Criticism is 'Serious Business' - ID 339200

Hello all, it's been a fair long while since I took down my two Storyland In Danger! arcs, declaring that I could do better.

I've had an idea playing round in my head since I bought CoH back in July 2004 and, well, I've 'written' it in the form of a medium-sized MA arc.

It needs a lot of criticism of the constructive kind, feedback, group/solo testing and so I decided to bite the bullet and publish it in its first draft form.

I am aware that it is not finished so if you want to rate it as well as test play it then feel free, although I will probably be taking it down and publishing again once I've had the feedback and made any changes, added bits or taken them away.

If you find that after you've played it there's just too darned much info you need to give to me and not enough space in the feedback box then PM me and I will hand out my email address.

I really like, in a very subjective way, what I've done so far in terms of story but knowing how I wrote the last arcs there are bound to be glaring plot holes or inconsistencies that my tired eyes just cannot see.

Please be gentle

Oooh, you are back! It was a shame that you deleted those first arcs in the first place but I will be checking down this arc for certain!

Welcome back AP.

It's a shame you pulled those arc down, but I'll definitely try and get some time to have a look at this.

Cheers

I've found my villainous groove this time. I just hope I haven't gone too far with the gory details - although I think a certain man by the name of Westin Phipps has had a profound effect on me!

There is news so this is not an official bump!

I have worked on the (new) final mission of Serious Business and have made a few changes to the previous missions. I think I've suffered a bit from poor timing as now the Hallowe'en events are underway I am guessing people have less time/desire to test arcs as opposed to review full-fledged ones.

I have encountered one major problem however - I edited the published mission but saved it as a separate file so that the published version remains intact. Is there a quick and easy way to integrate my changes into the published arc without having to unpublish and republish, getting a new Arc ID number?

Sorry for the very late reply, the MA comp has kept me busy. :/

Played it solo on my lvl 30 Dom as +1 lvl w/ bosses and the difficulty seems fine.

You might want to look at reworking your objective placements, I found all the targets in the 1st mish on the first floor, all the glowies in the 2nd mish before reaching the end (but I did check the back just in case and noticed the optional boss), and also I ran past the bomb placement (pre-clickable) before I met Collins, I think it would be better if you put the bomb ahead of the map from Collins.

I found it odd that the Crey hostages you capture in mish 1 acted well, non-dastardly immoral as they are usually portrayed. Granted it should be expected that Crey should have a few legitimate front companies, or at least a few honest employees who just don't know they work for an evil company, but I think it would be good if you could mention that these are honest employees in order to make their dialogue more believable.

Oh, and it isn't complete! I noticed no souvenir either, so I'm not sure if you're planning to add more afterward onto the arc or if you're going to make this a two-parter. I would try and stick to a single arc would be my advice, as I notice interest to play the 2nd part of any multi-part arc to significantly drop in plays no matter how good.

That said, you wrote asking for constructive criticism, and that's all I can come up with really. The arc is on the whole very well written and funny, with nice touches such as Longbow actually using civvies for their recon and the villain's initiative for bomb planting and general villainy. There are also the interesting hints of their being something much darker beneath the surface, so I for one will at least be looking forward to seeing how this ends.

Edit: Oh, and I loved the nerve stapling reference.

I've been meaning to update this and work on the arc again but haven't had the time.

Cheers for the constructive feedback Tangler.

Hopefully I'll be able to work on it again soon using your advice, preferably before the badge grind of Xmas is upon us!

The below was written before seeing this thread:

With Serious Business, it felt...unfinished...which is disappointing since it was enjoyable and felt like it was building up. If it is a 2 part arc, it should be stated as such, otherwise there should be another mish or two for closure.

While I like that you seemed to be trying to make the missions short and to the point, Mission 2 could stand to have more in it. Possibly have a named boss the player has to fight for the "password" and have the computer deactivated until then.

While I think I'm forgetting something, I don't remember any typos and I liked the contact. However, you might want to say you are paying for each mission rather than at the end since these are villains.