Lazarus

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I understand color titles is a style preference. Perhaps you could still make it scale 1.1 (not 1.2 which is huge) to separate it from your paragraphs?

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Any kind of text formatting eats file space, especially size and color changes. When you're sitting at 99.91% you have to decide that is more important.

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Portal Schematics Clue: they were downloading (presumably cannot be done remotely? My entrance was by portal activated remotely)

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Just because it's a computer doesn't mean it's online. A lot of sensitive systems are not connected to the Internet at all. Think of it like that mainframe scene from Mission Impossible.

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Kaon tends to run in where I fear to tread. So far so good, while I wait for Mass Confuse to recharge, there's a steady stream of defeat messages.
Ooh! The big-bad has spawned in a cool place. Also allowed me to sneak up on her, ensuring Kaon got involved. Fairly long battle. The Die-alogs matched the situation well. Chasing her at the end was fun. Overalll, mish 1 was good classic fun.

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Kaon would be even worse on Aggressive (she's set to Defensive yet snipes people). She used to be worse before I downgraded her to Hard/Hard.

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Mish 2 Nav: Defeat Takala. Why? I don't think I know any Takala yet.

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Would you have preferred her being called "Raid Leader"? We often get objectives containing the names of bosses we never met in the regular game, so this doesn't seem like an issue to me.

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Missed most Crey-Custom battles, but saw one, so the injured baddies along the way made sense.

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When you're solo the Crey seem to win half the time. As the team size grows even the Paragon Protectors cannot save them from the Nagan LTs and Bosses. Hence why the contact mentions in the debriefing how Crey got their rear kicked hard.

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Takala's surprise was just that, fled, clawed way back. It had seemed a little too easy... Turned out to be a very well balanced battle for my Mind/FF controller.

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The ambush was added due to complaints that Takala was too easy. I considered making the purpose of the mission more of a diversion set up by Naga while she hits someplace else. Maybe that would make more sense. Hmm...

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Anna speeds up my combats, keeps it from getting dull. But I expect I'm getting complacent. I dodge a few battles, and find Vikki. With unimagined cunning, I pull the EB while my ally takes on everything else instead... seems to work, and soon we're beating on Vikki. She's a runner too (so much more realistic!) but we catch up to her. Not sure where that hammer came fro- POW. I go down, at the same time as Vikki, and I sorta win!

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Those two are hard to balance. However it pretty much makes it guaranteed that you will be able to finish mission 3 and not get stuck.

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Oh. Anna's Story - she's Vanguard? Perhaps put a wee little bit of Vanguard paraphernalia in her costume?

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It's hard to fit all the clues in, since the test-to-live arc bloating bug required removing some stuff to republish the arc, but Naga and Anna are confirmed have Vanguard membership. It got cut out that Cobalt and Vikki are also members, and that Anna is angry because this may all come back to her by association.

Regardless, no vanguard costumes. My villains hate uniforms.

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Mish 3 success: Anna gave me coordinates? I didn't notice that.
But no problems with mission 3.

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I'll check but those coordinate should have come from Vikki.

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I managed to save a bunch of Vanguard! But they won't follow me, pfft for that. I get them involved in a battle with a Nagan Engineer anyway, negating all my efforts to save them.

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You can't make friendlies from battles follow the player.

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Nagan engineers make an appearance. After the battle at the end of Mish 3, they're just annoying. Perhaps use it as a boss, just once.

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I needed a way to have groups of Nagans mixed in with the Rikti. Once again details had to be cut thanks to the damn bloating bug. I could replace them with LT spawns if they're really such an issue.

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Found my ally. He likes to watch the battle for a while first, presumably some kind of Eastern meditation.

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Complain to the Devs and maybe they'll finally patch the damn melee AI bugs. He goes from periods of doing nothing to suddenly soloing entire rooms on his own. It's such a common bug that I didn't mention it's occurrences in my review of "The Descenders when I'd have three melee allies but only 1 or 2 would fight at a time.

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This map is HUGE. I have to rush ahead, which means my ally won't be there at the end. It's okay, he tends to just watch anyway.

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Unfortunately there is no smaller versions of these special Rikti maps.

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Big bad has gotten bigger/badder since I last met her. Not sure why.

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Because you don't have a pet Dark/Rad Defender with you this time.

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I battle her for an hour, get her close to gone, using all my Accolades, but eventually run out of inspirations. In the time it takes to get all the way back thru the biggest map in the game, she's half-healed, and it starts all over again (without Accolades). Eventually I give up, take my 200K debt and leave. 1 hour for missions 1-3, and 1 hour for mission 4.

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I'm sorry she was so tough for you. I honestly have to say it's your build most likely (Mind/FF Controller), especially if you left the ally behind. Several other Controllers have reported soloing this mission fine but they were much more offensively built.

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A very solid 4. There's really nothing wrong with it at all, if you're in a team, aside from that over-large map.

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It is a more team-oriented arc. The allies are just so soloers won't feel left out entirely.

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But without some interesting characters,

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I don't know what would make them "interesting" to you so nothing I can do about that.

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You see, in my opinion, the most villainous feeling mission in the game is "Defeat Romulus the Warshade" from Psymon Omega. Right before this mission you get a void rifle to help during the fight. So you walk in, whip out your void rifle and force feed Romulus Nictus energy. It's not even fair. Every shot takes off about 1/5th of his health AND knocks him back, and by the time he gets back up, you shoot him again! This to me felt incredibly villainous since there was no sense of honor at all. You don't even try to be fair.

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I haven't chosen Psymon Omega as a contact in a long time (I usually outlevel him) so I don't remember the Void Hunter rifle doing anything to him really. Nice to hear they eventually fixed that. I just stopped using it after the first couple shots and kept it as a souvenir anyways.

I added rules for re-submitting an arc after changes have been made to address issues that led to a low rating. These rules are also in the first post for your reference.

If you didn't get a good rating, but made changes to address whatever flaws and problems I found in your arc and want to re-submit it for review, then you can just do so. Keep in mind re-reviews will have a lower priority than arcs that have not been reviewed yet. The re-review will be much shorter, most looking at the changes and fixes rather than a second comprehensive review. Upon review I will update my rating of the arc both in this thread and in the game.

Arc: The Descender
Arc ID: 33034
Author: @MrSquid
Number of Missions: 5
Description: Deep beneath the sea, a race more ancient then the dinosaurs has lurked for eons. Now, enslave this race, and use its power to rule both land and sea.
Rating: ****

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Character used: Vikki Vandale, Level 50 War Mace/Willpower Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 31

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Right off the bat I see a couple things that are wrong. First, it should be "more ancient than the dinosaurs" in the description. Secondly, purple text is very hard to read, especially in the MA room.

Mission 1:
Now comes the next issue. Captain Mako is the contact and refers to the end results of his second patron arc where you don't give him the power of the Leviathan after he tries to kill you for it. Question is, why is he asking a level 31 villain for help when this battle was with a level 40+ villain?

So he decided to destroy the leviathan since he cannot use it and sent a strike force to do so, level 31 strike force I'm assuming. He wants me to find out why it hasn't reported back.

And so we begin.

First thing that is unusual are these Virtea I run into. I'm curious as to where in the lore this name comes from as so far I have seen them pop up in 2 Corolax arcs now but look utterly different. These are pretty reptilian looking.

I came across a battle of Virtea vs Arachnos with Coralax nearby. During this I saw a common bug where the Coralax joined the battle but attacked both groups. Not much the author can do about that issue right now.

In my search for the leader of Strike Force Tsunami (which was called Task Force Tsunami in the clue) I took the north tunnel of the Leviathan map and found a pile of bones. These turned out to belong to the guy I was looking for and the mission ended.

Good thing I continued to the end of the tunnel or I would have missed some of the cooler looking Virtea, who for some reason do not spawn in the tunnels at all. I was starting to think that this group was pretty monotonous. To be honest though, those ears on the Virtea Mantas look pretty silly.

Mission 2:
Upon my return Mako informed me that he had heard of the Virtea but had never seen them before. He decides to have me do a little research and steal a book called "The Tome of the Abyss" from the Circle of Thorns.

Pet peeve here, you say in the blurb that I hate this city. How do you know that I, the player, hates Oranbega? It's not good to define my character's opinions for them.

That aside. I went on the glowy hunt and found the book in the first room. However, the clue annoys me. First, it names the book "The Tome of the Depths", so the name need to be fixed. Secondly, it just says "Maybe it would be best not to tell Mako about this one..." but doesn't tell me WHY.

So I come to the second room and find the Circle ready to burn their library down. Since when do they do that anyway? Also if the bookcases are not under attack or marked as required, then why bother to defend them?

Interestingly the Tome Keeper is a Behemoth instead of a Mage. I beat him up and now I get the clue that I should have gotten when I first found the book. Really the mission should have ended right then and there when I got it and read the book.

Anyway, it's a prophecy about how the hound of the spider king will send his minion to ensure the destruction of the sleeper but said minion will rebuke the orders and cause the return of the Vitrea. Yeah, it's about me, I get it.

Mission 3:
Interestingly, the Circle did burn down the Library and now Mako is busy doing research on his own, so I'm going to go take another look at the Leviathan cave myself.

Kudos on having a mission that is self-motivated rather than tossing me the idiot ball. So I go to check out this prophecy on my own and find that the Virtea are now friendly to me and that I have to save three of their chieftains.

Well checking out the south path was a waste of time. All three of the chieftains were in the north path. Redjac and Blackfin filled me in on the history of the Virtea through clues, but Whitefang told me nothing.

Ah poor Calystix, he's already a pushover for Vikki and this time she has 3 boss-class allies behind her? This will be over quickly.

Upon stomping Calystix, Barracuda arrived and was kind enough to spawn in this same cave, although deeper inside the it than Calystix was. Can't control the placements that well so no big deal.

Gave 'Cuda the royal beatdown while she rambled about the Circle having another copy of that prophecy and that awakening the Leviathan will destroy mankind and such. What bothered me here is that in her plea she assumes that I am human.

Upon my return Mako informs me that I had actually killed 'Cuda and that he has no idea that I caused the awakening of the Leviathan. Oddly he tells me to flee the Rogue Isles, which seems quite out of character. Especially as Arachnos is trying to figure out what to do and probably needs all the help they can get.

Mission 4:
Now I am informed that St. Martial has been destroyed by the Leviathan. Funny, I thought Sharkhead Island would be first since that is where it is entombed.

Welcome to the ruins of St. Martial, looks a lot like a flooded boomtown but regardless it's time to join the Virtea in some good ol' genocide against the Coralax.

This mission does combine two of my biggest annoyances with outdoor maps, boss and hostage/ally hunts. Fortunately, my jumping around searching for them triggered some of the Virtea to kill 2 of the Shapers for me, since I never saw them. I also stumbled upon the Virtea Khan but left him in the bust to find the third shaper and end this annoying mission.

I finally found the last Shaper and killed him. I noticed that they all still had the default description calling each of them Calystix.

Umm, and apparently I have been given the Blood of the Leviathan now, which I injected into myself without thought and have become immortal and apparently a demigod for the Virtea.

Mission 5:
Now I'm going to destroy Arachnos by using some magical "Abyss Wells" to summon each of their leaders and slay them in turn. At least that's the plan I'm given. Upon entering the mission I find that I'm suddenly level 50 again.

I have some backup from the Virtea Khan and some Great Whites. I come to the first abyss well and summon Black Scorpion...to somewhere. I have no idea where he is supposed to appear.

I figure out they're all going to spawn at the end and just go and click all the glowies and run to the end. The Khan got stuck in the floor somewhere but I didn't bother to try to get him out. Anyway, the leaders of Arachnos were pretty much pushovers with the three Great Whites backing up.

The End.

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The Verdict:
I'm sure that you could see how my ethusiasm was dropping as the arc went on. I went in rather knowing I was probably not going to like it as I could see that it was going to take me way out of character. None of my villains are really the world-conquering type and none would go about exterminating entire species. I'm sure someone else will enjoy it, but I didn't. Anyhow, I'm going to rate this arc based on its design mostly anyways.

I can't find much wrong with the story really, aside from my comments above about certain parts that I didn't care for, but those were my opinions anyways. I do wonder why Mako would suddenly act concerned and tell me to go save myself from the Leviathan, that was very out of character for him.

The missions are not bad, just that they had things that I don't care for. Some of the big maps are unavoidable as there are no smaller versions, but the big flooded boomtown map was a poor stand-in for St. Martial and was annoying as it is a very big place to be finding 3 Elite Bosses and 1 Ally. The fight in the last room against the Arachnos leaders was much too easy for me as well. At least they did have good dialog that fit their characters.

Even though I didn't enjoy it much, I acknowledge that it just simply was not for me. I give it 4-stars, from a basis of 3 plus 1 for the sheer ambition of the project.

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I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get any new review requests today after the dozen I got yesterday. I guess I'll be doing some more random ones soon. A few submitters still owe me feedback as well before they can get in the queue.

The arc I have with the least customs (only 1 custom ally) is 4 missions long and comes in at 35%. That's with a lot of details as well, 1 mission has a dozen glowies while another has 5 bosses and 11 battles.

If only there was a branching feature where say completing mission A would lead to mission B but failing A leads to C. Or Failing A leads to B but completing A jumps right to C with B your chance to fix things.

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Isn't the Magi vault actually in Galaxy?

Nobody blames Gregor though.

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Cause you never bring the items to Gregor or even talk to him unless you're a magic hero starting in Galaxy. Most players probably forget he exists, if they ever knew that he did to begin with.

I needed something to lift my spirits, so I picked...

Arc: The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space!
Arc ID: 61013
Author: @Aliana Blue
Number of Missions: 3
Description: This is my attempt at a humorous arc, with some over-the-top Crazy Awesome stuff and not-so-subtle references to the work of Ed Wood (heck, he IS the contact!). Levels 2-25, and not particularly difficult although it can get a bit hairy in a couple of spots of the second mission.
Rating: *****

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Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 25

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Mission 1:
I meet up with Mr. Edward Wood, who tells me that I am needed to save the Universe or such and that my first task is to clear out a warehouse full of mutants. Oddly, he also asked if I needed any makeup. Well Zetsu is already white as bone and likes it that way so I said no and went on my way.

Dressed in her best leather jacket and miniskirt combo, Zetsu cleaned out a warehouse full of Lost and disarmed a bomb. Along the way she met a Vampire Worshipper and a few ambushes who seemed to be confused as to what to say. Something about missed cues and rehersals.

Oh and the bomb, or the M-Bomb as it called itself, talks. Mr. Wood informed me that it was a mutagenic bomb, and that everyone without a hundred mile radius could be infected by the mutagen, except for me of course. I have plot armor!

Mission 2:
The M-Bomb blast has created atomic supermutants and this obviously means aliens are plotting against the Earth. Now I have to track down the only man mad and capable enough to make such a thing using extraterrestrial technology, Dr. Goesoff!

(Oooh, the Doc Vahz lair map. I always liked this one.)

Within Goesoff's lair I found zombies and ran into some Samurai Vampiresses, including Miela the Seductress. I discover after fighting her that the Samurai Vampiresses intend to use Goesoff's atomic superscience to conquer the Universe!

I arrived just in time to see another Vamp lose a fight to a couple of Circle of Thorns minions. After dispatching them I located Dr. Goesoff's notes and and found a pretty flashy device that does nothing. Along the way I also picked up Goesoff's assistant Lobo, who has decided to turn on his master.

To my horror, Dr. Goesoff had been experimenting on himself and also had atomic superpowers of his own!

(Also had an inventive mid-boss-fight ambush, never seen anyone use Hydra tentacles so amusingly before.)

Unfortunately, the Vamps have the atomic superscience now!

Mission 3:
Edward Wood informs me that he has been for years working to expose the plans of these aliens. He has foiled 8 plans before they could be noticed by the public, with Plan 9 barely being stopped in time. Now here comes Plan 10 and only I can stop it!

I entered a high-tech lab full of Vamps and was pleasantly surprised to come across Edward Wood, who had come to help me along with some zombies of his own! Together we defeated Matriarch Melinda and stopped Plan 10!

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The Verdict:
I know this sort of humor won't work for everyone, but I know that I had a lot of fun in this arc. It really caught the spirit of Ed Wood while giving the fun twist that these aliens were real all along and he was making movies to alert the public to their presence and scare the aliens into changing their plans. The dialog was top-notch and hilarious when combined with the various sight gags that appear within the arc. 5-stars!


Favorite Dialog:
Mutate Slicer: Protect the bomb! I..Um... (Frank, you were right, it wasn't our cue.) *Ahem* Protect the boss!

Tentacle: Okay Frank, there were no Tentacle props available, but this ain't gonna... Oh bugger, that's our cue. *Ahem* GRAAAAAR! I'M A GIANT OCTOPUS TENTACLE!

Wolf Spider Assault (1): Where did these... These things come from? (referring to Samurai Vampiresses)
Wolf Spider Assault (2): I have no idea, but can I keep one?

Matriarch Melinda: Now my dearies, do not worry, I have studied this matter thoroughly. The less a female is wearing, the more likely it is she will come out unharmed.

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Now you did put 2 arcs up for me to review, but only played one of mine. If you want the other arc reviewed, just play whichever of my arcs you haven't played yet and leave me feedback. Then I'll be happy to put your second arc back in the queue.

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Mission 1:
Wait, why are the Rebels tossing web grenades at me? I hope there is a good reason for that anachronism in the plot, because it is already mighty annoying whenever you run into */Devices critters. Also I think there is another hat in the custom creator that might fit them better. I wonder if those Nemesis rifles are just the closest thing the author could find or another clue.

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At the end of the mission, you receive a clue saying that the weapons the Confederates using are from the future, and after turning in the mission Edwin points out that they are Nemesis weaponry. I couldn't figure out a way to give out this clue earlier. Perhaps a collection item?

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A collection item is a possibility. Perhaps you could have General Lee spawn with some Nemesis instead of Confederates so that he can introduce you to his new friends. That could also bring the level range of mission 1 in-line with that of the rest of the arc.

Still, Nemesis don't use web grenades so I suggest a different secondary. A common one is Regen on the lowest setting so that it's mostly the passives.

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I see a huge list of objectives. Rescue: Back Alley Brawler, Statesman, Citadel, Manticore, Numina, Sister Psyche, Synapse, and Positron. Defeat Hro'Dtohz, The Dragon, and 5 Rikti Generals. At least that's what I'm assuming since it only lists the names and not what I am to do with each.

Seems all the heroes are being held captive by Nemesis, who are going unnoticed by the nearby Rikti. First up is Synapse and he doesn't even thank me for freeing him, or anything else for that matter. Neither Positron or Statesman are talkative either, so I'm not expecting much anymore past this point.

Oh wait, Sister Psyche said "Hello?" and Manticore berated me for running off when he was the one who got stock a couple blocks back.

I ran into Hro'Dtohz after getting everyone except for Citadael. He didn't have any dialog at all. I died during the fight and all the heroes finally spoke up that they were lost before I hit Soul Transfer and stunned Hro'Dtohz, whom they all ganged up on and killed quickly. Nice if they had done that before I died.

Oh, I lost Statesman half the map back too. Yeah, funny comment about nerfing me if I run off again, States. This is like herded cats, with the uncertainty of "will they kill everything I come across before I get to attack or will they stand and stare while I do all the work on this spawn?"

I finally find Citadael and notice that I lost Sister Psyche. I can't be bothered to go looking for her so I go to find the rest of the Rikti leaders and try not to fall asleep at the keyboard.

You'd think these Rikti Generals, who are in Heavy Assault Suits, would be easier to find. Anyway, I ran into The Dragon next (isn't he Dra'Gon in the Lady Grey TF?) who had nothing to say to me and proceeded to train the heroes on him.

You know what? Manticore doesn't do a damn thing in any of these fights. Oh, and Positron has sunk up to his knees in a rubble pile and is stuck.

Finally it's over! If you ever wanted to see the signature heroes acting like a bad PuG, then here's the mission for you. As for me, I'm already subtracting stars from the rating.

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I can change the map to a map where the allies aren't as prone to getting stuck, perhaps? They're all set to Fight Defensive and Follow, so they should be following you wherever you go and not wandering out on your own. They might have gotten stuck if you were flying or jumping around and they were trying to follow you. Also, they should only attack when you are attacking a mob or if they get attacked by a mob.
As for them not fighting after you died and not until after your rezzed, that might be because they are set on Fight Defensive and not something like Aggressive. But if they were set on Aggressive, then they'd likely be aggroing even more. So which do you suggest I do?

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I was staying on the ground with Sprint off, yet BaB managed to get caught on a sofa twice and I have no idea where Sister Psyche went off to. The big problem here was that they did all the fighting for me and it was mostly a matter of herding EBs onto other EBs.

I suggest a lot less of everything. 8 EB allies was serious overkill, especially when required to rescue. I bet the signature heroes were spread all over Paragon City during the attack, so really there should only be a couple of them on that map.

I've never seen Hro'Dothz appear out in the open and Dra'Gon is only a TF AV, but I don't know about their past activities. I'd say cut it down to 1 of them and reduce the number of Generals to 2 or 3 at most.

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So after I ditched Dark Watcher I found Statesman. Nice job on his 1930's outfit by the way. Not so nice job on his incredibly large aggro radius. So while States is off soloing the map, I rescued Maiden Justice, who was nearly just as bad. Finally they called down and we all found Vambrace. After that I found the last 2 bombs and came across Elementor. Then I waited for them to finish killing all the nearby mobs so we could move on to Lord Nemesis.

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He is set to Fight Defensive and Follow, so he shouldn't be running off on his own soloing or aggroing. It might be a glitch or a bug.

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Melee allies are prone to this. It seems the difference between Passive and Aggressive is about 5 feet added to their aggro radius.

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Of course Nemesis turned out not to be at the end of the map so I had to backtrack. This did allow me to ditch the knockback twins, Vambrace and Elementor. In fact, Nemesis was close by where I had ditched Dark Watcher, so having a change of heart I picked him up again before attacking Nemesis.

And by attack I mean kill a few minions while the EB allies do the actual hard work of beating down Nemesis.

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I didn't realize there were so many with knock backs, I'll see what I can do on that.
Should I demote the allies to from AVs/EBs to EBs/bosses or bosses/Lts so their damage is lessened and they don't take care of all the fun work? It'd be a simple change to do.

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I think it's just a matter of less allies or weaker ones. Either cut it down to 1 or 2 EBs, or 3-4 Bosses. Don't bother with LT allies, they die very fast in EB fights.

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And once he was down, I had to defeat Nemesis as well. Yeah, you read that right.

So I went back to the other end, picking Vambrace and Elementor up again and seeing that the present Nemesis is not there. Sorry, but your Nemesis is on a different street. Going back the other way I find him near the beginning of the mission, and the heroes make silly short work of them.

And during neither of these fights did either Nemesis give a speech, or even an arrogant comment. Very disappointing.

Two strikes.

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He should spawn at the end of the map as he is set to and as he has every time I've tested it. This may also be a bug or something.
And I'll add in dialogue for Nemesis when I get back to work on it.

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This time Nemesis (1932) was in the middle and Nemesis (Present) was in the front.

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So after getting my head back together I return to the task at hand and destroy the remaining three generators.

After that it's time to take down Nemesis, as an EB, alone. First I wiped out all the Colonels around him and retreated down the elevator for a few minutes to wait for the stacked vengeance to wear off. After that taking him out wasn't much of a challenge.

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Should I add in something to make it a challenge, like more ambushes? I didn't set anything since I figured for solo players to take down an EB without an ally might be difficult as it is, but if its too simple I can add something in.

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Well the ambush did complicate it a bit as it had a Colonel in it and I had to be careful not to kill him (hard when you have cones and AoEs) so Nemesis wouldn't get Vengeance cast on him again.

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I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the arc and found it boring, I truly am. I'm just wondering what you would recommend that I change to fix the errors.

EDIT: I'm really looking to improve this arc, so I really am open to any constructive criticism or helpful advice.

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Most of the boredom was from A) how long the missions took due to objective overload and B) having the allies up-staging me for two entire missions. Those are the two biggest flaws to fix and would take you up a couple stars if they weren't there.

It's time for a bit of time travel, so I fired up...

Arc: The Stream of Time
Arc ID: #40738
Author: @Silent Spy
Number of Missions: 4 Missions, takes about an hour, maybe more or less.
Description: Anomalies have been detected throughout the stream of time. Travel to various points in history of Paragon City to maintain the flow of time!
Rating: **

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Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
Edward Schmidt was born in 1832 and had the power to make wishes come true, so he wished for a time machine. Unfortunately, his trip to 1999 has had some repercussions and he needs help making sure that no alterations are being made to the past by other time travelers.

Having noticed that this first mission is levels 1-54, I'm assuming it will be entirely a custom group.

After recruiting me, I'm sent off to 1864 to investigate an anomaly occuring during the US Civil War. So I arrive in a forested area to see some rather decently constructed Confederate troops and that my objective is to rescue General Grant. Yay!

Wait, why are the Rebels tossing web grenades at me? I hope there is a good reason for that anachronism in the plot, because it is already mighty annoying whenever you run into */Devices critters. Also I think there is another hat in the custom creator that might fit them better. I wonder if those Nemesis rifles are just the closest thing the author could find or another clue.

As I make my way towards the usual hostage point in the back of the map, I notice that nothing much is going on. No battles with the Union or anything. A bit disappointing.

Not finding the General in the back along the river, I check in one of the side tunnels in the forest and find him back there. Another thing I noticed, there is an inordinate number of dual-blade users in this Confederate Army. I didn't need General Grant to tell me that something was unusual.

So now we're off to defeat General Lee, who is now waiting for us just outside the forest. After a rather uneventful fight he went down, only to deliver the line "The South will rise again!" and self-resurrect. Ok, that was definitely funny.

I'm a bit curious as to why Grant is Willpower but Lee is Regen. Lee also had a tendency to stop attacking and start thumping his chest for no apparent reason.

I go back to my own time and Edwin confirms that the Confederates were indeed using Nemesis weapons.

Mission 2:
The next anomaly to pop up is in 2002, during the first days of the Rikti War. Hmm, the mission entry blurb could use work: "Paragon City is a wreck caused by Rikti forces" just doesn't sound right.

I see a huge list of objectives. Rescue: Back Alley Brawler, Statesman, Citadel, Manticore, Numina, Sister Psyche, Synapse, and Positron. Defeat Hro'Dtohz, The Dragon, and 5 Rikti Generals. At least that's what I'm assuming since it only lists the names and not what I am to do with each.


Seems all the heroes are being held captive by Nemesis, who are going unnoticed by the nearby Rikti. First up is Synapse and he doesn't even thank me for freeing him, or anything else for that matter. Neither Positron or Statesman are talkative either, so I'm not expecting much anymore past this point.

Oh wait, Sister Psyche said "Hello?" and Manticore berated me for running off when he was the one who got stock a couple blocks back.

I ran into Hro'Dtohz after getting everyone except for Citadael. He didn't have any dialog at all. I died during the fight and all the heroes finally spoke up that they were lost before I hit Soul Transfer and stunned Hro'Dtohz, whom they all ganged up on and killed quickly. Nice if they had done that before I died.

Oh, I lost Statesman half the map back too. Yeah, funny comment about nerfing me if I run off again, States. This is like herded cats, with the uncertainty of "will they kill everything I come across before I get to attack or will they stand and stare while I do all the work on this spawn?"

I finally find Citadael and notice that I lost Sister Psyche. I can't be bothered to go looking for her so I go to find the rest of the Rikti leaders and try not to fall asleep at the keyboard.

You'd think these Rikti Generals, who are in Heavy Assault Suits, would be easier to find. Anyway, I ran into The Dragon next (isn't he Dra'Gon in the Lady Grey TF?) who had nothing to say to me and proceeded to train the heroes on him.

You know what? Manticore doesn't do a damn thing in any of these fights. Oh, and Positron has sunk up to his knees in a rubble pile and is stuck.

Finally it's over! If you ever wanted to see the signature heroes acting like a bad PuG, then here's the mission for you. As for me, I'm already subtracting stars from the rating.

Mission 3:
It's now time to go to 1932 and participate in Brass Monday. Now I don't know if Brass Monday took place in Steel Canyon, but it does in this mission and once again I see objective overload. Rescue Statesman, Dark Watcher, Maiden Justice, Vambrace, and Elementar. Disabled 10 bombs. Defeat Lord Nemesis.

I didn't know that the Dark Watcher was a Force Fields and Dark Melee. I also didn't know that he thinks using Force Bubble to push enemies away helps me as a Scrapper. He also thinks that putting minions in Detention Field helps me as well.

So after I ditched Dark Watcher I found Statesman. Nice job on his 1930's outfit by the way. Not so nice job on his incredibly large aggro radius. So while States is off soloing the map, I rescued Maiden Justice, who was nearly just as bad. Finally they called down and we all found Vambrace. After that I found the last 2 bombs and came across Elementor. Then I waited for them to finish killing all the nearby mobs so we could move on to Lord Nemesis.

Of course Nemesis turned out not to be at the end of the map so I had to backtrack. This did allow me to ditch the knockback twins, Vambrace and Elementor. In fact, Nemesis was close by where I had ditched Dark Watcher, so having a change of heart I picked him up again before attacking Nemesis.

And by attack I mean kill a few minions while the EB allies do the actual hard work of beating down Nemesis.

And once he was down, I had to defeat Nemesis as well. Yeah, you read that right.

So I went back to the other end, picking Vambrace and Elementor up again and seeing that the present Nemesis is not there. Sorry, but your Nemesis is on a different street. Going back the other way I find him near the beginning of the mission, and the heroes make silly short work of them.

And during neither of these fights did either Nemesis give a speech, or even an arrogant comment. Very disappointing.

Two strikes.

Mission 4:
Now Edwin informs me that the time travel attempts are originating from 2014 and that I have 45 minutes to go there and destroy his time machine. Upon entering I see I have to destroy four generators, rescue a hostage, defeat Nemesis, and what the heck is Edwin Schmidt doing here?

Well Edwin says he was kidnapped to build the time machine for Nemesis a few days ago. He also has no description text. Since he is the hostage I lead him out and he informs me that in his experience this happened years ago. Wait, if it happened years before he met me, then how would he know that I was going to come....HEAD ASPLODE!

So after getting my head back together I return to the task at hand and destroy the remaining three generators.

After that it's time to take down Nemesis, as an EB, alone. First I wiped out all the Colonels around him and retreated down the elevator for a few minutes to wait for the stacked vengeance to wear off. After that taking him out wasn't much of a challenge.

I go back to Edwin and he doesn't remember me rescuing him or being kidnapped by Nemesis, yet. Lovely, another one of those stock time travel twists.

================================

The Verdict:
Oh where do I begin? There is a decent attempt at a good story, but it keeps falling flat and getting bogged down with boring missions. Having multiple EB-level allies is overkill and makes the player feel like a guest character rather than the hero of the arc. The lack of dialog from NPCs and bad dialog when they do speak doesn't help it either. Also, please enforce your level range across the entire arc. Maybe toss a Nemesis trooper into the first mission or something.

Basis: 3 stars
Decent Story Attempt: +1 star
Boring Missions with Annoying Allies: -1 star
Bad/Missing Dialog: -1 star
Total: 2 stars

I hope you get it fixed up, there is something in there that can make for a fun arc. But I never want to play it again in its current state.

Changes made to "The Amulet of J'gara":
* Minor dialog changes and text reformatting.
* Slightly altered the appearance of the Pain Elementals to make them fit in more with the rest of the Void Demons. Updated descriptions to give a bit more info.

Changes made to "MacGuffin Delivery Service":
* Changed the Circle of Thorns map in mission 3. The new one is slightly bigger but it has no crystals. This is the best map I could find with no crystals, really tall rooms, behemoth portal rooms, prisons, or buggy portals.

Changes made to "The Portal Bandits":
* Minor text fixes in briefings and clues.
* Restored Anna's missing captors in mission 3.

[ QUOTE ]
What plan am I thinking of?

[/ QUOTE ]

Which attacks you plan to use next, it's obvious at this point that she can read minds. I guess I need to reword that as well. *Sigh*

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't checked, but I doubt it yet. The Cyborg pack stuff wasn't in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen a lot of Cyborg stuff in MA arcs, even back in beta.

[ QUOTE ]
What I would do with 15 ambushes...

[/ QUOTE ]

Rule the world?

[ QUOTE ]

In the first mission send off, it tells you that it all started a few days ago. After accepting, it somewhat repeats itself. Maybe rewrite the second part to make it a little more fresh?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean here actually.

Introduction:
"It's been a few days since that whole incident started. All you did was steal one silly little statue and it turned into a big deal involving several major villain groups, all of whom wanted it and were willing to kill you to get it."

Send Off:
"It began when you decided to rob this pawn shop in the middle of the night. There would be very little security, so what could go wrong?"

What exactly is being repeated?

[ QUOTE ]

The second mission was nice, but the ambushes were pretty light. I did have difficult with the boss, Mistress Ruby, at the end though. So that was a nice challenge.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kept them light out of concern for squishy ATs and for the possibility that you might defeat Mr. Wolfe and summon the Carnies before freeing Amanita. I wish MA would allow me to set them to the triggered only after both conditions were met, but alas.

And I didn't want some generic civilian who runs off, so I gave you my Plant/Fire Dom to give you a hand as well as you escape the warehouse. I picked her since I thought she would be a fairly useful ally in this situation.

[ QUOTE ]

The third mission was nice, though I did groan when I first saw the map. It was a little difficult to find the items in at times, but nothing is wrong with a challenge. I loved that when I was searching I found a copy of "Alchemical Treatments of Hair Loss" and some naughty pictures, among other funny items. Those really made me laugh.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately if I cut out every map that someone found annoying I would eventually run out of maps to use. It's also one of the few CoT maps that didn't give me a hard time with the spawn placements. I don't know if there is a similar one without crystals, annoyingly I'll have to cycle through them all just to see since they're not marked on the map.

Having a Stalker myself, I should have realized earlier how annoying those crystals could be. Doh!

[ QUOTE ]

The fourth mission was a little long for my tastes and the bosses were pretty difficult, but I also had the difficulty set high. As soon as I got the item I had to exit to avoid imminent death.


[/ QUOTE ]

There are no ambushes attached to that glowie. No room for them anyway as the map is maxed out with 5 bosses and 11 battles. Also you don't have to fight anyone, the enemies are so occupied fighting each other that you should be able to run right past most of them, which was the idea I was going for. I supposed I could try to make it more obvious that the glowie is always at the very back room of the map, which by the way has no bosses in it.

The order of posting is not the order I will be doing them in. Oftentimes it's going to be a matter of "how much time I have today and how long are each of these". As such, expect only a few reviews each weekday and much more on the weekends.

With that, see you all tomorrow.

For the third time, post your feedback over here so that this thread does not get cluttered up. I only want the requests, reviews, and your responses to the reviews in this thread. This is the last time I will respond to feedback on my own arcs within this thread.

[ QUOTE ]
This suffers from two things. First is Mission 3, fighting Circle of Thorns at their most annoying, with Earth Thorns and Nerva Spectral Lords debuffing defense, accuracy, and attack speed, in the most annoying terrain to fight them. And it doesn't help that some of the glowies ended up right in the middle of a field of crystals. Not impossible to click but dang if I wasn't hairline positioning that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Never once seen any glowies spawning on a crystal. Also it's not within my control to change what CoT appears unless you expect me to make a custom CoT group and rip out any enemies that can be considered to be mildly annoying.

[ QUOTE ]

Second is some overall problems with grammar. A lot of times you build a run-on sentence by using a comma to join what should be separate ideas. The navbar tag for the boss fight in the first mission is an example of this. "You heard a noise. Leave no witnesses." Two ideas, savvy?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough, that one has been edited.

[ QUOTE ]

More importantly, the contact is you writing a Doogie Howser-type journal looking back at the past. Writing the past is tricky, especially when you write about events that would have been happening in the future of the past. You use, I kid you not, the pluperfect and pluperfect progressive tenses, formed as (have + past participle) and (have + be + present participle) to describe events happening in the past or for a length of time in the past. And then there's the pluperfect subjunctive (will + have + be + present participle) to describe actions happening in the future of the past.

You just kinda throw present and future around in this journal you're writing, and it makes it difficult to distinguish your villain's modern-day commentary on the actions from his description of past events.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't speak English Majorese, so much of that went clear over my head. As for mixing past, present and future, I looked over it again and saw no problems. Unless you bring me some exact examples I can do nothing with it. Don't go posting them here, of course.

Arc: Merulina Awakens!
Arc ID: 11102
Author: @Neuronia
Number of Missions: 4
Description: My attempt to expand the Coralax lore and mythos...Diviner Maros sends you on several tasks regarding rumors of a resurgent Merulina cult.
Rating: ***

================================

Character used: Vikki Vandale, Level 50 War Mace/Willpower Brute
Difficulty: Malicious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 31

================================

Mission 1:
Nice job on the briefing, you got the feel of Diviner Maros and his non-linear view of time down. So I enter the Arachnos base and smell seaweed, at least I'm told that so it must be special. For all I know all Arachnos bases smell like that. I also see something I'm not fond of in the objectives, Defeat All. Anyway, time to get my smash on.

Pretty soon I run into a Red Coralax named Szylverfyn being held hostage. This must be the ally that Maros told me to expect. I was a bit disappointed that she had no custom description and whether or not she was going to become important enough for that to be a big deal. She tells me that Arachnos wanted to know about their legends.

After cleaning out the base, I suddenly get a clue about finding notes on the goddess Merulina. I don't see what the author decided to tie that to a defeat all rather than a boss fight or a glowy, it would have made much more sense that way.

Mission 2:
Maros is puzzled by my findings and wants me to confirm some of the Coralax legends. A Family ship has been overrun by the Coralax, so I'm to find some clues there and question their leader.

Yeah, it's THE BOAT MAP. The good news is that the only objective is to defeat Zanyasa the Green. Let's try skipping all the way to the end of the map and see if she's there. I did like some of the dialog I overheard along the way from the battles and patrol events.

I ended up skipping past Zanyasa and going back when I saw I had triggered her dialog without noticing her. I returned to the middle of the boat to find a green yet human woman with the name, checking the background explained that she was a type of shaper, like Calystix, and that she had morphed into this shape over time.

The fight with her was easy for me, apparently she was Ice Control/Psi Assault. What bothered me was how she kept referring to me as Human in her battle dialogs. (Vikki is a troll BTW). I think the devs avoid this with the Coralax using "Surface Dweller" as an slur instead. In all this battle didn't really tell me anything, and the clue was pretty useless.

Mission 3:
So I don't know anything but Maros implies that I do when he talks about Merulina planning her return through Calystix and all. He sends me to rescue Barracuda from some base for some reason, only after accepting the mission does he tell me that it is a Longbow base. That briefing needs to be looked at.

I see from the objectives that I have to scramble some system and rescue a hostage. Barracuda should be listed by name, not just as "Hostage". I find 'Cuda and free her, to my disappointment she simply takes off and disappears, I very least she could do was help me out!

So anyway just down the hall is a console to click on, doing so ends the mission and gives me a clue that Barracuda supposedly told me after she had run off. Merulina is coming back, can we bind her to Arachnos, blah blah blah.

Seriously, this third mission was a waste of my time and did nothing to advance the plot that Maros couldn't have said in briefing. Usually the guy doesn't waste your time like this. I'd rethink the third mission entirely myself.

Mission 4:
So Maros now wants me to stop the summoning of Merulina to prevent Arachnos from trying to bind her. Nice thing is I get the warning before I acccept this 90 minute timed mission that I should bring friends. Let's see how it goes for Vikki.

So I have 4 altars to find and destroy and have to defeat Calystix, better get moving. I found the first altar right by the entrance and take care of that, getting a clue saying I found partial notes on the summoning. How I can read them I have no idea.

Many people complain about big maps, but honestly this is one of the few Coralax cave maps there is, so so what?

One odd thing though, why is this map so empty? After the first couple tunnels I didn't run into any Coralax. The next two altars I found were completely undefended. If this is such a big event, then where is everyone?

Finally I get to the Jaws room and see some Coralax, along with Calystix and the last altar, which is guarded by some custom foes called "Virtea". First I go and beat Calystix like a red-headed stepchild and then head over and smash the sacrificial altar, pretty much ignoring the Virtea guys who are hardly scratching me.

Smashing the altar summoned an Aspect of Merulina, who has Storm powers and I didn't see what else. Maybe Cold Domination? Anyway, aside from the annoying slows she hit me with (which were counteracted by Force of Nature) she went down easily enough.


================================

The Verdict:
Overall I didn't enjoy this one much. Missions 2 and 3 didn't do much individually to advance the plot, especially as in the mission 3 briefing Maros assumes things I didn't actually learn in mission 2. Then mission 3 doesn't tell me much either and has nothing to do with the rest of the story by the end as Arachnos doesn't even show up in the final mission. Now if they had then maybe mission 3 would have had some meaning.

The Virtea who appear in mission 4 are a rather pointless addition as well. They don't add anything to the group nor do they even fit in. If the boss in mission 2 was one as well then I missed it, but I don't see the point of a special group that appears in a single mission just to guard a single destructible object.

This arc needs some spit and polish, along with some possible rewrites. I give it 3-stars and hope that its flaws get addressed because it would be worth at least 4 if not for all the issues I found within.

Changes made to "MacGuffin Delivery Service":
* Minor text formatting changes.
* Replaced misplaced instances of the word "MacGuffin" in character speech in mission 4.

Changes made to "The Amulet of J'gara":
* Minor text formatting changes.

The Emerald Parakeet was chosen because it sounds so silly and innocent, not the sort of name you'd expect for an object of magical power. Not much in the arc is meant to be taken seriously to begin with.

Since Vanden's request is such a short arc, I decided to make it my next review.

Arc: The Extadine Lab
Arc ID: 2595
Author: Vanden
Number of Missions: 1
Description: The Carnies are working on a new drug called Extadine. Get to their lab and shut it down before it hits the streets.
Rating: *****

================================

Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

================================

Mission 1:
So I go over and say hello to Gordon Stacy, asking him if the PPD has any work for me. Well, rumor is that a new drug called Extadine is hitting the streets of Paragon City and the Carnies are behind it. A series of chemical shipments lead us to a warehouse and I'm being sent in to destroy the chemical labs, any notes about the drug, and arrest the lead chemist. What, destroy the notes?

So anyway, I enter the warehouse and see the first Extadine lab ahead. I take out the Carnies around it and then smash the lab, accidentally getting a whiff of the fumes and...

I MUST FREE THE VEGGIE FAIRIES FROM THE OPPRESSION OF THE CANDY FAIRIES!!

(Um yeah, suddenly all the objectives have changed and now the warehouse is filled with bright colored candy fairies who are enslaving the veggie fairies. I must rescue 8 Veggie Fairies and defeat King Candycane.)

These Candy Fairies love to share their candy, it's so good that it hurts! And why doesn't these Carnies want to help me? Are they enslaving the Veggie Fairies too? That must be it! Die Carnies!

I wonder what this scary ghost guy is doing here trying to keep a chicken from flying away? Don't have time for him anyway, the Candycane King is right ahead!

Oww, that Chocolate Fairy hits hard!

Finally, King Candycane has been defeated and overthrown! The Veggie Fairies are free! Run free!

Who is this Gordon Stacy guy again anyway?

================================

The Verdict:
This was a lot of fun. A lot. So far it's the best bait-and-switch tricks I have seen pulled and the designs on the fairies make them hilarious to fight. I'd say they're pretty well balanced as well, comparing how hard they hit me on this toon with how much damage I often take from other foes in the game. Squishies might have some issues with the stuns and sleeps from the electric and energy melee enemies though. I would also consider taking the electric field off of that blue one, that could be a big annoyance for any meeleer without endurance drain resistance. 5-stars from me.



Now don't be thinking that I'll be 5-starring everything here. It just happens that the first two arcs I got were pretty fun and well-designed from my viewpoint.

[ QUOTE ]

Firstly, I think you ought to utilize color more for your mission briefings, especially for the title and subtitles. Second, in several clues you have characters talking, but in others it's just the voice of your character thinking. When the text of the clue is dialog from a character, it should be in quotes, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never used the colors much for various reasons, often that it does eat up space in the file. Though I will consider using some of the formatting suggestions you provided.

[ QUOTE ]

The system text for the bookshelf glowie in the third mission, where you find the book with the "interesting" pictures of succubi; it gave me the impression that my character found it and lost interest in what he was looking for. Sure, slacking off to look at porn is a noble pursuit, but it doesn't seem like something I ought to be doing while invading Oranbega.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wasn't the intention, it was only a joke detail for those players who actually look at those messages when clicking on glowies. I'll probably change the wording.

[ QUOTE ]

I think you used the same model of Carnie boss for all three of the ones that appeared in the arc - mix it up a little!

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently I forgot that specify the boss also locks the model.

[ QUOTE ]

The enemies using the word MacGuffin in the fourth mission is really immersion-breaking; a MacGuffin is a narrative device, a tool used by a writer for a story, so while the Emerald Parakeet IS a MacGuffin, the characters in the story wouldn't consider it such. When I go to a diner to get a burger, I don't call my sandwich a MacGuffin, even though it's what motivated me to go out and live the story of my trip to the restaurant.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's because MacGuffin was a placeholder when I wrote the story, before I knew what I was going to call the item. You found one that I forgot to replace, thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
The story was kind of meh. It never really seemed to go anywhere, and I didn't understand why my character didn't keep trying to fence the MacGuffin in order to transfer ownership of it to someone else.

[/ QUOTE ]

The briefing for mission 3 mentioned that you attempted that and it didn't work. That's why you go to Oranbega to try to find out what kind of spell it is and found the book that mentioned the box.

[ QUOTE ]
A solid arc, though not without its flaws.

[/ QUOTE ]

If perfection was possible we'd have nothing to strive for. I'll look at some of these issues you brought up.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I thought "The Resurrection" was just a play on your forum name.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah! I wasn't the only one that thought that!

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe...

It'd be for the best if you post your feedback in my arc thread here. That way you don't run the risk of your tell getting lost. Otherwise you can send a forum PM.

And Quid Pro Quo does mean "Something for something". If you're going to request a review, only fair that I get some feedback to so we can all improve.

Arc: The All-Seeing Eye
Arc ID: 57352
Author: @Steele Magnolia
Number of Missions: 5
Description: The United States Government has lost control of an intelligence satellite. Who will ultimately gain control of it?
Rating: *****

================================

Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

================================

Mission 1:
Sgt. Pandora from FBSA needs me to investigate why The Electric Eye satellite has gone offline. Foul play is suspected and she wants me to investigate the Crey lab where the satellite's encryption systems were developed nine years ago. Well that's not omninous already.

I entered a standard tech lab map and overheard some Crey Tanks talking about "The Countess' Bonus" for keeping heroes out of the lab. Also, they were fighting with Knives of Artemis.

I found the computer console on the second floor and discovered that the satellite codes that Crey held copies of despite having supposed to have deleted them after finishing the job, had indeed been stolen. Upon discovering this I was attacked by some Knives of Artemis, who were shouting about getting the codes for themselves.

Sgt. Pandora was puzzled by the presence of the Knives and presumed they must be working for Malta as usual.

Mission 2:
Suddenly we get a tip that Archon Helsinger of the Council has had past dealing with Crey and may have the codes. They've been mostly weapons deals, but there may be a Council agent planted in Crey. So off we go to arrest Archon Helsinger.

The mission entry blurb informs me that the good Archon is not in good standing with the Council, something about enjoying his work a little too much.

I found a computer console very early on, but this is not over as I have to find Helsinger as well. The files I find have nothing special in them but just ahead I hear some Arachnos troops looking for Helsinger as well, talking about getting the files from him and mention a Fortunata Helkata.

As I get to Archon Helsinger, which did not take long as it was only a medium-sized Council map, I found him surrounded by some Crey Tanks and asking them why they didn't have the codes for him. Turns out that he never had them.

Mission 3:
Now I'm off to see Fortunata Helkata and find out what she knows. Not before long through this Arachnos map I run into Hand of Artemis Sister Evangelyne, who is here for both the files and Helkata's head. The battle banter for this boss fight was rather amusing and completely in character for the Knives of Artemis. I'm then told that Helkata is upstairs with the files and indeed they were.

So it turns out that Helsinger did have the codes but they had been lost from his network when Helkata managed to break in. She had obtained the codes for Lord Recluse but found that they didn't work on The Electric Eye anymore.

Mission 4:
During her interrogation, Sister Evangelyne revealed that the Knives had been trying to obtain the satellite codes for Malta. KoA teams had been attacking Crey, Council, Arachnos, and Nemesis bases. It was also recently learned that a Malta base had been wiped out by the Rikti and that there has been a major increase in their activity over the past 24 hours and that they are now attacking a major Nemesis base in Crey's Folly.

Shortly after getting into the base, I ran into Lt. Tangiers, who admitted that Nemesis now controls the satellite and that neither me nor the Rikti will take it from him. I wish I had his confidence.

Soon I found a Malta Gunslinger named Tango-Alpha-Nine being held hostage by the Rikti. Upon freeing him, he confirmed that Nemesis had the codes but that the Rikti had stolen them. Near the end of the map I came across Rikti Chief Soldier N'Bakt, who let me know that the Rikti have taken control of the satellite. Lovely.

Mission 5:
With this development, Sgt. Pandora informs me that The Electric Eye satellite is capable of monitoring any mode of communication, from anyone, anywhere on Earth. Now the Rikti have control of it and with their cryptographic expertise, well you get the picture.

The Rikti are now using the satellite to attack the control systems of all the War Walls at once and the Rikti are gathering in the War Zone to prepare for a massive attack. Sgt. Pandora informs me that a large counter-assault is going to be moving on the Rikti mothership while I have the task of destroying the control station that the Rikti are using to connect to the satellite.

As I zone into the Warzone, I see that even Malta has joined in to hold back the Rikti and I get lucky in that War Leader Ry'Bat is close to the fort that they are currently attacking. With him down, I still need to find the control station. It doesn't take long to find it on this map and with it destroyed, the Rikti lose their connection to the satellite.

================================

The Verdict:
I definitely enjoyed this arc myself. The story flowed smoothly and in a logical manner while making good use of the exisiting villain groups in the game. The only custom was Sgt. Pandora, who only appeared as the contact and never inside the arc itself. I presume that she's a cameo, but I have no problem with that.

Since the arc was fun and the story well-written, and no show-stopping bugs, I give it a full 5 stars.

Well, not that the other three are dead, but it fits the cheesy movie sequel subtitle theme.

Let's start with the things that I don't like in arcs:
<ul type="square">[*] Kill All missions. There is almost never a real justification for it unless you're using a really small map.[*] On that note, glowie hunts in big outdoor maps got old years ago. Hostage searches on those maps are not fun either.[*] Bad-spelling and grammar. Use a spellcheck, have someone proofread it for you, just try to make it look like you know how to write. I don't expect perfection and am not going to knock off a star for a typo here or there, but if your intro dialog looks like a teenager's cell phone text message I'm going to just quit right there.[*] Arcs where the player is treated as an idiot. If I can figure out the plot three missions before the contact does and yet still get talked down to then there is a problem.[*] Uneven level ranges. I'm not likely going to make a big deal of it if the minimum level is not consistent throughout the arc, but I will if the maximum level keeps changing.[*] AV fights without a disclaimer in the arc description.[*] Custom mobs that overuse annoying powers. If I walk in and see that the room is filled with Storm Summoners then I'm going to turn around and leave.[*] I don't care much for origin story arcs. I have played a few that have a decent story in there that just happens to give backstory on the contact, but I don't want to play just to find out how you got your powers.[*] I hate escorts, period. You better have a good reason for it.[/list]
The things that I like in arcs:
<ul type="square">[*] I like story-driven arcs. That doesn't mean I won't play a challenge arc but it better have some good reasons for me to be playing through it.[*] I do like custom mobs. However because they are so easy to do wrong and can ruin the arc, I will be extra critical when custom mobs are involved.[*] I like having allies when there is a reason for them. I like having them for AV fights, but if the mission just has the same sort of bosses I can solo anytime then I won't bother with them if they have a tendency to get in the way.[*] I love fun. The story can be very absurd and still be logical and fun. I enjoyed "Opera of the Abyss" after all.[/list]
Now with that out of the way, here is how the reviewing will work. Generally I will be choosing arcs on my own to review, always ones with a low number of reviews (generally less than a dozen) that I feel could use some spotlighting. I'm not going to go out of my way to find bad arcs and rip them apart.

On the other hand, if you bring me an arc for review and it's got problems, then it's open season 'cause you asked for it. Here is how that will work.

Post your arc in the following format:
Arc:
Arc ID:
Author:
Number of Missions:
Description:

Then play one of the arcs listed in my signature below. When I receive feedback from you on one of those arcs, and I mean feedback, then your arc will be put up for review. Quid pro quo. Post the feedback over here so as not to clutter up this thread.

If you submitted multiple arcs, then after I review one of your arcs you'll moved off the main queue. You can get back on and get a second, and third arc reviewed by running any of my missions that you hadn't run before and leaving feedback for it.

My rating system generally goes like this: I started at 3 stars and add or subtract from there. 3-stars is radio mission quality in my opinion. 4 stars is above average, while 5 stars is not perfect but means I recommend that everyone play it.

Now if you didn't get a good rating, but made changes to address whatever flaws and problems I found in your arc and want to re-submit it for review, then you can just do so. Keep in mind re-reviews will have a lower priority than arcs that have not been reviewed yet. The re-review will be much shorter, most looking at the changes and fixes rather than a second comprehensive review. Upon review I will update my rating of the arc both in this thread and in the game.

Another thing off the bat, my reviews will have spoilers. It's rather unavoidable so read on at your own risk.

Now let's get started.