Dr. Aeon's Challenge: A Player's Perspective

While not inspired to create an arc for the first two Dr. Aeon's Challenges, I was intrigued by the overall concept and was looking for a new project fore reviewing. So I decided to start playing through the challenge arcs and writing my own thoughts and feedback for them. I have been reviewing them at how well they accomplish their own challenge goal, as well as how they are as a whole, regardless of the contest. There will be spoilers in this thread, so don't read if you don't want to be spoiled. Also, thanks to Hammerstar and Tangler for collecting a list of the first challenge entries so I didn't have to.

The First Challenge: "Evil for the Greater Good"
A Penny For Your Thoughts ID# 348691 - Reviewed (Dev Choiced)
A Tangle in Time ID# 2622 - Reviewed... a while ago
Clan Destiny ID# 349053 - Mini-reviewed
Cloudy With a Chance of Zombies ID# 352369
The Cost of One Life... ID# 350641
Curing the Castaways ID# 352723
Diversionary Tactics ID# 347791
Evil By Inches ID# 349967 - Reviewed
For All the Wrong Reasons ID# 351572 - Reviewed
Judge, Jury and Crimson ID# 352363 - Reviewed
Nevermore ID# 352030
One Too Many Lines Crossed ID# 347205 - Reviewed
Operation: Charybdis ID# 346845 - Reviewed
Out of Place ID# 350577 - Winner, Reviewed
Purification ID# 352381 - Reviewed (Dev Choiced)
Task Force Mutternacht ID# 349522 - Reviewed
The Greater Good ID# 350877 - Reviewed
The Union of the Mask ID# 352400 - Reviewed
Turg Fiction: IX ID# 351787 - Reviewed
When the Bough Breaks ID# 345863

The Second Challenge: "A Super Loses Their Power"
Bad Voodoo #373659 by BeyondReach
Dereliction of Duty #373571 by Dying Breath
A Heartbreak Breaking Story #378511 by Arctic Princess (Dev Choiced)
A Hero in Need... Is a Friend indeed! #375018 by Wrong Number
Holding Down the Fort #379065 by LaserJesus
Night Calls The Weaver #375420 by Sister Twelve - Winner
Outbroken #379017 by Airhead
Past Echoes Tomorrow #379399 by ArbiterFabulous
Possession #379393 by ArwenDarkblade
The Return of Doctor Null #379045 by PeterPeter
The Spider Without Fangs #379248 by TheDeepBlue
Storming Citadel #379488 by MrCaptainMan
Suppression #374481 by ArrowRose
To Dream of Nothing #374644 by Zaphir
To Save a Hero #373341 by Smash Zone
Too Clever by Half #378944 by Samuraiko
Two Tickets to Westerly #374002 by PoliceWoman (Dev Choiced)
Unfair Trade #373846 by Lazarus
A Wake for Dead 6 #379160 by Clave Dark 5

The Third Challenge: "Going Rogue"

Arena #456200 by FredrikSvanberg - Reviewed
The Cave #459590 by Tangler - Reviewed
A Clone of Your Own? #453091 by Bubbawheat - Reviewed by GlaziusF
Duplicity #85847 by Soul Storm - Reviewed
The Icari #458576 by Mirror Man - Reviewed
Interdimensional Headache #459592 by @Nebulhym - Reviewed
Kill or Cure #459581 by Samuraiko - Reviewed
Legacy of a Rogue #459586 by Liquid - Reviewed
Papers and Paychecks #298290 by PoliceWoman - Reviewed
Repercussions #458165 by TsumijuZero
Rogue Transmission #456663 by Shadestorm
Shattered Psyche #459601 by K'aji
The Sinister Song #454892 by Ashcraft - Reviewed
Splintered Shields #253991 by Venture - Reviewed
Turg Fiction: IX ID# 351787 - Reviewed (for first challenge)
Unfair Trade #373846 by Lazarus - Reviewed
The Vengeful Heart #454861 by @Jinkobi - Reviewed
A Very Special Episode #457506 by Wrong Number
The Vigilante #395861 by ArrowRose - Reviewed
A Wake for Dead 6 #379160 by Clave Dark 5 - Reviewed (for second challenge)
When Madness Reigns Over Reason #452196 by MrsAlphaOne - Reviewed
Who Dares Wins #454805 by Zaphir - Winner, Reviewed

Unpublished Entries
First Challenge
A Clockwork Romance ID# 344816
The Better Part of Valor ID# 349298
The Destroyer of Worlds ID# 352820

Second Challenge
Is That A Club In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? (unpublished) by FredrickSvanberg

Today's review is for Tangler's

A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 by @Frija

Another Yin contacts me, this time it's Penelope. It seems that all the Clockwork have just up and stopped moving and she'd like me to check out the Clockwork King's (CK's) lair. When I get there I find a bunch of non-moving clockwork, as promised, as well as a handful of Vahzilok digging around looking for stuff. When I do find CK, inert as all the others, I kind of pass out.

Since Penelope is psychic, she can still communicate with me as I find myself in the Astral Plane, finding my way into the mental realm of CK, where he is his dashing human self, protecting his Clockwork Princess, Penelope Yin. Even though I am in his mental realm, I am beset by Tuatha de Dannon led by a creature named Woolagump who is also after the princess.

Seeing this through my mind, Penelope realizes that CK is turning inward. Seeking solace in his own mind rather than face the outside world. The problem is that his mind is forgetting about the rest of himself, and he will soon not be able to recover. So she asks me to journey deeper into his mind to unlock his memories and jog him back to reality. In this version of the story, CK and Penelope knew each other when they were young, but CK moved away at some point, and Penelope never made the connection.

Evil for the greater good: Again, there is a choice made in the final mission that connects to the design of the contest. This arc is a little harder to pinpoint it as exactly good or evil. This is the last chance to break CK free from his mind and back into reality. The thing that this arc forgets to mention is that CK is an Archvillain, of course most people know about this already, though this arc paints him very very sympathetically. So for some people, freeing him is not doing evil at all, but a heroic deed, saving a sympathetic creature from a horrible fate. The other choice is to let him remain trapped, freeing the world from an Archvillain by doing evil through inaction in not using your powers to save someone in need. Unfortunately, I personally feel that this is too loose of an interpretation of the intent of the contest, as it never "feels" like I'm doing an evil deed, at least not when trying to save CK.

The arc as an arc: I really enjoyed the storytelling and mechanics in this arc. There's tons of flavor throughout this arc, from the inert clockwork in M1, to the entertaining clockwork in M2, to the long chained trip through CK's memory in M3 - one of my favorite story-centric missions to date. It has a great feel and pacing to it, using a very small map with chained glowies and hostage rescues to excellent effect. Unfortunately, this is one I decided to write up before playing through a second time to get both endings. I got the "success" ending, saving the archvillain, though writing this up is making me want to play through again already and will probably edit in another few sentences about the other ending tonight or tomorrow.

I really enjoyed this one. Good luck in the contest!

Thanks for the review!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bubbawheat Evil for the greater good: Again, there is a choice made in the final mission that connects to the design of the contest. This arc is a little harder to pinpoint it as exactly good or evil. This is the last chance to break CK free from his mind and back into reality. The thing that this arc forgets to mention is that CK is an Archvillain, of course most people know about this already, though this arc paints him very very sympathetically. So for some people, freeing him is not doing evil at all, but a heroic deed, saving a sympathetic creature from a horrible fate. The other choice is to let him remain trapped, freeing the world from an Archvillain by doing evil through inaction in not using your powers to save someone in need. Unfortunately, I personally feel that this is too loose of an interpretation of the intent of the contest, as it never "feels" like I'm doing an evil deed, at least not when trying to save CK.

As for how valid it is for the comp: Dr. Aeon had already played and commented on my arc, though he didn't mention if he thought I was hitting that criteria or not. It was a positive comment though, so I'm leaning towards thinking that I probably hit that criteria okay, at least not to be disqualified straight away.

B, I know you ran mine. I think I fixed quite a few of the problems, based on our in-game conversations after you took a team through. I won't ask you to re-run it, though... and given how much more there was that you disliked rather than liked, if it's all the same to you, please don't post a review here.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Review pre-approved by Samuraiko, sorry again for the initial letdown/blowback/negativity/whathaveyou.

My next review is from someone who I've been meaning to play one of her arcs for some time now, and quite well known for her machinima videos, Dark Respite:

For All the Wrong Reasons #351572 by @Samuraiko

My contact today is The Dark Watcher. A very apt choice for a contact, as his arc is favored by many players for being one of the more morally ambiguous arcs in the RWZ (though I may be wrong about this). My task is to investigate the Praetorians, who were beaten back by the Freedom Phalanx, but are still a possible threat to our dimension. My first task is to question said Phalanx about their first encounter with the Praetorians, as well as to escort one Andrea Blake. While the FP are not very forthcoming with any answers to my questions, I later find out that Andrea was actually there to hear the real answers to my questions as she has her own psychic abilities useful to the Dark Watcher.

My next two stops are to retrieve Dominatrix and Anti-Matter. First by kidnapping Domi and using her to lure Anti-Matter into the next trap. Throughout these two arcs, they are portrayed as villainous, but nice touches of sympathy start to eke through here and there. Also, trapping Anti-Matter feels like you're setting up and springing a trap for him, at least as much as possible using the given tools.

Now that we have Anti-Matter, who was the one that we really wanted, as he is the one behind the Praetorian's research into their own Portal technology, we need to get information out of him. Torture is a little bit too far down the path of villainy, but telepathy is not. Still a bit touchy for most heroes, it's my turn to earn a favor from Kalinda, who conveniently is in Longbow custody. Her methods may border on torture, but the Hero's hands are all clean in this, right?

Finally, it's time to head back to Praetoria with the information "retrieved" from Anti-Matter which will allow us to destroy all of his data on portal technology. An unfortunate side effect that is noticed is the other data that is also destroyed, data on being able to release Anti-Matter from being trapped in his containment suit. After all this, we must defeat Tyrant, for some reason, before calling it a job well done.

Evil for the greater good: Unlike all of the other arcs I've played so far, this one forgoes the choice aspect, and instead forces the player into doing shades of evil throughout the arc. Shades that get darker as you progress, though in several cases you don't entirely realize how bad things are until after you do them.

The Arc as an Arc: It holds up quite well as a darkly heroic, or even a neutral arc. I liked the writing throughout, and I thought the story touches added here and there worked well to add punch to the moral ambiguity of the missions themselves.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Good luck in the contest!

And the reviews keep flowing, I'm definitely enjoying this. Was going to run PapaSlade's arc, but alt+tabbing wasn't working for me tonight for some reason, but it will be next. Instead, I returned to a favorite author of mine to run PoliceWoman's:

The Destroyer of Worlds #352820 by @PW

This arc is set near the end of World War 2, where superheroes are referred to as "Mystery Men" and the 5th Column is very active. My contact is a general sending me to retrieve objects from a captured submarine. Among them is an unusual yellow powder. The general seems most interested in the powder as he congratulates me on a job well done.

Now apparently something happened while they were working with that... uranium as he called it, and it's up to me to check out the lab and see what's going on. The scientists working on the radioactive material stumbled on creating Shivans while experimenting with a shard from a meteor. I've got to rescue the scientists, shut down the experiment, and destroy the meteorite. (going against my feedback /tell and suggesting it be called "Meteorite shard" since it's much smaller and different looking than the Bloody Bay meteorites we're used to {even though they're incorrectly called meteors in game, meteorites are meteors that have entered the Earth's atmosphere})

Now this "Manhattan Project" has developed an atomic bomb that could end the war, but the 5th Column have struck again and have sabotaged the bomber fleet that were planned on delivering the bomb to its destination. Though the planes look suspiciously like Arachnos flyers... alas I know the MA has nothing else remotely akin to planes yet. So it's up to me to deliver the bomb myself, and detonate it in the middle of Hiroshima, Japan. My transport drops the bomb inertly and leaves so I can detonate it myself, relying on my own $origin superpowers to protect me from the radiation (which, by the way, doesn't work out quite as well with Natural origins) When I arrive, I'm surrounded by a bunch of lowly civilians. Even though I'm only level 16, I feel like I'm level 50 surrounded by these no-powered miscreants. And once the bomb goes off, *wow*, what an explosion, and I'm surrounded by mysterious, cloudlike radiation. Time to check out!

Evil for the greater good: This seems like a pretty unique take on the challenge's premise, using historical facts (quite interesting ones if they are all accurate, which I have no reason to doubt. What little facts I do know about it, I did recognize in the arc) from a very controversial decision - even if it wasn't controversial at the time - to involve the player in the destruction of an entire city to end a massive war. If that's not the definition of evil for the greater good, I don't know what is.

The arc as an arc: And it holds up as an interesting arc on its own as well. The mechanics are solid, and the final mission is very well done that had me literally saying "Now *that* was cool." which doesn't happen very often, especially after as many arcs as I've played.

I enjoyed it (other than the annoyingly high difficulty from the new difficulty settings. On a team of 2 with default settings getting a group with two red-con bosses - or two close together groups with one boss each, still very difficult @lvl 16) Good luck in the contest! (Have to soon figure out what to say after the winners are announced) (too many parentheses in this review, somebody stop me (before I strike again))

Thanks for giving The Destroyer of Worlds a try! My first attempt at Dr Aeon's Challenge (Mistaken Identity) didn't seem to impress players as "doing evil for the greater good" so I wrote this arc hoping to present a much clearer example of "doing evil for the greater good". I'm glad this came across effectively for you.

I'm also happy that you liked the special effects in the last mission. It's a somewhat unconventional mission and I wasn't sure how well it would play for people. I felt like I needed some kind of impressive visual effect; a common complaint I have about missions where your objective is "click this glowy to save the universe!" is that it doesn't really feel like you're doing something world-shattering when you click a glowy. So I wanted to try and do something about that.

Not sure I can do much about the boss spawns you mentioned - other than Nazi bimbo, all the other mobs are completely standard and level-appropriate. So the boss spawns you found were most likely just unlucky spawn placement by the game for a 2 person team.

Regarding historical detail, though the involvement of "mystery men", the 5th Column and Shivans are, of course, fanciful, I did try to research the time period and events to get some of the details right. The "real" story of how this all happened is pretty neat in its own right.

Thanks again!

Just a note since I've started getting some requests: I do plan on getting to as many of the Aeon Challenge arcs as I can find, but if you would like me to review yours sooner, send me a PM. I'll try and keep the original post current with my request queue, which is:

Judge, Jury and Crimson" ID #352363 by Papa Slade
The Greater Good - 350877 by ArrowRose
Evil By Inches: # 349967 by Oubliette

Also, this doesn't have to be just my review thread, if anyone else wanted to contribute.

Today I ready myself to deal with some Malta in:

Judge, Jury, and Crimson #352363 by @Papa Slade

My contact today is Crimson, although I've personally never ran any of his arcs, I've heard a bit about him and I believe he is known for sending you to some Malta. Today his task is for me to retrieve Technician Naylor who has been working on some portal technology. Even though he is working with Arachnos, he is still just a civilian scientist, right?

So I deliver Naylor to Crimson for "questioning" so I've got some time on my hands, so what better task for Crimson to send me on but to a Malta base for some explosives. Yep, that's about it, just a reason to fight some Malta and snag some explosives. Not sure why he couldn't just pick them up from someplace less annoyingly difficult for many ATs, but there you go.

Now with one scientist in our possession to get some information about Arachnos, we need to eliminate others who have access to the portal research, including the likes of Dr. Creed, Dr. Aeon, Vernon Von Grun, all 'led' by Operative Grillo. Arbiter Sands is also hanging around, but he's not on the list so we can leave him alone if we want to. Not that we wanted to though. The reason why all these scientists are together is that there was a party being held, for some reason. Though besides one lonely party girl at the entrance, and some dancing Arachnos around Sands, it didn't seem like much of a party. I guess that's what you get when you invite a bunch of mad scientists. (though Creed was tricked into wearing a toga - a convenient cover-up for the fact that Creed isn't in the MA)


(Apologies, I was pretty tired when running this arc and have lost a lot more details than usual. Will run it again soon and revise my review.) For the last mission it's time to take out a couple of Paragon City's portal corps technicians, as well as some of the portal corp technology in order to prevent an upcoming disaster - I think. Every part of the explanation was left to the final mission, which I couldn't get to the second time around because Von Grun didn't spawn (annoying bug)

The Arc as an Arc: Crimson's dialog was rather precise and specific. I'm not sure if this is an attempt at recreating Crimson's in-game personality or not so I can't really comment much on that part. The missions were fairly basic, but that's not a bad thing. They also had a good deal of minor flavor dialog which was a helpful touch. I'm not quite sure if Crimson's logic is sound though.

Evil for the Greater Good: This arc has you doing a lot of not just morally ambiguous acts, but just plain bad things. So the evil part is pretty well covered. The greater good wasn't quite as clear the first playthrough, but I will be checking back in on it tomorrow most likely when I'm more awake.

I did enjoy it even with the Malta. Good luck in the... wait, um... good luck on your arc in general!

So this was actually the second arc I ran through, but I waited to post it until it had it's own thread, or the fact that I've seen it advertised around elsewhere at least. Here's what I thought about

Turg Fiction: IX #351787 by @Turgenev

My contact is a Family Lawyer whose biggest fault is that he is too cooperative with the police. He is aligned with the Bonnano faction of the family who have a friendly rivalry with the Marcones. And friendly in gang terms is they rough each other up every once in a while, but things are starting to escalate and I'm sent in to check it out before it gets out of hand.

In short order, I'm introduced to the girl. She's the prototypical fish out of water. The saintly daughter of the mob boss, and all he wants to do is protect her, which isn't always easy due to his line of work, so I get sent in to the rescue. But things aren't exactly as they seem as the Marcones seem to be trying to pin this on some third faction.

Next up, I'm sent to check out an old base in the Overbrook area. It looks very old, but has some interesting high tech equipment in it, as well as being populated by a bunch of electrical robots who did not like my end bar at all. All of the clues in the base point to someone from the future being here. Afterwards, I get a text message from that someone who promises to explain everything to me if I come back to meet him. He's not actually here of course, but through his messages explains that he is from the future where that so called good girl goes bad after the death of her father and ultimately results in the death of this guy's wife. He's been repeating the past nine years over and over again (because he can only go backwards in time) trying to save everyone, but he's come to the conclusion that she has to die.

The evil for the greater good: It all boils down to the last mission, which is presented as a choice, like many it seems from what I've seen. In this arc, the choice boils down to the fate of the girl. She's an ally in the mission and generally the first thing you will find as you climb up the office building to the roof. Instead of the Don, however, you find the time traveller, calling himself IX, who has dispached of the girl's parents already and is ready to dispatch her as well. Your choice as it is presented is to help IX with his plan to prevent a future despot from gaining power before it even starts. Or to rescue her, allowing events to unfold naturally and see her rise to power to become worse than her father before her. If you let her die, you find out that IX's wife turns out to have been collateral damage in the surrounding gunfight, leaving her future fate unchanged. If you rescue her, you see through the souvenir (which you don't get on a failed final mission) that the pain of her loss starts her on the path that IX was trying to prevent. You tell her all about his endeavors, and she leaves with a cold interest in him, leaving you to wonder what will happen to his past self and his wife.

The arc as an arc: This holds up quite well as a solid arc that really kept me interested throughout. I was very curious by the end to find out how it was all going to end, and luckily, the author was online so I was able to find out both endings without having to play through the entire thing a second time. Which wouldn't be so bad except for all the elec minions in M3 and M4.

I really enjoyed this one!

Hey Bubbawheat!

If you want your list of reviews-yet-to-do expanded by one more, then let me submit what was my entry into the challenge: Purification (#352381).

Would love if you could review mine, One Too Many Lines Crossed.

I need to know whether to keep it up or not

Next up is an arc with a lot of good in it, from ArrowRose:

The Greater Good #350877 by @Gypsy Rose

I'm met today by a very friendly and seemingly kind-hearted individual with a very literal name: Ms. Goodheart. She's a representative of a Robin Hood-like organization calling themselves The Greater Good, and she's looking at me as a possible new recruit. But first, I have to show my willingness to the cause. And the first step is getting me to commit...

Evil for the Greater Good: Again, quite literal in this instance, and earlier than most of the arcs I've played, so I'll spell it all out first. It starts off small: robbing a bank where an evil businessman keeps much of his money (and again with the literal: "Mr. Richman") guarded by a bunch of Longbow. Next stop is breaking the founder of The Greater Good Mr. Goodman (or Dr., I forget) out of the Zig, on a purely technical infraction I'm sure. The third mission steps it up a notch by kidnapping the daughter of the aforementioned Mr. Richman's, Nikki, with assurances of her safety at every step of the way. And finally destroying the entire Greater Good operation, for reasons I will explain further down.

The Arc as an Arc: As far as the gameplay goes, it's pretty solid, with good details and interesting missions, with good flavor and mechanics on the final mission. Though the last mission does have a few too many of the tiny bombs to find on a medium sized office map. There are a few things I didn't like too much. I didn't really care for the too-literal names everywhere. If this were a humor arc and played off of them, that would be one thing, but this is a serious arc, I would suggest changing at least 2 out of 3 of the names to something more interesting, you can keep the metaphor, just pick something a little less obvious.

Also, things seemed to flow too easily in the first few missions. There's very little (in my opinion) in the way of convincing on her part, or questioning on my character's part. It made me as a player suspicious from the very start, suspecting some sort of mind control, or other plot device from the beginning. It just seems odd how my character would easily continue on the ever increasing ethically questionable missions, especially with all the crumpled paper clues strewn throughout the missions undermining the contact's credulity. There should be some comment about the notes, at least internally since you find out that the notes come from the contact herself. Since it seems as though Ms. Goodheart wants to take the organization down the whole time, maybe you should add more foreshadowing to the brainwashing revealed in the final mission. Like adding an over-zealous ally that Ms. Goodheart comments as being out of line. But I think I'm going overboard in the suggestions department.

Overall, I enjoyed playing through this arc, though I think it could still use a bit more work. Good luck with it!

[QUOTE=Bubbawheat;2488675]Next up is an arc with a lot of good in it, from ArrowRose:

The Greater Good #350877 by @Gypsy Rose

Bubba, thank you so much for playing my arc and providing comments. I have some questions and comments on your suggestions.

When I say that the missions could be questioned internally, I mean you could have a non-dialog text either in italics or a different color representing the player character's thoughts where they are questioning why they are going along with it so easily. I suspected mind control/brainwashing, but if there's some way you can hint at it earlier. I think I remember that you do have this a little bit, but thinking back, I just don't remember it being quite clear enough.

As far as the escort goes, you can have either patrols or boss details that don't spawn until the hostage is released. You can have them spawn in the front so there's something more to fight on the way out. Or you can have the mission end on the rescue. It's not a big logic jump to assume that the player character leads them out on their own without having them physically lead them out. You could even have a patrol from the Greater Good as an enemy with a line like "No one will stop us from bringing Nikki in. No one!".

Been having fun with the MA superteam, the Screenshots and Fan Creations SG/VGs, and the winter event stuff. But now back to the arcs. Next up is

Evil by Inches #349967 by @oubliette

Instead of meeting in person, my contact today calls me by phone (though the bio just gives me the description of the one calling me) and tells me " Hey Bubbawheat. This is Lydia Kowalski and I need your help with a bit of business that just came my way out in Astoria Hills. " I head out there and the residents are acting a bit strange, crazed even. There's also one madman named Jack Carver who claims he's doing this all for her.

When I call Lydia back I instead hear the voice of a villain calling herself Hallow Eve. She claims to have Lydia there with her, and I must acquiesce to her demands or Lydia is dead. My first task is to free someone named Starcrossed from the Zig, fighting my way through the guards. There are several inmates and convicts in the prison, and my only clue is that Starcrossed has a star shaped scar on his left eye. One of the inmates, Phoenix, tries to play himself off as Starcrossed and attacks when we find the real one.

Calling Hallow Eve back to tell of my success, I'm met instead with the news of a mental hospital thrown into disarray with toxic gas spilling into the building. When I arrive, I can see that the gas is affecting the patients as well as the orderlies. There's some interesting notable patients that I see going on a rampage, but this is a huge hospital - 5 floors - and I have 10 containers of gas to shut off throughout the building. I felt that this was a little bit much, especially when I make it all the way through to level 5 and find out that I missed one container. Back down through to level 3 and I find it... only to be met with a chained objective, and a vague one at that: a "clue" to find. I don't know if this is going to be a glowie, hostage, or boss, and not sure if I should head downstairs or upstairs. This was bordering on /ragequit territory honestly. But I persevered and headed back upstairs to find Jack Carver cowering and complaining about Starcrossed. He draws me a map (with a very appropriate emote) and runs off.

Next up things get a little weird as I go to the abandoned hospital map where the gas starts affecting me oddly. I'm seeing monsters and hearing voices as I search for the secret passage from the crudely drawn map that Jack gave me. This mission has a lot of great Cheshire Cat style horror elements to it, with haunting voices (stealthed allied patrols), great recolored monsters. I really loved the Thorn Tree vines, the odd noises they make really fit with the mission. I would suggest placing the bookcase in the back, as I found it in the middle, but there was a nice optional encounter in the back.

Finally it's time for the showdown with Hallow Eve, as well as her lieutenant Starcrossed. Jack's also there (though I didn't catch if he had fully become an ally or if he was too crazy to help and had to be fought, I only saw his dialog, which mentioned killing Starcrossed I believe) Unfortunately, at level 17, and 1:00 in the morning, I couldn't defeat Hallow Eve with her Psi attacks and confuse. But I will try again shortly and come back with more final thoughts. The arc range is 1-40, though I would suggest raising the minimum a bit to SO level.

Evil for the Greater Good: This arc starts out with a little questionable activity: fighting normal citizens even though they are acting crazy and attacking me first. In the next mission it ramps up, having me free a criminal from the Zig while attacking the guards. And that's really about it, the next three missions mostly revolve around finding and defeating Hallow Eve: a heroic task, aside from the occasional orderly in M3.

The arc as an arc: On its own merits, this is one of my favorite arcs I've played in a while, with a few gameplay flaws - which for some people could overshadow the rest of the arc. Aside from the problems I already mentioned, the mechanics on this arc are absolutely fantastic. Mission 2 is one of the best jailbreak missions I've played. I loved having several inmates dressed in traditional prison garb, having only the clue (and watching for the objective text to change) to tell which one to rescue, and the smart prisoner trying to use you to get out of jail himself. And Mission 3 has a great mix of mobs roaming around - the crazed inmates, the orderlies (who unfortunately have the dreaded web grenade which some people hate, and can be a big problem in bigger spawns), and unique optional bosses. Mission 4 has great atmosphere from the initial popup showing the start of the crazies, again a great mix of recolored mobs, using patrols to get multiple <groupnames> so each group is themed to match. I also thought the writing overall was great, it had great flavor, and the right touches of humor.

I absolutely enjoyed this arc, and hope to play it again after your next edit.

Next on the agenda is Twelfth's arc, which took me longer than I though due to battling over computer time with my wife's new addiction to Sims 3. But I made it through:

Task Force Mutternacht # 349522 by @twelfth

The first thing I did was Google Mutternacht, which gave me the arc's page. But going for Mutter Nacht gave me the real result: Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Night Mother". I won't go into the details of the story, which I know nothing about, but I will post one quote I found in the Wiki article from Kurt Vonnegut's introduction that I found appropriate to the arc "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

My contact for this arc is Indigo - who as a player, I know very little about other than she's associated with Crimson, and sends you against Malta and Knives of Artemis. And my first mission is to go after Malta and retrieve tech that they have acquired to gain access to the Warburg nukes. During the mission you run into an ally named Mr. Inquiry, as well as a raving member of Longbow named Agent Kyle who is rattling off about some Jackson film.

This Jackson film has Indigo worried and she decides that you should go undercover as a villain named Dystheist, which means someone who believes in God, but doesn't believe that he is entirely good. She provides you with a costume for this role, and your first mission as Dystheist is to infiltrate the PPD's evidence, bribe one of the guards to gain access to a specific piece of evidence which turns out to be a locked container of documents. For some reason, Freakshow are also there on their own agenda.

This evidence is then used in my next stop to be delivered to the notorious Westin Phipps in exchange for the mysterious Jackson film. While I'm there to meet up with Phipps, there is a random raid, led by Mr. Inquiry. Phipps tries to use the diversion to turn on me and keep both the evidence and the film, but is unsuccessful. I try to take a look at this film, but can only make out that it seems to be some sort of arson.

Unfortunately, Mr. Inquiry's presence makes Indigo worried, as his reputation precedes him as being notorious for digging up any and all leads to an end, which would lead him eventually to Indigo herself. So we need to neutralize him by planting evidence that he is a double agent for the Council, and someone who can't be trusted. Killing two birds with one stone, I am also tasked with retrieving one of the Council's Vampiric Archons the nominal Mr. Jackson. During the mission return text, I find that I've been set up as the "safehouse" I was to bring Mr. Jackson to ultimately led to his fiery demise.

I confront Indigo and she reluctantly shows me the tape on her mobile device. It does show an arson, complete with victims who are not only trapped, but thrown back into the pyre and held against their will by one Maiden Justice - Statesman's wife. Whether real or faked, this could very well tear apart the public's view on the entire superhero culture. And Mr. Inquiry somehow (due to my poor recollection) acquire's this video.

My final task as Dystheist is to go to Atlas park where Sister Psyche is using a psionic amplification device which Mr. Inquiry is planning on manipulating into showing the entire city the film's contents. But he has become a broken man, and was easily stopped by the PPD (Since he was already stopped, it might be better to make him an optional encounter. It's pertinent to the story, but it's not needed to actually complete your task. Alternatively, change his "captured" animation to something else) There are also many villains roaming about that you can rescue and in return they will aid you for a while. But your main objective is to defeat Ms. Liberty (again, poor recollection as to the arc's reason why) who was quite difficult for my solo blaster (lvl 38 @ -1/x2) and my collected allies who dropped quite quickly.

Evil for the Greater Good: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Throughout this arc, you pretend to be a villain, you carry out theft, attack heroes, rescue villains, and are an accessory to murder. And all of this is to prevent the release of a film that condemns one of the City's greatest heroes as a villain, and could therefore undermine the city's entire network of superheroes. I think it lives up to the premise quite well.

The Arc as an Arc: I thought this arc was well written, had interesting objectives, an interesting mix of enemies. I was interested all the way through in what the Jackson film was, and how everything ultimately played out. I liked all the characterization, though I didn't much care for the costume device for your Dystheist persona. It requires either the player to play along using a costume slot, or it causes an immersion break for someone who doesn't play along and has the same costume throughout the arc. You could present the suggestion for an alternate costume to go with your persona, but remove the references as if you actually went along with the alternate costume. For Mr. Inquiry's revealing encounter, you could instead go with something like "$name, I would recognize you anywhere" - this would work with someone in the same costume or a different costume.

Pre-posting edit: I read through PW's review to refresh my memory of the other details with the arc, and I agree with a lot of her points. I don't understand why I had to fight Ms. Liberty, and she was very tough, though 8 lucks and my fire blaster finally dropped her without too much trouble. Mr. Inquiry was quite easy, and also seemed mostly defeated by the time I got there.

But all in all, another great arc that I really enjoyed playing.

I was looking through my PMs and realized I skipped over PoptartsNinja's review request, Operation: Charbydis will be next. But tonight's arc is StratoNexus's

The Better Part of Valor ID# 349298 by @StratoNexus

My contact today is a regular policewoman with experience working with Supers. There is a string of robberies involving high tech machinery and mutagens. Their current lead is a company called Web Associates: Computer Consulting. It's a suspected cover for an Arachnos base. And when I get there, her fears are confirmed. I also find another police officer who has gone rogue, which comes as a surprise to my contact. He has information on another location, and my contact goes through the proper paperwork to obtain the search warrant.

It is a Crey facility, but it has been mostly abandoned, I've been assured of Crey's cooperation, but I should be on my guard as I search for any information. What I find there are a large group of Arachnoids, as well as some mutated bodies, research notes on something called Venom, and research on other well known scientists super soldier projects. It all points to a Dr. Karanski, and my contact assures me that they will take it from here...

...except three weeks later, and she is kidnapped, though she is able to text me with her cell phone. I find her in the office building where her sister works, held by these Arachnoids, along with other similar animal mutates. I also find a Crab Spider named Hamon who accessess a computer with a vital location for me, and I have the choice of letting him go free, or handing him over to Longbow. Though the contact tells me pretty much the same thing whether I rescue him or not.

It turns out that this Dr. Karanski is using Arachnos Fortunatas in his experiments and is releasing a toxic gas that is fatal to them, but is not fatal to anyone else in the area. I have 10 minutes to find all of the gas containers and deactivate them before they completely release into the area around Mercy, as well as killing all of the captive Fortunatas. The popup says that this is a near impossible task, though I complete it quite easily with a couple minutes left to spare going at a very casual pace. If you do fail, you find out that the gas did indeed kill all of the Fortunatas, to no one's grief, and the general populace gained some aggressive tendencies, though no further harm happened to them.

The final showdown is on Grandville beach (a map that I had never seen before), where I fight Dr. Karanski, who seems more interested in studying and recruiting me. His defeat triggers some crystals of his syrum that I have to destroy, and one that can't be destroyed, for some reason. I also find my contact's sister Constance, under the mind control, and experimental results of Dr. Karanski. And one more version of Dr. Karanski shows up at the end (which unfortunately didn't spawn on my second go around).

Evil for the Greater good: Honestly, I didn't see much evil in this arc at all. It felt like heroics throughout. The worst things were working with Arachnos's Hamon in mission 3, but you could choose to let Longbow take him. And there's the choice of letting the gas kill the Fortunatas, but if you rescue them, nothing very bad happens. And finally is defeating Constance who is mind controlled, but that also seems like a tragic heroic deed, rather than a forced evil deed.

The Arc as an Arc: The arc in and of itself is quite good though. I enjoyed the writing, especially the characterization of the contact, she seemed quite real to me, and she has very interesting busy text on most of the missions. The plot and pacing was also quite good, though I thought there were a few chaining issues in the final mission, like it was not quite clear what the crystals are, and why I'm destroying them, and why I can't destroy the last one. There is a little in the info on the crystals, but not much. Also, there is a use of larger text for a few of the objectives that I wasn't quite sure if I liked or not.

But I still enjoyed it quite a bit, both times around.

Thanks for your very verbose and thoughtful review Bubbawheat. I can't disagree much and feel you've hit the nail on the head. A couple of thoughts on the items you mentioned.

Re: "10 items > Chained event": Yes, I agree, I can certainly lower this amount as I agree it might be a bit much. This was one mission I kept the contact chained as to avoid it being something people complete too quickly (as it's the only mission in the arc that can't be knocked out in 5-10 minutes by our testing. 10 may be a bit much, agreed.

Re: "Doing Evil": You pegged it when you said M1/M2 are the missions that satisfy that goal alone. I wanted to let the player (of heroic characters) feel they'd done something rather terrible and now were on a path to revenge. I didn't know how others would see it but I didn't feel revenge was entirely heroic, connected with wrath and all but, some might feel they were taking revenge and others may have felt they were enacting justice. In the end, it's up to the player and for some, they might feel they were able to salvage their heroism in the end despite Hallow's plot leading to the "damage done". Very important to a number of characters.

Re: Bookcase in middle: Here we have a classic case of creator flaw. I tried my damnedest to get that bookcase into the back if the may but whenever I set it on a specific location, it would appear in the first room. The Mission Architect, for all it's good points, needs to be beaten with a stick until all the bugs fall out or die. There's a few other things in the creator like that, which sadly prevented me from doing more with the encounters but we accept these little minuses and work within our best ability. Let's call it a challenge?

Re: Hallow Eve/Level: She's a bit tough. I know this. I don't feel she's solo-able in any real sense of the word. I found I could deal with her like one would solo any AV. Several +Def Insps, but at L17, I guess any EB would be dangerous. I'll see about raising the level of the arc.

Again, thank you for your time in looking at the mission, feedback makes it all worthwhile.
/bow

-Oubliette