Rayonn's critique thread

I've started running some AE arcs. I'll post my reviews here.

I'll be doing this with Aemilia Lacera, my heroic kin/inv brute (currently at level 40). As I don't have that much experience with the arc creator I'm going to primarily focus on story elements (characterization, plot twists, etc.), though I'll let you know if an ally, boss, or custom group seems unbalanced.

In general these are going to be critiques (directed at the author), though if I find one I especially like I'll write an actual review explaining why I'd recommend it to players.

I've got one arc published (thread here), but I'm not too happy with it and I'm planning a fairly major rewrite. I would like some feedback though, as detailed in the linked thread.

If anyone wants me to critique an arc, let me know here. I'm currently only doing heroic, neutral, and vigilante arcs, as playing villainous arcs with Amy breaks immersion so much that I can't properly experience the story, and I don't have a high-level villain.

Also, if you're not trying to write a compelling story but just a fun sequence of missions, expect me to misunderstand your arc and give you a review that will probably be fairly useless.

Finally, my first critique can be found at the MA club thread here.

Review of Hazard Corp: Vexed by Vahzilok
Arc# 30594
Length: 4 missions
Enemy groups: Vahzilok
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 1-20
Description: Hazard Corp, supplying maintenance clues for Paragon City, is under attack by the Vahzilok! They need heroes to shore up their field operations, blunt the attacks, and help prevent further assaults from this source.

Level 40 Kinetic/Invulnerability Brute teamed with Lavel 25 Spines/Regen scrapper (Old Man Icicle, played by @The Alt-oholic)

Mission 1

Hazard Corp is under attack by the Vahzilok and apparently it's up to me to do something about it. One question here: what is Hazard Corp? Since Sandra Taylor has no contact description, it's hard to tell.

Nitpicky style suggestion: write out 'Hazard Corp is under attack'. The apostrophe keeps catching my eye like there's something wrong with the grammar there, even though there isn't.

Good use of colors to highlight the mission objectives.

The titles of the clues are placeholders.

Rescued Bubblegum Pop. This was apparently an optional objective, but looks like it's going to be useful as the first thing that she did was turn on a force field.

Given that her description says she's not much for fighting, you might consider toning down her attack powers.

And then she died a little while later. I'm pretty sure I had all the aggro; apparently the vomit attack does AoE.

In the title of the clue dropped by Organ Bank, Vahzilok is misspelled. Actually I saw this in a number of places.

Mission 2:
Not much to say about this - feels like a radio mission, which in my opinion is ok for a 2nd mission out of 4, as long as it leads to a good twist in the story.

Which it did. A law firm??

Mission 3:

Well, I expected to find something about what the connection might be between Vahzilok and a law firm. I never really did---why did Pater and Finnel have files on Seam Ripper?

Sandra's description is very minimal

The end-level bosses have so far had stock eidolon descriptions. You should flesh out their background and motivations some more. This can also give you some ideas for deepening the plot --- if the villains disagree on the best course of action, or have conflicting objectives, then it gets complicated.

It seems odd that Seam Ripper would be listed in Pater and Finnel's files under the name 'Seam Ripper'. It also seems odd that the firm was overrun with Vahzilok and no civilians. Was this a Saturday?

Also, I noticed a good deal of dialogue like this:
Abomination: They're workers, not heroes. They won't be able to handle something this overwhelming.
I didn't think zombies were this… insightful. (Presumably this was supposed to be spoken by reapers? I'm not really sure how to fix this)

Mission 4:

Now we take down Seam Ripper at last.

Skin Graft actually showed more signs of character depthr than anyone I've met since the two allies in mission 1. Perhaps the dissatisfaction with Seam Ripper's plans could lead to some plot twists?

The EB fight wasn't too hard. I died, but that was my fault for not having dull pain ready. Seam Ripper had a non-stock description, but I didn't really understand what led to his vendetta against Hazard Corp.



General thoughts:

The gameplay was balanced, but the story seemed overly straightforward and the characters weren't all that developed. We never did find out what Seam Ripper had against Hazard Corp, or what his connection was with Pater and Finnel.

Overall, I felt that there was perhaps one mission too many for the amount of story. The 2nd and 3rd missions just involved fighting even more Vahzilok in a different place, ending with finding a clue to where we should look next.

You should elaborate on the connection between Seam Ripper and Pater and Finnel. Do they not know that he's an Eidolon, or are they in the business of working with supervillains? (Like Wolfram and Hart hehe) The latter alternative might make a good plot twist, as well as let us fight something other than horde of zombies for one mission.

An alternative plot twist could be one of the Eidolons betraying Seam Ripper. We saw that Skin Graft at least was somewhat dissatisfied with the plan. You might consider fleshing out the motives of the bosses more.

Also, Sandra Taylor and Hazard Corps in general would benefit from more description.

Rated 3 stars in-game.

Glad to see someone new in the reviewing game. There have been way too few lately. I'd like to ask for a review, but I feel my arcs are currently about where I want them. Good luck, and enjoy!

Thanks, I plan to. I would like to play some award winning or finished arcs, and I might do in-character retellings of those if I have the time. I wouldn't be able to do those as frequently, though.

Well if you put it that way, feel free to take a look at any of my arcs, just search for Bubbawheat and they should all come up. Matchstick Women is the one I think is the strongest out of all of them #3369.

A Wake for Dead 6
#379160
Author: @Clave Dark 5
Length: 4 missions
Level Range: 5-15
Morality: Heroic
Enemy Groups: Mostly Council

Level 40 Kin/Inv Brute.


Mission 1:
The contact seems rather… odd. The bunny thing seems like it's setting a tone much lighter than I was led to expect from the arc description. Maybe not though… I'm intrigued.

I like the idea of the mission itself being a flashback.

This mission was ridiculously easy. But that's not a bad thing here, because, well, it's about the story.

And the story is good. Not all that much actually *happens*, but we get plenty of evidence that Dead 6 is going to be an interesting character. And since the mission is so short it doesn't *feel* like nothing much has happened. If I was going to complain about this mission, I'd point out that a space is missing from between 'much' and 'a' in the second clue (which looks rather Spanish), and that the last clue suddenly shifts to a more formal narrative style.

Compare:
'[A] threat's a threat, no matter how ridiculous.'
'The sky in the east was fading into a rich navy blue[.]'


Mission 2:
Now Meter Rabbit tells me the story of how *he* met Dead 6. This mission is from Meter Rabbit's point of view. That's probably why Bubbawheat recommended this arc to me in the first place, because I'm using a similar mechanic in the arc I'm working on. Let's see how it works out.

First, I have to deliver a crate… Disconcertingly, the first security guards I encounter are not in the office building but in the tunnel. That I (or Rabbitual Criminal) just dug. Oh well, I don't suppose there' anything you can o about that.

I deliver the crate, but then I overhear a security guard say that a hero is coming. (I like the way you did that.) Now it's unclear what I'm supposed to do, but looking at the map shows that several enemies have appear near the mission start. I'm guessing I'm supposed to try to escape and run into Dead 6 (currently Orange 6) on the way out. (You might want to make that clearer). Since Rabbitual Criminal was apparently captured by Orange 6, I'm interested in seeing how you handle this. The story apparently demands that the player be defeated, but in terms of gameplay that's awkward.

WHOA!! Ok I was not expecting that. ('Alright kid, this is where it gets complicated.') And I got clobbered. And there's no way I'm going to say what actually happened. Spoilers and all that. But… I think the last time a game made me jump that hard was the first time I saw the Flood.

And now for an anticlimactic nitpick: There's an asterisk in the debrief that looks like it's supposed to refer to the editor's not (colored text) at the end, but there's not a corresponding asterisk there.

Mission 3:
Bomb? Time for something big time. On the other hand I'm somewhat confused. This is soon after the Rabbit was defeated by Orange 6 (right?), but Dead 6 was dead when I met him, and he's apparently dead now. So when did he die? Did I miss something or will I find out later? Let's see. Never mind. The mission explained it. I do feel that the chronology could be a bit clearer. As far as I can tell, this takes place over just a few days, so perhaps just including the days of the week could make it clearer.

Again, easy mission. I would have liked a gameplay climax to coincide with the climax in the story (which was quite good), but it's not really necessary if you can't think of a good in-story justification.

To get nit-picky, there are a few places where you used 'lead' when you meant 'led'. Also,You Capitalized Some Things Like Titles That Perhaps Should Have Been In Sentence Case.

I just noticed I've mostly said negative things here, but actually I really liked the twist in the story.


Mission 4:
And now I take down the Council leader.

I'm just going to start listing edits I'd make to the writing, because you don't need any help with the story and I'd like to avoid spoilers.

So:
- In the Rabbit's dialogue, there are a few places where there should be a comma before the player's name.
- Again, when a clue title or objective is worded like a sentence, I (personally) think it looks better to capitalize only the first word.

This is completely irrelevant, but 'Going Through the Motions' from the Once More with Feeling soundtrack came up in my iTunes during this mission. Singing Council FTW ('She does pretty well with fiends from hell, but lately we can tell…').

No problems with the custom boss.


Overall:

Short and poignant. I don't think I'd change anything, except for the edits to the text that I suggested. And possibly the addition of a boss or ambush at the end of mission 3, which is the climax of the story but only involves a collectable item in-game.

Oh hey, a play, thanks!

Yeah, this arc has always been known as 'troubled'. Originally constructed atop an indian burial ground in the late 1700s, it soon became infamous across the growing nation for the case of one Charles Watley who murdered his entire family inside of it and left the comment "Ye tyme of the devyl be upon uf!" in blood. The devs are still trying to figure out how he did that.

Seriously though. Many players had problems following the whole broken nature of the story telling I used and I've been back over it a number of times to clarify it as best I might. Seems it still needs some work on that too, based on what you say - so be sure and avoid my failures on your own arc. I do know that the escort option got added in to the MA options after I wrote it and I should try setting the third mish for that, so now you're giving me a good reason to finally get back to it. My play-time's so that I have been guilty of taking too long to update my arcs when new rules come into play and I think this is the last that needs a new look-at.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn The contact seems rather odd. The bunny thing seems like it's setting a tone much lighter than I was led to expect from the arc description. Maybe not though I'm intrigued.

As you may have gathered, Rabbitual Criminal appeared in my two previous arcs which were light-hearted. At the time, I was having fun using him in every arc as a returning character, then I decided to write him out so to speak so I did so in this arc. I wanted the arc to address heroism and the story just came together for me with him in there. Anyways, he apparently didn't really throw you off too much, so it's all good I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn If I was going to complain about this mission, I'd point out that a space is missing from between 'much' and 'a' in the second clue (which looks rather Spanish), and that the last clue suddenly shifts to a more formal narrative style.

Thanks for the typo catch! Perhaps overly colorful language? Guilty as charged, I was trying to establish a bit of atmosphere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn Disconcertingly, the first security guards I encounter are not in the office building but in the tunnel. That I (or Rabbitual Criminal) just dug. Oh well, I don't suppose there' anything you can do about that.

Yeah, the map only allowed placement for them down there after I placed the guys up top to spout the dialogue about "here comes a hero!". I'll take a look at trying to get some dialogue in there to explain why they're in the tunnel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn Now it's unclear what I'm supposed to do, but looking at the map shows that several enemies have appear near the mission start. I'm guessing I'm supposed to try to escape and run into Dead 6 (currently Orange 6) on the way out. (You might want to make that clearer).

If I recall, there is something about that that appears in the chat box, which a lot of players of this arc missed (hence this arc being 'troubled'). I was probably trying to be more subtle than I should have and failed. It's a personal failing, I know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn WHOA!! Ok I was not expecting that. ('Alright kid, this is where it gets complicated.') And I got clobbered. And there's no way I'm going to say what actually happened. Spoilers and all that. But I think the last time a game made me jump that hard was the first time I saw the Flood.

I don't know that game you mention, but I'm glad that moment worked for you. This was one of the points people kept tripping over in earlier versions of the arc; I went back in and tried to clear it all up it and then didn't get any other plays until you came along. Looks like it worked!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn There's an asterisk in the debrief that looks like it's supposed to refer to the editor's not (colored text) at the end, but there's not a corresponding asterisk there.

Hm, noted as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn Mission 3: I do feel that the chronology could be a bit clearer. As far as I can tell, this takes place over just a few days, so perhaps just including the days of the week could make it clearer.

I was having fun with telling the story elements out of order, perhaps not successfully. I'll give Mish 3 another look too, the days of the week idea isn't bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn To get nit-picky, there are a few places where you used 'lead' when you meant 'led'. Also,You Capitalized Some Things Like Titles That Perhaps Should Have Been In Sentence Case.

Thanks for the spelling catch again, and I'll look for the Capitalization Problem You Mention, as well as some of the stuff you mention for Mish 4.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn This is completely irrelevant, but 'Going Through the Motions' from the Once More with Feeling soundtrack came up in my iTunes during this mission. Singing Council FTW ('She does pretty well with fiends from hell, but lately we can tell ').

Ha! Sounds like fun!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayonn No problems with the custom boss.

He was designed to be fairly doable since this is a low level arc.

SO - to sum up, thanks for the plays and suggestions. One good thing to learn about writing a good AE arc (if I have any legs to stand on on that topic) is that strong, detailed feedback like this seriously helps you in refining your story. Take good notes on the suggestions (as I have here and with other reviews for all my arcs), consider them and decide if they're applicable or not then act on them if they are.

As you've been so kind to spend your time writing this up, I'll be playing your arc when you republish it and as soon as time allows me (tight schedule, little gaming time etc.) and I'll try to drop as detailed a review for you in the other thread.

Here's my arc that I could use some feedback on:
Crey's Nightmare (I'm not thrilled about the title myself)
ID: 295501
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 40-54
Length: 4 missions
Enemies: Carnies, Crey, and a custom group (the custom group is meant to be hard but not cheap, I may have made them too hard though)
Description: Missing psychics, desperate Carnies, and Crey somehow right in the middle of everything. Help the Conclave of Psychics unravel this mystery. (I'm also thinking of changing the description since it's not much of a mystery story really)

I've been working on this off and on for a while now, but the story just seems to lack that kick that makes it memorable. Any feedback I could get would be appreciated.

Crey's Nightmare
ID: 295501
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 40-54
Length: 4 missions
Enemies: Carnies, Crey, and a custom group.
Description: Missing psychics, desperate Carnies, and Crey somehow right in the middle of everything. Help the Conclave of Psychics unravel this mystery.

Aemilia Lacera, level 41 heroic KM/inv brute +0/x2 with bosses

Mission 1:

Nitpicks:
- You should probably capitalize the first letter of each important word in the mission title and subtitle.
- 'agree' is spelt 'aggree' in the player's dialogue.
- In the send-off dialogue, "the Carnie's purpose" should be "the Carnies' purpose".

Tips:
One thing you might do to make the arc more memorable is to give the contact more personality. See Talos Vice by @PW and A Wake for Dead 6 by @Clave Dark 5 for examples.

Try adding more dialogue between the Carnies and the captives. As it is, 'rescuing the captives' just means 'fight those enemies, then watch that guy run off'. (This happens in a lot of the in-game missions as well). Have the Carnies talk about what they do to their 'recruits' (or emphasize it it in a clue), to drive home what I'm saving them from and add emotional impact.

Regarding the clues that drop on rescuing the captives, I would recommend going for one or two clues that advance the story and add emotional impact rather than lots of short clues that add nothing but flavor.

It will increase the emotional impact of the developments in the next mission if the player cares more about Yambu. You should try to make her especially likable. Maybe emphasize how she's so intent on protecting her fellow psychics that she's willing to go into situations she can't really handle. (Rather like Xander, in his good moments, if you've ever watched Buffy. Or Simon Tam in Firefly. Or Rory in Doctor Who. Why are these all guys?)

Finally, the mission doesn't really have a climax. This is not necessarily a problem in the first mission, but you might consider adding a fight with a boss, who might hint at later developments in her dialogue.

Mission 2:

I really liked this mission. Short and flashy, with plenty of plot development (How many twists were there? I count three.). See my suggestion above on how you might increase the impact of what happens to Yambu.

Nice job with the ambush and patrol. However some of the NPC dialogue was repeated several times. I'm not sure what caused this.

Mission 3:

Fairly straightforward--fight Crey, hack computer, fight boss.

I like the costumes and concept for the cyborgs.

On the other hand, the boss fight was extremely tough. Minions with Phantasm? LTs that Fulcrum Shift? Ambush? Remember that the Carnies that summon a phantasm are bosses. These might be a bit overpowered.

Also, I'm not sure why I had to fight the Security Chief. It looks like he was supposed to be trying to block my exit, but he spawned farther back than the computer and I had to chase him down. You should either change that or (perhaps better) have a plot reason why he must be defeated.

Mission 4:

Ok, the first spawn is killing me before I can even get one of them. I'm gonna have to hold off on this last mission until you make the minions less overpowered.

I also played Police Woman's 'Teen Phalanx Forever' #67335.
It doesn't really need a review from me, so all I'll say is: if you haven't played this one yet, do so. There's a reason it won the Player's Choice award.

Crey's Nightmare
ID: 295501

Follow-up:
I really like the changes you made. Glad I could help you strengthen what was already a good story.

Mission 4
The power changes have the Crey cyborgs challenging but beatable. (The LTs spend the beginning of every fight buffing each other. This is where a lot of the difficulty seems to come from, though I don't think it actually needs changing.)

I really like the way the story turned out. Nothing needs changing here, though I would point out that if you the objective to escort Yambu to the final boss, you can use her arrival dialogue to make a confrontation between the two. This would require her to survive until then, though (she died just before the boss when I played).

At least I think that would work--it's what I'm doing in my arc, but I haven't tested it yet.

Rated 5 stars in game. I've decided to adopt Glazius's policy of always rating 5 stars in game for a solicited review, because it seems that anyone who is seeking to improve their story ought to have it bumped past all the farms. I've gone back and re-rated all of the above arcs.

Hey Rayonn, it's nice to see another reviewer in the AE community. Since my own RL schedule is incredibly hectic right now, I appreciate any new player taking the time to do reviews like this.

Anyway, I guess I'll throw in my latest arc, "The Icari", for your consideration (Arc ID# 458576). The arc caps at Level 24, well below your character's Level 40-ish range, but I've had plenty of other reviewers play the arc with characters above the level limit, so don't feel obliged to use a lower-level character if you don't want to. The arc is five missions long, and features mostly Council and Circle of Thorns, so I don't forsee any problems with your exemplared Brute at your difficult settings.

I look forward to getting another point of view on "The Icari", if and when you decide to review it. Thanks in advance!

Mirror Man: I'll do the Icari as soon as I have the time.

I now have a villain (formerly Praetorian) at 20, so I can do low- to mid-level villain and rogue arcs now.

Critique of The Icari
Arc #458576
by @Unknown Hero

Level 26 Dual pistols/Rad Corruptor (Heroic) +0/x1, no bosses

Mission 1:
The intro dialogue is good but the purple text is hard to see. Also, 'mayorial' should be 'mayoral'.

I like the descriptions of the Icari. Every one of them hints at interesting questions.

The chaining objectives are rather annoying. I get that you're trying to prevent the navbar from getting too cluttered, but having them spawn in one-by-one means I can't use the map to see where I've already looked.

The word 'emits' in the clue has an extra e in it.

So, very good intro story-wise, but the gameplay could use some tweaking.

Mission 2:

Straightforward gameplay; nice plot-twist at the end.

The only potential weak spot I see here is that most of the plot development occurs in the mission-complete dialogue. I don't think that's worth changing.

Mission 3:
For some reason the double-inverted-commas (<--- affected British-ism) at the end of "Wrightman Heights" ended up at the at the beginning of the next line. You should either shorten that line somehow or add a hard-return somewhere.

I like the story development, but again the gameplay is a little odd. I ended up returning to the exit several times to drop off the Icari. I guess I could have just collected them all and gone back once, but I didn't want the Council killing them. Perhaps you should make them unkillable. (Or use 'Rescue Captive' instead 'Escort', but then there wouldn't be as much time to read their descriptions).

Play-balancing and mission design isn't really something I'm good at. I will say that the story has been good so far.


Mission 4:
That much bold+italic is hard to read.

Ok, at first I was all set to complain about all the running around I had to do looking for clues. But then I realized--the writing is good enough that the hunting around just adds suspense.

If you're doing the 'fake plural' the way I think you are, then you have control over the order in which the player finds the clues, right? If that's the case, Mental Maiden's #2 and #3 are out of order. Also It would be nice if the clues (i.e. the ones in the 'clues' window) were in the order they were found in. How did you do it, anyway?

One last thing: In the text for the 'barrel' clue, you used it's as a possessive. Should be its.

Overall, good plot development. I would see what you can do to shorten this mission as much as possible, though, because some players won't like the lack of XP on such a long mission.

Oh, and in the completion dialogue, Typhoon's accent seems to have disappeared. (After playing Mission 5, I see this wasn't a slip-up, but I'm not still not sure where the accent went)


Mission 5:
Very dark. Very, very dark. This is a good thing.

Perhaps since Mental Maiden fell the farthest you should put her at the end? Also she was the toughest fight, so she'd make a good climax. And then the last dialogue in the mission would be 'Wait… why are you… sad?" or whatever it was.

Gameplay was straightforward. The bosses were tough, but beatable.

and then at the end:
Sequel!
Hook!
(Is there a sequel?)

Overall: As I stated in the original post, I'm mostly here to critique the story. This one doesn't need much. It might increase the emotional impact if you managed to get the player attached to the Icari in the first mission (at least the more sympathetic ones). Maybe make them somewhat less condescending (especially Sentinel). Patriotic Man should stay condescending, as he is never really all that sympathetic.

Also, you might consider adding a bright spot. Maybe one of the Icari can be redeemed. (Irony points if it's Patriotic Man.) The story is good without this, so I don't know whether it would be an improvement or not. But even Wuthering Heights has a happy ending. If you stretch the definition of 'happy ending' to include 'at least Heathcliff didn't manage to completely destroy everyone's lives'.

Regarding gameplay, you implemented some fairly complex mechanics that were occasionally confusing. Someone with more MA experience than me would give better advice on what to do about that.

Thanks for your critique, Rayonn! I'm glad you enjoyed the storyline of "The Icari", even if you found faults with the gameplay.

*****

Quote:

The chaining objectives are rather annoying. I get that you're trying to prevent the navbar from getting too cluttered, but having them spawn in one-by-one means I can't use the map to see where I've already looked.

This point kind of surprised me. While I did initially have each member of the Icari chained to each other in the first mission of the arc (thus making the player have to complete each objective in a distinct order), I un-chained all of them some time ago due to the negative feedback I received because of it. I just tested the arc again, and the objectives are still un-chained. Maybe there was a glitch in the AE system?

Quote:

I like the story development, but again the gameplay is a little odd. I ended up returning to the exit several times to drop off the Icari. I guess I could have just collected them all and gone back once, but I didn't want the Council killing them. Perhaps you should make them unkillable. (Or use 'Rescue Captive' instead 'Escort', but then there wouldn't be as much time to read their descriptions).

The powerless Icari in the third mission of the arc are actually non-combat escorts, so the Council shouldn't be able to attack them (or vice-versa). Still, the "backtracking" required to rescue all of the Icari has been mentioned by several other reviewers as a point of frustration, though I still haven't decided on a way to fix it.

Quote:

If you're doing the 'fake plural' the way I think you are, then you have control over the order in which the player finds the clues, right? If that's the case, Mental Maiden's #2 and #3 are out of order. Also It would be nice if the clues (i.e. the ones in the 'clues' window) were in the order they were found in. How did you do it, anyway?

Quote:

Oh, and in the completion dialogue, Typhoon's accent seems to have disappeared. (After playing Mission 5, I see this wasn't a slip-up, but I'm not still not sure where the accent went)

Regarding clues, I originally intended for there to be many more clues than the ones that appear in the finished arc. Unfortunately, the MA system limits arc creators to 32 clues per arc. As such, I had to cut out several clues which would have elaborated on certain character and plot points. This is why the clue log appears to go "out of order" in the fourth mission, and why certain smaller details in the arc (like the explanation for Typhoon losing her accent; originally its own clue, is now very briefly mentioned in her second log book in the fourth mission) had to be added to character bios, dialog, or removed entirely.

Quote:

Perhaps since Mental Maiden fell the farthest you should put her at the end? Also she was the toughest fight, so she'd make a good climax. And then the last dialogue in the mission would be 'Wait why are you sad?" or whatever it was.

In my test runs, I've found that different archtypes tend to have the most trouble with different members of the Icari. Your Corruptor probably had the most trouble with Mental Maiden because of her status-altering powers, but a melee character (Tanker, Brute, Scrapper) would probably find her the easiest member of the Icari, since she tends to do the least amount of damage in comparison to her teammates.

Quote:

and then at the end: Sequel! Hook! (Is there a sequel?)

No, there isn't a sequel to "The Icari" as of this moment. That's not to say I won't make one in the future, but right now almost all of my (very limited as of late) free time is being spent making the next installment to my "Galactic Protectorate" series of arcs. Part of the reason I wrote "The Icari" was to try my hand at a self-contained story (my "Galactic Protectorate" series is currently six arcs long), which makes me think that making a sequel arc to "The Icari" would be defeating some of its purpose. With that being said, I'm not entirely against the idea of making a sequel to "The Icari"; I've already thought of several potential premises for such a sequel, though I still haven't fleshed them out into anything resembling a complete AE arc yet. Time will tell, I suppose.

*****

In any case, I appreciate that you enjoyed the "dark" tone of the ending, since that's what I was aiming for. And thanks for pointing out some of the spelling/grammatical errors in the arc, I'll be sure to correct those once I have the time!

My own arc is now up.

#491402 Everything Falls Apart.

It's still a draft, the gameplay probably needs tweaking and there are some odd things I tried with the writing that may not have worked.

It's intended to be soloable. There is an elite boss, but you have an ally. The 'high level villain' that you are warned about is a captive you have to rescue.

I'd like feedback if anyone has the time.

Reviewed Bubbawheat's Dev's Choice arc, 'Ctrl + Alt + Reset' here.

Ok, reviewing your arc here, as promised. Anyone who might run this later might wish to avoid reading as it will contain spoilers.

I ran this on my namesake stalker - not much of a hero, but he's at 38th so it was a good fit, level-wise. I like to take a good look at costumes and stalkers are great for that.

Mission 1: Something I saw all through this arc first popped up on the clue when I rescued Anathocluos (I may have misspelled that due to poor handwriting in my notes). When someone's speaking to me directly, I like to see it in quotes. You covered yourself by labeling the clue "Ana... Speaks" (or something), and elsewhere you used color to differentiate between text and dialogue, but... I just like to see quotes. Take that for what it's worth.

I think the fact Ana (as I shall call him from here on out) and the weapon dealers are aliens wasn't fully enough addressed or spelled out from the get-go; at first I thought he was just a mutant or something. I felt some sort of line like "these guys don't look like they're from around here" (or something much better worded than that) would be helpful; I don't think that was really done until the debrief, by which point it seemed like a "well duh!' moment. Maybe his bio could read something like "Ana is an Oorian gas-trawler who's not of Earth..." Something like that.

Last bit from the debrief: the phrase "...what it's like to have your authority undermined", shouldn't that be "its"?

Overall this was nice and short and set everything up.

Mission 2: I found the level-drop down to 15th odd. This was the only mish I died in, so I'll blame that.

Once inside, I rescued Thenossus (again, spelling), then I find out he's an Oorian, which I presume means Ana is too. Again, might want to drop that into Ana's bio.

The humans in here confused me. Reading the bios, I gather they're kidnapped from Earth and pressed into the pirate service, right? I think this needs a little clarification, maybe some info from Ana somewhere. As all this is taking place inside his mind, you might have all their bios be direct quotes from Ana; I'm thinking of trying out just such a thing in a future arc. Doing so would be a good platform for the needed expository dialogue.

Interestingly, when Jackson stood on some 'trops one of the pirates dropped, he wouldn't follow me. I had no idea the game mechanics worked that way. It also pointed out to me that he didn't seem to have a 'lost line', "Hey Clave, where'd you go?" "Oh, there you are. C'mon, let's get moving!"

The clue for Seriela (spelling alert!) was pretty good - info and character color all in one clue.

Quick question, are the Pirate-Blasters Bot MMs without any of the pet powers, just the rifles, or were they ARs?

It seemed a little odd to have some rescues run for the door themselves while I had to escort Seriela myself, but that's no biggie.

Typo in the "Final Goodbyes" clue - "Buy you some time" was missing the B.

This mish seemed to drag a bit, what with the level shift (fewer powers for me to whomp people with) and the larger map (which was fitting never-the-less). Seeing as how it was a flashback as well, I think it derailed the 'real', main storyline about the weapon dealers, it threw the pacing off. Not a complete wreck by any means though, as long as you make sure we get back to it solidly later.

Mission 3: Davis (that was his name, right?) says something about wanting "to know where Ana is". Well, they could just get him a hotel room somewhere, maybe plunk him down in front of a TV at the station, no need to send him along with me to keep an eye on him. The fact he does come along itself is fine, I just think the given line of reasoning needs to be rethought.

Defeating Jackson went fine, no problems there. We stalkers are good at that.

The debrief mentions Ana getting broken up over "what he did to Miranda" - I must have missed something or this is a stray plot thread that got lost, I don't even know/remember who she is.

Mission 4: The intro drops me into the middle of a classic WTH moment, it was a nicely unexpected twist that really hooked me into finding out just what was going on. But I wasn't sure who was speaking to me, was it Davis again? Maybe the quotes thing I mentioned above would help here as well, and just a few words about "So-n-so starts acting strangely and says..." Yeah, something along those lines to help ground me in the fact I've lost my footing with reality; here I felt it popped up too suddenly without a reasonable amount of follow up explanation Perhaps it could be dropped into the debrief at the end of M2 where it really seemed to start. (I'm currently working on an arc that does this a lot so I'm one to speak, but I gather you'd like you're arc's story to be clear unlike mine, heh) A mission-entry pop-up might be a good place for something along those lines too; currently there isn't one.

I liked the garbled nature of the Phantasm's bios, and yet... for what you're after here, you could take that even further. Maybe their bios could be fragments of unrelated thoughts from Ana (or would that be 'me'?), memories, descriptive bits of dream imagery... really, the possibilities are endless.

Ah-ha, I fight my own Nightmare Projection! And what a handsome devil he is too! His spoken lines are nicely mysterious, but he still died instantly (again, we stalkers are good as such things). Looking back on those lines though, I'm not sure who he meant by 'she'... :P

Mission 5: Interesting set-up. Psi-cop Jones says the arc contact's name as "Davids", but it's Davis, isn't it? I really should have written it down.

Fighting and defeating the Nightmare Projection of Ana I dinged 39th, yay me! Reading his bio, I get the biggest twist of the story here (if I followed this rightly) - he was actually the villain all along and he killed Jackson's family, not the other way round, right?

And so all this has been... um, a bit confusing. Is Ana just wandering about, lost in his craziness; was it brought on by remorse over his killing Jackson's family? Was this all part of his plot and to what end? But I still liked this twist of the story a heck of a lot, I just think it needs a bit of post mortem explanation like "Davis greets you when you return, 'So Clave, seems like Ana was the killer all along who's mind broke when he faced the cruelty he was capable of, eh?'" or whatever was really going on (forgive me if I've mangled it). Also, did I discover for sure that Ana was the weapons dealer that Davis was after? Did I stop him from dealing more, if so? That story thread seems to have gotten lost, or at least I lost it.

In fact, the final debrief really sort of just stopped dead rather than wrapping things up (unless you're planning a direct sequel). A story needs a good wrap up to clear away any stray threads ("Later we caught Clave and he's doing a nickel in the Zig."), hidden-but-now-revealed secrets explained ("So, he came back to the bank because that lucky penny was the source of his power all along."), what happened to the fairy princes after she was rescued ("She married the dwarfs."), etc.
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So - I liked what I saw a heck of a lot, I think this arc has real potential, real solid potential. The story had a few layers, it had some twists and was more than just the usual 'go hunt kil skuls'.

As you're not going for a total 'mind-funk' story like Inception, just 'a story with elements that are at first confusing or that have explanations squirreled away for later', my advice for this arc is be darn sure that everything gets solidly explained. Make sure everything is very clear along the way or in hindsight - as I did in my arc 'A Wake For Dead 6' which you've played. That was the take-home message I got from reviews for my arc; I had to make it clear as freakin' glass when the shifts of perspective took place, who was speaking about what when, etc. If a big clue to something is hidden in only one spot, it's easy for players to miss it; the intro text ("Hi Clave, I have a job for you") and especially the debriefs are the best places to put stuff so people don't miss it. Most players in this game expect pretty direct follow-through on story like "'Go hunt kil skuls.' - (kil kil kil mission completed) - 'Good job kiling skuls.'" If you're going to change up that order, be sure they see it coming and get a good thorough follow up explanation and finish.

Man, longest post I ever made. Hope it helps, feel free to ask for clarification as I was rushing this and probably did a poor job of explaining myself.