Geek_Boy

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Are the people running your arc from page 1 hitting the easy targets and not getting what they want, while those that find you on page 43 reading your description and liking it?

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There's some of that going on, but really, the griefing is happening.

Dozens of people have the exact same story.

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could you be looking at it wrong? How many people see your arc if it isnt on the first page? If you are on page 43, does anyone even try your arc?

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I've gotten hundreds of my ratings while not on the front page and they've almost exclusively been 4 and 5 stars. This is both from feedback and dividing tickets earned by ratings. Front page? About half 0's or 1's. These instantly stop once the average hits 4.

This has happened to at least a dozen or so people I know personally. Exactly the same thing.

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I've been around the block, and Lighthouse was worse at his job than many of the volunteer moderators that other websites have.

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GOD yes. I sent him one too many "you are an idiot who is bad at his job because" messages and he stopped reading anything I sent him after that. Even if it was something he was supposed to take care of, he'd never read it if it came from me.

Not that I blame him, but if he'd listened to me in the first place, it wouldn't have gotten there.

I miss being able to start a flame war on the Victory forums just by using the word "goon." Once Hamidon raids ended (which was basically the second we had another way to get HO's), all the drama died.

The quote in my sig came from some creepy dude with a ton of binds about "gently caressing" you every time he healed you. I was a bad person for occasionally /e boomboxing on "Goon Rock" because I was useless as a melee character until the very end of the raid.

Griefing was so easy back then. All I had to do was show up in "public" and half the people there would act like I'd skinned their kitten or something.

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But the malicious down-voting that goes on is very focused and very concerted. Most arcs don't get grief-bombed, because there's no reason to do it to them. But the ones that get visibility? They're big targets.

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Oh yeah. I have three arcs, one of which I've talked about and has over 350 votes. That's the only arc I've gotten hit with any significant number of low votes on since it's the only highly visible ones. Everyone I know who has an arc with that kind of visibility has seen the exact same thing happen.

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I hope you're wrong here. I have given out 1-star ratings, 2-star ratings, 3, 4 and 5. Given that each account holder can only rate an arc once, regardless of how many alts they play, I refuse to believe we have more spiteful griefers playing CoX than players who give out 1-star ratings just thinking that they deserve them.

At least, I sure hope we don't.

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I wish he was wrong.

The fact is that most people who have seen their arcs hit with 0 or 1 star votes (assuming of course we're talking about working missions with something attempting proper english, etc) have only seen them when they have hit the first page or two of search by ratings. Even our one Hall of Fame arc gains and loses the status over and over because as soon as he gets it, there are a flood of 0's and 1's coming in. As soon as the arc gets lost in the glut of 4 star arcs? They stop.

It's been seen by too many people on too many arcs with too many people saying "Hey, I downvote stuff on the front page because I want to be on the front page and they're taking up the space I should be filling with my Naruto fanfic" to pretend it doesn't happen.

I might have exaggerated slightly on the Naruto fanfic. There's probably also some Sephiroth loves my CoH character stuff, too.

Nope.

Still reads like crazy person to me.

Oh, and MrOsterman is totally right in every way. Love or hate what HA wrote, he's in the minority in his opnion, his criteria, and the people who are normally handing out 1 star votes. The guy wasn't griefing me, but most people handing out 1 stars on working arcs are.

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You start off by saying that you may paraphrase BUT everything you attribute to Heaven is in QUOTES. Quotes mean that something ISN'T paraphrased.

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Did you keep reading to see when I did quote all of it? Because what he's paraphrasing is a very close approximation of what was said if you choose to look for it.

One of my contacts is a time traveler who already knows you (even though you don't know him yet), so his first line is "Thank God I found you!" and it goes right into the story from there.

That seemed to be a nice balance between finding out who he is and getting into the story right away.

In another arc, the contact is a stack of your old comic books, but that's a little different.

I think a little explanation is nice, but I prefer to get into the story as quickly as possible. It sounds like you've got the right idea, though I'd have to play your arc myself to be sure. A little explanation is great, but too much just turns into a wall of text that can pull someone right out of the game.

Inspired by the May Fanart Battle I can't participate in, I started doing a piece based on a famous work.

So I'm in the middle of turning this piece by Alphonse Mucha into something a little more CoX-ish.

Ghost Widow as Winter

Doing a whole series based on the Mucha series could be interesting, but the idea didn't occur to me until just now. Hmmm.

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One really awesome thing, they did something to make the storage of arcs more efficient. I saw that an arc that is at 99.6% on live, when copied over to test, was only 75%! I ran through it and didn't find anything missing.

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That is awesome beyond words.

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And since they'll be folding comment display into the arcs, maybe have an option for the arc author to pick 3-5 short player comments?

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I've already got "too many commas" ready to go!

Yeah, I'll be tweaking, but not starting from scratch or anything. Especially on my Comics 101 arc, where the robots in the second mission were just brutal.

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Volts Reference

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I got bored at work.

Volt Sentinel

I need to start coloring some of these images so I don't have to rely on someone else to do it for me.

You're better off stopping while you're way behind.

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What would prevent grieffer to put comment like this: "Your arc SUX"?

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Well, nothing. It's just that it takes them longer and part of why they do what they do right now is because it's quick and easy.

Oh, and this thread (which I think is interesting in and of itself) has a slightly different perspective on my arc if anyone would care to see it. This is from a roleplayer who is taking a character from 1 to 50 in the MA.

Thanks for the review! Glad you had so much fun.

After you told me about that (and that they had changed it so certain versions of Aeon don't give XP), I changed him to the "standard" one. I hate losing the extra layer to the radiation joke, but better that the player have a doable challenge and gets some reward for it than losing out entirely.

For what it's worth, on a big team those Aeon ambushes get ridiculous. Solo or on a small team they're a fun distraction, but when you've got a team of eight and a dozen or so show up, it can get pretty tough.

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You, liking l&o, might give them 5 stars. I hate the stuff, give it 0 or 1 star. I am not griefing, but I very much did not like the offering.

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I was thinking the same thing, but from a different perspective. I was at a friend's house last night and she made potato salad. I don't like potato salad, but everyone else did and really liked it. The fact that I didn't eat it or wouldn't have enjoyed it didn't make the potato salad bad.

That's what separates a good reviewer from a bad one. Do you think that Roger Ebert honestly likes every movie he gives a thumbs up? He rates things based on whether it accomplished what it set out to do.

At first I assumed HA's review was entirely due to some pre-existing grudge against me (though there are still likely to be some issues there), but I've come to realize that he's just a victim of being extremely myopic. He has a narrow vision of what is good and (thankfully) very few of the arcs out there are going to fit into that.

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And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).

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Well, first of all he exaggerated that and secondly, if you give the arc a try I think most people will find that mission to be a lot of fun. It's terrible XP, but it's just insane to watch.

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I'm by no means saying there are no ratings griefers; I believe there are. I just don't think HA is one of them. He clearly played the arc. There's no point in trying to argue him into enjoying it; the best you can do is thank him and move on.

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True, he really believes what he wrote. People like HA are out there and I think we should be aware of them is all. It comes down to the "can't please all the people all the time" principle.

Or, in his case, ever.

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Post Deleted by Moderator_08

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Not at all, dude. Not at all. We can disagree about all sorts of things. I have lively discussions all the time, just never with you for some odd reason.

I have plenty of feedback on my arc. I welcome more is what I'm saying. I have at least 35 or so comments I've kept from in-game responses and I'm in at least one review thread here, too. I get responses and I get critiques, but this was something else all together.

The more you type the less it seems you're reading what I'm saying.

Post deleted by Moderator 08

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And I laugh.

I said long ago that the anti farmers rabies could only be cured with an injection of writing talent. Now that they have attacked popular content they turn their attacks to the critics.

What next an attack on anyone with taste ? A rating sytem with only 5 stars ?


Bad is bad, and many of the arcs that are even close to hall of fame are only there because many people just won't give a poor rating as it is.

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Actually, I'm all for farming, so whatever.

And I've had my arc reviewed by two different folks with review threads and happily accept any honest, valid criticism I can get. I want to make it the best it can be, but things like "some people don't like speed boost" and "too many commas" don't exactly scream reasonable or helpful.

Even in the worst of the worst arcs I've played, I've tried to send something back about how to improve it. None of this is helpful, though.

In our tells (which I also kept), HA told me to. I wasn't going to do this as anything but a "Hey, there are people like this out here too" message until he stuck his head out and removed himself from anonymity.

Read the review, dude. Play the arc (don't even rate it if you don't want to) and read the review.

I've gotten plenty of feedback, both positive and negative and have had some great discussions with people about my arc. Some of it even on these very forums (see the thread about my arc for a perfect example of this). This isn't constructive or even valid criticism here, though.

This is someone who I could only assume had some pre-existing grudge against me personally or the arc in question due to something I'd said. When I shared this with a few people privately to be sure I was reading it correctly, they agreed with me.

Now, I've also looked at a bit of HA's posting history and it's been quite informative. It could also just be that he's got a reeeeeeally strange way of looking at things (telling players that making a custom faction without all three of minion/lieut/boss is an exploit and will get you flagged for making farms, telling players that if they have multiple accounts, voting on their own arcs is an exploit and will get you banned, using an AV for any reason other than being the end boss of an arc that spans MULTIPLE MA arc slots is inappropriate, general whining over the fact they're removing the dev's choice badge and now HE'LL NEVER EARN IT DAMMIT, a post that he primarily plays Dev's Choice arcs and avoids all other arcs, because of the Dev's Choice's superior storylines and content). With that kind of evidence, I can concede that this could just be how he views things.

In regards to ratings griefings, I think he's proven that there's a segment of the population that could be giving otherwise stellar content low ratings and truly believing they're delivering an honest critique. They're responsible for a minority of the low ratings on good arcs (especially the flurry of them that comes when you hit the front page) and their opinion is obviously outside the mainstream, but they're out there.

Again, I was perfectly happy to keep it all anonymous. He's the one who jumped out and revealed himself.

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This arc, perhaps intended to be an epic tale, simply comes across as contrived and boring. Its poor use of difficult themes accompanied by the upstaging of the players due to overpowered NPCs and a plot not focused on them or their abilities leaves little for players to do and no challenge to be had.

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Time travel isn’t a difficult theme unless you’re trying to write like Michael Crichton and need to spend half of a full length novel explaining how it’s done. Some of these criticisms are entirely subjective of course, but when amazon.com has 86,753 results under “time travel,” I’d hardly consider it a “difficult theme . . . “

As far as the player’s character being instrumental to the plot? Well, they absolutely are. At best, you can say that you don’t have a lot to do in one of the four missions. And honestly, you could avoid it in that one mission too (since only one of the NPC’s is actually required to complete the objective). I won’t get into that too much, though. We’ll save that for the specifics later.

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* Text & Grammar: Overuse of commas.

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This is kind of an invalid complaint without specifics. Where were they used? Was it in dialogue spoken by someone, and thus not subject to the same rules? Was it in mission text? Was it there to create a certain flavor or cadence? I can’t defend this without examples, so it comes across as being nitpicky and possibly informed by some grudge or predisposition against enjoying this arc (which trust me, before I had even read this, I knew there was one). I’ve combed over this a thousand times and had others read all of the text with a critical eye and haven’t had anyone tell me they’ve found any mistakes in there. If there are any, I’d like to correct them like I’ve corrected the others.

Of course, this isn’t about helping me improve my arc, so useful specifics are few and far between here.

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* Explain Theme: If you're going to use time travel, you have to explain how it's achieved in detail; what is this time barrier? How had he used it prior to the event in question? What are the ramifications and limitations, if any? It's a tricky theme to use, as it breeds plot holes and inconsistencies; plug them or don't use it.

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No, I really don’t. Do we know what the Well of the Furies really is yet? How exactly did it bequeath anyone with powers? This whole game is created around comic book science fiction and dime novel fantasy. Detailed explanations are not wanted or needed, and when provided tend to ruin the whole thing anyway.

John Byrne trying to explain that Superman actually had a form of telekinesis that let him fly and made him invulnerable was retconned into oblivion for a reason: It was stupid. Superman can fly and juggle cars because he’s Kryptonian and gets his powers from our yellow sun. End of story.

Red Blur runs fast. He says “With no time to gather allies, I ran faster than I'd ever run before. I broke through the time barrier again and collected myself from different moments to assist me in keeping this from happening, but I'm still afraid that won't be enough to defeat this madman.”

A logical person can say “He ran so fast he time traveled.” Do I really need to discuss wormholes and theories on faster than light travel bending space-time? Should my contact be Albert Einstein instead, since most science fiction based time travel starts with his work? Would that really make things better?

Again, the opinion seems to be informed by some pre-existing bias.

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* Exploited Theme: Using time travel as an excuse for an army of EBs ... there's no other way to say it. That's weak.

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This is entirely subjective and at this point, (with 351 votes and 4 stars) somewhere north of 300 people disagree with you. The story actually started with the idea of the time traveler and the army came after, so it’s not an excuse. In fact, it’s explained in bits and pieces before it’s revealed to you, so using the term “excuse” is a little “weak.”

When you encounter the army of Red Blurs, they’re even numbered based on the second they started off from. When you finish the arc, I even spell it out to you that the Red Blur who is your contact is old because of all this time he spent hopping back and forth through time.

Of course, at this point I already have to realize that for this reviewer to be satisfied, I should have had each one give a long discussion on how they had completed this objective, gone back in time to a second later than when they left, done it again, returned to a second later, and so on. I haven’t had another person complain that this was vague, which again leads me to believe that there’s a pre-existing bias against my arc since for someone so detail-oriented, they seemed to miss something that so very many people found so simple.

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* Unholy Spawn of Two Exploited Themes: Your implementation of Time Travel is done poorly. Then you combine it with a poorly implemented cloning theme.

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This seems like the same complaint again and I honestly find it a little vague for me to criticize. Obviously our reviewer doesn’t like stories about time travel. Well, I was upfront about it having time travel so I guess they could have avoided it. As far as the cloning? I’ve not seen any evidence that this is overdone in the MA and my arc has nothing to do with it in the first place.

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* Excess Clues: Keep clues to a minimum, and don't feed us what we can see for ourselves. You repeatedly add clues that provide no benefit to the plot, and in fact inhibit the plot from building properly.

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I have a clue for each objective and mission completion. I have never found that to be excessive in any arc I’ve played (official or otherwise) and this is another place where specifics would be helpful. The text is typically short and the only thing I can assume you’ve “see[n] for [y]ourselves” is a map filled with enemies that you punched, shot, or sent an army of zombies after. Anything more than that has to be spelled out.

Clues and mission descriptions are virtually the only way to advance a plot in a game where all you do is punch things. Don’t advance the plot by advancing the plot? Specifics, please.

Unless HA is talking about the third mission, which is all about having fun. The repeated clues are amusing to everyone else I’ve talked to and the only people who have mentioned them to me have complimented me for them. I would think they’re easy enough to avoid since when you see them pop up with every NPC you free, you’d get the idea and stop reading them over and over again. The NPC dialogue about déjà vu just strengthens this.

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* Red Blur: Much too powerful as an EB. Able to defeat mobs on map solo and upstage the player. Should be no more than boss, maybe LT.

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Our kind reviewer obviously missed the point. The point was to do something you can’t do anywhere in the dev-published content. In this case, it’s watching an army of amusing characters do crazy things. The bigger the team, the more hilarious the mission becomes. The only mission where he fights a significant number of enemies is built around him being overpowered and that’s the last thing I would ever change about this arc. If anything, I’ve considered moving it to a map where there are more of him, leaving him at the same level of power, and cranking up the difficulty on Aeon with more ambushes.

HA is being overly sensitive about something most players never even think about. I’ve only had the same criticism from two other people of the 351 who have played my arc. One gave me 4 stars and the other gave me 5. Both admitted they were overly sensitive about it and got what I was going for. They made some suggestions that I actually followed based on being sure the rest of the arc is squarely on your shoulders.

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Mission 1
* Compass Navigation Text: Bright red text is very distracting and unneeded.

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He’s the Red Blur. Red. I guarantee nobody else’s eyes have been all that offended by this.

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* Compass Objectives Text: Too wordy; should be simple, such as "Lead Red Blur from Caves", or some such.

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“Lead the Red Blur out so he can meet up with his future self” isn’t really a lot longer and catches those who might not be the team leader up to speed. It’s designed so that the whole team can know what’s going on.

For a guy who wants me to explain the intricacies of time travel and temporal displacement, he sure has odd ideas on where I should skimp.

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* Red Blur: A custom character that put Speed Boost on you is a bad idea; some dislike this power for very valid reasons. Very bad when custom mob is a rescued hostage that can't keep up with you once power has been used.

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That same hostage will grab Siphon Speed off of the first mob he comes to, and the cave is tiiiiiiny. It’s the smallest map I could find that fit my criteria so that losing him isn’t going to be a pain.

If you don’t like Speed Boost, then I contend that you are a moron. I said it. That’s right. Seriously, it’s one of the best buffs in the game and my only regret is that when you have an army of Red Blurs, you can only be SB’d by one at a time.

Complete non-issue, there.

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* Red Blur -- Text Inconsistency: Addressing different groups; "Whoops, guess I forgot to wait up for them" & "Try not to fall behind this time, old chum". Select one and use consistently through mission.

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No, it isn’t. “Them” works in the singular and in the plural. I did select one, but HA chose to ignore that thanks to his pre-existing desire to not like this.

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* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: This clue serves no purpose, and interrupts flow of plot; give it the axe.

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That clue is funny and is basically an Easter egg for people familiar with some of the more popular tales of time travel out there. I would assume a reference to the Back to the Future movies would be apropos, but apparently not.

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* Quest Completion Text: Addressing the player and his younger self interrupts plot; Red Blur isn't physically here, don't address him.

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This is something that adds some flavor. For someone who seems so interested in immersion and whether your character gets the proper screentime, I would think that text that exists to further your insertion into the contact’s dialogue would be welcome. Would it be better if it included a generic message where as soon as he says that, the other one runs off too fast for you to see? I personally prefer to not have my hand held that way, but that’s just my tastes coming through.

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Mission 2
* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Goals: Color is traditionally orange, not green. There's no need to be unique here; "K.I.S.S."

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The dev formatting never made any sense to me, so I kind of did whatever “felt” right here. I was really just highlighting the text for those who felt I might have too much text, so in effect, I’m keeping it even simpler than not coloring it at all would be.

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* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Warning: Thank you for warning, but such are not usually orange in color; see above.

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Again, I really don’t care how the devs color it. I’m just trying to communicate to my player what is expected of them.

HA says there’s no reason to, but there’s honestly not a whole lot of reason not to (assuming I haven’t made it unreadable, of course).

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* Conflict of Canon, Plot Hole: 1960s Paragon City was never in ruins as presented. Even in relation to this story, how could I time travel to such a reality; in The Red Blur's past I've already helped him stop this event, so it shouldn't exist for me to travel to in the first place.

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There are many theories on how time travel works. They range from Michael J Fox to Ashton Kutcher to Leonard Nimoy, so until you’ve actually gone back in time, you can’t say for sure how things would be affected.

I’m a fan of alternate realities, personally. But that’s just me.

It isn’t a plot hole, it’s HA looking for something not to like. Time travel is, in itself, completely loopy. It makes no sense. If I go back in time and change something, do I instantly cease to exist because the version of myself that time traveled would never have existed? Do I create another reality? Do I cause the universe to instantly implode? Does Dean Stockwell become my guide on wacky adventures (OH BOY)?

As a storytelling device, it has no real rules but the ones that the current author establishes. Another board poster pointed me towards a book I intend to read called “The Man Who Folded Himself.” Look it up on amazon. It’s actually pretty similar to my approach in this little story.

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* Clue Confusion -- Miss Liberty: You indicate Statesman witnessed his fallen daughter, as if she spawns to fight, but she doesn't appear. There's way for us to know this.

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This isn’t spawning correctly sometimes for some reason. I’m still fighting with it. Probably the only valid complaint.

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* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: Once again, unneeded and distracts from the plot. Get rid of it.

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He already complained about that one. If he meant to say “The Disaster to Come,” then I guess we’ll agree to disagree. I kept it very short, but it is what is going to be your description if you’re not the team leader to help explain what’s going on (since I know that when I’m on a team I never read the descriptions unless I’m the leader).

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Mission 3
* Quest Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: The Red Blur states he traveled to other times and gathered other versions of himself. Especially at EB level, this would be a veritable army (see comments below). If they could not stop this, the player will not be able to.

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Says you. Red Blur says he needs your help and one of the very first things he tells the player is “Thank God I found you so quickly, $name. You may not know who I am yet, but I consider you one of my greatest friends and allies.”

He needed you to help him set things in motion. You were always part of the plan and part of the solution, even before you clicked “Accept Mission.”

Of course, HA is also choosing to forget ¾ of the arc at this point, too.

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* Quest Introduction Text: See comments regarding text color in mission 2.
* Compass Objective Text: Vague and wordy; "Find their mysterious benefactor and take him out" should simply be "Defeat X".

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These are HA thinking there’s only one way to do something again.

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* Map Choice: Poor map selection. Map theme clashes with enemy group; Council did not exist at this point, and never took over Paragon City. Try switching out to alternative city map.

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You know what would be great? If I could create a map from scratch that did exactly what I wanted it to do, that didn’t have any inconsistencies with any other tale that had ever been told in that map, and that allowed me to have every mission goal that I wanted to have be available to me in there.

That isn’t a possibility, so we all do the best we can with what has been provided to us within the system. I could move it to a generic map, but honestly? I’m sick of seeing those.

Oh, and Council never appear in the arc or in the Axis America map, so I don’t know what he meant there.

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* Army of Temporal Clones: If there's anything worse than one overpowered ally, it's an army of them. Especially when they not only overpower the primary EB, but the army of EB clones as well. All being left in the dust as they cannot keep up with the player they just buffed.

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He’s factually wrong here. They can keep up, because they also Speed Boost each other and then hit Siphon Speed whenever they get to a mob. If anything, they move faster than your player can. They just don’t follow very well sometimes.

This mission isn’t about the challenge, it’s about doing something fun. You’re there to guide them through their mission and set the ball rolling into action. If you want to be all roleplayer about it, you’re doing this mission once while the Red Blur is doing it 21 times. You’re there for every single one of them, so to him, you’re what makes any and all of it possible.

Though, to a certain extent this is something people will either enjoy or they won’t. I amped up the challenge at the end of the mission to compensate for how easy it ends up becoming, but I still get complaints that the ambushes kill people off. Obviously, more people enjoyed it than didn’t at this point.

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* Mission Clue -- And Again: This string of clues was humorous the first two or three times. Then it got annoying. Toward the end, it begins to deflate the plot. Not needed; toss them aside.

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“Need” is subjective and a completely superfluous word when discussing any element of a video game. The extra clues are amusing and since he didn’t want to like the thing to begin with, of course he didn’t like anything I was doing by this point.

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* Dr. Aeon: Dr. Aeon being the benefactor behind a time travel plot isn't surprising. Maybe a custom villain would be better.

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So he complains about the map being tied to in-game lore, but then doesn’t want me to tie this in to in-game lore?

He’s just wrong here. Dr. Aeon is the perfect villain for this story and it all ties up in a nice little bow in that last mission HA seems to be ignoring.

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* Mission Completion Text: Save the summary for the souvenir, and keep the mission on track. It's too early for such a dialogue.

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Again, this is partially for the whole team of people that might be playing it. Besides, the souvenir is for the arc as a whole, and the clue only covered what you’ve done so far.

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This mission is designed extremely poorly; if I could rate it separate from the rest of the arc, it would receive 0 Stars.

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That mission is why I have 4 stars with over 350 ratings, so HA’s tastes are not indicative of the majority of players.

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Missions should be designed as a challenge for the players, not so they can watch a show put on by NPCs. I didn't activate any powers during the course of the mission after rescuing the first temporal clone.

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He’s wrong here, too. Missions should be designed to be fun. I have an absolute blast playing my own arc over and over thanks to this mission.

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Mission 4
* Mission Introduction Text : You shouldn't have to describe in such a way why the contact is no more; and having to do so indicates you wasted space that should have been used for plot development.

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I have plenty of space left and have actually padded it a few times to make it get into the 90% range.

All I said was “Red Blur is nowhere to be found and any records regarding his life are few and far between.” Why shouldn’t I have to indicate that if the guy has disappeared, but I can’t physically show that in-game? I can’t make the mission contact disappear, so how else do I express this idea?

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* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How did someone not notice the armies of temporal clones battling it out in the middle of Paragon City?

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Now HA’s just stretching. I wanted to ask him, “Have you been playing this game long?” Whole portions of the town are over-run on a daily basis. It’s not even news anymore unless you’re listening to the traffic report.

Besides, sit in on a real history class some day and listen to all the things that are forgotten or ignored in our own little world I like to call reality.

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* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How do you even know Aeon currently has the research that allowed him to time travel and create his device in the first place? It's unbelievably convenient that such is the case.

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Did this guy even read the mission info? He doesn’t have it anymore. That’s kind of the whole point.

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* Anticlimactic: I'd recommend you remove this mission entirely. After the EB armies battling it out, this is a contrived conclusion at best. The big fight is done, the plot has already come to a head; this mission limps along as an afterthought, and is not a good way to end things.

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So HA complains that your character doesn’t have enough to do, but when I end it on a mission that is all about you, I should cut it?

He’s trying to have his critical pie and eat it, too.

The mission establishes that you and Red Blur were successful (since if you weren’t, that version of Aeon would still be bouncing around time building bombs to hand over to unexpecting zealots) and shows you (since you always show, don’t tell) that the Aeon walking around the Rogue Isles today isn’t the same level of threat anymore.

Again, I don’t think he read these clues he’s complaining so much about.

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* Mission Clues -- Multiple: Too many and repetitive.

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He’s honestly the only person I’ve ever seen post that about any arc ever.

I have been a little too vocal on these forums about ratings griefings and I seem to have helped spawn a new version of the typical mouthbreather who thinks that knocking something that is being well received off the first page of search will somehow move their arc that isn’t getting any ratings for a good reason (it’s probably terrible) up to the front and into superstardom. Despite probably a dozen or more posters sharing personal experience and there being groups of people openly admitting to the practice, there are a certain number of posters on these here boards who want to refuse that it happens.

”You must have earned those 0 and 1 ratings,” they say. Evidence to the contrary is summarily ignored, of course.

Well, today I found a new version of this ratings griefer, but that’s not a fair description. This particular player is not only handing out a rating to prove a point on the message boards, but he’s also that all-too familiar breed of reviewer who has such a strange and abnormal set of values they’re basing their judgments on that it’s hard to tell what they will enjoy.

I’m going to be nice and keep the person’s name out of it unless they decide to announce themselves, so let’s think up an appropriate name for them. I’ll just call him HA for short.

For those who may not be familiar with the arc in question, go play it. In fact, I urge you to play it without having read any of the rest of this thread. This guy’s opinions are completely opposite of any and everyone I’ve spoken to about my arc, both good and bad. He has an obviously extremely narrow view of what he finds “fun” and it’s not so much that he can’t find anything he’d enjoy (I’m sure there are some arcs out there he does), but he can’t seem to separate what his definition of “good” is from what’s in front of him. It’s like kindergarten coloring all over again: If you go outside the lines, he obviously thinks you’re terrible (whether it was a conscious decision or not).

Now, I’ll admit my arc isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some people just really can’t let go of the terrible rewards you get in the third mission and some people just don’t like the author to bend the rules, even if it results in something that is different from anything you’ll find out there in the official content.

Without further ado, here’s the review in question:

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Story Arc: Speeding Through Time, ID 51728
Rating: 1 Star
Unholy Spawn of Two Exploited and Poorly Implemented Themes, Poorly Designed and Overpowered Custom Characters, Plot Holes

This arc, perhaps intended to be an epic tale, simply comes across as contrived and boring. Its poor use of difficult themes accompanied by the upstaging of the players due to overpowered NPCs and a plot not focused on them or their abilities leaves little for players to do and no challenge to be had.

* Text & Grammar: Overuse of commas.
* Explain Theme: If you're going to use time travel, you have to explain how it's achieved in detail; what is this time barrier? How had he used it prior to the event in question? What are the ramifications and limitations, if any? It's a tricky theme to use, as it breeds plot holes and inconsistencies; plug them or don't use it.
* Exploited Theme: Using time travel as an excuse for an army of EBs ... there's no other way to say it. That's weak.
* Unholy Spawn of Two Exploited Themes: Your implementation of Time Travel is done poorly. Then you combine it with a poorly implemented cloning theme.
* Excess Clues: Keep clues to a minimum, and don't feed us what we can see for ourselves. You repeatedly add clues that provide no benefit to the plot, and in fact inhibit the plot from building properly.
* Red Blur: Much too powerful as an EB. Able to defeat mobs on map solo and upstage the player. Should be no more than boss, maybe LT.

Mission 1
* Compass Navigation Text: Bright red text is very distracting and unneeded.
* Compass Objectives Text: Too wordy; should be simple, such as "Lead Red Blur from Caves", or some such.
* Red Blur: A custom character that put Speed Boost on you is a bad idea; some dislike this power for very valid reasons. Very bad when custom mob is a rescued hostage that can't keep up with you once power has been used.
* Red Blur -- Text Inconsistency: Addressing different groups; "Whoops, guess I forgot to wait up for them" & "Try not to fall behind this time, old chum". Select one and use consistently through mission.
* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: This clue serves no purpose, and interrupts flow of plot; give it the axe.
* Quest Completion Text: Addressing the player and his younger self interrupts plot; Red Blur isn't physically here, don't address him.

Mission 2
* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Goals: Color is traditionally orange, not green. There's no need to be unique here; "K.I.S.S."
* Quest Introduction Text -- Mission Warning: Thank you for warning, but such are not usually orange in color; see above.
* Conflict of Canon, Plot Hole: 1960s Paragon City was never in ruins as presented. Even in relation to this story, how could I time travel to such a reality; in The Red Blur's past I've already helped him stop this event, so it shouldn't exist for me to travel to in the first place.
* Clue Confusion -- Miss Liberty: You indicate Statesman witnessed his fallen daughter, as if she spawns to fight, but she doesn't appear. There's way for us to know this.
* Mission Clue -- The Past Reaches Forward: Once again, unneeded and distracts from the plot. Get rid of it.

Mission 3
* Quest Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: The Red Blur states he traveled to other times and gathered other versions of himself. Especially at EB level, this would be a veritable army (see comments below). If they could not stop this, the player will not be able to.
* Quest Introduction Text: See comments regarding text color in mission 2.
* Compass Objective Text: Vague and wordy; "Find their mysterious benefactor and take him out" should simply be "Defeat X".
* Map Choice: Poor map selection. Map theme clashes with enemy group; Council did not exist at this point, and never took over Paragon City. Try switching out to alternative city map.
* Army of Temporal Clones: If there's anything worse than one overpowered ally, it's an army of them. Especially when they not only overpower the primary EB, but the army of EB clones as well. All being left in the dust as they cannot keep up with the player they just buffed.
* Mission Clue -- And Again: This string of clues was humorous the first two or three times. Then it got annoying. Toward the end, it begins to deflate the plot. Not needed; toss them aside.
* Dr. Aeon: Dr. Aeon being the benefactor behind a time travel plot isn't surprising. Maybe a custom villain would be better.
* Mission Completion Text: Save the summary for the souvenir, and keep the mission on track. It's too early for such a dialogue.

This mission is designed extremely poorly; if I could rate it separate from the rest of the arc, it would receive 0 Stars.

Missions should be designed as a challenge for the players, not so they can watch a show put on by NPCs. I didn't activate any powers during the course of the mission after rescuing the first temporal clone.

Mission 4
* Mission Introduction Text : You shouldn't have to describe in such a way why the contact is no more; and having to do so indicates you wasted space that should have been used for plot development.
* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How did someone not notice the armies of temporal clones battling it out in the middle of Paragon City?
* Mission Introduction Text -- Plot Hole: How do you even know Aeon currently has the research that allowed him to time travel and create his device in the first place? It's unbelievably convenient that such is the case.
* Anticlimactic: I'd recommend you remove this mission entirely. After the EB armies battling it out, this is a contrived conclusion at best. The big fight is done, the plot has already come to a head; this mission limps along as an afterthought, and is not a good way to end things.
* Mission Clues -- Multiple: Too many and repetitive.

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Now, to pick it apart:

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EDIT: You know what, forget it. I stand by my rating, and I shouldn't need to justify it to the spectators. It's not worth it. Though if you want to read my actual critique, rather than the incomplete and misquoted synopsis, it would seem Geek is up for sharing.

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Come on, now. You're the one who jumped out and said, "IT WAS ME! I DID IT!"

I tried to keep it anonymous for you, but you couldn't help yourself. I liked to assume that maybe you were having a bad day or something, but you couldn't just leave it there.

I was going to eventually post a huge wall of text with your entire review and my entire critique of it, but I assumed people wouldn't care that much. I might branch out into going through your deviantart and giving you some pointers there too, since I'm an art school dropout who was one or two classes away from an art history degree. Since you were so helpful with what I could do to improve my ar-oh wait, no. You just told me it was bad for a lot of nonsensical and arbitrary reasons.

By the way, if your arc is about your character's origin, it is almost certainly going to be terrible. I don't think I've rated one that covered that ground better than a 2 at this point, but for real reasons and not for using, too, many, commas, . , .

My next post will start with your review, HA. Again, I was going to keep this 100% anonymous here, but you chose to come out and reveal yourself. I'd start here, but it's a lot of text and I don't want to hit the cap.