Healthcare Nightmare! - 345379

This was my first stab at a Mission and I went a little nuts. Feedback would definately be appreciated!

I decided to take a page from current US politics and do something based on the scaremongering claims of those against the Universal Healthcare bill. Tried to plant my tongue firmly in my cheek and have fun with it.

Anyhow, like I say - any feedback welcome. Designing missions = tricky business!

Thanks!

Just a note for posting your arc. Follow this structure;

Arc Name:
Arc I.D:
Morality:
Level Range:
Length/Number of Missions:
Description:

Arc Name: Healthcare Nightmare!
Arc I.D: 345379
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-54
Length/Number of Missions: Long, 4 missions
Description: President Obanga and the Washington liberals are trying to pass their healthcare bill, but something just doesn't seem right. How can the government run healthcare? Who is going to pay for all this? As a true American, it's your duty to uncover what's REALLY going on!

Thanks for the ingame feedback I've gotten already everyone. Clearly, my n00b is showing. I've fixed a few of the obvious stuff like reducing some of the map sizes and setting bosses to auto-spawn. I'll work on stuff like character bios as I go.

One thing that surprised me were the number of people who suggested I avoid political humour or satire. Where is the fun in that?

Anyhow - again, thanks all. Hopefully my next one will avoif some of these obvious pitfalls.

I could have sworn I played that one (maybe there was a similar one?) a while ago, but I'll look into it soon.

My thoughts: Great arc!

When I heard it was a political satire and was based on American politics I was turned off because I'm not a fan of politics and was afraid I wouldn't get the "in-jokes" of the American political world, being Irish and all, but I was pleasantly surprised!

The costume design was very well executed and the dialog was quite humorous.

The arc was based on a solid story, which was entertaining and very light-hearted. Coming from me, that's a good thing, considering I tend to opt out of most comedic arcs as they can either be poorly or brilliantly executed.

One thing I will say is good zombie design. I'm sick and tired of being told I'm fighting zombies to see the Zombie Pre-set costume, but you actually changed that around which definately bumped your score up.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Karl Marx so I was forced to quit the arc so I'm not sure of the ending, but I gave it 4 Stars

All you need is more variety in the Custom Group's powers and more side-objectives like Patrols and maybe an Ambush or two.
Also, Boss spawns not set as necessary for completion are good sources of dialog and humour

**** and well deserved IMO. Nice first job!

....

Political stuff is bad, mmkay?

Hiya, i was one of the people who played this arc today. I hadn't read this thread here on the forums, so i just want to give a quick bit of additional feedback..


The main thing that went wrong for me when i was playing this arc was that i didnt get the fact that it was supposed to be sarcastic. I really thought that Uncle Sam represented the voice of the author, so it came off in a totally different way to me. The thing is, there are people out there who really believe all of that scaremongering stuff and it felt like an arc written from that perspective as opposed to an arc just making fun of it. Still i think the best way to do this story is by satirizing unbiasedly, that way the player of the arc wont get confused and take it the wrong way..

I thought that it was written from a certain perspective and because of that it made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

Sure i wouldn't mind laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the claims people have made in politics this year, but i didnt realize that was the intention. It felt like the arc was posing those claims again in seriousness, and that the player was intended to get enjoyment out of heroicly saving the country from "the liberals".

It seems like having a bit more of a neutral voice would help-- i mean, tailoring the arc in such a way that both players who agree, and players who disagree with whatever is contained within it can still have fun while playing.

Or maybe a disclaimer in the description- "not to be taken seriously." Would help.
cause that's what i did, I was taking it seriously, and that was literally making me feel nauseous. No offense, i guess i'm just sensitive to some things.

well hope the feedback from today was helpful.

I suppose I just view a lot of the criticisms I was satirizing in the mission as laughable at face value, and thus didn't need a disclaimer or explanation. I guess we up here in Canada forget sometimes that there are people down there who actually believe this stuff. We're quite fond of our socialism up here, by the way

I think for my next mission I'll focus on something a little less divisive. Maybe same-sex marriage!

KIDDING.

I think it would have been much better if you had set the arc in the CoX-verse. You could have had it be about people who don't like the idea of using Rikti technology to save lives by teleporting people to hospitals where they are instantly regenerated and in some cases even brought back to life - all thanks to the so called "Universe Health Care" stolen from the alien invaders. (Yes, everyone knows Rikti are aliens. From space. Shush.) And instead of having [spoiler] risen from the dead to show up at the end you could have the mastermind behind the plot be some kind of nasty evil alien Rikti.

While a healthcare story in CoX would be interesting, I don't think his arc needs that. The main thing is that it needs the "why so serious?" disclaimer and to fix the actual mechanical errors. Perhaps not acuse liberals directly since you are poking fun at the situation as a whole rather than specific parties.

My thing is that even if a particular storyline is disliked, there's a place for numerous different types of Architects in the AE.

When I say "better" I mean "funnier" and when I say "I think" I mean "I think". So it's just my personal taste - everything's better with canon-related, in my opinion.

I'll put a disclaimer in the description, but I'm still a little amazed that I would need to. I mean, the story depicts [SPOILER] a US politician using universal healthcare legislation to turn voters into zombies in an attempt to destroy democracy. Do I REALLY need to state that this is satire?