Yet another review thread

I've been running a ton of MA arcs lately for more or less no reason, so I figured hey, I might as well start posting reviews. I'd like some attention for my own arcs, but really I'm not desperate (Astoria in D Minor is my big one and it's already pretty well known with 250+ rates), so this isn't a QPQ required thread but if you give feedback on any of my arcs then it's a good way to get yourself bumped up the queue. Ignition of the Machine and Captain Skylark etc. especially could use some feedback (My other two arcs are marked "Final" so while I do still change them occasionally I'm already pretty happy with how they are).

If you do plan to run my arcs, for some reason they all got tagged as being made by "Firanima" instead of my global (Firanima is the character I use to edit MA arcs - apparently they've changed how authors are registered recently), so if you have trouble finding them just use the numbers in my signature instead of trying to search my global.

Anyway, review related stuff:

-There will be spoilers in these reviews. If you don't want your arc spoiled don't request a review, and if you don't want an arc spoiled for you, don't read the review.

-I'm a harsh rater but a lenient critic - I don't much care if you tell me what I'm thinking, I don't care if you take my character away from me, I don't care if I'm not the central character in the story - So long as there's a good REASON for any of those things to be done. I consider an arc "good" if it seems to accomplish what it set out to do, rather than whether I personally like it - that said if I absolutely loathe an arc don't expect me to rate it too highly just because you claim "Oh well it was meant to be obscenely difficult."

-"For a good reason" is pretty much my design mantra. If you throw in AVs all over the place I'm going to ask "Why didn't you use EBs or bosses instead?" If you add in a ton of one-shot characters that don't really add anything interesting to the plot, I'm going to ask why they're there at all (One-shot characters aren't a sin in and of themselves, it's just they have to make an impression in their one appearance or they really aren't meaningful). If you use a custom group that story-wise represents a faction of an existing villain group, I'm going to ask why you didn't just customize that particular villain group.

-I will most likely write reviews in Stream of Consciousness mode, but with a summary of thoughts at the end. I'm not a particularly amusing writers so I'll try to write my reviews in a mostly educational format - they aren't really meant as recommendations for players so much as for authors - obviously they'll be most useful to the author of the relevant arc, but I'll try to discuss general design principles relevant to each one (Note that I'm not a designer, nor do I have any formal education in design, so take my information for what it's worth. I just read a lot of information and like to think I've got a good eye for that sort of thing).

-I'm planning to run a lot of these on default difficulty with my fire/fire/fire blaster since I care more about story than about difficulty. That said, if the arc is meant to be a challenge arc, say so when you post it and I'll give it a run on my scrapper at +1,x1,+bosses. If I still can't do it on my scrapper, expect comments about it being too difficult (I won't complain about difficulty if I run it on my blaster though - I'm running a blaster, I already KNOW I'm gonna die). I'm running the arcs solo so don't request team arcs and then complain that I tried to solo them - because I just TOLD you I'm going to solo them.

-I have a soft spot for psychological horror and mindscrew stories - I'll try not to play favorites but I like what I like. That said, there aren't many horror stories I've played in MA that I really feel have been done well, and a poorly done horror story is a good way to lose points, so trying to pander might backfire on you.

-On the other side, I've got a pet peeve for origin stories. I won't say they're ALL bad, it's just, you have to sell me your character; don't expect me to be interested in your character just because the story is about them, you still have to make them interesting. A good example of a well done origin story are the Turg Fiction arcs (Which I don't think are strictly an origin story since I don't know if that's actually one of his characters - but they're written in a similar fashion to most origin stories).

-Oh yeah, I also really suck at remembering to take screenshots, so the reviews will be mainly text.

Ratings breakdown (Note: I'm not going to assign star ratings to arcs anymore - I think they distract from the reason I'm doing these reviews. That said I'll leave the old ones up for "Legacy" purposes):

5 stars (1 awarded so far) - This arc blew me away. Don't expect me to award this too often.
4 stars (2 awarded so far) - This arc was really good. If I think an arc is very well done but not quite "Something special", it gets 4 stars.
3 stars (5 awarded so far) - Average/Good but with issues. A 3 star rating could be a potential 4 if the arc just needs cleaning up. A note about what I mean by "Average" - a lot of arcs are bad. Like, really really bad. So "Average" doesn't mean "Average compared to every arc on the MA". It means "What the average for MA arcs SHOULD be". It's not "great", but don't take it as "Your arc is no better than most of the crap on the MA." That's what 1 star means.
2 stars (0 awarded so far) - Below average/Good Potential but needs a lot of work. 2 stars means some serious re-writes are needed but the arc isn't quite a lost cause. See the "3 stars" description for what I mean by "Average". If you put obvious effort into your arc, even if it's a mess and needs a lot of work done, you get 2 stars as a minimum.
1 star (0 awarded so far) - I hated hated hated hated hated hated hated this arc. I won't give this one out a lot either - it's reserved for arcs that scream "You basically put no effort into this" or "You really need to work on the fundamentals of writing and design".

Review Queue:
Loyalty to an Emperor I: Proving Your Worth - 341671
City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon? - 18775
Task Force Mutternacht - 349522

Anyway, feel free to request arcs for review - though please request them in this thread because I often don't notice I've gotten a PM until several days later. I might occasionally run a review of a non-requested arc but only if something struck me as an exceptional example of a good arc (I won't tear apart a bad arc if it's not requested because that's just mean really - that said, by requesting an arc you make yourself fair game).

Feel free to review my arc if you like.

Of Sound Body and Mind, Arc ID: #13107 by @Mr. Mud

Please do check out Mercytown, as it does have some light horror in the arc.

I've been meaning to check out Tomorrownaughts ever since I saw the thread title for it.

Feel free to try any of the arcs in my signature. They're pretty challenging, but I managed to solo them on my Katana/Willpower Scrapper.

Of Sound Body and Mind
ID: 13107
Author: Uppercut

I've run this one in the past but it was a while ago so I'm giving it another go.

Thoughts as I go along:

Mission 1:
-The line "Most likely, Frank didn't either." seems almost like it implies "Adult onset shiv-in-the-gut" or "The kind of cancer that comes from lead poisoning in the back of the head". I think it would be funnier to leave out the line about hating doctors and just leave that kind of in the air (Or maybe I'm the only one that finds prison brutality funny...).
-Good writing on the contact and very good use of formatting. A lot of people seem to forget they can colour text and end up having very dull looking contact dialogue, or they have the opposite problem and create a garish mess of colour everywhere. This one lies nicely in the middle of using colour to highlight important text but not going overboard.
-Good job on Knuckles, he matches the Freak look dead on - though that raises the question of why not just use one of the standard freak mobs. Still, being a short arc I suppose space isn't really an issue so customs probably aren't a big deal.

Mission 2:
-You could probably use standard family for Goodfella's goons, they look identical. Goodfella himself is fine as a custom though, since he stands out nicely with the "Huge" model.
-Vegas and his mobs have a nice uniform look to them - very 70's.
-See the comment about Goodfella for Snakeeyes - you could just use custom recoloured family for his goons and it would probably work the same.
-I suppose I'm starting to sound anti-custom mob at this point, so I should just clarify that none of these are really a PROBLEM, it's just that with standard mob groups they're already balanced for you, while customs are always kind of hit or miss. This goes back to my "Everything needs a good reason" thing.
-The pacing is well done so far. The missions are just big enough to accommodate their objectives without feeling too large or too small. This is a point a lot of people seem to have trouble with.

Mission 3:
-I suppose having Henry betray you was inevitable, but it does seem a little bit stupid for him to do - you've already proven that you can handle a freak armed with the fists no problem, as well as the leaders of every rival gang, so why would a lawyer pose a threat to you? I guess the arc needed a final boss but it still seems somewhat thrown in.

Summary

This was a good arc to start my review thread on since I think it's a solid example of what I consider a 4 star arc.

The contact is well written and consistent (Up until that end bit, anyway), good use of formatting and custom bosses, though the custom groups to go with them strike me as a bit unnecessary except for Vegas's (Since you can't really recolour family into a zombie mobster very well), and the arc, while short, was entertaining enough to hold my attention. It didn't make me go "Wow, that arc was INCREDIBLE", but it's a very good example of what I think should be the "standard" for arc design.

I kind of wish I had more to say, but I guess the one problem with starting on a "standard" arc is there's not really too much to comment on. It's solid both technically and artistically, and while it would probably outstay its welcome if it ran longer, it works well as a short arc.

Always good to see another reviewer show up. I personally think that threads like these help me immensely with my writing when I submit my arcs, so I'm willing to throw my hat in here with my arc, the Rikti Accession (Shown in my signature). I sincerely hope you enjoy it, although there are some plot points in it that are bugging me now since they've been brought up by some recent reviews. Hopefully, I can fix them before you get to it but if not....well, it's gotten generally favorable reviews so far so I hope you like it regardless!

I'll see if I can play Ignition of the Machine at some point, since stories about robots tend to be fun.

Mercytown: The One With All The Fish
ID: 6017
Author: @Frija

Man, you guys already have like 300 plays, do you REALLY still need reviews? Ah well, gives me something to do.

Thoughts as I go along:

Mission 1:
-Good characterization on the contact, it could use a bit more formatting though - at least the title and subtitle could stand to be set to a different colour than white.
-This is totally unrelated to your arc but I just have to say I love that I still get to keep powers at +5 levels above my exemp level. Lowbie arcs used to be so painful.
-Maybe reword the objective for this one - I took down about 10 Coralax before finding the "Specimen". What was wrong with those ones exactly?

Mission 2:
-Is it the cyborg marshmallows or the 3rd term thing that was controversial? I never understand you Americans.

Mission 3:
-I like the intro popup for this one.
-The mission seemed to spawn a hell of a lot more Hellion Girlfriends for me than actual Hellions - are they both in the same group or all the Hellions manually placed spawns? It might be a good idea to consolidate the Hellions into the Hellion Rave group so the spawns are a bit more varied.
-The different Squealers are good to keep this mission interesting.

Mission 4:
-Somehow I managed to rescue Henry without even seeing him. So I can't comment on his model since I don't even know if he was custom or not.
-There seems to be an awful lot of journals unaccounted for considering the ones you do find seem to describe events in relatively close succession.
-Since the book is meant to be driving people insane, this map might get a bit more atmosphere if you threw in a couple of hellion vs. hellion battles, representing the crazy ones turning on the sane ones.

Mission 5:
-I'm going to be disappointed now if I don't run into a squad of Russians looking to get their submarine back.
-The Leviathan caves might be a better choice for this map than the Cimerora caves - Though I'm not 100% if those are an option or not so if they don't even exist just ignore this.
-It seems kind of a waste to have VV have a custom model in the 2nd mission and then just end up as a standard coralax minion in the last. Instead of having her be one of the mobs guarding Henry, maybe make her into a unique boss spawn with a "Coralized" version of her look from mission 2? It would make her a bit more interesting.
-A "<br>" shows up in the text when you destroy the altar. You can't use formatting in those fields, not even line breaks.
-The bombs can probably be set to "Fades in" (I'm assuming this was made before that was an option) since you're meant to be planting them.
-The bombs and acid barrel, and final boss, and altar ALL spawned in the same room. Maybe that's just a really, really odd coincidence, but if they're all set to "Back", consider maybe setting the bombs to "Any" to spread them out a bit more.
-There weren't any Russians! You should put some in as the payoff to the "Don't ask where I got the submarine" line from the intro.
-The reference to "Chinatown" doesn't really fit the tone of the arc, to be honest. It's a villain arc so I'm not really expected to care about the fate of the Veidts anyway.

Summary

I was kind of on the fence about the rating on this one, on the one hand it was technically strong and the contact writing was well done, but on the other hand it just struck me as being kind of... dull. I ended up giving it 3 stars but it could be 4 with some work (Or even 5 but you'd have to REALLY change the tone for me to want to give it 5 stars and that's probably more work than it's worth - I'm just one reviewer out of 300+ raters).

I think the main trouble is the arc is kind of inconsistent about what kind of arc it wants to be. On the one hand it's got obvious comedy elements with the contact dialogue and some of the clues, but on the other hand it seems to be going for a sort of cosmic horror approach with the book and the Coralax. The trouble is these two elements don't mesh very well - you can't really do serious horror if you keep cracking jokes, and likewise the comedy ends up being hurt when the arc tries to take a more serious direction.

Based on what I felt running the arc I think the comedic direction is probably the one to go with this one, and it probably wouldn't take too much work to take it there: For the people going "Insane", you could crank up their crazy to 11 until it just becomes a parody of elder god inspired madness, and with a bit more characterization the Veidts could be funny as well (Just a thought, but could have Henry be a sort of clueless archeologist type who doesn't really realize the danger of the book he dug up but casually notes that everyone working with him keeps having horrible "accidents"). These are just some random thoughts, you don't really have to do those things exactly, but I think it would help the arc if you picked either straight horror or straight comedy rather than trying to straddle them both.

I'll offer up The Descender, ID: 261925. I actually published this story a long time ago, but took it down once I finished my 3-Part mega arc The Lost Choir (Which I will not ask you to review. Its got enough plays as it is.) Once purchasable arc slots came out though, I put it back up. However, it has not received a single play since then.

Hey thanks for the review, regarding some of your comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat Man, you guys already have like 300 plays, do you REALLY still need reviews? Ah well, gives me something to do.

Normally I would submit my Malta one as it only has 40 plays, but it's still in need of a fairly big overhaul.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat -The mission seemed to spawn a hell of a lot more Hellion Girlfriends for me than actual Hellions - are they both in the same group or all the Hellions manually placed spawns? It might be a good idea to consolidate the Hellions into the Hellion Rave group so the spawns are a bit more varied.

They're all in one group, but sometimes the gfs just spawn more than the regular Hellions themselves. It's luck of the draw really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat -The Leviathan caves might be a better choice for this map than the Cimerora caves - Though I'm not 100% if those are an option or not so if they don't even exist just ignore this.

Oh trust me, the Leviathan cave is not the the better choice. In fact, there is no reason why you should ever make players go through that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat -The bombs and acid barrel, and final boss, and altar ALL spawned in the same room. Maybe that's just a really, really odd coincidence, but if they're all set to "Back", consider maybe setting the bombs to "Any" to spread them out a bit more.

Sounds like another zany coincidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat -There weren't any Russians! You should put some in as the payoff to the "Don't ask where I got the submarine" line from the intro.

The punchline is somewhat hidden in the text when you do 'ask' where he got the submarine from in the unsolicited contact speech bit. He'll push you to hurry it up before Longbow find out they're minus one sub.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Cheshire_Cat -The reference to "Chinatown" doesn't really fit the tone of the arc, to be honest. It's a villain arc so I'm not really expected to care about the fate of the Veidts anyway.

I understand if you didn't buy into their fates. As for not caring because you're a villain, I guess it really depends on your villain's personality.

My latest arc can use some reviewing.

#338575: The Tangled Weave
Level 5-10
Learn more about how Arachnos works behind the scenes in the Rogue Isles to make Project Destiny come into fruition. You will revisit some familiar events, or events leading up to them, from a slightly different angle.

The arc was designed to be played as a VEAT, as part of a project to complement/replace the lacking VEAT epic arcs. Just keep that in mind if you play it with another type of AT.

If you feel like playing Something Comes to Yarmouth (arc #58812) that'd be spiffy.

The Rikti Accession
ID: 278757
Author: @Mekkanos

Just a random note: Accession is kind of a weird word. Maybe it will make more sense by the time I finish the arc, but maybe another word might be more fitting?

Thoughts as I go along

Mission 1:
-It's kind of funny that the contact description describes them as "Fairly open-minded" but they spend the M1 intro blasting all the new ideas of the Restructurists. Though I suppose "Open-minded" is relative.
-Good setup of the premise, by the way. The contact is a bit wordy but it's always safer to assume that the player doesn't know anything about the Rikti rather than assuming they already know all the lore and risking them being totally lost if they don't.
-Good custom for the "Heretic". Normally I would say you could just use a customized standard Rikti, but I'm assuming based on the description that they look "off" on purpose.

Mission 2:
-The map choice is fitting for this one but the objectives are pretty vague - there's Vanguard Soldiers all over the place so it's not clear that you're meant to find a named one. The Scientist also spawned in right in the middle of the guns, so while I managed to find him that objective probably would have completed itself if I was on foot instead of flying.
-Rhodes dialogue in the clue is well-characterized - though it seems to heavily imply that I'm going to have to fight him later. If not, well then it's fine, but if so you might want to re-word it so it doesn't telegraph it QUITE so much.
-Just a slight comment on the premise of the arc: Human/Rikti hybrids are nothing new to the Rikti - putting aside the Rikti backstory for the moment, there's still the Lost. Maybe put more emphasis on the fact that they're SUPERhuman/Rikti hybrids rather than just the standard kind that makes them so different?

Mission 3:
-Just a comment on the contact writing: It's a bit dry. That's in character for a Rikti but it does make it kind of dull to read the huge amounts of text it throws at you - editing it down some might help speed up the pacing of the arc a bit.

Mission 4:
-Tk'Lankah seems to have forgotten she has a mark 3 translator.
-Hro'Drotz ended up spawning right next to the Rikti computer, so he wasn't particularly "Optional". However he wasn't really much of a problem with the ally and inspirations. He doesn't really seem like he NEEDS to be in the mission at all, other than you felt that the arc needed an AV (It doesn't, really).
-Aaaand I called it.

Mission 5:
-Tk'Lankah being disconnected takes away some of the drama from this mission - I'd say she SHOULD be connected. It would make the "Help him or stop him" choice a bit more conflicted for the player because they actually know a character that would be affected by it.
-Good use of the fleeing mechanic for giving the player a choice - the map size is kind of large and with all the battles going on it's possible for Rhodes to be killed by an NPC before he makes it out though (For the record I just rooted him and took him out).

Summary:

My overall score on this one is sort of a 3.5 which I rounded up to a 4 (I don't always round up, BTW. It's just closer to a 4 than a 3 for me). The arc was well written and the themes were solid, although somewhat understated (There's a lot of potential for an interesting examination of the merits of the traditionalist vs. restructurist viewpoints, and contrasting that against the conservative viewpoint of Sgt. Rhodes with a Liberal viewpoint character who doesn't exist in the arc in its current form).

The reason I call it a 3.5 instead of a straight 4 is because while technically solid, I found the arc a bit dull. There wasn't a lot of real dramatic tension going on since there aren't very many characters to really give the story a more "Human" impact. It kind of suffers from the usual problem of a typical "Save the World" plot in that yeah, saving the world is important... but it doesn't really make me CARE. People just aren't capable of really feeling the impact of something on that huge a scale so you need to get them attached to something more local, like a particularly likable or interesting character (Or a particularly detestable character as the villain), if you want them to really feel the importance of what they're doing. There were also some pacing issues as I mentioned in my thoughts as I ran it, the contact has a LOT to say but says it all in a very "Expository" fashion, which gets the info across but doesn't really draw the reader into the story at all.

Hang on, I wanted to polish up The Descender a bit before you reviewed it, and I ended up unpublishing it. Give me a few here to get it back up.

The Descender
ID: 339222
Author: @Mr Squid

Just a quick note looking at the mission summary: There are some level range issues. If this makes sense in the context of the story, okay, but there's usually not a good reason for that. Might want to fix that up.

Thoughts as I go along

Mission 1:
-Mako is missing a contact description - you could probably just copy/paste his canon description in here unless you want something specific to the story.
-This is just a quick style note, but usually the titles in the NavBar look better without periods.
-Ow! These mobs hurt! Though it might be because I'm on my blaster. If it gets too painful I'll swap to my scrapper.
-Custom group comment: Am I supposed to know who the Virtea are by this point? If not, ignore this, but if so you might want to explain it somewhere. The power mix is good but visually there isn't a lot to distinguish the different minion types - maybe change their colours up a bit to make it easier to spot the "High threat" targets at a glance.
-This map is AWFULLY big for only one objective - I guess it fits the setting but there's probably a smaller choice that would still work. Or maybe throw in some more objectives to get some use out of all that space.

Mission 2:
-Yeah, based on how the Virtea are being discussed, there should probably be some clue in the first mission that gives a very brief introduction to them - how does my character even know what they're called to describe them to Mako? They yell "For the Virtea" but there's no indication that they're talking about themselves.
-Objective text needs rewording here - "9 Find some info on the Virtea" should be something like "9 more pieces of info to find on the Virtea".... Also ditch the period in the "Required" objective so they'll automatically consolidate and read "10 more pieces of info to find" rather than "Find some info on the Virtea., 9 Find some info on the Virtea"
-Sort of the opposite problem of the last mission - I found 5 glowies in the same room on this one (One of which was the required one so I didn't even have to go past halfway in the map). You could probably halve the number of "Red Herring" glowies in the mission.

Mission 3:
-So I have my own private army of fish people who think I'm a god, eh? This is getting interesting.
-I'm not usually a fan of throwing in an AV this early in an arc, but at least it's somewhat mitigated by giving me 3 boss allies to help.
-Private army of fish people is good, but awakening the Leviathan is probably a bad thing. I mean yeah, the world isn't great but I kind of live here.

Mission 4:
-Ew, 3 shaper clones? Calystix is one of the most pain in the *** AVs to fight, and finding the Khan on a map this huge is a pain as well.
-Consider maybe changing the Khan's /regen to something else - the AI is REALLY stupid with fast healing and tends to pop it on the first enemy it spots, rather than saving it for when it actually needs it.
-As I figured would happen, the Khan got dropped by the 2nd Shaper, leaving me to solo the last one. I managed to get him with liberal inspiration use but they're still a pain.

Mission 5:
-Ah, okay I get the level range thing now - though given that everything else levels up with me, I don't actually feel any more powerful - suggestion: Use the "Ramp up" or "Back-loaded" level range options to have the mission start with some weakling mobs for you to beat up.
-It's nice that at least the premise runs to its logical conclusion - it would be silly NOT to end the arc without me wiping out the Rogue Isles.

Summary

Originally I was looking at giving this arc a 2 but it ended up better towards the end so I bumped it up to a 3. It's not a bad arc, it's just really rough - it's got the potential for 4 stars with some easy cleanup - some formatting issues with objectives and some odd choices for objectives but those are easy things to fix. I'd also suggest changing the contact to something other than Captain Mako since you stop talking to him around the end of mission 2, so something relevant to the entire arc might make more sense.

One thing I think could make the arc more interesting is if you played up the theme of the fact that your character is being a "False Prophet". The shapers comment on this a bit but what you could do is have an objective where you need to silence some Virtea who claim maybe you aren't their savior - that would feel more "Villainous" in my mind. If you wanted to get really subversive you could also have to silence some alternate people claiming to be "Descenders" after they hear about what's happened to you - sparking a whole holy war for your own personal ambition.

Mission 4 in its current incarnation just feels unnecessary - it's a giant map with a couple EBs and an ally but it doesn't really move the plot forward any - the EBs could easily be replaced with standard Coralax bosses in mission 3 (Which would help fill that map up some as well) with the same or similar dialogue.

Note: While I was running this the author took down the arc and had difficulty republishing it - he's since republished after having read my review of the version I ran, so the arc that's now live isn't the arc I reviewed exactly. I'm leaving the review up because even if it no longer applies to the arc in question design principles and ideas are always helpful - if I have the time I may give it another run for a re-review.

Also, I would like to note that if you feel your arc still needs work, don't submit it for review. I know you want to get early in the queue but I expect that when you're confident enough in your arc to submit it for review, you're happy with the level of polish you've put into it - "Obviously needs work done" is a good way to lose stars so if YOU feel that the arc still needs work, how do you think I'm going to feel?

*Edit* That said, if you submitted an arc you thought was done but spot a major, arc-breaking bug, just post here and I'll bump it down the queue to give you time to fix it.

Quick non-solicited review on an arc I liked quite a lot:

One Million Eyes
ID: 71933
Author: @minimalist (Currently listed in-game as authored by Cartesian Duelist)

No stream of consciousness on this one since it's just a mini-review.

Summary:

5 stars. This is a perfect example of what constitutes a "5 star" arc to me - it takes a very smart premise, combines it with great writing and formatting, and it actually made me CARE about where the story went. It also achieves the very difficult balancing act of being both comedy and drama, so while I don't recommend attempting that if you don't have the chops for it, this is a good example of how to do it.

Now, I don't know the Crey backstory too well, so I'm not sure how well this story arc's version of Countess Crey meshes with the canonical version, but from a self-contained perspective it makes her very interesting. The clues are a bit blunt about how you're supposed to feel about her, but they're well-written enough and they aren't the ONLY source you get on her personality, more of a summary of what you've already seen. The contact writing is also very funny, perfectly capturing the feel of the whole "Social Networking" community in a couple thousand letters.

Really, my only gripe is that the connection between Malta and Crey isn't too well explained within the story - there's some brief mention of how they connected but it's still kind of vague by the end. It's a small dark spot on an otherwise excellent arc though, and not enough to make me want to award it less points.

To be honest, while each individual element is well done and they blend together excellently, it's the FEEL of this arc that makes me want to award it 5 stars, and that's usually the only thing that makes me give out 5s - 5 star arcs, to me, have that special, intangible quality that makes you want to tell other people "You have to play this arc".

Phew, got it figured out. Turns out all I had to do was remove a patrol from mission 3 (although it would have been nice if the game TOLD ME THAT ). I implemented most of the changes you suggested, including telling players what the Virtea are (they are mentioned in canon, but only ever here.) As well as removing the 3 AV's from mission four (I replaced them with bosses, and gave them all dispersion bubbles so you could find them easier).

ID is now 339222, but you don't have to play through it again.

I'd like for you to give'The Long Road Back' a try if you have the time. I rather enjoyed Astoria in D Minor and I'd like to see what you think of mine. The mission ID is 338602.