


Not to be upstaged, Hro'Dath shows his own catflap squeezing skills.


Okay, I can at least explain the Shivan, as that came from my... pants.

The arc can be quite difficult. Rikti are usually problematic for squishies, but it was even more so when the arc throws in over-inflated ambushes for the most trivial objective completes, and has your hero going up against some of the most powerful Rikti bosses. I ended up switching to my brute from my dominator for the second arc, which made for completing the arc a considerably smoother ride. If your hero has problems soloing the RWZ arcs, then you may want to skip this unless you bring a friend.


This happened a lot.

As this arc is a war drama, expect a lot (and I do mean a lot) of heroic sacrifices. Unfortunately a lot of these occur with characters that don’t really get enough character development, or only just a bit rushed in time for their deaths to really cause a strong impact. One death in particular really stuck out, as it was made to be tearfully glorious but because it was so out of the blue, it did nothing for me when I encountered it.

The arc ends on a bittersweet note, and it's one that is only appropriate for an arc on the consequences of war.

Final Verdict: The Consequences of War does what it sets out to do and well, though I would not have said no to an abridged version.

4/5 Stars

Tangler,

Thank you, very much, for the review. As you probably know from creating your own arcs, as well as from having reviewed and played many others, the technical aspects of the MA make it difficult to find a balance between over-exposing NPC heroes and giving them enough time (and text) to make them sympathetic. I originally had yet another NPC heroine, but cut her in order to add a little more face time to the others. As it stands, I'm sitting at mid-99% on both arcs memory-wise.

It's an unfortunate fact that, due to the limits of the MA, creating well-established, three dimensional characters is very hard. Typically, the best you can do is 2 1/2 dimensional, with the hopes that they don't come across as too stereotypical. Sometimes you hit, other times... not so well.

As for the excess ambushes, I've had many people say they added depth to the feeling of war, other's have said they're overdone. From what I've read of the Rikti war (and I've read quite a bit), the odds against the heroes were, most times, astronomical. There are only a few tools in the MA that allow a creator to simulate those odds. Ambushes are one of the best. If I were certain that everyone would run it with somewhat higher difficulty setting, I'd scale back on the ambushes, but that was the only way I thought I could feel comfortable with a war simulation.

In any case, thank you, again, for your time and attention. Best of luck to you in honing yours - they're on my to do list as soon as the new baby allows.

Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears
ID: 15447
Author: Megajoule
Tags: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Drama, Heroic

Blood, Sweat, Toils and Tears is an arc where you visit an alternate Earth designated as Gamma Upsilon 28-3. In this alternate dimension, Nemesis’ original campaign to take over America was successful, and all superheroes in America have been wiped out since. You join Megajoule, a native hero from your hero’s own dimension to support the ensuing rebellion against the Nemesis forces.

You’ll meet some quirkily named characters such as an agent that goes by the codename Calender, and a Nemesis officer called Major Holliday, and there is also a rebel worker that should be a familiar face to your hero.


Calender? Major Holliday? Time to be extra vigilant for some dastardly April Fool's joke.


Beyond that though, there isn’t really much else to say about this arc. There is a definite ‘my first arc’ vibe going on with this arc, as if the author was just experimenting with some objective types, and there is even the infamous empty room that leads to an ambush setup, that was popular in the early days of MA. The missions felt quite Spartan, and could have immensely benefited with some flavour text.

This is a Nemesis arc, so to expect the unexpected twist is only to be expected, though to the author’s credit, at least the double agent’s name wasn’t an anagram for Nemesis.

The arc’s ending heavily hints of there being a sequel, but since there doesn’t seem to be one putting some closure would have been more satisfying.

Final Verdict: This arc probably fared okay in the early days of MA, but with current expectations this arc now falls short.


2.5/5 Stars

Whack A Mole
ID: 2711
Author: Bubbawheat
Tags: Solo Friendly, Moles

Usually whenever I think of the words ‘RPG’ and ‘mini-games’ together, I make these strange gurgling sounds at the back of my throat. Whack A Mole is decidedly one of the rare breeds that don’t make eating pudding while doing this exercise into a fatal combination. In fact, it’s pretty fun.


Oh a wretched hive of scum and villainy, I wonder what these scoundrels are up tAAAAGGH-

Whack A Mole is a simple enough concept. You defeat individual moles within the time limit to earn ‘tickets’ that you can ‘redeem’ for prizes later (presumably it is at this point your carnie contact gives you a nudge and a knowing wink). The beauty of the arc is in the details though, as the short time combined with the absurd task makes it a rather maniacal endeavour, kind of akin to what the Riddler would put Batman through if a clue was vaguely related to moles, or if Scarecrow decided zemmiphobia gas would be a really good idea. Your hero is bombarded with many mole related jokes as he makes his way through the game. The jokes are amusing enough, and they are thrown out with an Airplane! like flurry that even if a few miss there are plenty more that may stick.


Yes, meet Inigo Moletoya.

Through a strange twist of fate, current MA changes do not smile kindly on this arc in regards to XP adjustments, but the new changes to difficulty selection means this arc can now be tailored to suit the difficulty of almost every hero or villain.

Final Verdict: An entertaining diversion from the grind.

4/5 Stars

Wow. Also, ouch.

What can I say, other than "got it in one" on this being my first arc. (The ID number probably tipped you off too.) I've made some touch-ups to it since, but the basic arc is what I came up with back in I14's beta. My goal was simply to make something in the style of, and as good as, the official content. What I didn't realize at the time is that everyone apparently hates the official content.

I honestly don't know what else I could add. I wanted more captives (with dialogue) in the second mission, but couldn't make them fit without making the map even bigger. I don't want to bury players in clues that half of them will ever read. I don't want to (IMO) needlessly complicate the mission objectives. I don't want to put silly mood-breaking jokes in a dramatic arc; I'm already stretching it a bit with the whole Calendar/Holliday thing. (Did you read the clue you get on his defeat?)

As far as closure, I admit there isn't much besides some good done and an infiltration plot foiled. This insurgency has been going on for decades, and even with heroic help, final victory isn't going to come today or tomorrow or even next week. I hadn't planned on a sequel and certainly don't now; why follow a poor arc with another one? (If any of my arcs had an aggregate rating of 2.5, I'd probably unpublish it and never go near AE again.)

I hesitate to ask any more of you, but could you offer any advice, or have a look at my other arc when you get the time? I hope you'd like it better; response up to now has been generally positive.