Excellent job Fred I really enjoyed the arc! I already sent you all my comments in game.
WN
Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story
Well at least the random jerkface 1-starrer got it out of his system quick. I'm saying random but I'm pretty sure he's targeting my arcs specifically.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.
@GlaziusF
Running this on a max-level fire/DB brute, +1/x2 with bosses on.
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Well, this is an interesting conceit. Amanda Vines, WSPDR, bringing you the mission live and in-progress.
Looks like something's decided to crash this competition, and I'm being paid to put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans.
Ah, Freaks. The original crashers of everything. There's a boss up front who claims Pohsyb set this whole thing up.
The Family's guarding A BRAND NEW CAR, which they've somehow managed to lever up a narrow flight of stairs and onto a balcony. That kind of dedication deserves a not getting the car exploded.
Krylov is rescued but mute the whole time, seems a bit of an oversight.
Popping Pohysb free at the end reveals this entire thing was just a plan cooked up between himself and his handler to rattle Castle at the match, poor suffering security guards be damned.
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Hmm. Apparently Arachnos is taking the opportunity to reach out and tempt someone.
(Though I would like to see something in my own thoughts actually in the mission briefing to that effect.)
Fighting through a small army of reds and blues (very nice choices overall) I drop Pohsyb and Castle so the match will be invalidated due to gross malfunction.
Castle... seems to be buying the lead. Well well.
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Hmm. Interesting. Arachnos wants Castle to spring Ms. Vines' mom, who he apparently arrested in the first place. Let's see how he reacts to the offer.
Initially tempted. When he finds out what would be involved he decides he wants no part of it, but a gentle sword upside the head gets them both to come around.
I am SUCH a good negotiator.
Also, Krylov's caltrops count as part of his boss fight. I'm not sure what they did to make them not count in the game proper, but it hasn't spread to Architect.
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The WSPDR report makes it seem like Castle's gone back to being a good hero after all, though my whisperclip reveals it all as a ruse.
Standrd Zig rescue, though for some reason Ms. Vines' walking animation has her clutching an arcane tome.
Castle needs a little walking around to grab, but I find him outside easy enough after I drop off the spy. His musings reveal that it's devotion that flipped him blue to red (or I suppose gold to red if vigilante is gold?).
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Castle asks us to meet him. Well, let's see what he's up to.
The Arbiter shows up, unheralded by the mission briefing. I figure what the heck and smack him down, though he's still got his stock Sands description.
Castle wants to get dropped and smuggled back to Paragon City, claiming mind control, illusions, robot duplicates, alternate universes, Nemesis plots, or all of the above. His reputation's messed up, but he's already betrayed the game and has no desire to go back.
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Storyline - ***. A gripping tale of love, intrigue, betrayal, and poor sportsmanship... locked to the perspective of a media personality interviewing a largely disinterested security guard. I haven't seen the original musical, so perhaps I'm not the best audience for this, but I expect that a similarly background figure didn't take center stage in it. (Also it doesn't seem like test subject Pohsyb would be very given to giving interviews, but then that would leave Krylov as the romantic analogue, and, uh, yeah.)
Actually being the villain going up against Castle in the Arena might be an interesting perspective on this whole thing, but would remove a lot of the musical numbers -- then again to someone like me who isn't a fan of the musical, the musical numbers are just so much dissociated poetry.
Design - *****. Interesting use of custom groups to bring the Arena fights to life - generally stock stuff otherwise. The maps fit what they're supposed to be pretty well and objectives show up pretty sensibly, even on the outdoor maps (though word of warning, I've seen bosses show up on catwalks for those).
Gameplay - ****. Pretty good fights, except that as far as I can tell the Arbiter in the last mission isn't an optional fight and there's no warning about him.
Detail - **. Practically all of the personally relevant exposition to the story happens through clues. When that happens, it's important that they be clear to read, Royal blue and purple autocolors are really bad for this, given how low-contrast they are with their mandatory black borders, but in large quantities red text tends to all run together too.
The detail is otherwise very nicely done, but this is kind of a big deal.
Overall - ***. The missions themselves weren't bad, but the narrative perspective made sussing out the actual plot a bit of a chore.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Arena (#456200)
Gladiator fights in the arena have degenerated into a propaganda tool in the cold war between the U.S. and the Rogue Isles. You have been assigned as security during the World Championship in St. Martial.
I am going to enter this into Aeon's Challenge, eventually. Published now for early feedback. This is five missions with lots of text, some of it lyrical and a lot of it hidden in the debriefings and "busy" texts. If you want the full story you should probably solo it to be able to read everything. Despite this I hope that the basic plot and the gameplay is fun enough for a team to enjoy it.
This has been published before but I unpublished it because a bug fix broke the scripted dialog I used in one mission. I have changed it but new bugs with allies/escorts that have popped up recently have prevented me from perfecting it, so it's unfortunately a bit more Tell than Show at the moment. I had to resort to clues to talk about what was going on instead of being able to show the action properly. I have expanded on the secondary plot and hopefully made the motivation of all the characters clearer. I also made some troublesome enemies optional to defeat, and changed the plot accordingly.
Enjoy!
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522