Architect Arc Club

Two Chicks at Once (#83920)

Played on a 50 MA/will scrapper.

Mission 1

Briefing: signifigantly -> significantly, aquired -> acquired

I kinda think the pink and purple parts of the uniforms doesn't really fit with the traditional Longbow red & white color scheme, but your mileage may vary.

The first mission could use some more mission details; I cleared through to the glowy, and the only mission details I encountered were the patrol with the dialog about Miss December, and the box itself. Maybe a boss or another patrol with more dialog, or wall poster glowies with glamor shots, or something. Maybe some well equipped Longbow getting their photos taken by a photographer (a "captive" civilian using the camera emote while his "guards" do some sort of flirty pose).

Debriefing: signifigant -> significant.


Mission 2

So from the mission briefing, I think I'm raiding the Crey Cosmetics Division. Or maybe Cosmetic Surgery.

"Chest Slider" is a fun clue. The manual is OK, but not quite as funny; the unguent doesn't seem particularly funny (at least to me).

The actual Crey enemies in this mission are a little dull - all Crey tanks (I played at level 50) and only one has any dialog, who complains of the lack of scientists. I think the Crey could stand to be more funny. Consider adding mad scientists working on bizarre cosmetics projects; middle managers panicked about their Chest Slider project overruns; maybe Kelly Uqua working on the ad campaign for the new line of Crey mascara.


Mission 3

briefing: opinioned -> opinionated.

Johnny's dialog is terrific - however, I think his costume doesn't quite look right. The real Johnny Sonata has a much older face, and the colors are not quite right (a little nitpicky, admittedly). See http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/File:Johnny_Sonata.jpg

The "Ice Mistral's marker" clue seems rather short and dry; consider having an itemized list of crazy things Johnny Sonata has billed her for. You can use the "end of mission" clue instead of the "defeat boss" clue if you need extra space. Is there room for a (friendly) Ice Mistral spawn that you can confront with the marker and demand she help with the calendar? (There might not be, I know the casino maps are quite small.)


Mission 4

It doesn't make sense for my initial objective to be "Meet Ice Mistral" when the briefing told me I should find Silver Mantis. I think it would make more sense for your initial objective to be "Defeat Silver Mantis" and have Ice Mistral be an optional encounter with nothing as an objective. Sure, someone could stealth by Ice Mistral, but I think that would be OK. I'm actually not sure I buy that Ice Mistral would help with Silver Mantis anyway (though she does mention she wants to hurt Silver Mantis), though I guess you want an ally to help with the AV.

Although beating up Silver Mantis furthers the plot, the mission wasn't particularly funny. This arc really relies entirely on comedy, so I think this mission could stand to have funnier dialog and/or situations.


Mission 5

Not sure that Longbow actually has any valid pretext to confiscate the calendars, since they aren't against the law in any sense. Maybe we can let that go for the sake of comedy.

I rescued both Silver Mantis and Ice Mistral; each had dialog, but their guards did not. I think the Longbow guarding them should say *something*, maybe tsk tsking them or trying to compare their assets or something.

Is it worth making custom versions of Silver Mantis and/or Ice Mistral, versions who have used the devices you captured from Crey and/or the teeny bikinis that Lord Recluse forced them to wear? Also, from a game balance standpoint, having 2 EBs as allies is pretty overpowered.

"The Babes of Arachnos" clue: "calalog" -> "catalog"

Clicking the 4th crate triggers "Defeat Ms. Liberty" as an objective; I think you could use a message or clue somewhere that actually says Ms. Liberty has arrived to stop you.

Ms. Liberty's last line, "I would've looked so good in a negligee" doesn't quite make sense -- since we have not actually stopped Ms. Liberty's photos from being published.

I wonder if it would be more fun to have Longbow bust up the actual photo shoots, rather than just confiscate the calendars after the photo shoot has already occurred? Then you could have the player rescue Silver Mantis, Ice Mistral and the various other Arachnos models, and maybe cameramen or something. Maybe give Jenkins a cameo as a cameraman or something, just for fun, or have Becky or Barracuda crash the party, angry because she wasn't asked.

Debriefing: "flash you a mercury smile" sounds weird, should be just "flash you a quick smile".


The souvenir is pretty fun.


Overall

A fun, lighthearted adventure. I felt that some of the missions could use a little more content, especially more funny dialog. There were funny parts but some of the missions (especially M4 and M5) needed more. Liked how Lord Recluse and the patron AVs were (mis)characterized, Johnny's dialog, and the souvenir.

Oh, man. I need to run a couple of arcs within the next few days! Oops? Silly work, eating into my AE time.

As part of my duties to the club, I need to run two AE arcs this month.

I just ran Two Chicks at Once by @Interface, and I might not be able to get my second arc in, since I now only want to run this arc.

Okay, I'll find time to run some other non-Arachnos-vs-Longbow-Battle-Royale:Pr0n! arc.

The arc really amused me. High art? No. High Concept? Yes.

The idea of Lord Recluse putting out a Babes of Arachnos calendar was inspired.

Policewoman gave a great review of technical details to look at, I can't hope to match her so I won't try.

I'll just say that it was a stroke of luck that I ran the arc with my scrapper, the Playboy Avenger.

Thumbs up, I was vastly amused.

Ok this is pure fun. Totally my style of humor all the way. Literally laughed out loud twice just during the mission 1 intro. #CoHMA
#CoHMA Playing Cat: It's What's For Dinner #530511 by @ Interface.
#CoHMA M1: Lord Recluse is my contact and he's planning some sort of gala, but I wasn't paying attention as he was petting his new white cat
#CoHMA M1: best busy dialog - Who's my favorite widdle fuzzypaws? YOU are!
#CoHMA M1: So awesome, one of my objectives is 3) Profit
#CoHMA M1: I only wish it was instead 3) ??? 4) Profit.
#CoHMA M1: Not sure if it's cool or crazy that the Kronos Titan is just chilling out on this map.
#CoHMA M1: Pet Peeve though - it's an indoor/outdoor map and I didn't realize it at first. Should be noted in the mission dialog.
#CoHMA M2: Not sure if my mood dropped or what, but mission 2 is a bit of a letdown funny-wise while fighting the Freedom Furlanx.
#CoHMA M3: A temporal weapon went haywire and now I'm working for a bunch of villain cats. Luckily Von Grun's got the connections to help.
#CoHMA M3: Run shoulder kitty run!
#CoHMA M4: Now I just have to reconfigure some portals to get me out of the cat dimension.

I liked a lot of the humor in this arc and I thought the enemy designs were well done, if a bit on the difficult side - I was on a level 50 fire brute with minimal IO sets. Don't really have too much to say aside from that. Good luck.

This sounds like it'd be an interesting way to get some publicity for my arcs. Right now, I have two arcs of my own published, and I'm putting the finishing touches on a third. They're in my signature.

I'll start playing and reviewing arcs to "officially" join once the New Year rolls around and all the excitement of the Holidays calms down, but for now I just want to express my interest.

Okay, today I’ll do my first December arc for Arc Club. Tomorrow I’ll do number two. For today, I picked…

Arc #482914 Black as Midnight: Team Spirit by @Supafreak, Hero 50, 39 plays

Overall: I went into this knowing the arc is a prologue of sorts, so the fact that not everything is wrapped up by the end didn’t bother me in the least. Honestly, the first time through was pretty frustrating – there was a constant feeling of “I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing to move the mission forward”, which led to a lot of backtracking (see below), which in turn tended to break the flow of the story. This was in spite of the clues; although I suspect the author strongly objects to adding more to the mission objectives, I do actually think the mission objectives are seriously underutilized to get the player to advance the mission forward (I know the intent is to use the clues to move you forward rather than the objectives, but … well, I guess I found that I’m surprisingly dependant on the objectives to let me know that I’m correctly moving the mission forward. If other players are like me in that respect, it could be a problem).

Of course, now that I know what to do, I could easily progress through the mission at a good pace – but I do think tweaking the objectives would increase the chances that the first play through is smooth rather than frustrating.

Of course, I may have just been having an off day, and everyone else whose played the arc had no problems at all, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Officially, I think this’d be on the border between 3 and 4 stars “as is” (my opinion only, of course), but since I do think a second time through would go a lot smoother, I’ll nudge it up to 4 stars (which lets me give it 5 stars in game).

Thoughts along the way:

In the opening briefing – “There’s been an increased missing person reports…”; I think you mean “There’s been an increase in missing person reports…”

Exaulted status? Does that imply I’m supposed to be an incarnate? (I am, so that’s not a problem; just curious).

The mission’s got an interesting mix of redone Circle (that seem to be a splinter branch intent on animating banished pantheon corpses; it’s a neat touch). The “Hunters” look like shadow shard “reflections” – that may be intentional, but there wasn’t an obvious reason why they might look like that.

I did think the descriptions on the “Void Summon” mobs seemed oddly different than the others: while most everything in the mission has pretty “standard” descriptions in terms of the style, the Voids read more like you were getting the info from a “combat report.” I’ve seen that style used before, and don’t mind it at all – but it did seem a little odd that one faction would be in one style and the rest in the other. Seems like it’d be better for all the descriptions to have the same style. (Note: Same thing with the bosses in the Midnight Hunt faction. And the bosses of the ‘Shadow Portal’ group – I think that’s what the group is called.)

Oh, and the Death’s Head cult boss has a misspelling in its description (I forgot the exact word while I was writing the paragraph above, but just check the description; you’ll see it easy enough).

Found BrandX – hmm, her bio seems awfully dark for a Longbow experiement; reminds me more of Crey. EDIT: Oh! Based on the souvenir she a "guest appearance" type character, so her bio isn't actually the author's work.

Oh, okay, I see the theory behind how this is intended to work … Ravenessence’s illusion leads me to Deadfall, whose been bitten by a zombie. Then Deadfall and I head to where the real Ravenessence is … only we have to fight an Archmage of Darkness (which actually then spawns Raven in...and gives the message Deadfall is not feeling so hot).

To be honest, I think you really need to have the objective text reflect a bit more clearly what you should do. I know you’re not a fan of having much there (and, to be fair, you’re attempting to direct the player through the clues), but IMO the objectives are a much better place to prompt the player as to what to do next. Believe me, things like “Head deeper in to find Deadfall” and “Press on to find the real Ravenessence” would have been far more helpful than “3 Midnighters, Capture Tormas” being up there the whole time.

Also, the clue that drops when the Archmage dies only makes sense if Deadfall is with you (I’d managed to ditch her a while back and really didn’t want to go back and get her because I was already a bit frustrated after backtracking and scouring every square inch of the map I hadn’t yet explored before finding her, since I wasn’t clear whether I needed to head forward to move the story along). I went back and got her, but giving her the ability to fly might be very useful – greatly increase the chance that you won’t lose her.

Hmm … when I went back and fetched Deadfall, I ended up picking up Neverest as well – so he suddenly gave me a clue when I brought him to where the Archmage was. But he refers to Black Maverik. Who the heck is that?

Oh … except Neverest isn’t here. Wait, what? Did he just run off after giving the clue and I missed it?

I’m guessing that “P.hantom Strike” isn’t a typo – that it’s needed to defeat the profanity filter? (Note: With my incarnate pets and abilities, and two elite boss helpers, I had no trouble at all taking him out as a full AV.)

Oh … huh, Neverest didn’t vanish. Apparently he was standing in a corner in the room. Odd.

…and Black Maverik is the murdered Midnighter. Got it.

Neat … it looks like this is set up as a multi-parter where you get to choose the “flavor” of the story’s next part by selecting which version of the arc you want to play. I’ve actually thought of doing this myself … neat idea!

Thanx for the write-up/review. You're very thorough and I do appreciate it. My reply to your post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 In the opening briefing – “There’s been an increased missing person reports…”; I think you mean “There’s been an increase in missing person reports…”

I do believe you're right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 Exaulted status? Does that imply I’m supposed to be an incarnate? (I am, so that’s not a problem; just curious).

Indeed, this series of arcs are intended for advanced builds / incarnates. Paragon knows you well and wanted to reflect that no one really questions your moral standing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 The mission’s got an interesting mix of redone Circle (that seem to be a splinter branch intent on animating banished pantheon corpses; it’s a neat touch). The “Hunters” look like shadow shard “reflections” – that may be intentional, but there wasn’t an obvious reason why they might look like that.

I really, really, really wanted the Soul Mage as the LT in the group and at this time, the reflections are the only ones available. That being the case, I wanted the minions to be in-line with the look of the LT... so I opted to use the reflections version of them as well. Until we get a possible DA update to the group, I kinda figure it's a side effect of the rituals they're performing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 I did think the descriptions on the “Void Summon” mobs seemed oddly different than the others: while most everything in the mission has pretty “standard” descriptions in terms of the style, the Voids read more like you were getting the info from a “combat report.” I’ve seen that style used before, and don’t mind it at all – but it did seem a little odd that one faction would be in one style and the rest in the other. Seems like it’d be better for all the descriptions to have the same style. (Note: Same thing with the bosses in the Midnight Hunt faction. And the bosses of the ‘Shadow Portal’ group – I think that’s what the group is called.)

Pondering if I should delete the combat analysis thing on the custom critters completely. It's really only there for those that pay attention to that and scout the bios in advance. I guess I should go 100% either way with the Standard and Customs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 Found BrandX – hmm, her bio seems awfully dark for a Longbow experiement; reminds me more of Crey. EDIT: Oh! Based on the souvenir she a "guest appearance" type character, so her bio isn't actually the author's work.

Right, there's 2 per mission. Winners of a contest I held and totally optional EB Allies/Enemies (per request).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 Oh, okay, I see the theory behind how this is intended to work … Ravenessence’s illusion leads me to Deadfall, whose been bitten by a zombie. Then Deadfall and I head to where the real Ravenessence is … only we have to fight an Archmage of Darkness (which actually then spawns Raven in...and gives the message Deadfall is not feeling so hot). To be honest, I think you really need to have the objective text reflect a bit more clearly what you should do. I know you’re not a fan of having much there (and, to be fair, you’re attempting to direct the player through the clues), but IMO the objectives are a much better place to prompt the player as to what to do next. Believe me, things like “Head deeper in to find Deadfall” and “Press on to find the real Ravenessence” would have been far more helpful than “3 Midnighters, Capture Tormas” being up there the whole time.

I actually implemented it this way with clues/Nav based on previous feedback that "I feel like I have to follow Nav" when there's only 3 objectives until the end room on a pretty linear map. I'm not a fan of failable missions unless it's for an optional finale. Therefore, I don't have the "should be required" Midnighters as required. I was concerned the ever-changing objectives would be off-setting. I do like your suggestions and gonna have a relook at that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 Also, the clue that drops when the Archmage dies only makes sense if Deadfall is with you (I’d managed to ditch her a while back and really didn’t want to go back and get her because I was already a bit frustrated after backtracking and scouring every square inch of the map I hadn’t yet explored before finding her, since I wasn’t clear whether I needed to head forward to move the story along). I went back and got her, but giving her the ability to fly might be very useful – greatly increase the chance that you won’t lose her. Hmm … when I went back and fetched Deadfall, I ended up picking up Neverest as well – so he suddenly gave me a clue when I brought him to where the Archmage was. But he refers to Black Maverik. Who the heck is that? Oh … except Neverest isn’t here. Wait, what? Did he just run off after giving the clue and I missed it? I’m guessing that “P.hantom Strike” isn’t a typo – that it’s needed to defeat the profanity filter? (Note: With my incarnate pets and abilities, and two elite boss helpers, I had no trouble at all taking him out as a full AV.) Oh … huh, Neverest didn’t vanish. Apparently he was standing in a corner in the room. Odd. …and Black Maverik is the murdered Midnighter. Got it.

Trust me... this is the most complicated mission I have planned because you're getting introduced to 6 of the 10 main characters. Yea, the profanity filter bites (think I may try to spell them Phant0m Strike & Jade Sc0rpion until that gets fixed). Couple of notes:

*I need to recheck, but Escorts set to Follow after they reach their destination were buggy before... Neverest is set to Wander at this time. If it's fixed, I'll set him back to Follow.
*Impressive you took Phantom Strike on as AV, especially with the chaos that ensues during the fight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coulomb2 Neat … it looks like this is set up as a multi-parter where you get to choose the “flavor” of the story’s next part by selecting which version of the arc you want to play. I’ve actually thought of doing this myself … neat idea!

Yea, my spin on Morality missions that stick to an overall story. Since we now have no cap on the amount of Mission slots we can have, I'll be dedicating 16 seperate missions (slots) to this depending on the choices you make with different/recurring contacts along the way. I do hope people realize that while there's like 32+ guest appearances from others + 2 of mine present throughout... we're all just a supporting cast to it all.

I do greatly appreciate the play and feedback, which will definitely be reflected in modifications. Fortunately it's just in the text and not the mechanics (which I've spent countless hours testing for balance on various ATs).

Edit: After reworking my Nav based on Columb's feedback and looking at my recent comments about "finding Nav confusing" in some of my review notes... I kinda feel like I'm contradicting myself. I guess what's "easy on the eyes" for me is when key elements or different objectives are color coded differently vs all white Nav of say... 3-5 objectives. This is a personal issue with me, and not really slamming anyone that does the standard all-white.

Two Chicks at Once
Good work overall. I know it's a comedy, so I'm not knocking it on that, even if it's not my personal flavor of comedy. Mechanically, the work is sound. The customs feel balanced overall. My big issue is with the first two missions. The first mission, which the players are encouraged to "ghost," is a really BIG level for what amounts to a single glowie objective. The second mission is similar, except with three glowies. It raises a simple question: why bother spending the time making custom enemies if they're potentially going to be ignored for the first two missions at all? This part just doesn't feel right. -- 5 stars rated in-game.

Cat: It's What's For Dinner #530511 by @Interface

I ran my level 50 human only PB, Amazing Faux Nemesis (he's got a Kheldian fueling his Nem armor boiler...) through the arc.

I enjoyed the dialog from Lord Recluse, who has gotten bitten by the Blofelt/Dr. Evil bug.

In fact, I enjoyed all of the Arachnos villain dialog, especially the alternate versions.

Once I got past that darned Kronos, mission 1 worked well.

The middle missions where I took on alternate versions of the Phalanx and Vindicators went smoothly. I might have to re-run the missions to read the info on all of the heroes I defeated.

The final mission had some hiccups, I entered City Hall but had to find the door in GIFT before I found my doppleganger, then I received the clue to go through the door in GIFT.

I have no idea why there was a creature named Asparagus in the mission.

I didn't end up fighting Lord Fuz... er the alternate Recluse, I destroyed the device which completed the mission rather definitively. I respect that we had two ways to end the mission.

Really enjoyed the concept and execution. There were some typos, I'll look out for them the next time I run the arc (and I will run it again. I need to take the other option on the final mission!)

Your character designs were pretty cool, I'd be interested if the Longbow I fought were customized too at some point, since that was done in the Two Chicks at Once arc.

Cat: It's What's for Dinner
I figured I'd try another arc by @Interface.

Mission 1: So far, so good. Malta's not too hard to take down at my base level 37 (upped to 41 for the mission). Just taking it slow and easy.

Note: The Kronos Titan isn't just hanging out. It one-shotted me once and nearly did a second time. Also, I wouldn't have ever guessed to click the door on the map if I hadn't read one of the reviews above on this thread.

Later on, Duckling's bio text should read "its" shoulder, not "it's." And for the second time seeing it. . . what is "Kawaii?"

"Chiken" in Libertail's text needs correcting?

"Condemnding" in "A Fateful Choice" clue.

I like the optional choice at the end. Should I replay this, it looks like I'm fighting Lord Recluse's feline self. . . .

5 stars.

A big thanks to everyone who tried "Cat: It's What's For Dinner". I think the biggest mistake I made is in not actually pointing out that it's a parody of the Lord Recluse Strike Force. I thought most people would pick up on the "Steal Orestes Rifle, defeat Statesman" bit, but maybe I was too subtle.

The map in Mission 1 is the one from the Strike Force. My apologies to those who didn't know it was an outdoor/indoor map, I was kinda assuming that everyone else runs the LRSF 3 times a week as well. I put the Titan in just to fit in with the plot, hoping most people wouldn't think they had to beat it to progress. If you read the titan's description it tells you so.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...9-15-34-44.jpg

(btw, I once soloed the Kronos Titan with a scrapper before IOs came out. Just putting that out there...)

A lot of the humor is from the Lolcats genre. ("I can haz cheezburger?") Again, my apologies to those who don't get it.

"Kawaii" is a Japanese word that roughly translates to "cute". Both online and off, catgirls are apparently required to shout it at least 12 times per hour.

'Asparagus' is a nod to Venture.

All three arcs use Lord Recluse as the mission contact. Since it's impossible to create a custom character using that model, I don't think there's any way to have description text there. (or is there?)

To those who have also done "Two Chicks at Once", all you need to do now is complete "Curiouser and Curiouser" to complete the Trilogy Of Moderate Evil and take home a fantastic prize!!*






*disclaimer: there is no prize.

I've been doing some incremental work on Shadow of Grime Alley, thanks to feedback from the reviewers here, but I took a break from that to make some changes to another of my arcs:

#200411, Exploding Planet.

PoliceWoman a month or so ago did a review of ExPlan, and offered some excellent feedback. (I don't believe it is in this thread.)

I respectfully submit #200411 as an arc I would like played, to generate further feedback.

Thanks to all who reviewed Shadow of Grime Alley, I'll post when I've finished with the rework.

Best regards and Happy New Year,

#CoHMA Running Black as Midnight #482914 by @ Supafreak as part of the Architect Arc club, quick 1 mission arc.
#CoHMA Contact is Xeronyx which reminds me of a player name. I know that he got a lot of designs from his contest.
#CoHMA M1: I'm contacted by a Midnight Squad member in Dark Astoria about some trouble with CoT and other Midnighters in trouble.
#CoHMA M1: I oddly noticed that the first room of this map has the exact same layout as the mayhem hospital map.
#CoHMA M1: So far - tons of unique enemy groups, tons of allies, not much cohesion.
#CoHMA M1: Even though most of the enemy groups have unique animations, there's little dialog. And it's hard to tell what's going on.
#CoHMA M1: And not in a "you're in Dark Astoria and you're not supposed to know what's going on" kind of way.
#CoHMA M1: I'm now being escorted by 3 bosses and 1 EB. We're a posse now.
#CoHMA M1: Wow, Arch-mage of Darkness confused, blinded, and deaded me in short order. Even with the help took a bit to whittle him down.
#CoHMA M1: The final EB Phantom Strike was a pushover by comparison. Wonder if resistances had anything to do with it.
#CoHMA M1: And while I rescued the midnighters, the villain I was there to get got away.
#CoHMA M1: Interesting start to a multi-part multi-path arc, but would require a lot of bio reading to get the full story it seems.

EDIT: I did notice @Fantastic Foe wanted Shadows replaced with exploding planet - but only after playing the arc and doing the writeup. Hopefully one more round of feedback for that one will be welcome.

It’s a day later than expected, but here’s my second arc for Arc Club for December.

Arc #144416 Shadow of Grime Alley by @Fantastic Foe, Vigilante 45+, 49 plays

Overall Impression: It’s actually a cute arc, albeit one that, IMO really needs some polish to get really good. The story is easy to follow, but enjoyable none the less, and the pacing of the missions is just fine. Ever subjective, the humor was actually simple enough that it did usually work for me, though.

The dialog needs a significant editing pass to correct some grammer errors (and some places with awkward wording), and I do think really fleshing out the custom group would work well (along with the Skulls in King’s Row).

To be honest, I see no real reason why this should be a 45+ arc. The story, factions, and setting really speak to it working just fine as a 20-30 arc (and I will point out that the lower level ranged really jump around a lot – I’d force all of the missions to have the same level range if at all possible).

Overall, I’d give it 3 stars as-is: it’s got potential, but still needs a fair amount of work. But with some effort (and I’ve detailed a decent number of things below) it could easily move up to 4 or 5. This time around, as per my normal way of doing things (4 or 5 stars gets it 5 in game, less leaves it unrated), I left it unrated in game. I’ll point out if the author doesn’t mind me rating it 4 stars in game, I’ll be happy to do so (and I’m always open to revisiting arcs in the future and changing my rating).

One final point here: while the arc is about a Vigilante, it isn't really a 'Vigilante' arc: the player's character is acting more or less like a normal hero, not a vigilante.

Anyway, hopefully the feedback is helpful. And now for my thoughts while I was actually playing the arc…

Thoughts along the way.

The accept text in mission one is partially cut off – maybe a very minor reword so it all fits.

Okay, very nitpicky, but something to think about. I just asked the contact if Mike’s Grill is still there, but he just kind of ignores me! You could actually improve immersion a bit by having him actually answer the question (“Sorry to tell you, but it got hit by a firebomb, or something”).

Grime alley has a tragic history? And I already knew that? Huh?

Pop up in mission one has a comma splice – should be three separate sentences.

I’d just put in actual Skulls – the “flavor patrols” of customs are barely worth any XP anyway, so why not go for authenticity, eh? (At the very least, though, they could use a ‘makeover’ to help them look more like actual Skulls)

Mike’s friend’s “bodybag” looks set to “fade in” – which doesn’t make much sense (makes it look like I’m *putting* a body there!).

Some of the Family’s patrol dialog is actually pretty funny.

Why did the Family ambush me when I rescued Sara? She didn’t really seem like a ‘high priority prisoner’ they’d want back at all costs – especially if they’re already afraid that some sort of vigilante is on the loose and killing people.

Wordings a little awkward in the debriefing: I’d say “So the Family aren’t in King’s Row to expand their territory? They’re…” (and so on) Oh, and should be “hard to swallow”, not “hard to swallow with” (which almost sounds dirty).

Pop of for mission two: I’d put a comma after the cooking pasta (it’s the second element in a list).

Heh, the boss’ dialog set up actually worked quite well for me: it looked for all the world like he was trying to get his “tough guy” dialog out, but was having trouble since I was busy beating him to a pulp.

Eh … it kind of strains credibility that an ambush squad of “mooks” would hit the place the moment the boss went down just to try to take over operations on behalf of a different crime family. What were they tracking me or something? How’d they even know I’d just arrested the boss?

I’d add a bit more to the objective text: instead of “Clue” I’d flesh it out to “Find the last clue” or “Find last clue.”

More comma splices in the opening briefing for mission three – best to split some of those up into separate sentences.

Suggested rewrite to: “…the brass has been emphatic that we regular joes not become complacent.” (And again, this really should be its own sentence; borderline comma-splice as is.)

Also:
*and* not the secret entrance to the prison block I know you have (sendoff text for mission three)

Hey … isn’t this basically just Batman’s origin story?

Since the text does mention me saving police officers, I wonder if the mission would be better served by adding some rescues? (Might not be possible – I kind of remember the police station maps don’t allow rescue details, but I figured I’d suggest it just in case).

More comma splices in the debriefing. Remember – if it’s two independent phrases, use a period, not a comma.

All of your other mission “headers” have been light blue – I’d make the one for mission four the same, just for consistency.

Wait, so the Mooks are working with the Gat? (Or his son) --and I’ve give Don Nippolio (something like that) a fleshed out objective (“like Find Don Nippolio” – it just lists his name right now).

About the custom group, some tips, if you’re interested:

One, they look like a bunch of clones. I suspect you’ve got plenty of room left; I’d really flesh ‘em out by making several copies of each in the group, and varying hair style and face (you can also give them different weapons, but that’s not strictly necessary).

Two, I’d leave off the symbols on their chests. For one, if they’re supposed to represent the Mook faction villain side, those guys don’t have identifying insignia; and most of the mobsters in the game follow suit. It’s really the low-level street gangs that usually have insignia (like the Hellions or the Skulls, or even the Warriors).

Also, the Goon’s description needs a period at the end.

Heh, the daughter asking for the address of my secret lair was actually kind of funny.

Seems odd Gat’s using dual pistols – when people kept saying Big freaking gun, I kind of envisioned something more like the larger models you can use with Assault Rifle.

You know, I do think saying that after the Gat “falls” his minions whisk him away under a withering barrage of gunfire is kind of immersion breaking (his ambush goons hadn’t even gotten there yet, for one). I think it’d be much, much better to make that happen “off screen” after the mission (mentioned maybe in the debrief) – have the police van transporting him to the jail get ambushed and overwhelmed or something.

In the debriefing I didn’t quite get what “that is if he was just in it for revenge” meant in context with the first part of the sentence – I think you need to clarify the wording a bit.

Oh, and, you guessed it, more comma splices in the mission five text too… just do a very careful sweep and break up some of those splices.

What the heck was that with the thin, Elite Boss (and dark armor?!) version of the Gat. Granted, the “Batman” jokes are kinda funny – and I do like the fact he actually is using a big gun – but what the heck is he even there for? (Operative Parker’s dialog didn’t really clear this up for me either)

Well, the patrol clears it up a little, but the idea behind the decoy does kind of seem like a stretch, although that’s just my opinion.

Found the real Gat (okay, Gat-shield deploy also made me smile a bit). The truth is that just made me question the decoy even more. Why would Gat give the decoy a perfectly serviceable *gun* (and an assault rifle no less) when *he’s* totally out of ammo. Wouldn’t he make the decoy fight bare-fisted and use the gun himself?

I did also think Arachnos’ role in this felt a little ‘tacked on’ – the story certainly makes enough sense without it (and there’s nothing that says that Gat couldn’t be lairing in an abandoned Arachnos hideout in Faultline).

EDIT: Oh, and just for the record, I did get the Batman references (beyond the origin story thing I mentioned earlier) - there's a lot of them, and I did get a kick out of the parallels.

Arc
"Whack A Mole: Lambda Sector"
Author: @Bubbawheat
Neutral (50-54)
Missions: 1

Solo
Level 50(+1) Thugs/Pain Domination Mastermind
Settings: +0/x3/Bosses Off/AVs Off

Overall: 3.25 / Rated: 5

Story: 3.00
Logic: 5.00
When you're dealing with an arcade-style parody of the trial, not much logic needed... and no problem comprehending what was going on.
Details: 2.50
There's only a small amount of details present. Could there be more? Sure. Should there be more? Dunno. But wanted to reflect it is simplistic.
Dialogue: 4.50
Best line for me was that I was holding up queue.

Action: 3.00
Immersion: 2.00
Aside from the required collections and named boss, there was nothing going on NPC-wise.
Flow: 3.00
Cast: 3.50
Ideal use of NPC for contact. Lack of representation for some enemies.

Technical: 3.75
Presentation: 4.00
While I did enjoy the parody for the most part, I was unsure exactly what to do after crates when the objective to "score" came up.
Maps: 4.75
Balance: 2.50
While this mission may be cakewalk for ATs with status protection, it's not very kind to those without.

Rewards: 3.25


I think the biggest letdown for me was lack of diversity in enemies which kinda plays a factor in balance. A stun here and there ain't so bad, but when I dare not push past x3 on an Incarnate (regardless of AT)... Houston, we have a problem. Knowing the author a little, I feel bad not being able to give higher ratings in some categories... but I gotta be honest.

Comma splices are easy to identify. Look for where you have commas. If a comma is between two complete sentences, and there's no and, but, or, nor, for, yet, or so after that comma, then you need to bust that comma out and replace it with a period or semicolon. Or add one of the aforementioned conjunctions as appropriate AFTER the comma.

One example I usually use in class to teach this?

"I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy."

See the but there? That's what's keeping it from being a comma splice.

Hope that helps!

Arc #482914 Black as Midnight: Team Spirit by @Supafreak

I actually played this with the author (twice, once was quite a while ago when it was several missions, not just one) and discussed it with him, so I am not going to say a lot. I fear I might talk about things not yet in the current arc or that were in the original longer arc, and I don't want to spoil things.

One thing I would mention after thinking about it some more would be to suggest making the arcs 2 or 3 missions (best might be 2 for later arcs, 3 for the 1st arc) to give the player time to learn more of what is going on. Then they could start to make decisions on which directions to go in later and feel like they know enough to do so. We all know that as authors we think we have made the point clearly enough for everyone to see, but often we haven't (points to self as example). We know what we are talking about, but others may have missed clues or misunderstood them. It is even possible we THINK we put all of the clues and hints into the text and we simply forgot about it in one of a dozen rewrites. Or meant to move it and forgot to (deleted it from mission one intro and forgot to add it back in to the mission 2 send off, etc.).

Overall, it is a good beginning, if a little confusing with so many characters introduced in one mission. I look forward to seeing more of the story and playing through the different choices we will have.

Arc #508837 Whack a Mole! Incarnate Edition! Lambda Sector by @Bubbawheat

Another arc I seem to have played through with the author (a while ago), so played through again to see what changes have been made and to refresh my memory.

It is a little lighter on the story than most arcs, even as a 1 mission arc. It is not meant as a story arc, but more of a comedy/parody of the trials some of choose to endure. I'm afraid I don't do trials, so some of the jokes had less of an impact on me than on others that run them weekly. I still had a few chuckles, though. Some jokes are universal to gamers.

The arc is meant to be more action oriented, and in that regard, it does the job. Get as many points as you can in the time allowed... I have to admit to playing in arcades, but I was more into video games like Gauntlet. Friends like to play those games, but I didn't see the point. After playing this the 1st time, I think I see the appeal of it. And, once you get into the spirit of it, thumping as many bad guys as you can in as short a time as possible is always good fun.