The Greater Good - Dr. Aeon's Challenge

Arc Name: The Greater Good
Arc ID: # 350877
Morality: Hero
Creator: @Gypsy Rose
Difficulty Level: 45-54
Enemies: Paragon Police, Longbow, Family, Custom Group
Synopsis: What is good? What is evil? Would you perform an act of evil for the greater good? Play this arc and search within yourself for answers. Author's Note: This arc is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between your hero as portrayed in this arc and your actual hero is purely coincidental.
Length: 4 missions - the first map is very small - total play time should be less than one hour

After much thought, I decided to create a thread for this arc in the hopes that I could get some feedback. I thought of giving up on this arc and perhaps MA altogether, but I am not a quitter and so I decided to try a feedback thread.

The arc was written specifically for the challenge, and in my opinion in order to meet the requirements of the challenge, your hero had to be hijacked. Based on feedback I received on my other arc I realize that people hate this. So I ask that if you are fall into this category and can never truly like an arc that does this, don't play. See my note above regarding this.

Any and all comments aside from "you hijacked my hero" or "my hero would never do that!" are welcomed.

A special thanks to minimalist for playing my arc and helping me decide to give this a go.

I am so on this...as soon as I do some packing for my upcoming vacation. The wife will kill me if I don't get something done on that front. Soon as I am done with that I am playing your arc.

There will be no quitting from you ArrowRose. I will not allow it.

Seriously, I graduated college almost 20 years ago. I have put pen to paper for something other than a work report, something that was for the pure enjoyment of writing and having an idea of my own, exactly once since then. I have been pulling levers and moving massive amounts of dirt with giant tonka toys my entire adult life. My computer skills suck compared to most 6th graders. If this old heavy equipment operator can sit here and hunt-n-peck his way through trying to put out a story and try to figure out how this MA thing actually works, then you have to stick it out too!

On a side note, your comment about people stating "you hijacked my hero" makes me think perhaps you are writing to the wrong audience. Being a villain player most of my years here, my thought is that if the heroes hate what you are making them do then the villains might actually enjoy it. Just an idea.

Oh, and keep a bag of pretzels handy when reading any reviews/comments. That way you always have a grain of salt handy to take with any criticism. That's my plan. Unless of course it's Venture, then just go grab the whole salt shaker.

Ok, I'm back and have played the arc. The arc has potential. The skeleton is there but for me it just needs more meat on the bones, so to speak. Unfortunately, my reviewing skills are not in the league of LaserJesus, Bubbawheat and Venture. I lack the technical expertise of those folks, so what I can provide is much more based on a "feel" for things. I apologize for any spoilers to anyone that has not played the arc yet.

I guess that's a spoiler alert!

1.) The introduction does a nice job of trying to give the player a justification for believing in your contact. I just don't think it is enough. Telling me I know a person who knows this person feels much different than running Levantera's arc and getting introduced to Serpent Drummer, for example. There is just more of a relationship built that lends to the trust you are trying to instill for your contact.

2.) We need to know more about Mr. Richman. All the information on him is just too vague. Billionaire rich, some sort of a connection to the Family...go steal his money and kidnap his daughter. I am not saying my hero is above robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Errol Flynn's Robin Hood is one of my favorite movies, but it was well established that Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham were bad dudes. Mr. Richman? Not so much. Is he a slum lord? drug dealer? maybe he sells conflict diamonds or beats baby seals and sells their pelts. Just give me something to work with and I will happily run off and rob the guy. Good guys will do bad things to bad guys as long as they can justify in their heads that the bad guy deserved it or there was no other way. Ok, to wordy, I will move on.

3.) Mr. Goodman could use some attention as well. I think he has potential as a character but needs to be deeper. A hint as to his true goals or a little history on him somewhere. You appear to be going for a cult leader status in Mr. Goodman. As is, he is a bit of cardboard cut out bad guy, but could be much more.

4.) The mind control thing, how does our plucky contact get out from under Mr. Goodman's control and if she never does, than who is leaving the notes? Especially if there is no cure or way to reverse the mind control as the file on the computer states.

5.) Where is the last mission?!?!? The opportunity to really push the envelope on how far you can push a hero is in the list of assassination targets that Mr. Goodman has on him. How far will the hero go to stop those assassinations? Who are the targets. What if Mr. Goodman is trying to off his competition and they are all murdering scum? Are they actually worth saving if you have to hurt/kill another hero to do it? Is it evil to not stop the murder of a murderer? I think the gold to be mined in this arc is in the mission you have yet to write.

6.) Last thing and this is really my only serious problem with the story. I do not understand why half the greater good was fighting on my side and the rest wanted to kill me in the last mission. No clue what so ever what was going on there especially when they fight Mr. Goodman's mob with me. That goes back to the whole brainwash/mind control issue and how are they not under the bad guys control?

As far as the missions working, other than that bit of mob weirdness in the last one, they all worked for me. So there you have it. Please take everything I stated in a good light. I think the potential for a very compelling story is in there and I am sure you can bring it out. I am sure there will be other opinions. This was just mine. I hope it helps.

Papa Slade

Thanks so much for playing and commenting. Sadly I have no pretzels, so I had to settle for coffee (I know - no salt) but it keeps me awake.

My responses to your comments follow and they will definately contain spoilers.

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Originally Posted by PapaSlade 1.) The introduction does a nice job of trying to give the player a justification for believing in your contact. I just don't think it is enough. Telling me I know a person who knows this person feels much different than running Levantera's arc and getting introduced to Serpent Drummer, for example. There is just more of a relationship built that lends to the trust you are trying to instill for your contact.

I have only 8 more characters left in the intro text so I am not sure there is much I can do here to make it clearer. If you or anyone has any specific minor wording changes that would help, that would be great. The idea here is that you ran into your old mentor and he referred you to a friend of his, Dr. Allura. You met with her for several months and she sent you to meet Angela. The implication was that the Dr. had been brainwashing you. Your desire to help the poor made you a subject. After subjects are identified and "treated" by Dr. Allura, they come to Angela to be tested on mildy evil tasks before they are allowed to officially join The Greater Good.

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2.) We need to know more about Mr. Richman. All the information on him is just too vague. Billionaire rich, some sort of a connection to the Family...go steal his money and kidnap his daughter. I am not saying my hero is above robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Errol Flynn's Robin Hood is one of my favorite movies, but it was well established that Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham were bad dudes. Mr. Richman? Not so much. Is he a slum lord? drug dealer? maybe he sells conflict diamonds or beats baby seals and sells their pelts. Just give me something to work with and I will happily run off and rob the guy. Good guys will do bad things to bad guys as long as they can justify in their heads that the bad guy deserved it or there was no other way. Ok, to wordy, I will move on.

I need to think on where to put more info on him that would best suit the arc. Again opinions are welcome. My concept for this arc was firstly that there be a double meaning as to how it fit the challenge. In the first 3 missions, you are literally doing evil for "The Greater Good" and in the last mission you actually do evil for the greater good. Along with this concept, I intentionally chose names that were generic and symbolic. The names include Angela Goodheart, Mr. Richman, and Mr. Goodman. Sorry I digressed. The idea behind Mr. Richman is that he is just a generic rich man. He may have ties to family but he does nothing particulary wrong. His sin is that he is rich and this makes him a target for the Greater Good. The fact that you would act against him without specific reasons is a test to see how much you are willing to do and how deeply controlled you are.

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3.) Mr. Goodman could use some attention as well. I think he has potential as a character but needs to be deeper. A hint as to his true goals or a little history on him somewhere. You appear to be going for a cult leader status in Mr. Goodman. As is, he is a bit of cardboard cut out bad guy, but could be much more.

In a way he was intended to be a cardboard cut out bad guy, but I think you are right here. My first arc had this same flaw. I need some time to think about what more I want to say about him and where it is best placed. His bio which is currently cryptic by intent.
My concept here is that he is greedy and quite the opposite of the good man he appears to be. He brainwashes heroes to serve his needs and make himself rich.

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4.) The mind control thing, how does our plucky contact get out from under Mr. Goodman's control and if she never does, than who is leaving the notes? Especially if there is no cure or way to reverse the mind control as the file on the computer states.

The contact is not fully controlled and never was. While writing the arc, I read a lot about brainwashing and a process which involves taking away your identity, breaking you down and then building you back up to act in a new way (the way the controller desires). The study by Robert Jay Lifton that is mentioned in the Project Robin Hood file specifically caught my interest. Angela is fighting the control and when she meets you she sees a way out. She is definately the writer of the notes. There may be a cure, but at the time of mission 4, neither you or she believe that there is. In my souvenir I state that you believed at the time there was no other option then the action you chose to take.

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5.) Where is the last mission?!?!? The opportunity to really push the envelope on how far you can push a hero is in the list of assassination targets that Mr. Goodman has on him. How far will the hero go to stop those assassinations? Who are the targets. What if Mr. Goodman is trying to off his competition and they are all murdering scum? Are they actually worth saving if you have to hurt/kill another hero to do it? Is it evil to not stop the murder of a murderer? I think the gold to be mined in this arc is in the mission you have yet to write.

The last mission is in an office where a party is being held in your honor. You pose a very interesting point here. While I was at work yesterday I was thinking that I should add names to the target list Statesman, Ms. Liberty etc. Now I am unsure. The point you raise here makes me think. I would specifically like opinions from you and anyone else who plays on whether making the targets COH heroes or evil competitors would make the arc stronger. I am leaning towards the heroes at the moment.

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Last thing and this is really my only serious problem with the story. I do not understand why half the greater good was fighting on my side and the rest wanted to kill me in the last mission. No clue what so ever what was going on there especially when they fight Mr. Goodman's mob with me. That goes back to the whole brainwash/mind control issue and how are they not under the bad guys control?

This is a mechanics issue. To give the flavor of a party, I placed various Greater Good members in the mission using the release captive objective. So that the surrounding group of party goers does not attack you as you innocently walk through the party, I made them allies. I even gave them unaware dialog to help add a party flavor, but this seems to be a bug because they say nothing unless attacked. After you meet Mr. Goodman and start committing your true evil deed, you are attacked by ambushes. This is by intent. Unfortunately, if these ambushes occur near the party goers, they will be attacked and will fight back. I would prefer that this not happen, but for the sake of the story one could argue that these heroes are less controlled and when they see you being attacked something in their heroic nature causes them to jump to your defense.


Thanks again so much for playing and for your input.

Finally got around to playing this, here are my (spoiling) thoughts:

From the very start my hero is told I'll be doing some evil things. I think what you did was a good approach, but the justifications I found to be nebulous. The contact tells me that all that money will be put to good use... but for what exactly, a new orphanage, feeding the homeless, a new dart board in the coffee room? I think you should feed the player more lines as to why exactly this is all justified.

I thought "ah okay, I see what's going on" when I read Mr Goodman's bio, and when my hero enthusiastically accepted the next mish I thought that was a neat nod towards that. However my hero reverts back to reluctant acceptance in the final mission, making me think there's a bit of conflict in writing going on here.

I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but all the naming and caricaturisation of the characters gave a distinct children story vibe to me, similar to your In Pursuit of Liberty arc.

The moment I entered the final mission, I was greeted by members doing the zombie dance to the drums. This gave a really good atmosphere and confirmation that this group is a really creepy cult. Though as I entered further into the map, it looks like you were just experimenting with different animations. It went from "Oh wow, this is going to be a cool final mish" to "okay... it looks like an office party now". I say scrap the eating, drinking, and especially the gambling(?) and run with the creepy cult drums and other subtle rituals.

Mr Goodman being super strength seems like an odd choice, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be a mentalist?

Overall, I think you have a pretty cool idea going here, it just needs some more fine-tuning. I thought in particular the contact and the clue trails was quite a nice touch.

Morning ArrowRose, still a little groggy this morning but let me see what I can address.

1.) My "not enough" comment regarding the intro to your contact was more about the concept of doing it that way not being enough to get the average player to buy into the story. Of course I have no idea if the average player is even looking at MA. I like the attempt and the writing is fine. I do not think it is something that must be changed. I just think it puts you in the position of asking a lot from your player right off the bat. If they don't feel enough attachment to the contact they will not have that much interest in what the contact wants them to do. The attachment here is almost more to Allura than Goodheart and we never see Allura.

2.) I get the symbolism and symbolism is great but the devs do not give us alot of space to really give those symbols meaning. The "sin" of being a rich man may not be a sin to many players. I understand that the player's character is being brainwashed but the player isn't. If they have not given themselves up to that, then they have no reason to do anything to Mr. Richman. Again, you ask a lot of your player here.

I am going to break from actually talking about the story for a second here. I have a feeling I am going to use "You are asking a lot from your player", well...a lot, when discussing this arc. THAT IS NOT A BAD THING. I think you are aiming high and that is great. I come to the MA to get away from some of the in game material, especially blue side, that just reads "blah, blah, blah go beat up some Trolls/Outcasts/whatever" Just remember that they have the right to ask for a little something back.

The symbolism and idea for this story are good. For me, and I may very well be in the minority on this, the symbolism here sorta hangs there like a balloon and I am looking for the string that makes me want to reach up and grab it.

3.) Give us an inkling into how Mr. Goodman is brainwashing heroes. Heroes are usually written as strong willed people. Mr. Goodman needs to be persuasive and powerful for a player to want to give over their character to serve him. I think you are shooting for this a little bit in you dialogue for some of the PPD in the breakout but a player may not get close enough to trigger that dialogue. It needs to come from Goodman. I don't know if there is a way to have some of the PPD closest to him actually fight for him. Maybe a battle between two PPD groups as you arrive. I am not sure how best to handle this.

4 & 6.) I think you have chosen a difficult subject to work with in choosing brainwashing. We see none of the stripping away of the old person to create the new controlled person. I think this goes back to making Mr. Goodman a more substantial character. I have not done the reading or research on the topic that you have so I am afraid I am not much help here.

The mechanics available for your fourth mission also hurt what you are trying to do by forcing you to mix brainwashed and non-brainwashed mobs that work to break your continuity. I hope someone with more technical expertise will look at this and have some advice for a way around this.

5.) I am saying there needs to be a 5th mission. Our hero has broken free of the brainwashing of Mr. Goodman. Now, how far will our hero go to fix the damage that has been done? Will they hurt a brainwashed hero to stop them from killing? If its Statesman or Ms. Liberty, they probably will. Those characters are true symbols to the people of Paragon and their loss could turn the tide in the favor of evil. For "the greater good" you would likely sacrifice the lesser hero for the greater.

If you wanted to get away from the contest a little, I would make the list of targets be Mr. Goodman's competition. Then your hero has a real dilemma. Do they allow a fellow hero to murder a murderer, risking the psyche of their fellow hero having to live with the act but getting an evil person off the street or does your hero risk killing a fellow hero to prevent the crime from happening? I think you can have an excellent Arc either way.

Papa Slade

Thanks so much for playing and for your comments and for your help with my technical questions while I was creating this arc.

Below are my responses to your comments:

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Originally Posted by Tangler From the very start my hero is told I'll be doing some evil things. I think what you did was a good approach, but the justifications I found to be nebulous. The contact tells me that all that money will be put to good use... but for what exactly, a new orphanage, feeding the homeless, a new dart board in the coffee room? I think you should feed the player more lines as to why exactly this is all justified.

I will think about this. My concept here is that you are to some degree brainwashed and missions 1 to 3 are tests to see what you will do without lots of justification. If you are willing to do these things just because Angela asks and without lots of justification, then you are ready for induction into the group. The reason for your willingness to do these acts without much justification is hinted at by this: " A part of you wonders why you are doing this, but after your talks with Dr. Allura you have gained a new perspective on things and feel the need to take action."

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I thought "ah okay, I see what's going on" when I read Mr Goodman's bio, and when my hero enthusiastically accepted the next mish I thought that was a neat nod towards that. However my hero reverts back to reluctant acceptance in the final mission, making me think there's a bit of conflict in writing going on here.

Yes your character did get more enthusiastic for each mission until mission 4 and I did this by intent. This was to show that you were getting sucked in deeper and deeper. The reluctance on your part to accept the last mission was intentional as well. This is because you sense a difference in Angela: "Angela looks a bit distracted but smiles when she sees you." Sensing this difference sets off a warning signal and something in the back of your mind makes you hesitate in taking the final step in joining this group.

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I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but all the naming and caricaturisation of the characters gave a distinct children story vibe to me, similar to your In Pursuit of Liberty arc.

It is not intentionally a child story vibe, but I think I see what you mean. The names were chosen to have meaning and perhaps that is what you mean. As Angela Goodheart (Angelic with a good heart). Mr. Richman is rich. Mr. Goodman is good. OK maybe not.

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The moment I entered the final mission, I was greeted by members doing the zombie dance to the drums. This gave a really good atmosphere and confirmation that this group is a really creepy cult. Though as I entered further into the map, it looks like you were just experimenting with different animations. It went from "Oh wow, this is going to be a cool final mish" to "okay... it looks like an office party now". I say scrap the eating, drinking, and especially the gambling(?) and run with the creepy cult drums and other subtle rituals.

I did intentionally choose to place the zombie dance with drums at the front because of the atmosphere it set. I was however not experimenting with animations but rather trying to create a party atmosphere. There is unaware dialog for all to create a bit of humor/atmosphere but it doesn't show. The idea was these brainwashed heroes are enjoying a party and even at the end when all hell breaks loose they continue beating drums, eating and drinking tea. As pointed out earlier unfortunately at times some join in the fight. I would love other opinions on this as to whether it would be better to have them all playing zombie drums.

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Mr Goodman being super strength seems like an odd choice, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be a mentalist?

This is a very good point. I wanted to be sure the arc was not too hard. I made the mistake in my Liberty Arc of initially including some very hated powers and when people find the play frustrating it hurts the enjoyment of the arc. I will test him as a mentalist and see how hard that is, but per the story you are 100% right that he should have mind control powers. Edit: I tested this and made the change as it seems to be OK.

Thanks again.

Hi ArrowRose,

Just got your comment in-game. I'd been occupied the last couple of days getting out of town before the snow hit, then digging out my parents' house up north.

Anyway, in terms of making non-combat "flavor" encounters, there are three main ways to go about it:

1.) Which you did, was to have an ally/captive surrounded by a friendly group. The downside is that they stay 'silent' -- their dialog only triggers if under attack by an enemy group (which happened when I ran through it).

2.) A solo Ally. Make sure to set the enemy group to "single", and set the NPC to "Non Combat" and "Do Nothing" when freed (bug: the NPC may sometimes end up following you anyway, nothing you can do) and fill in the dialogue brackets for:

Ally Rescued Dialog: This is the one that triggers only when the player gets near the NPC.
Ally Stranded Dialog
Ally Reacquired Dialog

This gives you a chance to make the NPCs' dialog more complex, and has been used to great effect in some arcs (Blight, etc.). In the context of this arc, you might assume that the players will only return to some NPCs (like the ones at the very front of the mission) when they're setting the bombs, so you could set the Reacquired dialog to something like "No! You can't do this to us!", or creepy postmortem taunts from Goodman.

The Ally Inactive or Ally Active Dialog will trigger as soon as you enter the mission, which might be useful in limited circumstances ("Find me quickly, hero!")

3.) A Boss. The surrounding group is going to be more scattered and facing away from the boss, though. Still, it works for things like zombie drumming, etc. Set everything to Ally, etc. Fill in the Boss Unaware Dialog. You'll be able to see that dialog when you get close enough to the boss.

As a final note about the progression of the missions, I do agree with the others that it's probably best to ease the player into the criminal activity -- too many players see "mind control" as a cop-out, but it's easier to accept that their hero is getting involved if the players themselves find the scenario plausible.

So a more gradual progression might be to make the first mission be the "kidnapping" mission... only the contact assures you that it's to "investigate" Richman and "rescue" anyone he's holding there against their will. Drop in some clues about illegal activities that Richman is profiting from, and leave the daughter un-named (so the player only really suspects that he/she is being involved in a kidnapping from subtle hints in the dialog). With all that, and when the player sees that Richman is working with the Family, they'll be slightly more inclined to trust the contact and go further down the rabbit hole.

The second mission could be the bank robbery, with the justification that it's to confiscate some dirty money and trace its origins, then re-distribute it to the poor. You might wish to change the enemies here to PPD rather than Longbow, so you can justify it to the player by suggesting that those particular cops are bought off. Same goes for the prison break in M3.

Finally, unfortunately I missed the last mission debriefing somehow; did it reveal who wrote the notes? Making an encounter with the author more explicit within the mission itself might have more visceral impact as a "snap-back-to-reality" moment, combined with the list of assassination targets,

Hope this helps!

(As an aside, sorry you still got hit by the last mission bug on OoP. Going by the comments I'm getting and my own experience, it's rarer than it used to be, but still there.)

Below are some updates that I made based on player feedback:

I added the following to help explain early on why your hero is commiting acts of evil without very strong motivation.

Mission 1 Intro now opens with:
" It all started when you ran into your old mentor, Captain Courageous. After the obligatory hellos, your discussion turned to your growing sense of frustration with the number of needy people out there that weren't getting any help. He suggested you talk to his friend, Dr. Allura. After months of meeting with her, you find yourself here."

The end of the mission 1 send off dialog now includes:
" A part of you wonders why you are doing this, but after your talks with Dr. Allura you have gained a new perspective on things and feel the need to take action."

The end of the mission 2 send off dialog now includes:
" Something in the back of your mind is telling you that a true hero would not do this. You wonder about that odd note you found in the vault ... but looking into Angela's eyes, you are inspired with a strange confidence that you are doing the right thing."


To improve playability and per Bubba's suggestions changed mission 3 so that you do not need to lead Nikki out and changed the small bombs to large bombs in mission 4.

Also per Bubba's suggestion, I made Mr. Goodman's name a bit less literal. He is now called Mr. Worthington. If any of you who play notice any references to Mr. Goodman, that I missed, let me know.

I still plan to change Mr. Richman's name as well but I have not decided on his new name yet.

I would like some input as to whether or not I should add specific names such as Statesman to the list of targets in mission 4.

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions and help.

I like Worthington as a name.

As for Mr. Richman...

reicher Mann is German, though that is probably too close to Reichsman.
Winst is Dutch for profit.
Argent is French for money.

Mr. Phatstax.

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level 50 stone/ice tanker, +1 x1 with bosses on.

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...wait, what? Months pass?

I mean, okay, it does take a ton of Influence to buy your way up to Operating Goodness Level XII, but even so.

Feels very Saturday Morning, not that that's a bad thing. But how these things end is that there is no such thing as a greater good. We'll see.

Fat stacks of cash, and a little piece of paper that says "seek the greater good". I guess this is what somebody else put in, thieves' guild style, to make sure I actually did the thing.

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Having my internal narration tell me I shouldn't be doing this doesn't make for an easy mind, opening briefing.

Anyway.

One patrol of PPD wonders why Worthington's in there. His guards call him scum and say he'll never get out.

It's noted in his description that he inspires fanatical loyalty. Well, that's not disturbing at all.

Kind of odd I don't actually have to lead him out - I guess that's to stop me from turning round and noticing the Arachnos Flier I came in on.

Another piece of paper.

You know what these messages could be, that wouldn't introduce the whole weirdness of how a physical object managed to get ahead of me? Text messages to my cell phone.

You know, that one I'm all the time calling people on? Yeah.

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And now, punch up a bunch of monsters and whisk someone away from a mansion.

For... ransom. This is money that Mr. Richman keeps in his money bin, I guess? Instead of that bank I robbed?

Nikki just needs some overdone ringlets (which don't currently exist) to fit the stereotype to a T.

Two more messages have been planted here, and I can't find Nikki if I don't pick them up.

Given how things can hide in this map, maybe she should be a following ally who's there from the start. It's not like the messages actually inform how I act later in the mission, and I was asked to find some information on how Mr. Richman operates in addition to the kidnap.

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My contact doesn't seem very happy that I've made it into her big white-coated family.

Anyway, I head inside, and...

Desk?

Why yes, there one is. But why am I...?

Oh. The opening clue. Alright.

(also, the big drum gets beaten with clubs made out of legbones. You may want to turn that into a boombox or some bongos.)

You can probably get this same special effect with "allied bosses", though the minions will be facing outward rather than inward. As an added bonus they can address you when you get into range!

Huh. Three-card monte. Never thought I'd see the day somebody used that one.

Anyway, the desk gives me some detonators, and the password to a computer deeper in, which coughs up something about unbreakable brainwashing and spawns a boss.

If he hadn't gone down and had the next phase of his plan on him (as per supervillain regulations) I'd be rather worried that this murder I'm about to commit won't actually be for the greater good.

Because that's what I'm about to do. Murder. Bring down a whole building and kill everyone inside. Nobody asked to be there. They didn't even choose. They couldn't.

I can appreciate the need, given the ambushes, for unique names for the glowies. (And something I didn't know -- if you chain "transparent" glowies, they're solid until they're triggered.) I think you could actually get away with the old "L to I" trick and call them "Chemical barrel", and put an extraneous space after one of the permutations. Numbered bombs just seem a bit weird.

And none of the ambushes actually say anything, up until the last one I happen to trigger.

And then the murder happens.

Given that we canonically have a superheroine capable of turning Malaise sane, if only temporarily, it's a little hard for me to believe that this is really the only way.

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Storyline - **. Don't get me wrong. I appreciated the head-fake (if head-fake it was) that the evil you were doing for the greater good was the evil you were doing TO The Greater Good. But it's kind of disastrously off-tone here.

The first three missions wouldn't be out of place in a Very Special Episode of some superhero cartoon, about how evil never serves the greater good. But the last one - collapse a building to kill a bunch of brainwashed people who only wanted to help out? (Setting aside that this is a cosmic-level arc and collapsing a building would probably leave at least a few insane brainwashed murderous survivors. Heck, I'd bet there are some missions out there to stop Freakshow from collapsing buildings on themselves just for laughs.)

The only hints we've received as to what's really going on, up until the final mission, are some scribbles on slips of paper that have been showing up with no real explanation. And they're sufficiently cryptic that they really don't mean anything.

I mean, consider this: after mission 1, you get a text message from some handle with "angel" in it somewhere, warning you that all is not as it seems, but to play along anyway. Tag with the emoticon "0 : )", maybe.. Your contact says it's just some hacker who got in a while back, and Mr. Worthington is just ignoring them since they'll get bored and move on.

Mission 2, you not only recover Mr. Worthington but the rest of the chemical agent the PPD used to knock out his bodyguards, since it's obviously better off in the hands of the Greater Good. The hacker says it's some kind of anti-psychotic medication, and "think about what that means 0 : )".

Mission 3, the hacker starts detailing the plan to gas the headquarters of The Greater Good (setting off the stuff you just stole) and call in the cops as you're poking around Richman's hideout.

Mission 4, your contact's business card has a little "0 : )" scrawled on the back.

If you want a kick, maybe the souvenir is a front-page article about Mr. Richman's accountant taking an obvious fall and going to jail on corruption charges, on account of the ties to organized crime the dude has that we uncovered. And the man himself is making a large charitable contribution as a gesture of goodwill, or somesuch.

Design - ***. This really isn't a cosmic-level arc. The enemies aren't really cosmic-level enemies. The final boss, assuming you're willing to pack a Break Free or three, is pretty reasonable. Is he natively an EB? He'd drop to boss for people who didn't want to fight them.

The story would make a lot more sense as a street-level arc (sub-30, maybe even sub-20) given that it deals with issues common to street-level heroes -- namely, wondering if what they're doing is really helping people. It would make it a little easier to buy that this is somebody trying to con younger, presumably more gullible heroes than that this is some ennui a cosmic-level hero is trying to work through.

Also, the chaining in mission 3 doesn't really make much sense - we know Nikki is in there from the beginning, and the investigation has been talked about as a sidelight.

Gameplay - *****. Everything's placed so the chaining falls into a natural order, and none of the stock or custom enemies are frustratingly hard.

Detail - **. The only two threads of evidence that something else might be going on here are the internal narration that we really shouldn't be doing these missions (that isn't enough to stop us from doing them anyway) and the rather incongruous crumpled-up bits of fortune cookie wisdom that seem to predate us everywhere we go. The first one is a bit absurd on the face of it, and the second is just kinda weird. Text messages or similar communications would make a little more sense.

Overall - **. Not an average. A really drastic tone shift in the last mission kind of torpedoes this one, the objections that you're supposedly voicing aren't really acknowledged, and the clues that are supposed to point you toward some greater truth are kind of cryptic and meaningless, up until the last mission.

Glaziusf - Thank you for your input and the detailed review.

You have confirmed what I already knew and so I plan to rework this arc into something that hopefully more people can enjoy.

Hopefully when I have done that you can relook at it and see if you feel it is any better.