Dalghryn

Since you did mention me by name, I feel almost obligated to reply.

It's kind of apples, oranges, cherries and bananas, Bubbawheat. I really loved MCM's in-character review of "Consequences of War," so much so, in fact, that I'm editing it for posting on the SOLUS website. Reviews with the screeen caps, like yours, are a lot of fun, too. That said, friendly reviews, such as Airheads and PW's, tend to be far easier to swallow than some others, but some of the best actual arc-changing feedback came from one of the two more difficult reviews to read - that being LJ's. From a creator's perspective, each was interesting in its own way for different reasons. The only one that left a really sour taste was Talen Lee's extremely difficult review - and even that appeared to be entertaining to some people.

From a third-party perspective, I've enjoyed the in-character reviews the best. They add a bit more impetus to read through the review for entertainment's sake, thus providing something for everyone, not just for the reviewee and reviewer.

That's my take, anyway.

I haven't had time to be nearly as involved as most of you, and doing anything on test or in beta - whether closed or open - simply isn't an option for me. So, basically, what you're telling us Lazarus is that, by all appearances, getting DC has less to do with quality than having the time and inclination to play the "game?" People that have real lives that don't leave 23 hours a day free to play on test and suck up to devs need not apply? At fifty years old, maybe I shouldn't be so naive as to think they'd actually care about finding those most worthy over those most convenient.

If what you say is accurate, it's almost a shame Champions holds no appeal for me. Of course DCO is coming, isn't it?

If you're right, Airhead, with a join date in June 2004 and 1,130 posts, "Consequences of War" is a shoo in for the next round of Dev Choices? Sweet!

Check your PMs, Venture... not everyone thinks that reviewers that tend to be strict are "teh suxxors."

In fact, for every person that's written a poisonous reply to a strict critique, there are three to five others that show what amounts to basically appropriate response. It's the nature of the beast that people are going to defend their work. A person would have written their material differently if they had thought of some of the points expressed in a critique, That's the purpose of a well-conceived review - to spur creative thought. You, Airhead, PW, LJ, MCM, Lazarus, Bubbawheat and others do that, and there are many arcs out there - mine included - that are far better for your efforts. I bet you can say the same for your arcs. Don't lose sight of that.

As far as the topic of my thread is concerned, it appears that the new boards may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. People were starting to become disillusioned or distracted, but they were sticking with it. The board migration forced them to stay away from the boards for a time and redirect their focus. Coming back to find a completely different communications venue, with several inherent problems, just gave people the impetus to basically call it quits - or at least not give up the things they'd been re-directed to.

It's a shame, because I personally thought we had a good thing going in the old boards. But what is life, or entertainment, without change?

You make good points, Wrong Number. If you look at the history of CoH back to May/June of '04 when I started and the game first came out, it's apparent than many of the changes they've made to the game, both small (power and XP tweaks) and large (ED) have been in reaction to farming and other types of abuse, rather than to improve the game as a whole. This "negative adjustment" is inherent in most all MMOs. I've seen it in every one I've played, both text-based and graphic. Eventually it causes the game to slip into "Simple existence" mode - which would be sad for CoH.

I hope they find better solutions to the problems that have plagued the MA. I've put a lot of heart into my arcs. Until then, I guess we just keep voicing our opinions and keeping our fingers crossed... unless, of course, you think Heculea has something with her strike idea. In either case, I wish us all good luck.

Hm... I hate it when people start talking about new constraints to the MA. It gets old having to make changes to your arcs with each new issue. Based on what you've said, I think I'm safe - since I just use standard Rikti in my arcs. Are there any other changes I should worry about?

As for finding good stories... I don't bother with the MA search tools any more. You're absolutely right about everything you said. I've just printed out the list of arcs from the COH Rotten Tomatoes thread and am running them. At least I know they've been reviewed by competent reviewers - yourself included.

What Bubbawheat said. The Amulet of J'Gara was a fun romp, and while I figured out what the twist was before the reveal, it was still very well done. I gave it an easy 5 stars. The only critique I had, as I said in my feedback tell, was that the Midnighters could have used custom descriptions... yeah, it's a nit, but I have to find something to crit.

Thanks for a fun evening.

I just ran The Amulet of J'Gara, as you've probably found from looking at your tells. I'll move from this thread to your personal thread to do a quick comment there, but for the folks that don't go there, it's a must play.

Since you're pretty swamped, I won't officially ask you to review The Consequences of War - Part 2, but if you ever get time for a quicky review, I'd love to hear your thoughts - both of the arc on its own and as a capper to Part 1.

Thanks for a fun romp.

I'll add yours to my list, but with the wife, baby, job, dog, cat, yard, house, and other assorted lifey kind of things, I'm not sure how soon I'll get to it.

That said, it's almost as hard to get people to run your arc as it is to get traffic to a web site. You really have to actively promote it. Getting it reviewed by the folks in this forum is a great step, but unfortunately many of them seem to be on vacation - or taking well-deserved breaks. I'd suggest checking out the COH Rotten Tomatoes thread for the most recent list of reviewers. I'd also suggest posting at outside websites such as COHmissionreview.com.

As far as figuring out how to get the Devs to see it... good luck on that one. It seems to be a very well guarded secret. If you figure it out, write a book. You'll make a mint.

As long as you're on the subject of the Rikti, I need to get your arc played and toss my first one into the ring, Arrowrose. Hopefully some time this weekend if the wife and baby cooperate.

I don't know, you caught most all the subtleties of my arcs. Maybe you were just too dense that particular day.

BTW, I still haven't forgotten your story for the SOLUS Foundation website. It'll get there someday, I promise.

As of today I've had a total of over 125 plays on my two arcs (when combining the current arc numbers with the ones that they had before being re-published). If I remove feedback comments made by formal reviewers (who later went on to post reviews in this forum), I've had probably less than a dozen actual feedback tells. I get the star rating, but nothing but silence in the comments.

Are all of you seeing the same trend - maybe one in ten people actually leaving comments - or am I just the luck one? It doesn't seem too difficult to leave a brief comment of some kind, at least you'd think.

Actually, I probably should have titled it, "What's Sucked the Life from this Forum?" but it's been a rough day.

Anyway, since the forum was changed to the new format, it seems as if it's gone almost dead - at least when compared to before the switch. Most of the people that were really active reviewers have gone all but silent, and most of the people that seemed to be participating in the threads have done the same.

Is it just me that thinks this is the case? If not, is it because of the forum change (I certainly had a hard time figuring it out, and I'm still having trouble getting e-mail notifications), is it because everyone's playing in the open beta for I16, is it something else, or is it some combination of the above?

I ask both because I'm simply curious and because I have two arcs that were within biting range of reviews by a couple of the big guns that I was really looking forward, and now both thhose threads to that seem to have gone mostly silent.

So, yeah, it's partially selfishness that's causing me to ask, but what the heck.

About the only thing that I'd change if the world were ideal is the order that the ratings are listed. Seeing that an arc received it's lower ratings early on and then consistently had high ratings afterward would at least give the readers and indication that the arc had been significantly improved.

"The Consequences of War - Part 1," for example received its 2 and 3 as the first two ratings, and has received 4s and 5s thereafter in its nine reviews. Significant changes were, in fact, made after the first two reviews (thank you LJ). Of course, with Venture looming on the horizon, that may change, but still, it does let a reader see trends.

That said, the entire thought is for conversation's sake only. The amount of work that would be required would be time prohibitive. I just thought I'd toss the thought out there for conversation's sake. It's better than simply typing, "Bump."

By the way, Powers-that-be, where's the sticky this thread deserves?

You know what's really funny about being involved in this type of forum? It's that people tend to be seen based on what they say, as opposed to who they are. That's not a bad thing, at all. It's simply that, as a 50 plus year old, I've tended to see some reviewers - Lazarus, Police Woman, Venture, LY, Bubba, and others - from a perspective of... well, inferiority isn't quite the right word, but it's kind of close... from a perspective of looking up to them for their opinions (or at least for their mature approach), I guess you'd say, as opposed to other perspectives - age included.

Senior year... I'm assuming that's *college*? In either case, good for you. Priorities in place and all. You just knock your grades out of the park. We can get by without you.

Folks, I've been mulling over a couple changes to the second arc. Police Woman's due to play it soon, so I'll be getting some feedback from her, but I was curious about what you think about:

a) Changing the traitor from a cloned Longbow Ballista to something else. The options would be a Longbow AV (such as a Crimson clone) or a plain Longbow Boss. The complaints about the Ballista clone stem from the fact he has that hold field thing (I'm not good with technical names of powers) which sometimes causes problems with an escaping bad guy. Personally, I think he's fine - he should be challenging - but if he's the cause of too much frustration I need to re-think it. Because I think he should be challenging, I hate going with a plain Boss, but would an AV be too much this early in the arc?

b) I really like the idea of the abandoned circus in the 2nd mission, but I've received about 50/50 feedback on it. Half the folks seem to really like it while half seem to hate it. I looked at a couple other outdoor maps, including the Rikti War Zone map where you appear in the fortress thing and the mothership's in the background, but nothing really piques my interest (and I think the RWZ map, though really neat for the arc, overshadows the final map too much.)

Thoughts?

I tend to think that arcs have gotten better. In fact, the majority of the arcs that are listed as having 4.0 ratings or better in the Rotten CoHmatoes Project thread are almost all better than the majority of the Dev's Choice arcs. That isn't meant as a slam on most of the Dev Choices, but as a commentary on how people have learned to use the tools and how some of those tools have improved. Heck, even most of the arcs listed in that thread have been improved considerably as a result of feedback.

While it's very true that the powers-that-be could still stand a wake up call on improvements, and that there are quite a few limitations still to be overcome, many of the arcs that are rated consistently with 4's and 5's (and in many cases 3's) in this forum are better than much of the developer created material.

So, yes, I think they're getting better.

Glad to hear it was just a card and not something worse. Welcome back... not that you were really gone.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bubbawheat. I'll mull it over and see if I can come up with something I like better.

Now, on a "give them an inch" note, the author of the "Rotten CoHmatoes" thread asked me if you had run CoW Part 1. Now I would *never* push my luck on my own after such a nice review of the second arc, but since it *was* someone else asking...

LJ, I'm not sure how I missed this request. I've been swamped with RL stuff, lately so I'll blame senility.

In any case, I'd be honored if you'd run Part 2 of "The Consequences of War" #241496. Part 1 (227331) has been signficantly revised since your 3 star rating back in mid-June, but I hestitate to ask you to re-run it simply because you've got enough on your plate. Any way it goes, whatever you'd like to do would tickle me pink.