The Office of Strategic Services needs your help to extract an OSS agent with valuable intelligence who has been captured by the Nazis.
Author notes
* This arc is set during WW2. Punching out Nazis is one of my favorite things in the game, and is one of the things that first got me hooked on CoH. This arc caters to that particular guilty pleasure. Also, I like the time period.
* Inspirations: the Wonder Woman TV show, the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, the Captain America movie, Hogan's Heroes, various WW2 prison break movies, Casablanca, and a throwaway line in my character's back story about the "Golden Age" Police Woman's adventures.
* I really, really wanted to make mission 2 a decadent Weimar-era cabaret with your ally as a Glamorous Wartime Singer. But I could not figure out how to make this work; there is no "sing into microphone" animation (I looked...repeatedly) or anything close, and I couldn't find a map for a nightclub with a stage.
* I tried to provide some throwaway clues and references to things that are discovered in canonical content (especially the Ubelmann the Unknown arc) and would be glad to take ideas for other things along these lines.
Recent changes due to feedback
* 3 players commented that they didn't like the mix of German and English used in the dialog and clues. I've now largely corrected this, using English for almost everything, with a few exceptions: names of mobs; Achtung! (which everyone knows); and Zeitspielraumexperimente, which is a reference.
* One player thought I didn't use enough custom characters. I actually like re-using standard mobs, but decided to add a custom "Council scientist" minion that can appear in mission 3, since that made sense within the story. Might add some more; I'm tempted to make a stereotypical SS officer in a black trench coat.
* 2 players felt that punching out Hitler in mission 3 didn't really work in the context of the story. I've decided that I agree; I've removed Der Fuhrer and replaced him with a new optional boss, the head of the research team.
* One player thought it was an anachronism for 1940s era Council to have war wolves, vampyri and galaxies in it. I ended up making a "Council" custom group, cherry-picking just the normal Man-with-Gun mobs, and adding the new Council scientist. However, after reading paragonwiki some more, Arakhn (the leader of the Galaxy soldiers) is supposed to have been around for 100 years, so I don't see why there wouldn't be Galaxy soldiers in this era. I ended up making my optional boss a Galaxy archon, with some dialog from the regular soldiers referencing the fact.
* Two players destroyed the device in mission 3, completing the mission, but wandered around exploring for awhile after that -- then were confused by the exit popup which says they were "caught in the explosion" from the device. I ended up rewriting this text to hopefully make more sense if the player does something like that.
Thanks to everyone who has offered suggestions so far!
This is a feedback thread / change log for
Agent of the OSS (#525356, heroic level 20+)
The Office of Strategic Services needs your help to extract an OSS agent with valuable intelligence who has been captured by the Nazis.
Author notes
* This arc is set during WW2. Punching out Nazis is one of my favorite things in the game, and is one of the things that first got me hooked on CoH. This arc caters to that particular guilty pleasure. Also, I like the time period.
* Inspirations: the Wonder Woman TV show, the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, the Captain America movie, Hogan's Heroes, various WW2 prison break movies, Casablanca, and a throwaway line in my character's back story about the "Golden Age" Police Woman's adventures.
* I really, really wanted to make mission 2 a decadent Weimar-era cabaret with your ally as a Glamorous Wartime Singer. But I could not figure out how to make this work; there is no "sing into microphone" animation (I looked...repeatedly) or anything close, and I couldn't find a map for a nightclub with a stage.
* I tried to provide some throwaway clues and references to things that are discovered in canonical content (especially the Ubelmann the Unknown arc) and would be glad to take ideas for other things along these lines.
Recent changes due to feedback
* 3 players commented that they didn't like the mix of German and English used in the dialog and clues. I've now largely corrected this, using English for almost everything, with a few exceptions: names of mobs; Achtung! (which everyone knows); and Zeitspielraumexperimente, which is a reference.
* One player thought I didn't use enough custom characters. I actually like re-using standard mobs, but decided to add a custom "Council scientist" minion that can appear in mission 3, since that made sense within the story. Might add some more; I'm tempted to make a stereotypical SS officer in a black trench coat.
* 2 players felt that punching out Hitler in mission 3 didn't really work in the context of the story. I've decided that I agree; I've removed Der Fuhrer and replaced him with a new optional boss, the head of the research team.
* One player thought it was an anachronism for 1940s era Council to have war wolves, vampyri and galaxies in it. I ended up making a "Council" custom group, cherry-picking just the normal Man-with-Gun mobs, and adding the new Council scientist. However, after reading paragonwiki some more, Arakhn (the leader of the Galaxy soldiers) is supposed to have been around for 100 years, so I don't see why there wouldn't be Galaxy soldiers in this era. I ended up making my optional boss a Galaxy archon, with some dialog from the regular soldiers referencing the fact.
* Two players destroyed the device in mission 3, completing the mission, but wandered around exploring for awhile after that -- then were confused by the exit popup which says they were "caught in the explosion" from the device. I ended up rewriting this text to hopefully make more sense if the player does something like that.
Thanks to everyone who has offered suggestions so far!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"