NEW Guest Author Arcs Feedback Thread

So, for those who haven't seen it on the main page yet, we have three new Guest Author Arcs in the MA System

I've set up this thread for any posters in this section of the forum who have run through any of these arcs and want to share their throughts on them

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Arc Name: Mystery on the Boardwalk

Author: Mercedes Lackey

Arc ID#: 369275

Arc Description: Unbelievable Man is stuck on the phone with his needy girlfriend, so the Heroic ATemps Temp Agency has sent you over to handle this. It's only a little haunting, how hard can it be?

*****

Arc Name: A Little Night Music

Author: Troy Hickman

Arc ID#: 369271

Arc Description: Citadel needs your assistance. The Fifth Column have resurrected the dreaded WWII villain Nachtmusik, and he in turn has kidnapped Jimmy Preston. Citadel needs you to enter the dreamworld and save his young friend...and hopefully the world. You say you're not afraid? You will be...

*****

Arc Name: Return of the Crime Cabal

Author: Austin Grossman

Arc ID#: 369272

Arc Description: A routine distress call leads you into the conspiracy between three oddly mismatched villains - a dark wizard, a technologically enhanced agent, and a brilliant scientist. They seek to mingle the forces of magic and science to gain control of an ancient god from deep beneath the Earth's crust. But to oppose the Cabal it is necessary to understand its story, the forces that gave three very different people their superpowers and turned them to evil. The things that brought them together, and the things tearing them apart.

Hopefully these are better than the last ones.

Bubbawheat and I got to run the Hickman one with Dr. Aeon and a full team on Virtue tonight.

I was not impressed to tell you the truth. First off, the story was rather hard to follow without access to the debriefings, kept feeling like I was missing something and there were not nearly enough clues. Many of the maps chosen were too big as well, not good for a five mission arc. Then there were the customs.

I would gladly take the reduced XP of Standard customs than ever fight these things again. Minions with Energy Drain. LTs with Lightning Field and Mezz Protection. Bosses with Knockout Blow, Dull Pain, and Unyielding! A whole map full of Ninjistu Minions who are nearly invisible except for us having Tactics and give crap XP for being an all minion group. And to top it off, the AV at the end of the final mission was guarded by a group entirely of those SS/Invuln bosses and there was an ambush with every damn annoying custom critter from earlier in the arc.

Overall it was only the team chatter that made the experience any fun. If I had been soloing I'd have quit in the first mission and never look back.

There were also too many instances of telling rather than showing. If I'm supposed to have seen hostages being beaten and such then there should have been hostages inside the mission, not a blurb after it telling me that I saw them.

Soloing Hickman's set to no bosses is extremely easy, at least, that was my experience on a Defender.

So far, have run Mercedes' arc and Troy's arc... hers is fun, his is serious. I enjoyed them both (having run both solo, and then Troy's again with a nearly full team).

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I just ran Mercedes' solo, and it was fun. It was definitely in her "voice."

Ran Austin & Mercedes' arcs on Avatea's team tonight and finished up with Troy's after Avatea dropped and Samuraiko joined (for her 2nd run thru.)

Gotta say, Troy's was the best of the bunch. The missions felt more like 'missions' and we didn't have any trouble with overpowered enemies. Maybe our team mix was just better so we didn't notice any unbalance, we did have 'Ko's Mastermind, after all ;P

The customs had great costumes, but some didn't give XP. Not a big deal to us story-heads, but it'd definitely irk most casual players.

Could have done without the shameless plug for his TPB and a couple of the punny names were complete groaners, but I guess that's what you get with Troy.

As for the other 2 arcs, they were a lot harder to follow in a team setting. Almost too much dialogue at times and some of it a bit confusing (why is that computer talking about being in college?)

The details in all of them, tho are incredible. Detailed bios, creative clues, unique re-imaginings of standard enemies...big kuddos for those!

In the end, tho, it's obvious Troy has a better understanding of writing for the format that is MA.

I ran Mercedes MArc, Mystery on the Boardwalk, twice last night. I didn't take notes but a few things stood out.

Solo friendly. I ran it on a 50 scrapper at -1/5 ( forgot I had it set that way before I started.) I thought I'd set it for -1/1 I was racing through the mobs so fast ( It's a DM/SR and not set for AOE at all.) Second time was on a duo at 1/1. Level 30 db/da scrapper and Arch/elec blaster. Again, we ran through it so fast I thought we'd set it low. The only road bump was the final boss. He actually was tough enough to make us feel like we were fighting something.

Typos/text errors. If I was noticing them, there were lots. My partner's first comment on picking the MArc was about the typos. She tends to notice things like that and I don't, but I was picking up even more on the second run.

Story. I don't want to say anything that might give away any part of it. It is a mystery and it works.

Little details. There's lots of little details that are there, as they should be. Bio's for mobs as well as characters. I liked the comments about the contact in the accept window. ( I agreed with the comment at the start of mission two very much so.)

Over all, a good MArc. Very playable for most anyone. Lower level controllers and defenders may have problems with the final boss mob, but most teams and other soloers will likely not even notice.

I look forward to running the other two MArcs.




A tip for teams running MArcs. At the end of a mission I cut/paste the debrief dialogue box into team chat so the others can keep up with everything said. I think that is the only box that only the team lead can read and no on else gets. It makes it a better experience for all the players. (Other team members, you get all the clues and opening dialogues.)

I ran Troy Hickman's arc last night. It was very good. It had difficult opponents and a believable storyline. The third mission could be killer. Stacked mobs with twilight grasp can be tough. The puns were plentiful but not in such a way to keep the story from being serious. It was well balanced, I think, between the humorous and the dramatic.

I've now played through all three of the new guest author arcs and here are my impressions.

Playing on a team I didn't get to experience much of the mystery of Mystery on the Boardwalk. As I wasn't seeing many of the details of the story as such it was a bit confusing. That being said, the enemies came thick and fast, in nice big clumps just the way I like 'em. The tunnel maps can be a little claustrophobic at times, but they suited the story. I plan to rerun this one solo to do it justice.

With A Little Night Music I ran solo on the Killbot (L50 FM/Inv Brute). I got to read the tale as it unfolded this time which made for a totally different experience. Without giving away details, the premise of your adventure is laid out by your contact in a clear cut way, and yet I still entered the missions unsuspecting of what horrors Hickman had waiting. The two strongest aspects of this arc are the custom critters and the story itself. The critters have intricately detailed backgrounds and nifty costumes with the trademark brand of Hickman humour. The tale leaves one with a sense of a job well done and a slight lingering doubt of your sanity.

Return of the Crime Cabal was a real stand out arc for me. I found the story compelling in a way that most arcs don't quite achieve. The use of complex mechanics, characters with some depth, and the writing all came together in just the right amounts.


Edit: Only Noobs watch the Tube. Aeon Entertainment for all your entertainment needs.

5 stars for Mystery on the Boardwalk! It's 4 missions long but the maps are either small or very easy to navigate and the humor carries you right through until the fight with the end boss that is a perfect balance of being a real challenge while not impossible to solo. Also it was a total kick to have a contact from a novel by one of my favorite authors in the game.

The very dense text is a great read and chock full of hilarious pop culture references which really surprised me as they are somewhat of a departure from the typical Mercedes Lackey fare. There are a few typos in it but not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the story, and having been humbled by the hundreds of mistakes in my own arcs that take months for me to ferret out, I can't hold a couple of errors against an author who is after all not working with a professional editor as one does when publishing books. I need a pocket editor to keep me from making typos! Now there would be a superpower worth having!

I posted my thoughts about the Mercedes Lackey arc in my One a Day thread to keep from threadjacking this one.

Today I played "A Little Night Music".

I played on the easiest settings and was able to solo it without too much trouble, but I did need to use inspirations. For me it was slightly too hard for the easy settings. However I was playing on a level 35 with no fancy IOs.

That being said, I really enjoyed this arc. It had a nice story, but for me its strength was the customs, the mission titles and the text. It was so full of music references from Phantom to Caberet. There were tons of details that made me smile. In short, I loved the arc, and the reason I wish it was slightly easier is so I could fully enjoy all the great details.