Farm Reviews

Since I no longer have an arc with a 5 star average I can do this without "fear" of downrating retaliation. My new project is to play the top ranking farms but treat them like story arcs, send comments to the author, rank them and review them as if they were actual stories. I want to see what kind of responses I will get.

Yesterday I played "Beasts" (505560) by @Swiftjammer, which is supposedly a "work in progress". I thought it was a rather uninteresting story with little to none exposition. The arc was only one mission and I never even left the first room of the map - everything spawned right on top of me as I killed and destroyed the objectives. Finally I clicked a refrigerator and retrieved some genetic material. For some reason this surprised the contact (so generic I couldn't remember a name or appearance), and the arc was over. I believe the arc was about mutant animals escaping in a laboratory but I'm not sure. The custom mobs were horrible and didn't even bother following any kind of theme; people with animal heads, boxing gloves and togas shooting fire? What kind of nonsense is this? I suggest that the author works on the story some more before republishing. I cannot recommend this arc as it stands for anyone: avoid, avoid, avoid. One star.

This was a huge success since I received not one, not two but three tells in reply, filled with abuse.

I also played "Zombie Robots (Fire Farm Version)" (504303) by @Ji O'Dee. It seemed like a promising arc with a story about finding the creator of the fire farms and kill him. He was supposed to be a zombie clown, so I'm pretty sure it was some author self-insertion or maybe even an origin story. I were to be severely disappointed, however, since the story was cut short. I entered the warehouse expecting the worst when I was immediately ambushed by hundreds of zombie robots. Some kind of malfunctioning robots, I'm guessing, since they were all spewing fire out of every orifice. Do robots have orifices? Zombies might. Anyway, after I footstomped my way out of the pile of necrotic robot flesh I found a computer humming along right next to me, so naturally I investigated it. This must have given the zombie clown time to escape because the mission ended. There was no end debriefing to tell me what had happened to the clown that created this mission, so I'm waiting for the inevitable sequel. In its current form I don't know if I can recommend this arc. It had a strong meta-game flavor that I don't particularly care for. The custom mobs use the same kind of power choices that I have seen in a lot of arcs recently. I'm guessing they might be placeholders, since they seem to be copy-and-paste jobs. The costumes looked ok though. Due to the shoddy workmanship and non-existent storytelling I must give it the lowest possible score: one star.

FredrikSvanberg, I approve!

This idea sounds epic, and I heartily approve. I might have to try this if I get bored

Edit: subscribed to thread

Feel free to join in and post your experiences in this thread.

Great idea! I'll be watching this thread closely.

Today's first victim was "Burn The Witches!" (505715) by @Hanoosh.

I'm used to brevity in these stories by now but this one was especially spartan. And no, I don't mean that a large, bearded man told me that this was Sparta and kicked me into a well. I mean that the entire story consisted of a single sentence, summarized in the title of the story.

After entering the high-tech laboratory of the witches (I don't know what that was about), I proceded to burn them all, following along in the story as best I could.

A portal promised sweet release from the torment of clicking buttons over and over, and I was soon whisked away and back to safety after having burned all the witches.

It's almost as if no effort went into the creation of this story at all, and I'm thinking that maybe I've been going about this the wrong way all along. Naturally I shouldn't try to think of a plot or motivations or anything like that - those things merely get in the way of what's really important; the mindless clicking of buttons.

Next up was "Chick Magnet - Fire Ambush Farm" (501098) by @Tank Anja.

The contact is a mysterious woman called Anja (uh oh, looks like this might be an origin story and we know how those usually turn out!), which the contact info tells me is a hologram created by the mission architect computer itself. I like the idea but it seems kind of derivative - too many other people have used the same story for their contacts.

This story started out promising with a visit to the warehouse headquarter of the hot biker women. They sure were hot, because they were all on fire. I noticed a slightly risque element: one of the first women I met practically begged me to hurt her, but when I did a surge of her jilted lesbian lovers flooded the corridor until I could barely see my own character behind the wall of near-naked flesh.

The gameplay was like a fever dream: long, repetitive and confusing, with one exactly similar warehouse after another, with the same masochistic women summoning the same horde of biker women as soon as I touched them. I was slowly losing my tenuous grasp on reality. How long had I been in here, stomping and burning? It had to be an eternity, but no, all five missions breezed by in less than 10 minutes. I could scarcely believe it. Five missions and the story didn't progress at all. No character development or anything.

I noticed an error in the fourth warehouse: Anja tells us it's the third warehouse. Or maybe I was just confused. Why do they need so many similar warehouses, couldn't they have different ones? There's a random map option so it doesn't become all the same, and the author could add some patrols talking about what the bikers are doing in the warehouse. Because of the mistake in mission three, or if it's four, I can only give this arc 2 stars.

Honestly, I think the only Farm I've seen with a story of some sort is the Crey Cyborg fire farm. It's explained as a Crey lab that was taken over by cyborgs, and you have to destroy their equipment, and shut down the convenient interdimensional portal they use to call in more cyborgs.

Reviewing "Farm Reviews" by FredrikSvanberg

Fun concept, but the execution didn't elicit as much as a chuckle from me. While the subject matter is obviously repetitive in nature, most of the jokes seem to be about pointing out the repetitiveness and many of these fall flat. I would think reading the abuse filled tells to be actually more entertaining.

The reviews are complicated to follow, seemingly jumping from the original premise to breaking the fourth wall at any time.

I can't recommend for anyone else to check this thread as it is right now, but it shows promise and with some work could prove to be interesting for more than just disgrunted AE authors looking for relief. 3 stars.

I decided to check up on how the same author might have improved between two separate arcs. "Beasts II" (511355) by @SwiftJammer was in fact a vast improvement over "Beasts", with something that resembled a plot and an actual introduction by a contact who had an actual name and seemed to fit the idea of the arc.

2 stars for improvement. He should do something about those custom mobs though, they are awfully easy to kill. My controller finished this in just a few minutes.



Despite my much more favourable review, I was once again rewarded with a reply complaining about getting feedback, and some abuse. Despite the MA not being intended for creating farms, the author insists that his story arc is indeed a farm, and should be treated as such and not as a story arc. This must mean that he intends to delete it immediately.

Now, now. I wasn't looking to hurt your feelings, I genuinely think this is a fun concept and that you can do better than this with the execution.

If you want to take it as a jab, oh well, have at it. It's no wonder AE turned out so well with that kind of reaction to any feedback that isn't glowing praise.

Review of Zombie Robots (Fire Farm Version) (#504303)

Started with 5 stars.

Description seems very short but accurately describes what the player should expect by calling itself a "fire farm". (No change)

Burnt Lab Tech contact is actually pretty cool looking, a nurse or scientist looking person that happens to be smoking. (+0.1 stars)

Briefing is far too short, only a single sentence that does not explain enough about the back story of the Zombie Robots or their creator. Likewise the send-off message is too short (only 2 words). Both these places could really use some fleshing out to better explain the situation. (-1 star)

Mission accept message is just the generic "Accept", would be better if it were customized to fit the situation. (-0.01 star)

I like the farming instructions provided in the mission entry popup, they give very clear directions on what you should be doing. (+0.25 stars)

"Zombe Robots" is misspelled in the mission entry popup, should be "Zombie Robots" (-0.01 stars)

"Eliete Boss" is misspelled in the nav tool, should be "Elite Boss" (-0.01 stars)

I think "Mad Lab Tec" is spelled wrong, probably supposed to be "Mad Lab Tech" (-0.01 stars). I'm not convinced they really fit the Zombie Robot theme, not being either zombies or robots but there is some attempt to explain in their description that they are groupies of the evil plan, so gonna let that slide.

In the mission dialog they say:

[NPC] Mad Scientist: Minons come to my Aid!

"Minons" should be "Minions" (-0.01 stars)

[NPC] Super Zombie Robot: Damage Recieved heath at 75%

"heath" should be "health" (-0.01 stars)

After aggroing a few objectives a huge ambush shows up and attacks. A lot of guys show up (so many that I think I exceeded the aggro cap... I was on +1 x4 though), but based on the level 50 minimum and the general expectation of people playing this sort of farm, I don't think the ambush is too excessive.

I don't really get why zombie robots would throw fire. I know the idea of a fire farm is to throw fire at the player, but fire attacks don't fit the zombie robot theme. Needs some explanation. (-0.25 stars)

I rescued "Mad Apprentice Cali" who apparently was the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter, she immediately betrayed and attacked me, demandind that I leave her father alone. She seemed kinda cool, I would've liked to seen a little more character development though.

I saw the glowie that ends the mission but didn't click it yet because I wanted to see what else was inside.

I rescued "Zombie Robot Recruit." who appeared to be a girl in a cheerleader outfit. She has a "." in her name which looks awkward (nitpicky, I know). I'm guessing that this is because there is a "Zombie Robot Recruit" with no period, too; consider using trailing spaces instead, those are less noticable.

I think maybe her line of "Umm...like I totally dont want to be a Zombie!" should be spoken as dialog, not embedded in her description where a casual farmer might not get to see it. I like the fact that we get to rescue innocent people, that feels properly heroic. (+0.1 stars)

I don't understand why the zombie robots begin singing a Boy George song. It really seems weird and unrelated to the actual story. (-0.1 stars)

Likewise the zombie robot patrols that yell "Marco" and "Polo", this kinda breaks the sense of immersion. (-0.1 stars)

The series of rules the zombies yell at us don't really seem connected to the story either but are at least kind of fun. This one has some spelling problems though:

[NPC] Zombie Robot V 1.0: Rulet #10: Need a suggestion for a rule, add a suggetion at the end of the mision when you rate it!

"Rulet" should be "Rule" and "suggetion" should be "suggestion". (-0.01 stars)

I found a "Zombie Robot Recruit" who was a guy with dark hair. He didn't have a description (-0.1 stars), just has the generic "Bosses are very powerful foes" boilerplate.

Deep inside I found a Zombie Clown EB. I don't get why there's a Zombie Clown. It doesn't seem to fit the story. (-0.1 stars)

By this point I had hit the 1500 ticket cap for the map, and couldn't find any other special objectives, so I went back and clicked the glowie. The glowie was just named "I win" which is rather disappointing, I think it should be named something that fits the story (-0.1 stars)

There's no real debriefing (only 2 words), would really like some text here giving us a proper end to the story (-1 star).

I am disappointed that we never got to face the mastermind behind the zombie robot conspiracy. Although the arc is over, it doesn't feel like we have put a stop to the zombie robot menace (-0.25 stars)

We never really found out the motivation behind the zombie robot conspiracy and what the bad guys were up to. (-0.25 stars)

No souvenir? Could use one. (-0.1 stars)


This is the feedback I wrote to the author:

Ya know, I know you all are frustrated, I've been ratings bombed twice myself for saying the wrong things in the forum. However, the fact is you were not attacked by FARMERS. You were attacked by some jackhole who, even if he is a part of the farming community, attacked you as a member of the jackhole community, therefore striking back at farmers is simply attacking innocent people.

Let me take you all on a trip down memory lane.
*cue flashback music and wavy video*

Remember way back when the air was clean and the skies were blue and MA was fresh and new and wonderful? Everyone was making story arcs and lots and lots of people were playing them. Few arcs except story arcs were on the first pages, heading toward the coveted Hall of Fame spot.

Oops, look, a story arc is falling off the first page into oblivion. Poor story arc. What happened? Oh yeah, it was 0-rated by a gang of....STORY ARC WRITERS! Eliminating the competition. Now, does that mean the story arc writer community is a bunch of evil bastages who should be randomly 1-starred or does it mean that, when story arcs were popular, there were a bunch of jackholes in the community?

The fact is that Positron stating that AE was not intended for farming in some buried thread from before AE was released does not mean farms are not valid AE content. Only those of us who were here then. and who were paying attention, even have any way to know about Posi's statement. Nowhere in the game, nor even in the release notes with their extensive write up of AE, is farming mentioned in any way. As it stands right now, a farm arc is just as valid of AE content as a Story arc, a challenge arc, an origin story for an SG or author's character, etc. There is only one type of arc that is not valid, one that makes use of exploits. That is covered in the EULA.

I'm not a fan of farms in the AE, but facts are facts. If you're going to judge farms as if they were stories (at least, the ones that make it clear they are farms as I've seen more than a few try to fool me into thinking they're story arcs until I start them up), then I have to assume you'd judge clearly marked challenge arcs, or clearly marked "this is an arc for my SG, probably won't make sense if you're not a member" arcs as if they were story arcs.

The enemies of the story writing community are not farmers, they are the devs. The devs chose to give us no means whatsoever to separate stories from farms, not to mention numerous other issues that discourage most of us from bothering to write anymore. Because of this, those who would play stories are pretty much locked out of the system, and authors are frustrated out of it.

So, at most, if it was not one person with multiple accounts, 4 people attacked you and several others. What are the odds, given the hundreds of farm arc writers, that any of the arcs you've targeted belong to those 4?

You know what Fred, I dare you to run 516878.

*shakes baseball bat, throws rocks*

Just to be different, I played "Sinister Serenity - Energy/Smashing Farm" (500977)

The description is straightforward: "True Serenity." Not sure what that means, it could be a Zen thing or maybe author is a Firefly fan...The contact isn't any help there, her name is Doctor Z, she's wearing a techy/Valkyrie black and purple number and all she says is "Flame On." Wait a minute...I thought I wasn't going to be set on fire! I accept anyway, she wishes me "Good Luck." My mission objective is simply "Complete." Complete what? I zone into Recluse's throne room, to be told I need "1 Collection." The throne room is full of Energy Minions (green) Energy Lieutenants (blue) and Energy Bosses (red). They're all wearing Vanguard armor...maybe they're some special Vanguard strike force? Their descriptions aren't very descriptive, but since they're standing in Recluse's throne room guarding some computers ("Ambush 1" and "Ambush 2") I can only guess their purpose is top-secret. There is a safe also, which is very easy to crack; I guess that's why they needed all the guards. Clicking it immediately finishes the mission. All Doctor Z has to say about that is "Success." Huh. It wasn't very serene at all, and I never did find out what these oddly colored Energy Assault wielding Vanguard are doing in Recluse's throne room, or what's so important about these computers that they must send wave after wave of troops at anyone who damages them.

The best thing I can say about this arc is that there weren't any glaring spelling errors and the author knows where the shift key is. Also, it is somewhat original for featuring Energy Assault instead of Fire enemies. However, being original is only a plus if it's actually good, and you don't get bonus points for a basic knowledge of English, so I can't give this arc more than 1-star.