Mission Architect Arc Club

#CoHMA Playing Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine part 1 #1013 by @turgenev from my MA Arc club mission "play a dev choice arc"
#CoHMA Contact is a Refurbished Arachnos Console, published before contact bios, so no bio.
#CoHMA M1: Console is an old Arachnos training program. In it I'm supposed to destroy the Midnighters. Also, funny comment from Positron.
#CoHMA M1: Odd complaint, I don't like the fact that it's called "Part the First"
#CoHMA M1: Sendoff text is either parody of old computer loading messages, or a hint that something has gone wrong.
#CoHMA Continuing Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine part 1 #1013 by @turgenev
#CoHMA M1: Found a list of names of higher ups in the Midnight Squad, and am heading to defeat Dirigins Gin'zago
#CoHMA M1: During the fight with Gin'zago, his text was interrupted by a message from Dani Mizel claiming he was trapped in the sim.

#CoHMA M2: It's a defeat all mission with more Midnighters. There's also a secret message in the sendoff text saying "Can you read this".
#CoHMA M2: Map is the Katie tree, popup warns of redcaps. Second oddity complaint - have to find 3 books called in objective list "libraria"
#CoHMA M2: First hostage was taken over by Dani again, told me to look for bones. Found the bones and they had her ID - "Sunglare"
#CoHMA M2: She was also posted on the destroyed side of the Faultline dam.

#CoHMA M3: I typed in the mission ID I was told about in the previous mission and I get text from Dani. She's trapped, and we'll meet up.
#CoHMA M3: This is one of the first AE arcs, and it's already complaining about bad missions someone cooked up?
#CoHMA M3: Saved a couple fragments of her personality, and erased some memory blocks that were trapping the rest of her... I think.

#CoHMA M4: Sounds like the computer is trying to overwrite the rest of Dani's memory and has locked her out. Time to destroy more memory.
#CoHMA M4: Rescued Dani's superego, will see what happens with her next. Doubt it's all over yet.

#CoHMA M5: We're going back into simulation space to take out the control center within the simulation. I have a feeling Dani has no body...
...to come back to though. #CoHMA
#CoHMA M5: I'm in yet another burning map - also used the Arachnos burning map - both of which I used in my Matchstick Women arc. (3369)
#CoHMA M5: Apparently, my character has been made into a lesbian, as the arc tells me she thinks Sunglare is "hawt".
#CoHMA M5: Wait, this is a defeat all? Why is this a defeat all again?
#CoHMA M5: Ok, defeat all on this map wasn't too bad. Seemed awfully empty, but this was before [empty] was an option...
#CoHMA M5: I wonder if @turgenev was able to do some edits. Anyway, defeated the EB at the end with the help of Dani.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty well-written arc that holds up pretty well considering. I can totally believe this was one of the best arcs during i14 beta. My only complaint right now is that it says it's designed for heroes level 50, but the level range on the first two max out at level 33 (due to use of the Midnighters group and redcaps), and the level ranges on the rest are 1-54, which weren't adjustable previously.

I played "Johnny Sonata and The Hitmen." My first real observation, after I realized that I was running a villainous arc, was that my character of Tubbius (level 50 plant controller/empath/ice epic), who looks like Santa Claus, was being asked to bust some musicians out of jail.

Only in City.

The contact: he looks sharp, overall, except for one problem. There was, at least on my screen, very obvious graphics clipping on his shoulders, meaning the blue of his shirt was horribly showing through the yellow of his sleeves. Overall, he has a well-written personality and dialog, drawing on stereotypical mobster types from films. It does get fairly grating in the long run, but it works.

Mission 1: Good overall. It's a little counter-intuitive to have to go into the sewer system section and thus into the busted Zig to find the drummer, but the real issue with the level is having to escort him back to the Arachnos ship you're inexplicably borrowing.

Mission 2: The only issue I really have with this mission is that there's no in-game rationale for being forced to crack the four safes--and there's no mention of WHY you should even go for "the jewels" in each as opposed to other goods. Yes, the contact says you should "help yourself," but a little more meat here would be nice. This is when I first noticed that the arc doesn't use clues at all, at any point.

Mission 3: Quick mission through some caves fighting Circle. It's REALLY easy to miss the "Byzantil" reference that proves important to the next section of mission dialog. The NPCs are written particularly well here, for what little text they do get.

Mission 4: I could follow the story well up to this point. Johnny Sonata knowing "mumbo jumbo guys" to get inside the sleeping True Blue's head and fight for his soul. . . . It just doesn't really seem to fit what we've seen of Johnny so far, as he's shown no prior inclination toward the occult, even going so far as to blow off the idea that his brass section might even be magically backed. Also, the notion of Johnny and True Blue both having sonic powers is a little much to ask, but in a realm of fantasy like this, I guess I can forgive that much.

Oh. . . and Eliza "True Blue" Woodson is an obvious reference to Elwood Blues in name and look.

The arc can perhaps best be summed up as "The Blues Brothers meets The Godfather meets (in mission 4 only) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors." It's arc 1001, which means that it was a GOOD arc, perhaps even exceptional, in the early days of the MA. It's still good, despite my personal faults with it, still coming out vastly better than most of the AE stuff out there, which is largely just fluff or farms. . .

But when comparing it to any of the OTHER really good, story-based work out there? It's solid, yes. It's cleverly put together with some subtle humor and almost flawless writing (there are a few minor spelling and punctuation slips).

My big issue? It's not that the arc is outdated by newer arcs with more shine and sparkle. It's not that the arc is technically flawed in terms of gameplay or bugs. To me, while "Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen" is GOOD, it just doesn't really have that "WOW" factor I'd hope to see in a longstanding Dev's Choice. That said, I certainly don't see any problems recommending it for the occasional run overall, and it IS deserving of recognition.

So I played 'Ctrl + Alt + Reset", as I've been wanting to for a while anyway.

A well-done sci-fi story about a time loop. The first three missions are basically the same thing, with slightly different objectives. This could get boring, but the author wisely chose a small map, so it doesn't take that long. The fourth mission has a few surprises. I saw one of them coming, but that's not a bad thing - being completely blindsided by a twist is overrated.

Pros (why got got a DC): It's a well-done time travel story. What else can you ask for? (Look at the last 5 Hugo-winning short films).

Cons: Ok, there is a bit more you can ask for: character development. Going back to the 4 episodes I alluded to above (one of the 5 is not a time-travel story), part of what makes them great is that the audience is emotionally invested in the characters. True, there's not that much room for that in the current arc. So this isn't really something wrong with the arc as just something that this particular story lacks. It's still quite good.

Conclusion: Very nice concept, and very good implementation of a moderately complex sci-fi plot given the limited tools available in the mission creator. Lacks emotional weight, but didn't really try for it, so that's not a big deal.

And as promised, this week's arc is:

Arc #271637 -
Welcome to M.A.G.I. -
An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you must find out how and why.

Okay, my thoughts on Welcome to M.A.G.I.

Synopsis: Overall, I enjoyed it, but I did find the plot to frequently be confusing. Some of that was inherent to the plot, and not a bad thing - and that was largely addressed by the end of the arc. But there were enough times that it was awkward phrasing confusing things, or statements that seemed to make no sense in the context of what the character had *just* said, to detract from really getting into the story.

Next, my thoughts as I was playing the arc...

The opening briefing is off to a good start – well, written, somewhat humorous. So MAGI’s “real” vault is a small vault hidden inside the larger fake “vault”? Eh, seems kind of awkward (like it’s only story purpose is just to make the vault small enough to steal – but it’s not unreasonable to assume powerful enough magic could teleport away something much bigger than a wardrobe).

Actually, something else that struck me as odd – if this is really supposed to be an intro arc for a magic hero, it does seem weird that the level range is 1-12, when 1-5 (or something similar) seems a lot more realistic for a magic hero’s first caper. To be fair, though, I’ve got an intro arc that goes to 1-10, so I guess that’s being a little too nitpicky.

Mission 1: Hmm … the dialog and clues can be very pronoun heavy in places – makes it pretty hard to follow who’s talking about what. Wexler’s blubbering breakdown at the end was pretty funny, but it didn’t seem to fit – supposedly this guy was powerful and ruthless enough to murder the original boss of the Hellion gang who participated in the robbery, and was randomly nuking Hellions that annoyed him with bolts of magical energy. So how come he’s suddenly such a wuss?!

…Hmm, that was weird – Azuria didn’t seem to have any sort of debriefing after the mission; it just jumped straight to the briefing for the second mission. Was that intentional, or did the game just bug on me?

Ah … I mapserved, and Azuria just told me she had an ‘internal error’ – so, I’m thinking a bug. Moving on to the next mission…

(BTW, the ‘layer cake cave’ reference kind of fell flat to me – it seemed unnecessarily immersion breaking, and doesn’t fit the story’s main premise: if I literally started out in the Hero registration line, and these first two missions are the first two of my magic-hero career, then how do I even know about layer-cake caves yet?)

Mission 2: The Corollax want to *eat* us? Huh, that seems like an odd take on them. Doesn’t bother me, though. Okay, so apparently Wexler’s got some sort of immature “I’m better than everyone else, so why can’t they see it” complex, and is convinced he sees a dangerous threat that nobody else does. Not sure why his response was to try to steal and sell of the vault, but he’s not here, so maybe that’ll be clearer later. Was the summoning stone something Wexler stole from the vault, or did it just happen to be down here in the same cave he hid in?

Ah … Azuria clears that up. It was from the vault. Good enough for me.

The story at this point is getting kind of confusing. So the Circle is controlling Wexler, and Wexler’s response is to write megalomanical things in his diary as a clue? Does he ‘hear’ the thoughts of his controller and is writing them down as a way to document what’s actually a Circle plot of some sort? I am curious as to why the Circle wouldn’t have just ripped Wexler’s soul out and replaced it with an Orenbegan by now (although at this point we wouldn’t know they do that) rather than using this more subtle method of control. Still, there’s plenty of time to explain that.

The bit about Kanis being far beyond my power further highlights that, IMO, I do think the arc should maybe top out at level 5 (with perhaps the last mission capping at 10 instead to reflect your advancing power?). It just seems odd to me that I’m ready to go to Steel Canyon, and yet the very first “minor leader in the Circle” that I’ve faced is well beyond my ability to handle… but that wouldn’t be hard to buy at all if I wasn’t even ready to leave Atlas Park yet…

Mission 3: Hmm … so some Hellion dialog makes it look like Wexler is running an undercover MAGI op against the Circle. And according to the Hellion boss I beat down to learn Kanis’ location, Kanis actually put a hit on Wexler (and is the source of the ‘revelation’ that Wexler was undercover MAGI). So either that’s true, and Azuria’s been using a fresh, green new hero in an undercover plot against the Circle, or Kanis has some other reason to want Wexler dead.

Azuria swears Wexler’s not working undercover, and speculates Wexler escaped Circle control (good, I liked that option better than Azuria going around using lies to trick green heroes into helping her with undercover plots). So I need to go and face Kanis and figure out what’s going on.

Mission 4: Azuria doesn’t think I’m ready for the Circle, so it’s time for a ‘filler’ mission regarding the Hydra spawn. (You know, it seems kind of a shame here to spoil the connection between them, the abandoned sewer, and the Rikti - IMO, the Hydra should still be quite the mystery at this stage in the game; maybe a better approach would be to have the Sewer in Perez Park, and these mysterious ‘Hydra’ that have started to infest Everett Lake have, inexplicably, broken through a nearby sewer grate, possibly attracted to some magical artifact down there.) I need to look for the previous investigator Azuria sent here, but who never reported in. Oh, and according to her wards, a whole bunch of Skulls just invaded that particular sewer…

…Well, based on what a Skull boss just said, it looks like Wexler is here, and he was the one who lured the Skulls here. And he was with some Hellions, and he’s also controlling the Hydra. So he must have another ‘control sea creatures’ artifact (and this one worked better). Wow, that was convenient he just happened to be here in the random mission Azuria just gave me.

Oh geez, it seems like Wexler is using the Hydra to harvest body parts for some kind of dark ritual (that’s what the missing investigator Azuria sent here told me after I rescued her).

I’d make the bodies each a separate detail, with their own unique clue about what’s been removed. The way it’s set up now, you’ve got the first ‘body’ telling me what I find on all the other bodies.

The end of mission clue actually implicates Azuria again, like she already knew exactly what’s going on down here, and I’m supposed to conclude something from that – but the story’s too disjoined at the moment for that to be clear.

This is an undercover operation, and Azuria’s been lying to me. Or it’s not. I hope not, given Wexler’s going around killing people.

Wexler’s using artifacts to control groups of monsters, and getting better with each try.

He’s controlled by the Circle. Or not.

He used the Hellions to steal the Vault, and a Circle mage was his prospective buyer. Only that went bad, and now the Circle wants him dead. But the Hellions are still his allies.

I got the elements, but I don’t know how they fit together.

Debriefing: Azuria knows what I’m thinking (‘cause the bodies are all people who work for the other major ‘intro hero’ groups in Atlas City Hall). Um … no … I’m not at all sure what that means or how that fits. Oh, you’re wondering if Wexler also knew them. Or you think I’m wondering that.

Oh, I get it. Wexler has to have been close to the people he’s using for the dark sacrifice for it to greatly boost him power. Well that suggests he’s probably not being controlled, since I’d figure the sacrifice victims would actually need to be close to the *controlling* entity to still get that extra boost. So who else would be close to them? Azuria? She’s finally snapped, sought out great cosmic power, and is looking to get revenge on everybody who ever made fun of her?

Huh? Azuria is now telling me that for whatever dark ritual Wexler is performing, friends would be more potent then enemies, so if he’s turned evil and no longer considers them friends, he could be a lot more powerful. Wait, *what?* That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Mission 5: First I need to defeat Kanis – he’s pretty early in, and I could have guessed he’s a Madness Mage. *That* does kind of fit.

But it apparently isn’t intended to explain Wexler. Apparently, Wexler really did just want to enact a dark ritual to drastically increase his personal power.

Ugh. Spectrals. Yet another reason to make the upper level limit lower.

Odd, a Circle patrol seems to think the Hellions are going to try to kill Wexler, even though they appear to be working for him. But Kanis doesn’t think they’ll succeed. Huh? I don’t get that at all…

Oh, okay. Wexler was in love with Azuria and wanted to prove his power to her. He was trying to use the theft of the vault to lure out a major Circle of Thorns player and kill him, but he needed to power himself up to have a shot at beating Kanis. So he murders a couple of former friends for a power ritual.

Wow, and he’s definitely got a big dose of crazy going on in his dialog.

And so it appears that Wexler was trying to ‘conjure’ a variety of threats to the city, and then (once powered up) defeat them to impress Azuria.

Okay, I’m fine with that – and the fact he’s gone insane means his own reasoning doesn’t really need to make much sense.

Likes: There’s certainly a difference between confusion that’s just part of the fact that you don’t have the whole story yet, and confusion caused by stuff being thrown in that just doesn’t seem to fit. Where it counts, the overall story *does* make sense, and is tied up just fine in the end. It’s even sympathetic. And the missions themselves play just fine. Furthermore, I was very happy to see that the use of clues felt just about right to me. It’s certainly not a bad arc. It’s just…

Dislikes: …that the details serve to confuse more than anything else. In some cases the clues are written somewhat awkwardly – the best examples of these are earlier in the arc where it gets kind of hard to sort out who each pronoun is referring to. But there are plenty of examples of characters saying things that just don’t make any sense in the overall context of the arc’s story – or even statements that make no logical sense given what a character just said (I’ve noted examples of both that stood out in my playthrough notes above). That, I think, is really where the arc could use some work.

As I mentioned before, this arc is set up as *literally* the very first thing your hero does after registration. So the fact it goes all the way up to level 14 by the end doesn’t fit well with it being ‘introductory.’ I’ll freely admit that I’ve got an arc that is an ‘intro’ arc that goes up to level 10, but it’s set up so that it’s at least reasonable to assume that it isn’t the character’s very first arc. And the arc I’ve got that *does* assume it’s your character’s first arc (complete with Atlas Park City Hall contact) is limited to level 5. In the grand scheme of things it’s not that big of a deal, but the truth is everything about the arc – the setting, the story, etc. – makes it “feel” like I should be limited to the Atlas Park level range (i.e. levels 1-6). And, heck, it does have the added benefit of making it so the Circle doesn’t spawn in those spectrals in the last mission (which actually seemed a bit out of place).

As far as a rating, when I started, the “rating in my head” went from 3 to 4 really quickly, with the thought, depending on how this goes, this could easily be a 5 star arc. Then, the increasing confusion with each mission, I was thinking, the story feels like it should be above average, but all of this stuff that makes no sense is bringing it down to about 3 stars. Then, of course, the final mission tied up enough that I was thinking 4 stars, but there was still enough confusion (and contradiction) that I couldn’t ramp it all the way up to 5 (well, technically, based on the way I decide to rate something, I thought it certainly could deserve up to 4.0 stars exactly, but I just couldn't push past that). So, in this case, I gave it 4 stars.

But my general feeling on this sort of thing is that if I liked it enough to give it even 4.01 stars, I’d give it 5 in game. And it wouldn’t take much tweaking to get it there.

This week's mission, should you choose to accept it:

Find a 4-star arc you haven't played (Arrow Rose's list is a good place to start) ideally with less than 100 plays. If you liked it, give it 5 stars, and share what you thought of it.

Okay, I played through this arc with a level 32 Vigil PB. (I thought it was fitting)

I'm not more up to date because I decided to review the topmost arc in the original post, which apparently hasn't been updated, and as a result I didn't realize I was reviewing the wrong arc until I was finished doing so. Whoops! So enjoy your review.

Arc ID: 477906
Arc Title: One Night Bridge
Factions: Council, Crey, Cult of Stars, Awakened Division
Morality: Vigilante
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: The Peacebringer Tracer Brightstar is looking for Vigilantes to help her bring a rogue Warshade to justice. [SFMA][SLMA]

Brightstar is an ugly mother when bathed in the AE green light. The goggles and crayon red hair do not work for her at all. She looks goofy.

Mission 1 Intro Text:
Right off the bat, good use of coloured text, and "the last past that was hit is" should be "the last place that was hit was".

Mission 1:
A bunch of slow and painful death patients being kidnapped? Oh boy, this is going to be a fun arc.

"You think that will stop me." That is a comment. Also, why a boss-level ally in a mission with no EB or AV?

There should be more connection to what's going on beyond a dark, complicated map fighting Council.

It should be the Council, not The Council.

Mission 2 Intro Text:
"What, that is great." This is excellent acting! I had no idea you could made someone sound like dull surprise through writing. Seriously, the contact needs to feel a bit livelier.

Mission 2:
Another boss-level ally. At least these missions are easy. Children of the Star has a pretty spiffy outfit. Feels alienish. Going to suggest this is Voidfire.

I am very confused why the Child Warshade suddenly betrayed me upon rescuing a scientist when I had yet to find the nurse, and what the suspicious techs were.

"Who knows what those Council extremists would have done to me." Statement again?

So far all I've got is "Voidfire attacked Council base after they robbed a hospital for terminally ill patients and is stealing them and turning them into minions." Grim!

Mission 3 Intro text:
Whoa, what? There was no evidence in either mission Voidfire had leaked information to the Council or was stealing portal tech. This is such a twist and also an info dump. They would be better missions if evidence was placed within them of this information before we were told it, like Council talking about the mysterious tip they got, or complaining about missing tech in their base. FORESHADOWING! helps set up the plot and makes the arc feel consistent with itself.

Mission 3:
Lots of things to do. Kind of overwhelming. Cometfall working for Voidfire all along doesn't make much sense if the contact had known Cometfall for years- Voidfire is a child, isn't she? Voidfire has been planning this for how long? Mysterious and interesting.

So to recap, Voidfire has been planning to build a portal to another world, and is stealing tech from other people by leaking tips about places for them to raid, then following them back to their secret bases and taking their stuff. That's pretty vigilante.

Mission 4 intro text:
Whoa, so Voidfire and Brightstar's hosts are mother and daughter. And now Brightstar has to kill her host's daughter to prevent Voidfire from destroying the world with a portal. That's some gravitas. It still comes out of nowhere and has no build up, but it's actually somewhat compelling if it was done properly. AS it is I have no reason whatsoever to care. Brightstar sure wants Voidfire dead if she's overriding a mother's love.

Mission 4:
Time for some mildly vigilante action.

All the patients were joined with willing warshades in order to become liuetenants? Makes sense.

"Cult of the Stars" would have more visual consistency if everyone was wearing the mask, not just some people.

Audio Diary 4 is "Now we a chance to live with my healthy son" ... It makes no sense.

So, the Warshades were reviving the terminally ill in exchange for host bodies. Somewhat against the patient's will in some cases, but seems a fair deal- Stargate did it a few times with the Goa'uld.

The diaries make it clear they've had a working portal for some time- at the very least, a couple of days- and they've visited 35 different worlds, some of them pretty dark. However, in Mission 3 you were getting a stabilizer to PREVENT them from having a portal. I'm a bit confused- are we trying to stop them or are we already too late? Mission 3 suggests stopping them from getting a portal, Mission 4 suggests they're just about finished with one. Maybe the portals are too unstable for transport.

Mission 5:
This mission suggests that I actually get a choice to stop or help Voidfire. I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.

Brightstar is still the epitome of dull surprise.

Oh, I see, mandatory ally, and if she dies that counts as helping Voidfire.

Cult of the Stars spanks the PPD on this map on the outside, but got torn apart inside.

You know what, I like Voidfire. She has a good goal: She wants to start over, a new life, free from her past. We never find out what she did, so I can't judge that. She's recruiting other likeminded warshades, and they're taking hosts by reviving the terminally ill and giving them second chances at lives. Yeah, it's a bit iffy ethically since some of them were comatose, but all for the best. (Vigilante!) She's planned this for at least a while, got defectors and peacebringers within Crey working with her, and now she's on the cusp of succeeding - taking a group of defectors from evil and decadence, and saving those who would suffer from death, to start a new life on another world. The "danger" Brightstar mentions again and again is never shown.

Brightstar is dull and tortures people for information in order to break a promise to her own host. Brightstar is the one doing things against her host's will, here. I think I'm going to see if I can "Have Brightstar Fall In Combat".

How I Tried to kill Brightstar

This is actually somewhat difficult since Brightstar is a boss-level ally and I'm flying solo on +0/x1. She's also got a health+. I'm not sure it'll even be possible to get her killed.

She two-shots lts and misses minions alot. It's looking impossible to get her killed. She heals herself for half of her health. And then when I get to the first portal device, the ability to get her killed is removed. In the end, I didn't need to do a thing. PPD Patrols found and destroyed one of the devices, and Brightstar slaughtered every minion on the map who came near. In the end, it came down to Voidfire versus Brightstar with me spectating.

Voidfire won. But I could no longer get credit for "defeating" Brightstar and helping Voidfire. So I was forced to kill Voidfire to end the map. In short, soloing this map on normal means it is impossible to choose to help Voidfire.

Conclusion

In the end I think there was a pretty good concept to this story: Peacebringer versus Warshade, where the Peacebringer is the "lawful evil" one versus the "chaotic good" Warshade.

The drama of the mother and daughter wasn't really played enough. Brightfire refused to go any further after I reached the portal devices- and that was it. She was still in perfect range to attack and attempt to kill everything. There was no dialogue outside of Mission 3 and that event in Mission 5 that touched upon Brightstar and Voidfire's relationship.

In addition, the first two maps feel very clunky in terms of development. If additional materials were put in to make them feel more fleshed out, and developments moved there or something, it would help the story immensely. The usage of a PPD ally in mission 1 is very much not needed.

I felt like Voidfire was way more the likable character than Brightstar was. She was proactive and attempting to do something good with very little negative consequences outside of the danger of opening a portal, which is never elaborated upon or explained, and in fact it feels like Voidfire was removing even the chance of something going wrong with the stabilizer and scouting.

In short, Brightstar is a boob and this arc makes me feel like I'm doing work for a madwoman who just wants revenge at all costs, but in the end can't do it, so there's no climax to it. If the contact info was changed to give more of a feel of the clash between Brightstar loving and also hating beyond hate Voidfire, that would be more interesting and also somewhat villainous if you kept working for her, I guess.

Still Concluding
In the end, I gave it a 5/5 for a good, interesting concept. I'd like to see this retooled into something with more life and character- Voidfire is a great character but the rest of the story falls flat, and the missions (besides 5) are somewhat ho-hum. It could make an incredible revenge/character drama arc, and if it did so it would make up for the gameplay.

Please learn how to foreshadow properly and make your arcs feel consistent. However, at the very least, your arc did feel like it had a purpose to it.

That's all I've got to say.

Coulomb thanks for playing my arc and the feedback. Since typing with only one hand working at the moment is a pain, I'm not up to more than a couple sentences but didn't want you to think I'd ignored you.

A 4-star arc I've not played with fewer than 100 plays. . . .

I'll see what I can do tomorrow night when I get home from work, I guess.

Ack! I just played through an awesome arc. . . but I forgot the "less than a hundred plays" thing. Oops. Well, here's a quick review of "Of Sound Body and Mind", arc 13107, by @Mr. Mud, all the same.

It's all about stomping Family and Freaks in a quest to recover some cybernetic fists of a fallen gangster. The bad guys--a multitude of different sorts of mafiosos and the like--are well fleshed out, and the Freaks are handled in typically fun, Leet-speak Freak fashion. Well done!

There were only a few minor typos--"O|-| D43R" in the first mission needs the A and E symbols reversed; the intro text to mission two slips on "receive" and "leave my money to."

The arc ends up with a great, fun twist at the end. Good work to @Mr. Mud!

The arc: The Invasion of the Space Ape Armada #356628 (4 stars, 8 plays)

Played with Dawnrazor, 34 Kat/Inv Scrapper.

In case anyone has been living under a rock for the last two years, I would like to announce that the AE search engine sucks. I logged in, set the search parameters my level, not completed, four stars, medium, long and very long, looking for feedback and final. Then I hit the Random button. And hit it again. And again, and again. Arc after arc with 1-54 custom groups, level ranges all over the place, Extreme everything, and so on and so forth. I finally picked this one because it doesn't have Extreme anything, the author has narrowed down the level range of the custom group to 30-54, and it has space apes.

My contact is The President, who informs me that one Admiral Silverback has grown tired of waiting for us to surrender the Earth and has launched an invasion. From space. It's up to me to stop this invasion, and find some of the invaders' landing pods so we can take the fight to them. Seems simple enough.

I walk into the Steel Canyon map, with the objectives "Defeat captain Kirgh, Defeat Captain Packardt, Captain Janewa." Cute. The Space Apes themselves look pretty neat, with a variety of powers, none too hard, and brief bios that explain what they do. I destroy the landing pods (for science), the captains make some Star Trek jokes when I fight them, but other than that the mission doesn't have any detail to it.

Well my destruction of the landing pods was helpful after all, as D.A.T.A. used the flaming wreckage I brought back to bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish or something like that, so we can find one of their assault landers, steal it, and pull an Independence Day on their mothership. Off I go to steal a spaceship.

Aaaand, D.A.T.A. does want to go all Independence Day on the mothership, but the President wants me to just convince the space apes to leave the old fashioned way: by beating them up. Mr. President, I think I like you. I'm after Captain Ookcher this time, heh. One of the minions hits me with Drain Psyche....ack, get it off, get it off! I defeat Ookcher and his little dog too, and steal the ship.

Now it's time for me to assault the mothership, and this time I do have some extra objectives, in the form of some bombs that the military wants me to plant, and some space ape tech to steal. Ah, and there's Captain Cisquo. Again though, very light on detail, and it's a pretty big map this time. And the reason the space apes invaded in the first place is in Admiral Silverback's bio, and nowhere else, which is too bad, because it's kind of important.

Considering the publication date of the arc, I'm guessing the author used up their file size on the customs, and didn't have room to add more detail. With only 14 plays across all their arcs, I wouldn't blame them for not caring enough to update when the file size limit was increased. It's too bad, because what's there is amusing if you like Star Trek jokes, the customs are well done, and there is an actual story behind the invasion, which the arc could really have used the extra space to tell. As a spoof comedy arc, it could be a five star arc, but as it stands I can't really give it more than a four.

Thank you Jinken for reviewing my arc. The review can by as a bit scatterbrained but then I realized you are writing things down as you play it. That leads to my main problem with the arc. It has more twists then a pretzel wrapped in another pretzel. I did do some recent changes that make earlier parts confusing. I think I am going to make a flow chart and start cutting things that are unneeded to make room for what you said "foreshadowing". I'll take a look at some of the combat and see if I can wiggle those masks in on more of the cult. Thanks again for the feedback, I'll get started on my revamp soon.

Review for Welcome to the Magi

Overall, I think this arc is good. It could fit easily within the main game since it matches the gameplay, story and general feel of most CoH story arcs. My review might be a bit a lacking since I played the arc over a week ago and it really does not make any big mistakes.

Text- Great use of text and dialogue. Hearing the enemies talk about eating people and then not running into them for a few minutes creeped me out. This is a great way to make those lame and confusing cave maps actually fun. The text throughout the arc is a bit too wordy at times but I do realize you did this to advance the plot so it is fine.

Enemies- Good variety of enemies and good use of animations. Brightbone was difficult to kill. You might want to tone him down a bit. Brightbone also felt a bit out of place. I understand he was being mind controlled and that is all good but I was hoping for some big twist or reveal. I remember when playing CoH that the Circle were souls of wizards that had taken over the soulless husks of sacrificed victims and that the lost were being genetically transformed into the Ritki who were once human. This kind of reveal excites me. Having him just being mentally dominated by magic seemed boring to me.

Objectives- The last mission seemed a bit too big.

I rated this map 5 star. It was varied enough to keep me interested. I did not particularly care for Brightbone's character in both the story and in fighting him but there was a dozen little moments where you made all the non-custom enemies say good dialogue and play interesting animations. This sold the arc.

A little late, but here's my review.

#CoHMA Playing The Rise and Demise or Otherwise of Tekna Logik... # 402506 by @Coolio_EU aka @ Coolio in game.
#CoHMA Contact is Lawrence Justice, a PPD officer and member of Coolio's supergroup.
#CoHMA M1: Pretty straightforward and to the point. There's a break-in at Sharpe Technologies' Tekbot facility.
#CoHMA M1: He says he didn't have enough time to give a full briefing, but there's a mission begin clue with more info.
#CoHMA M1: Except it's not really more information, just a recap of the same information.
(note: this was mentioned that it's for teammates, but teammates can fairly easily see the mission info on their own)
#CoHMA M1: Mission popup had the briefing information that seemed better suited to mission begin clue and refers to a glowie to spawn allies
#CoHMA M1: Ran into William Sharpe, CEO of the company, in full superhero gear.
#CoHMA M1: Ahh, I misunderstood the briefing. Accessing the security computer ordered all his Tekbots to evacuate from the 5th intrusion.
#CoHMA M1: I also just now realized it was a defeat all. I suppose it makes sense, though I don't recall anything saying it explicitly.
#CoHMA M1: rescued all the evacuating Tekbots, including Tekna Logik, and defeated Der Oberbefehlshaber, the head of the attack.
#CoHMA M1: And looked it up, Der Oberbefehlshaber is merely German for Commander in Chief.

#CoHMA M2: Moving quickly onto a riot that's quite possibly connected to the escaped Tekbots. Also level-cap warning due to enemies used...
#CoHMA M2: I understand that the riot is in Steel Canyon, but dropping to 20 just to fight Outcasts? Couldn't there be a better solution?
#CoHMA M2: There's TONS of patrols wondering around this map, and they're all talking about Edwardo. Reminds me of Foster's.
#CoHMA M2: Edwardo at one point says "Even if you defeat me, by 'Zeus' you will suffer." and now objective is to find out what that meant?
#CoHMA M2: Unsurprisingly found a Zeus class titan on the map. Claims this was all a distraction by Tekna Logic.

#CoHMA M3: Ooh, someone used the term "gone renegade" instead of "gone rogue". Good for you. And Tekna Logik is the one gone renegade.
#CoHMA M3: This time Coolio himself gets to come along to be my ally.
#CoHMA M3: Nav bar makes me think I might not be able to find Tekna Logik on this map, and that it's a "her".
#CoHMA M3: Enemy group is a mashup of all sorts of robotic enemies. Nicely done.
#CoHMA M3: Another defeat all, and another map with oodles of patrols running around.
#CoHMA M3: I believe all the repurposed enemies have their original bios. Would be helpful if their bio reflected their reprogramming.
#CoHMA M3: Oh good, the defeat all was so that the warehouse is now safe for the cleaners. I'm soooo relieved. No stone unturned works too.
#CoHMA M3: I really don't like missions that are a waste of time. I didn't even find any additional information or leads there.

#CoHMA M4: Still no sign of Tekna, but the PPD found a lead on the other missing Tekbot, Tactical Assault. He should be harmless... right.
#CoHMA M4: Tactical Assault is not in the objective list, 3 other field commanders first, though the recolored Vanguard bot looks nice.
#CoHMA M4: Defeated the fake leaders (recolored HVAS) and now the real leader has spawned somewhere on this large map I've already searched.
#CoHMA M4: Finally found and destroyed Tactical Assault (along with a clue calling him now Tactical Wreck)

#CoHMA M5: This crooked Faultline map always makes me a little dizzy.
#CoHMA M5: Pretty easy mission though, run to the end room, ally and Tekna Logik are in the same room.

Here's your mission for the week: Figure out a two word search phrase that comes up with at least 10 pages of arcs. Pick one of them, play it, and review it. Be sure to share what search phrase you came up with, and how many pages of arcs it returned.

As I'm a glutton for punishment, I picked my phrase as "Enter Title" - returned 33 pages of arcs.

Reminder: Our member arc list is currently empty. The only way to re-fill it is to post your arcs again. If you're tired of these silly missions, then post your arc to add to our rotation. If you feel you didn't get much feedback on your original submission, or have made changes, you are welcome to re-submit your original arc.

As my two words I used "Devouring" and "Earth". I got hundreds of pages of results, so I trimmed them a bit to "final" and "my level", and still got hundreds of pages. I picked the following arc more or less at random:

Cold Science (#309015) by @Krimstone.

Description: A rogue AI program that is self-aware needs your help. Fight everything from cold tech security guards to evil ice scientists. Ideal for solo or groups. Friendly at most levels.

Contact: A storm elemental that claims to be an escaped AI. Speaks funny.

Mission 1

The AI sends me to investigate an "Arachnosos" Warehouse. Timed mission. I have to find batteries to refuel the AI. 2 power cells to find, find power transmiter (sic). I thought I was up against "Arachnosos" but in the first fight I'm also attacked by Crey and Axis Amerika troops. The intro popup said the warehouse was probably used by more than one villain group, but I didn't expect interdimensional nazis.

I open a "create" (sic) but it's empty. *sigh*. Fortunately they are all marked as "Empty Creates" so I can avoid the rest. I come face to face with the stereotypical, generic, bland TechnoForce security forces, who could just as well have been Crey. I only find one description among the lot of them. Not even the boss in the boss spawn has a description. I get ambushed when he goes down, and he assures me I have no idea who I'm dealing with. I must agree.

Two crates are marked "Find Power Cells" so I'm convinced I will have this wrapped up in no time. A few badly spelled clues which don't really tell me anything new are my sole reward.

I return to the AI in the nearby alley (yes) and zap it with the energy I found to recharge it. It tells me it "own you my life" and that there are more lives in danger. A whole bunch of AIs?

Mission 2

The AI is apparently called Merry (...). TechnoForce Corporation is a new science group that specializes in "cold sciences", whatever that means. I remember vaguely a lot of ice blasts and rains while fighting them. Maybe that's what.

Now Merry talks about some girl who was kidnapped 10 years ago (so TechnoForce isn't all that new?) and experimented upon. She was given the name Frozina. Merry was released by a rogue guard and now the AI wants me to find him. Oh well, why not. Merry sends me on a hunch to TechnoForce's top secret security office in Prez Park (Prez...) which isn't so secret that a newly escaped AI doesn't know all about it.

Moving on... I'm "infiltrating" the office by smashing everything in my path. My goal is to "Find David". Now that I can get a good look at the customs I notice that they look pretty cool, although almost all of them are blond with similar hairstyles. They look almost like clones. Still no descriptions except on a few of the boss variants. At least they are mostly sticking to the ice theme, which is nice. I see one boss using a flaming whip with no explanation in its description.

I find David, but I have to escort him out. And he's fighting! Nooo! I'll just let him die since he's almost dead from the ambush that spawned on top of us anyway...

I have let David die. I have FAILED. I go back to the "ally" and find the AI gone. I have no other leads, now that David is dead. Let's see what the next mission is.


Mission 3

Oh look, nothing prevents the AI from talking to me and give me the next mission. Fancy that. It has decoded some message I never got, supposedly from David. Now we're going to save Frozina, but only a former employee of TechnoForce called Dee Falcon knows where she is. I'm going to Crey's Folly where she is "posing as a Freakshow". I must admit I didn't see that coming.

Another thing I didn't see coming was a warehouse full of colorful ravers dancing. Ok, some of them seem to be fighting. A few customs and recolored standard mobs in here, treating me like another party-goer instead of an enemy. Nice touch. Some of them are still hostile, which seems strange.

As usual nobody has a description, except Dee Falcon, who has Clamor's description since she's using that model. Another stupid escort-to-door... but at least Cla- Dee didn't die in an ambush. Yet. Let's see if she can make it back. Ok, she's not a combatant so the 400 ambushes that spawned can't kill her. Most of them got stuck on the friendly mobs too.

Dee tells me the adress to the lab where they are holding Frozen Girl (I thought her name was Frozina), so now we're going to a tech-lab map I guess.

Mission 4

Overcoming death for a moment, David takes Dee to "safty". And this is where things turns weird. When Frozina was a baby her DNA was mixed with a blue dragon's, which somehow has allowed TechnoForce to develop so many "cold technologies" so quickly. She is Merry's best friend but she has never seen anyone outside the laboratory. She might be a little confused when we find her. Probably not as confused as I feel right now.

Oh yeah, some guy we've never heard about before, the Dragon Protector, is tracking Frozen Girl (they just can't make up their mind which name to use for her) with some cybernetic implants. I'm sure this is all very important.

I was right. It's a tech-lab map. I have to Find Frozen Girl and Destroy Dragon Protector. Seems easy enough. I find Frozen Girl and ... it's another escort mission! That's what I get for just running past all the enemies using Brute Stealth. *double sigh* At least she has a description, but it's no good. Miraculously she survives the by now mandatory ambush.

She implictly trusts me, the guy who crushed and burned all the people she has ever known and is screaming at her to follow me NOW! She complies without betraying me, which I had expected. Plenty of surprises in this arc.

Now to find Dragon Protector. The Protector turns out to be a Malta Titan, and when it goes down it says "Link to dragon terminated" which immediately confirms my suspicions that I haven't seen the last of the Dragon Protector. *triple sigh* Trudge, trudge, trudge. Finally we arrive at the exit, and Frozen Girl asks me to take her to "Marry". This is beyond english as a second language problems now.

And as a final surprise it's all over. "You did it! You are a Hero!" Ok, AI-program. If you say so. At least I didn't have to fight Dragon Protector again. Oh yeah, that quote above? That was the whole end debriefing.
Well, the story wasn't all that interesting but it wasn't terrible either. The spelling really ruined it for me. Nice custom mobs though, even if most of them didn't have descriptions. At least they followed a theme and seemed to be balanced. That might have been my incarnate-brute being his usual unstoppable self, though, so don't take my word for it.

The greatest surprise? No Devouring Earth.



I'll add my arc #1152 "The Doctor Returns" to the list. It probably needs some fresh paint but it was last updated around issue 17 or whenever we got clone technology so it shouldn't be terribly outdated.

I am going to be doing some tweaks to my arcs this week. My second arc has yet to be reviewed by the club so if you are looking for something to fill the rotation feel free to add my arc.

Arc ID: 480712
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

I picked the ubiquitous "Nemesis Plot," which came back with 35 pages of arcs. Narrowing it down to "my level" (35) and "Looking for feedback" or "Final" gave me two pages, from which I picked "It Had To Happen Sooner or Later...." (Arc ID #1246). Yep, it's an early arc, with an uneven level range to boot, but it's tagged "Final" so at least it was updated at some point. And it's only two missions so if it's broken at least there will be minimal brokenness to deal with.

My contact is Steven Sheridan (no bio) and his intro is short and to the point. A hero he's been working with has gone missing, and he wants me to go find her. OK. Apparently she ran off to save some people from the Devouring Earth, but she's new so now she might need some help. Off I go.

It's exactly what it says on the tin: a warehouse full of DE, four captives, and the missing heroine. Her name is Ms. Kitty, and yes, she's a catgirl. I rescue them all, and that's it.

I go back to Steven and he has another rescue operation for me, this time a retired hero whom he sent on a simple mission, for old times' sake. Well she got in over her head, and now I have to save her from Nemesisises.

It's the outdoor KR map, and it's full of...you guessed it, Nemesis. I have to rescue the hero and defeat the strike leader. I find the heroine, who is a WWII vet, she tells me she's too old for this stuff, and I lead her out. I beat up the strike leader, he calls in an ambush, I beat them up, I win.

Return to Steven, and....ok that's kinda cute. Still, there's not much to this arc, and it very much looks like an early effort. But at least it isn't broken. And it isn't a Nemesis Plot.

I'm still here, folks, and I'm still looking to be in the Club. Work has been keeping me REALLY busy lately. I'll get back to this ASAP.

im still trying to participate in this when i can, been very focused on i20 content and slightly burned out from the i20 content lol

but i will still resubmit my arc into the pool

arc ID: 366083
arc name: Another Nemesis Plot?
arc lvl range: 45+
arc difficulty: medium (has a few AV/EBs in it but i supplied 1-2 allies in the mishs to give aid)
arc length: 5 mishs, very long


i have verified that this arc does work currently even with all of this filter nonsense going on

-a note on the arc is that due to the current limitations we have with the editor, there are a few aspects i cant really add to make it any better (such as recoloring the robots for those who have played the arc)