The Winner of Dr. Aeon's Challenge!

Hello Architects!

I'm proud to announce the winner of the first Dr. Aeon's Challenge!

The winner is...

Out of Place by Minimalist

A city of heroes can be home to a lot of strange phenomena. The annual "Ghostmarch" festival is harmless paranormal fun for Paragon's arts community... so why has it attracted the attention of Dr. Aeon? Somehow, this is a sure sign that something is about to go wrong. Terribly wrong.

I was hesitant at first to choose this arc, as I didn't want it to seem that there was favoritism for having Dr. Aeon be the contact. However, this arc fully deserves to win the contest due to all of the clear effort put into it by Minimalist. The missions are designed very well, from the first mission (a mixture of a combat/non-combat mission) down to the very last (a fight to stop the impending doom of the entire world). The dialog throughout the mission gave each character a unique and memorable voice. And lastly, Minimalist pulled off the "doing evil for the greater good" in a great way that really made you feel like this was the only way out of the situation - and that it would actually save everyone. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't played the arc yet.

Congratulations to Minimalist, who will receive a special in-game yellow title, and also a Dev Choice for this arc!

I wanted to also take a moment to address everyone else who entered into the contest. All of the arcs submitted were wonderfully written and designed - it was an absolute blast to play all of them and very difficult to choose Minimalist among the winners. There were a lot of methods used to satisfy the "doing something evil for something good", I felt it's only fair to give feedback on them.

One popular one I saw was the creation of a choice at the end. This in itself wasn't eligible for the contest, as the hero had to do something evil for the arc. However, I do want to encourage authors to do more arcs like these - I really enjoyed the route taken of either using a timed mission to accomplish this or the rogue escort route. While it might've not been valid for this particular challenge, I encourage all the authors who did do use these methods to continue exploring them, as they're a great way of expanding your story.

One issue that I saw regarding the arc challenge was that the player didn't have a good enough reason to do something evil. Sometimes this boiled down to the idea that there were many other options that the player could have pursued, but weren't allowed to. Other moments it boiled down to the idea that the evil you were committing wasn't necessarily worth the good that was coming out from it. Looking over your arcs, a good way to find that balance is to look at the plot and ask yourself, "Are there any other ways the hero can accomplish this goal without doing this? Is it the only way? Is it even worth doing this for the good that will be accomplished?"

I hope this feedback on the contest can help you all move forward with the arcs you've created, and I certainly hope you all continue to keep the arcs you've made published, they're all very good and add great stories for everyone in the community to play!

Until next time, Architects!

Having played this arc myself, I can say this was well deserved. Congrats to Minimalist!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon One popular one I saw was the creation of a choice at the end. This in itself wasn't eligible for the contest, as the hero had to do something evil for the arc.

Damn. From the arcs I did play that gave this option, they always felt like you were doing some kind of evil either way though. I guess the problem here is that a lot of these options were choosing between "evil for the greater good" or "an immediate good for greater evil", when the only solution the hero is supposed to be given is the former?

*loud whistles and applause*

Congrats, Minimalist!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Grats, Minimalist. I'll have to que this one up this weekend!

Congratz!

Congratulations to the winner. I look forward to trying it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tangler Damn. From the arcs I did play that gave this option, they always felt like you were doing some kind of evil either way though. I guess the problem here is that a lot of these options were choosing between "evil for the greater good" or "an immediate good for greater evil", when the only solution the hero is supposed to be given is the former?

I didn't know we weren't allowed to have a choice. I wish this had been explained clearer in the rules. Not that the choice in my arc really was a choice: it was either doing evil for the greater good, or even more evil for no good at all. The choice was just an illusion.

Sounds like an interesting arc, I'll have to give it a run. Thanks for the feedback, Dr. Aeon, and congrats to Minimalist!

Congrats to Minimalist! I'm definately going to check this one out. As a side note, why is that despite all this alien technology permeating the city everyone still uses the old-timey cameras? Every time I see one I want to exclaim "WHAT A SCOOP!"

As for the choice issue, I don't think it needed to be explained better in the rules. If you frame your choice such that the player can get out of doing the evil act, then it only meets the contest criteria when they opt to do so. Basically, if you can play an arc and NOT do something evil for the greater good, then it doesn't meet the requirements.

This (assumedly) doesn't mean that ALL arcs involving a choice were tossed out the window. My arc featured a choice, but it was essentially between two evils. Which was for the greater good I left to the player, but in both instances they were being forced to do evil. I know there were at least a few others who framed their choices like that, so I'm thinking these were probably considered.

I had a ton of fun on this contest and want to take a second to thank Dr. Aeon for setting it up, as well as everyone who helped out with reviews and mutual tweaking (that sounded dirtier than I intended). Even though the contest is over, I'm keeping my arc up and am thinking of writing a sequel once I'm 100% happy with the first.

Grats to minimalist for winning this contest! I will definitely check that arc out soon.

Thank you to Dr Aeon to organize this contest. At the very least it gives us some wonderful arcs to play plus it challenged us to ponder about how to make things work nicely.

To all who had entered an arc. Thank you for your hard work.

Congratulations to Minimalist. I'll be sure to try out "Out of Place" soon.

Dr. Aeon: I'd be interested in seeing brief coverage of the arcs you took on. Maybe an ongoing "spotlight" thread on your part, for these submissions, and for submissions to future contests. A "highlights reel", if you will.

Interested?

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!

Minimalist has authored some of my favorite arcs, so I'm embarrassed to say I haven't tried this one yet. Congratulations, though. I'm sure you deserved it and will try to make time in the near future to validate that first-hand.

Now they just need to make his One Million Eyes arc Dev's Choice, too . . .

Congratulations Minimalist!

Click for Hot Sun Splitter Action

Congrats to Minimalist! I will definately add this to the "to Play" list as I am still working through some of the other entries as well.

I also want to thank the Doc for presenting the contest and for reviving my interest in the MA.

Oh, and I second Turgenev's interest in feedback or a "higlight reel".

Can't wait for the next one!

Congratulations, One million eyes was one of my favorites from the Player's Choice awards, and I absolutely look forward to playing it for my own in my thread.

Hm. Ah, well. I guess I did not enter properly, because it doesn't look like my entry was ever played. There are still only 2 ratings for it and both of those were identified by the posters in the thread for it.

Maybe Dr. Aeon didn't rate anyone else's or comment on anyone else's either?


At any rate, congratulations to Minimalist.

I am fairly sure that I submitted mine properly and it also apparently was not played or rated.

I had no expectations of winning, but it is extremely discouraging to spend a month working on something and receive no feedback at all. Official feedback was the reason I entered and I feel like I wasted a month of my spare time. I would much rather receive negative feedback than no feedback, so I can use it to do better. At the moment I am thinking of giving up on MA altogether.

I think there should be an official proceedure to acknowledge that your entry was accepted. Also each entered arc should be played and rated. If there is not enough time then perhaps the winner announcement should be delayed.

I do appreciate that attention is being given to MA and though super the Dr. is only one person, but if he doesn't have enough time to play and rate, perhaps there should be a cut off number of arcs and you should be notified that yours did not make the cut.

Thanks everyone, and thanks to Dr. Aeon! I'm pleased and grateful beyond words.

That arc was quite a bear to do (especially the first mission, which probably took up 75% of the time alone), but I'd always wanted to do something like that, and the idea had been sitting in my head for a long, lone time.

One thing the Doc said in the top post amused me; I was always afraid that making Dr. Aeon himself the contact would be construed as 'kissing up', but really, I couldn't think of anyone else who would have fit. Maybe Vernon von Grun, but he's a mad biologist. Not enough hard science there, BAH!

Anyway, it's funny that one issue was a lack of choice -- I always thought the lack of a choice would kind of sink my entry. I think some people might object to how it currently turns out, and I think there's a way to make the other possible decision justifiable. At the moment, though, there was no room to include it (99.99%); I think I might use one of my spare slots to do a 'trial version' of the last mission, and if it goes over well, I'll incorporate it into the arc proper once we get the size limit raised to 200k.

Anyway, thanks again, everyone, and I look forward to playing through the other entries I haven't tried yet! This contest had some great stuff going on.

Now I just need to decide on a yellow title...

Congratulations on the win and the DC.


WN

How evil is evil? I see the arc is marked as Heroic, so is the bad thing you do really bad, or just sort of mildly bad? I need to know before I risk playing it

Stupendously done, Minimalist! Can't wait to go play through it!

I've played it. It's not all that evil...

... or maybe it is.

Okay....

I tried to play this.

Very funny dialog, tons of clues, a real fun play. I was laffin' out loud, enjoying this.

Until the fourth mission, where I ran head-first into a could-not-complete. I could not find Trina.

I crawled over that stupid mapless Grandville instance 50 times. I killed everything. I lead the stowaway to the door, twice, thinking it might be a secret objective to spawn Trina. I even clicked every single one of the citizens and dragged them around in a little posse, until finally I was forced to quit out, unable to complete.

How is this a Dev choice? Buggy much? Feh.

I want my two hours back.

Congratulations to the winner.

I've not had time to play it but I shall give it a try when I have time.