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

Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge: Closing thoughts and Predictions

This challenge brought out a greater variety of arcs than the last two, both old and new arcs. Many involved and/or forced the player to make the moral choice, or made the moral choice for them. And along with the mix of old and new arcs, I also had a greater mix of arcs I liked and didn't like as much. The lead up to the deadline felt like there was a waning interest, but there was a rush of last minute submissions and in the end there was only 1 fewer known arc for this challenge than there was for the second.

In all, there were 21 arcs known to have been submitted to this challenge. I played 16 of them. 11 of them were existing arcs that either already fit the challenge, or were reworked (and in some cases republished) to better fit the challenge. Almost all of the arcs were at least 4 missions long, and most were a full 5 missions. It was a pretty even split of those I played between choosing the fall from grace or redemption.

As far as predictions go, I don't think I'm going to go so far as to choose a single arc that I liked the best overall, but these are the arcs that I think exemplified the idea behind the challenge, had a well written storyline, and was also an arc that was fun and interesting to play.

Splintered Shields #253991 by Venture
A Very Special Episode #457506 by Wrong Number
The Vigilante #395861 by ArrowRose
Who Dares Wins #454805 by Zaphir

And these arcs are the others that I enjoyed, but I felt fell just short on one of those three qualities.

Arena #456200 by FredrikSvanberg
Kill or Cure #459581 by Samuraiko
Papers and Paychecks #298290 by PoliceWoman
Unfair Trade #373846 by Lazarus

Good luck to everyone, I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed writing them. I still have one more left to write, so stay tuned. Until then, go nominate some of these for the Player's Choice Awards, or join the new Mission Architect Arc Club.

Thanks very much for the review of "Kill or Cure". If you're up to it, as you'd mentioned possibilities for mechanics modifications to make things flow more smoothly, I'd like to hear more (you can always PM me). Most especially, though, I'm glad you enjoyed HOW it works. Thanks to some admittedly scathing reviews I've gotten elsewhere on other arcs of mine, I wanted to write an arc where it felt like the player had a bit more input into what was happening. So I'm glad to know I got that part right.

And while I doubt I'll win, I'm glad you think it's 'honorable mention' at least.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Aww, I was looking forward to your thoughts on mine, Bubbawheat. Oh well, it's still great that you did this, I realize it was a lot of work, and I did turn mine in at the last minute.

I don't mind doing another requested one, Liquid, but I'm not worried about playing through every single one this time.

Well, don't feel pressured to play it if you are busy, but if you get bored and feel like running another one, I'd love to hear your feedback.

With only 4 arcs I hadn't played, this arc makes me want to reconsider not playing them all. We'll see... Running my after-the fact request by playing Liquid's

Legacy of a Rogue # 459586 by @ Night-Girl

The Hero's Fall From Grace: In this arc, your contact is an ex-heroine that left the scene when she became crippled. She used to be Condor Girl, sidekick to Rogue Falcon and would like you to take on his son as your own sidekick. He wants to live up to his father's name Rogue Falcon, but takes the name Harrier for now. But temptation proves too much for him when you recover an artifact that promises him great power, and he becomes possessed by it and you eventually have to defeat him. Along the way, you are also asked to do some wrongdoing in breaking the Crimson Cricket out of jail, and ends up helping you defeat demon-possessed Harrier, revealing that she is also his mother, and getting a reduced sentence for her help. And yet another qualifier to the challenge is the more subtle fact that your contact herself turns out to be using you to gain control of Rogue Falcon's massive computer system with built-in android defense force. It's not clear that what she will end up using it for, but it is painted in a somewhat negative light.

The Arc as an Arc: This arc is well-written, even if it uses a lot of arc conventions in it. But I did find that even within those standard plot points, they were done well, they were interesting, and most of them had a little bit of a spin that I don't normally see, or haven't seen at all. There was the typical jail breakout mission, but it wasn't populated by a bunch of PPD to fight. There was the base investigation mission, but it had an interesting self-defense mechanic in it. There was the respawning/evolving boss fight, but it had an ally with appropriately timed, fitting dialog, as well as respawns that appeared in the correct room, very close to each other. And to top it all off, there were several different plot threads that actually came together in a satisfying way at the end.

As usual, tweets below.

#CoHMA Playing Legacy of a Rogue # 459586 by @ Night-Girl aka Liquid on the forums, entry in the third Aeon Challenge.
#CoHMA Contact is Gertrude Bellstaff, an ex-hero once known as Condor Girl who retired when injured and is now a computer programmer.
#CoHMA M1: Condor Girl used to sidekick for Rogue Falcon who died in the first Rikti War, and now she wants me to take his son under my wing
#CoHMA M1: Apparently, he's working his way up to the name Rogue Falcon, starting with his father's old sidekick's name: Harrier.
#CoHMA M1: And our first task is to clear out some Banished Pantheon some spelunkers accidentally ran into.
#CoHMA M1: Found so far: some bones of a miser with an odd shaped skull, and a book I can't read.
#CoHMA M1: Fought The Crimson Cricket with a button man by her side, she says Carter will be pleased, for some reason.
#CoHMA M1: Heh, rescue clue for Harrier mentions taking him "under my wing, no pun intended." I think I already made that pun tonight.

#CoHMA M2: Eek, woken up at 3 am of all things. A hero never sleeps. And Azuria's always in trouble.
#CoHMA M2: I call Harrier on my way out. Apparently he's not very practiced at witty banter yet as we go off to fight "Dumb Wizards" aka CoT
#CoHMA M2: Pop-up mentions that Harrier got here quickly, and casts it in a curious light. I wonder if Harrier has an ulterior motive.
#CoHMA M2: Rescued Azuria, she was curious how we knew she was there... Harrier continued practicing his witty banter.
#CoHMA M2: contact suspects that Harrier took the indecipherable tome and used it to gain more powers. Now to check the Hawkmind to be sure.

#CoHMA M3: Contact has lost her hero cred, and needs me to believe in her and help break Crimson Cricket out of Zig to break into Hawkmind.
#CoHMA M3: Contact warns me about the <Prisoners> and <Arachnos> might be there as well. Will be a first if no <PPD> are there.
#CoHMA M3: Love the 'Destined One' humor from Arachnos.
#CoHMA M3: Red mission title, nice touch. Colors aren't used enough in the Nav bar.
#CoHMA M3: Busted out Crimson Cricket. Only PPD were guarding her, ambush came after but I could have just clicked out.

#CoHMA M4: Harrier called my contact and sounded different. Only way to find him now is through Hawkmind. Can someone say "Possessed"?
#CoHMA M4: Interesting defenses: robotic birds.
#CoHMA M4: I'm glad when an arc pleasantly surprises me, and this has done so twice so far. Even if many plot points have been done before.
#CoHMA Like M3, the breakout has been done many times before, but I enjoyed fighting mostly Arachnos and Prisoners, not PPD.
#CoHMA And M4 is a typical empty base raid/investigate, but has a unique automated defense system trigger - a "hologram" of the old owner.
#CoHMA M4: Though I think there are costume options to make the "hologram" look more "hologram-y"
#CoHMA M4: With all the bird names, was kind of disappointed that the head of security was named "Head Security Robot".

#CoHMA M5: We're not using Hawkmind to track Harrier, but to predict where he went, which is the cave where we found the artifacts. Deeper.
#CoHMA M5: The book gives the reader what they want, then feeds them to a demon deep underground. Though I'm reading a bit between the lines
#CoHMA M5: What the heck? I've been in the big Oranbega room with the big valley. Never saw a staircase leading inside 2 a hole in the floor
#CoHMA M5: Nicely done, ramped up multi-boss fight in the big room at the end, with allied ambushes, and ally dialog working in-context.
#CoHMA M5: And an extra surprise betrayal at the end, kinda. This arc was a pleasant surprise. Glad I was asked to run it.

Thanks so much for running my arc, Bubbawheat!

You make a good point about the Head Security Robot. It's actually just a named version of the boss type for that group-- a Crane. I debated making a unique boss for that purpose, but I decided I wanted to make sure that soloists would see the boss type. Then, I realized that in a group, just another Crane wouldn't stand out much, so I named it to match the objective title since I've had complaints in the past of people being unable to find certain objectives.

I suppose I could compromise and do a "Head Security Crane" or "Master Crane" or something like that. I'm not sure what the best thing to do is yet, but I'll think about it and make a change, because I can see how that would be disappointing.

Thanks again for running the arc, and for the feedback. I'll post a regular feedback thread after I've made some tweaks (I didn't want to make any changes before based on feedback, as I wasn't sure if it would invalidate my entry if it was changed after the due date).

Found one that was nominated for a Player's Choice award that I didn't catch the first time around. And since I'm not sure if there's a thread for it, I'll put my review for it here.

Interdimensional Headache #459592 by @Nebulhym

The Villain's Redemption: In this arc, you're investigating another dimension where the population has been nearly wiped out by a virus. You're there to clean up grabbing weapons and technology for the cash and/or for the weapon of it. But when it turns out that they're aiming the same weapon that wiped the place out at Earth, you change your tune and save the Earth and get shafted by your contact in the process. It felt like a bit of a logic jump at the end. Why are the aliens targetting Earth? Why will blowing the place up stop them for good, especially when dialog hints that it won't? Why not steal the virus before blowing it up? And at the very least, at this point when the contest is long since over, the morality of this arc should be "Rogue" rather than "Villainous".

The Arc as an Arc: The thing that stood out to me the most in this arc is the design/text formatting. It's very well designed and presented. I liked all of the flavor presented in this arc, from the alien's way of speaking, to the way bios are presented. It's all very neat and polished. The story was fun, if a bit silly at times when silly wasn't the aim. Manticore posing as Amanda Vines assistant? The contact being interviewed by Vines in the first place? But aside from that it was a fun story and an enjoyable arc.

#CoHMA Playing Interdimensional Headache #459592 by @Nebulhym nominated for best villainous/rogue arc in this year's Player's Choice awards.
#CoHMA Awesome formatting on the contact bio. Best I've ever seen.
#CoHMA My contact is Dr. Manfred Ludak, very suspicious interdimensional scientist that apparently has Recluse on a first name basis.
#CoHMA M1: He's discovered a new world with incredible psychic energy. My incentive is "incredible rewards". My job is to take some readings
#CoHMA M1: Found a Greeting Information Terminal and a hologram message that looks just like me. Weird and interesting at the same time.
#CoHMA M1: This arc is getting very high marks for design. enemy bios are readouts from the device given to me by the contact.
#CoHMA M1: clues given to me by the holograms reveal that the planet has suffered some sort of massive attack/catastrophe.
#CoHMA M1: Aliens are savage and complaining of headaches. Found a device transmitting massive psychic energy. Got an origin point for it.
#CoHMA M2: Contact seems to have a love/hate relationship with Dr. Aeon sidestory. But off to an alien urban area for psychic weaponry maybe
#CoHMA M2: In a factory building filled with armored or robotic aliens. Must find the manager? How will I be able to tell?
#CoHMA M2: Found some unarmed armored scientists chatting with each other. Curious.
#CoHMA M2: "Psychoravenous" Interesting name, also it seems to be a virus. I don't remember seeing that mentioned befor now though.
#CoHMA M2: The director informs me that "The Monarch is law". This does not bode well.
#CoHMA M3: So it's a customizable psychic virus. Time to get the way to make it. Too bad Amanda Vines stumbled here before me. Silly woman.
#CoHMA M3: Amanda's assistant is Manticore?! Oh well, Trick Arrows unite! (playing with my TA/Ice defender)
#CoHMA M3: Found a random bomb floating in midair and non-completable yet. Haven't found Amanda yet though.
#CoHMA M3: Found Amanda, found the last of the true alien race. Not feeling like much of a villain in this mission.
#CoHMA M3: The head scientist was using Amanda's cerebral data to use the virus against all of Earth. So I'm blowing up the joint.
#CoHMA M3: "Optional" "very hard" boss is directly in my path to escort Amanda to the entrance. I suppose I should have led her out before.
#CoHMA M3: Was a fun quick arc, I enjoyed it even though I wasn't as fond of the end. Seemed like a cop out.