PoliceWoman

I've been on a kick to write better souvenirs for my story arcs, so I added about 2000 characters of text to the Teen Phalanx Forever! souvenir, detailing the events of the story arc.

Thanks much to everyone who's run it so far.

End the Deadstorm review

Mission 1

I found the contact's briefing to be somewhat confusing; I think she is saying she has a foe that is a storm, and the storm creates zombies and also has an avatar who is a kindly old priest. The way this was worded was rather confusing to me; I also felt you overused ellipses (...).

Suggest you reword it to be something like:

"Years ago, there was a terrible storm, a storm that was unnatural and horrible. In its wake, the dead rose from their graves, filled with a terrible hunger. I was helpless to prevent my family from being decimated by these evil risen dead. I have heard scholars call this unnatural event, 'the Deadstorm'."

It's basically the same info as you're providing, but I think presentation can make it more coherent.

I'm a little puzzled as to how a meteorological event can have a champion, but perhaps this will make sense in a bit. Right now it seems the contact wants me to go kill some priest. I think the contact should also say where the priest can be found ("in a nearby catacomb" or something) so as to explain where the player finds herself upon entering the Cimeroran crypt. Am I really in ancient Cimerora? A random crypt or cave? Or what?

I very much like the popup message as I enter the mission, it sets a rather creepy mood for the mission.

I suggest you change the mission title from "Find and Defeat Father Michael" to "Defeat Champion of the Deadstorm", since you already have "Defeat Father Michael" as a subgoal.

Deadone description says "Deadones are different than your ordinary zombie horde". I fought one and it seems like a zombie? Is there a reason you made your own zombie minions instead of copying over, say, Banished Pantheon or Vahzilok zombies? Maybe explain how they are different. I half-expected the Deadones to have storm/dark powers due to their Deadstorm background, but they seem to do dark only; maybe that's for the best though as lots of stormies would be annoying.

I saw there were "Male Deadones" and "Female Deadones" ... I think you can safely just call them all "Deadone", just with different models.

OK, found Father Michael; if he's a stereotypical Catholic priest he maybe should have a black coat or brown cassock though. And his dialog, "And lo, her mercy was lain down upon the unbelievers, and they were lay to rest", doesn't quite scan ... maybe "And lo, she gifted the unbelievers with her mercy; and they were laid to rest." The rest of his dialog seems pretty good though.

Seemed like mad ambushes spawned as I fought him. Might be pretty tough for a soloer.

After I defeated Father Michael, I got a new goal of "Defeat Wiros", but there is no explanation of who Wiros is and why he needs to be defeated. I suggest you maybe add a clue to the clue journal; some clue you find after killing Father Michael that hints why Wiros needs to be next. Maybe something that reveals that Father Michael was just the herald of the REAL Champion of the Deadstorm, who is Wiros. Also the mission title, "Find and Defeat Father Michael" is simply wrong now; should definitely be changed to something more descriptive of the overall mission.

Found Wiros. His description "This huge beast seems to thrive for destruction more than death" doesn't make sense to me ... maybe "This huge beast seems to thrive on destruction."

"I will sever your legs from your torso, and wear your skull as a hat!" seems to be two different threats kinda muddled together. I think maybe he should say "I will sever your head, and wear your skull as a hat!"

Wiros was kind of a pain to kill, mainly because he went Unstoppable, after which I couldn't do enough damage to counteract his regen. I basically had to wait for his Unstoppable to go down before I could actually kill him. I'm not sure if you meant for him to be this hard to kill; I personally was able to drop him, but some players might get frustrated and give up.

All the NPCs referred to their "Mistress" reverently; but they're created by a "Deadstorm". Still finding this quite puzzling; I think dropping a clue or two during this mission as to what the Deadstorm is and/or who the Mistress is, would be helpful for keeping the player involved.

Debriefing: Sora says, "So there are two champions?" Maybe this should be "So there were two champions?" And I suppose the mission subtitle, "Part 1 - The Champions" should've given this fact away. Sora still keeps talking about "the storm" but no one I've encountered has stormy powers at all. Lots of undead though.

Neither Father Michael nor Wiros seemed particularly undead, unlike all the other Deadstorm minions; I dunno if this is because the Champions are actually NOT undead, or if it was simply overlooked. I got the impression that the Deadstorm mainly gains recruits by reanimating the dead though.

Mission 2

Sora is very concerned about this additional champion. But why should she be? Didn't I just kill him in mission 1?

She wants me to go save one of the Deadones who is acting like a good guy; this seems a little implausible (even the contact seems to think so). This goal doesn't seem to be connected to what she was saying in the first paragraph about the two champions. Wouldn't it make more sense to go after this "Mistress" that the other two champions alluded to?

The mission text makes it sound like D'lroth will be hard to distinguish from the other zombies, but in fact he is very easy to tell apart from them, since D'lroth is the only one dressed as a ninja.

D'lroth is supposedly absolutely silent, but apparently he "sketches out the items needed": so I need to find a hammer, a gong and a skull. I'm sorry, but the idea of the ninja zombie silently pantomiming this information is pretty hard to believe. If he must be silent, I think you need a more plausible way for him to communicate this information. Perhaps he gives you an ancient scroll or musty tome or something that has this info in it.

I also suggest you make the Clue name more descriptive; instead of "The Penultimate Mission", make it "The Summoning Ritual" or something like that.

D'lroth just stands there after giving his clue; I think maybe he should either help fight, or else run away.

Some gravestones spawned with the info that maybe objects are under them; I had to destroy 13 of them before I could find the 3 updates I needed. This felt like too many, IMHO; it was tedious to find the last 6 or so of them. I suggest maybe halve the number of false leads. Though I did notice the skull was under a gravesite and the hammer was under a "monument" instead of the "gravestone" name used for all the other objects; I'm not sure if you intended that as a hint or not. But if they have a different name, maybe give them a different visual object too.

Since the mission doesn't end after finding D'lroth, I suggest you change the mission title to be something other than "Find D'lroth".

The exit popup is "With items in hand, D'lroth pledges to serve you in the upcoming battle." I thought the items were to summon the Deadstorm? This message makes it sound like the items were used to hire D'lroth to join us. Maybe rephrase this to, "After you recover the items needed for the summoning ritual, D'lroth pledges to serve you in the upcoming battle against the Deadstorm." Though ... how does he pledge this when he never talks? Maybe needs some thought.

Mission 3

OK, now Sora somehow knows about "She who speaks" when prior to this there was only a mysterious Mistress that the minions refer to. I think you need to give the player some clues about "She who speaks" and why defeating her will cause the Deadstorm to pass.

It looks like the items aren't actually used to summon the Deadstorm ... they're used to summon She who speaks? I think their purpose needs to be clarified, both in the preivous mission and this one.

"Use the items of power in the Summoning Platform" should maybe be "Use the items of power on the Summoning Platform". Or if you want to make it simpler, just "Perform ritual".

After performing the summoning, I got a clue for "the Penultimate Battle", which says I should find and defeat the essence of the Deadstorm, "She who speaks". But my objective list now has "Defeat Wiros" and "Defeat Father Michael" again. So this clue actually seems to be in error.

Bleh, Wiros went unstoppable against me again. I waited out his unstoppable again, but having to do this twice is just painful.

I found D'lroth; he was unguarded, but was in the "kneeling, hands on head" pose when I found him. I think he should either have guards, or else start in a different animation. On my run he promptly aggroed on Father Michael and died; maybe just bad luck on my part.

After defeating Wiros I got "2 Summoning Stones to destroy". I think there needed to be some foreshadowing that the summoning ritual doesn't ACTUALLY summon EITHER the Deadstorm OR She Who Speaks. Since the explanation by the story arc up to this point just said that using the 3 items would summon the Deadstorm, I feel like I'm jumping through a lot of extra hoops now. If you had some clue that you have to perform the ritual, then beat up her champions, then break 2 stones, etc., then it would at least be expected.

I think maybe there should be some explanation for why killing Wiros causes the summoning stones to appear; especially since some of them spawned in places I'd walked past before finding Wiros.

I destroyed the two summoning stones; after EACH summoning stone is destroyed it says "With a shriek, "She Who Speaks" has taken form somewhere." So it shows this message twice. May want to reword this message.

I managed to defeat She Who Speaks (as an EB) ... she seemed to be psychic/dark miasma. I'm kind of confused; is she meant to be the avatar of the Deadstorm? I kind of think maybe she should be necromancy/storm in that case. I also am puzzled as to why she is called She Who Speaks.


Overall:
I got through the story arc but am left with a lot of unanswered questions. The overall goal is to stop the Deadstorm, but what the Deadstorm is and what kind of threat it poses, is never adequately explained; it's not even a presence that is menacing the player. If you want the Deadstorm to be the the big bad, you should spend some more time building it up as a threat, through writing more description.

Maybe emphasize how ominous the sky looks when you first meet Sora for the first time, then when you exit the first mission fill the popup box with a description of how the storm clouds have burst into pouring rain. Then you enter the second mission, which is set outdoors, and maybe you can describe how the rain blankets the graveyard and the dead are crawling out of their graves. Then as you enter the third and final mission, lightning crashes outside as you enter the caves and you know you must destroy the threat of the Deadstorm once and for all.

How She Who Speaks relates to the Deadstorm is never made clear; is she the avatar of the Deadstorm, its high priestess, or something else? Throughout your narrative I think you mix up references to She Who Speaks and the Deadstorm at various times. I kind of think it would make your story a little cleaner if maybe you rename her "Mistress of the Deadstorm" or "Deadstorm's Daughter" or something like that, then make her either necromancy/storm or dark blast/storm.

It's also puzzling to me how a priest and a werewolf became "champions of the Deadstorm". They seem pretty dissimilar; I think it could be believable, but it needs some explanation for how they were selected to be champions. I also think you should maybe change Wiros to not have unstoppable, or at least make it so you don't have to fight him twice if he's going to go unstoppable.

I found the ally D'lroth to be a little unbelievable (apologies if this is an actual toon that was inserted). Is he a telepathic ninja zombie?

I also think you should consider re-using some of the Banished Pantheon mobs, especially the generic zombies and the storm shaman, who seem like they would be a good fit for your concept. You might even tie your Deadstorm concept to the Banished Pantheon mythology somehow, which would give your story a closer connection to CoH canon.

Anyway, I think you have some interesting story elements but they don't quite all fit together for me. The arc was playable but had some moments that were a little less fun (finding 13 breakables and fighting the unstoppable boss twice). I gave the story 3 stars, hope you think that is fair!


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I still owe a review to:

Stratonexus - The Empire - One Alliance 1044
@Cavatina - Melissa Marksovich 20319
@HolyEvilAoD - 2 of Council's Good Graces 1571, Council's Long Con 1579, Sad Story of Silas Gritch 1831
Lazarus - 1 of MacGuffin Delivery 1567, Amulet of J'gara 1709, Portal Bandits 3326
doodaa - Poaching the Lion 1841
@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307
GlaziusF - 2nd arc
@Cryfire - 1 of 2503, 1651 or 1638
@Vanden - Knights of Rularuu 75386
@icerose - Operation: Doolittle 58609

OK, I made the following changes:

* "Furor" is now "Führer" throughout, by popular demand.
* On the Dunkirk mission, French Officers (boss) have been demoted to be French Lieutenants (lieutenant), so as to give the Allies faction a lieutenant model.
* On the Stalingrad mission, a Soviet Commissar (lieutenant) model has been added to the Red Army faction. He is thugs/sonic, because I want him to use pistols; maybe he should be mercenaries, but I rationalize that thugs at least throw molotovs.
* Increased number of German vs Russian battles in Stalingrad (someone said he LOVED helping out his 5th Column buddies in these).
* Gave Soviet Generals some special animations to make them stand out more. The Generals should now all use the "binoculars" animation. Their escorts should all use the "shooting rifle, low" animation.
* On the Atlas Park mission, I added references to Giant Mek Men attacking.
* I dropped the custom Bodyguard model from the Secret Service faction. Instead, the Secret Service faction now consists of standard "male security agent" models from the Crey faction. Unfortunately I can't change their background info, but they LOOK right at least.
* Massively expanded the souvenir text to describe the whole story.

[ QUOTE ]
I swiped the phrase (I think) from "Episode 257-494" of Teen Titans, in which "Control Freak" traps the Titans inside television shows until Beast Boy's superior knowledge of television defeats him. At the end someone says "see what happens when you watch too much TV?" and Starfire points out that they only won because Beast Boy watches too much TV. Raven asks "so, what's the moral here?" and Cyborg says "There isn't one. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened."

[/ QUOTE ]


This seems to be the most popular review thread, and I was on the fence as to whether I would submit my story arc here (as I fear I hit a lot of tvtropes), but this direct reference to Teen Titans emboldens me to submit for consideration:

Arc Name: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Faction: Vahzilok, Clockwork, Freakshow, Rogue Robots
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate; there is one (fairly easy, non-customized) AV/EB per mission, but allies are present to help.
Synopsis: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to join Paragon City's most prestigious teen superhero team?
Morality: Heroic
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, estimate 60-90 mins.
Level range: 15-20, 20, 20-25, 29-30 (mission levels gradually increase to "level" you up)

4/16/2009

Started the night making a few edits to my "Teen Phalanx Forever!" story (arc #67335) in response to some very nice feedback provided by the first person who actually played through it.

A friend then lured me into playing his "BRAAAAINSSSS" story arc with him. This was a horror movie style zombie apocalypse. I've seen a lot of zombie-based stories lately, but thought this was pretty well done. There were well-meaning but foolish scientist NPCs that unleashed the zombie apocalypse on the world, and a wide variety of zombie types; of particular note was the two different zombie factions, "Slow Zombies" (pretty easy) and "Fast Zombies" (fast and lethal!). The final encounters swarmed us with fast zombies and zombies that summon other zombies and other horrors and quickly wiped us out; I managed to awaken and run away. I thought this was a little too lethal, but the other player said, "It's a horror movie, of course the people who fight die and only the people who run away survive." This made me laugh and made perfect sense for the genre, so I ended up giving this arc 4 stars since it really evoked the zombie horror movie feel, but I think you need to have a "zombie apocalypse, OMG we're all gonna die!" mentality for this to really work for you. It IS kind of killer GM at the end though, so you need to not mind dying.

After escaping the zombie apocalypse I lured my friend to try my "Teen Phalanx Forever!" story; with a scrapper and blaster on Invincible I wasn't sure how we'd do against the AVs (since even with the small team, Invincible would push them up to AV rank), but we actually did fine against Dr. Vahzilok, especially after a mastermind and another scrapper joined us. We suffered a near-team-wipe against the Clockwork King as he spawned within aggro range of us, but managed to regroup and beat him up; then the rest of the arc went just fine.

After that we started our way through the Freakshow Phalanx story arc, where the various signature heroes have somehow turned into Freakshow versions of themselves, and you have to fight your way through hordes of Freaks along the way. The story behind why this happened was pretty thin, but the costumes and dialog were great and it was fun just beating up all the Freaks and Freak "heroes". I gave it 4 stars.

Later that night I dragged another friend through "Teen Phalanx Forever!" making her lead and read all the clues and stuff; she seemed to have a good time.

I got the following mission architect badges on Police Woman last night:

Overachiever (100 non-required objectives)
To the Rescue (50 hostages rescued/kidnapped)
Plugged In (25 arcs completed)

I basically ran into exactly this problem while developing a mission for one of my story arcs.

The concept for the mission was that the hero was sitting around in his/her SG base doing "monitor duty", but while there, Freakshow hired by his SG's mysterious archenemy start showing up and assault the SG base.

I had started with the idea that the mission would start completely empty of mobs, but there would be a "monitor computer" glowy that the player would click, then this would trigger a series of Freak ambushes, each set to trigger off of the previous ambush being wiped out, then the final ambush would include an AV/EB, and killing the AV/EB would complete the mission.

When I started implementing this mission I found that this idea didn't seem possible at all; I wasn't able to use the death of an ambush as a trigger event for another mission detail, and there's no good way to put an AV/EB in an ambush. I did end up finding a workaround that kind of works for me, which is:

Collection 1
- No trigger
- Nav tool hint: "Watch monitor" (required objective)
- One wall item placed in back of mission

Boss 1
- Triggered by Collection 1 completed
- Nav tool hint: "Defeat intruders" (required objective)
- Freakshow boss placed in front of mission

Ally 1
- Triggered by Boss 1 completed
- Nav tool hint: "Link up with Ally 1" (required objective)
- Ally 1 placed in front of mission with Freakshow guards

Ally 2
- Triggered by Ally 1 completed
- Nav tool hint: "Link up with Ally 2" (required objective)
- Ally 2 placed in front of mission with Freakshow guards

Boss 2
- Triggered by Ally 2 completed
- Nav tool hint: "Defeat Clamor" (required objective)
- Clamor AV/EB placed in front of mission

None of these are "real" ambushes but they do end up spawning Freaks all over the map, along with some allies showing up in response to "intruder alert" alarms to help you out. Sometimes Freaks spawn directly on your head, but sometimes they spawn in a different room; as a result, I too was worried about the player having to hunt all over for the enemies. I solved this by using a "Tiny" abandoned office map for my mission, so you never have to go very far before you find them. A tiny map worked for my story concept, but it might or might not for your story idea, of course.

Hope that helps. If you want to see the above script in action, it is mission 3 of story arc 67335, "Teen Phalanx Forever!"

[ QUOTE ]
After finishing this arc, I have one burning question: is there some reason you can't use "Fuhrer"? Does it trigger some filter? It doesn't seem so. And it bugged me unreasonably.

[/ QUOTE ]

With "Nazi" getting caught by the profanity filter, I was real paranoid about getting Inappropriate Content complaints for using actual Nazi terminology, hence why I called this mob "the Furor". You're about the sixth or so person to either be bugged by the "Furor" substitution or (more often) to tell me that I mispelled Fuhrer/Fuehrer, though.

It's sounding like more people are offended by mispellings than by Nazi terminology, though, so I'll give switching his name to Fuhrer/Fuehrer a try. (I'll have to figure out if I can actually get an umlaut over the U into the text editor; not quite sure how to do that, but worth learning!) If I start getting flagged for Inappropriate Content, though, I'll have to switch it back ... if I get the chance, anyhow.

[ QUOTE ]
I dislike scouring outdoor maps in search of things to do. At least I can make a custom target macro for "general", but then the Soviet generals are nearly invisible until I get close to them. Maybe give their guards some kind of obvious animation? I think the French general was drilling his troops but they didn't stand out much against the cityscape.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the Soviet generals have a little stealth from the Cold powerset. I can usually spot them due to the arctic air aura, but that requires some +perception; my main character has capped perception so I probably never noticed how annoying that could be for others.

I'll try giving the group of mobs the Soviet generals are in some special animation; maybe the binoculars animation (to show it's a command post) or the shooting animation.

I sympathize with the comment on outdoor maps, but with the missions representing Great Battles of WW2, I feel like outdoor maps are pretty much required.

[ QUOTE ]
It didn't help much that none of your custom groups except the US Army had lieutenants, which meant all the spawns were just varying numbers of minions.

[/ QUOTE ]

My original concept had a minion, lieutenant and boss for each enemy army; so 3 models for the British, 3 models for the French, 3 models for the Soviets, and 3 models for the Americans. Actually, I originally wanted to re-use the Spetnaz Commandos villain group for the Soviet Army, but I couldn't use them due to their level range only going up to like 14 or something awful like that. I only used 2 models for the Germans, since I wanted to re-use 5th Column for them, but I *needed* custom models for Hitler and for Schadenfreude. As a result my arc started off with 3+3+3+3+2 = 14 models, which made it packed to the gills on test server. Code bloat from transferring to live servers made this over the size limit, and I had to start removing custom models to make it fit. I ended up deciding the lieutenants of each faction were the least interesting, since I need minions to be cannon fodder for most spawns, and I need bosses to be used as objectives; so I deleted the British, French and Soviet lieutenants. The US Army lieutenant got kept because I thought his model looked more cool than the others. This gave me enough room to fit on live server, add a lot more text (I previously couldn't put enough due to space limitations), and add a Bodyguard model for the Secret Service agents surrounding President Truman (originally I had him guarded by Paragon Police, which didn't make as much sense).

Anyway, this is why I have no lieutenants in the Allies, Red Army or Secret Service custom groups. This admittedly makes most spawns for small teams/low difficulty just a bunch of minions, which maybe is too bland.

Thinking about it, the Allies enemy group has a British minion, British boss, French minion and French boss; I may demote the French boss to be a French lieutenant, just so there's one model of each echelon available for this map. This makes the French troops wimpier yet more numerous, but that may actually be an improvement based on the amount of glee I've seen players show while attacking the French NPCs.

I really want to squeeze a Soviet lieutenant back into the Stalingrad map, too; I had the sudden idea to add a Soviet Commissar, Zampolit/Political Officer, something like that, as a lieutenant, maybe a thugs/sonic in an olive drab trenchcoat so he can shoot dual pistols and yell at you at the same time. If only I had a way to make him shoot his own retreating troops! LOL.

Not sure where I can find space to put another guy in though; maybe I can rework the Secret Service faction to use Crey security agents, if they go high enough level.

[ QUOTE ]
Schadenfreude certainly seems to be living off my sorrow. AR does knockback and "avoid" with the burn patch, meaning she was always sending something away and chasing it down. Especially when a lot of stacked web grenades had me slowed, this hurt. Maybe make her dark blast on a power level that doesn't take Torrent? Wait, no. I think just Hard AR rather than Extreme will work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I sympathize with the concern over knockback, but frankly, I must insist that Nazi dominatrixes use guns. Or whips, when they come available. But guns for now. I'll give toning down her attack set to be Hard instead of Extreme a try. I think you can't avoid *some* amount of knockback with AR, but burn patches are probably unnecessary.

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of minions with web grenades, the saddest thing in the world is to get 4 web grenades on you and unwittingly run up a tiny slope into a "pit" with 6-inch high walls. It was like being tied up and bumped to death by puppies, and if I hadn't heard the Oberst behind me I'd be furious right now. Web grenades and broken terrain are not good playmates.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I really like the look of the US Army men throwing grenades. But yeah, web grenades can suck on this sort of terrain. I could change the basic soldiers to be AR/regen, so they just shoot; then maybe give either the lieutenants or the bosses the device secondary, so I still have some green army men throwing grenades, but you won't get tons of stacking web grenades at least. I think I may do that, the assault rifle secondary on the MA/AR lieutenants is kind of wasted at the moment.

[ QUOTE ]
And that brings me to the last thing. That ruined Atlas Park map. If you're going to use it, at least mention the giant robots in the arsenal of things that got dropped on it? But it has no minimap, making it a real pain to know where you've been, and it's chock full of broken terrain that gives allies fits. (Speaking of allies, are the Obersts supposed to spawn with no surrounding captors?)

I'd almost suggest the Atlas Park with the meteor wrecked into it and have Shaddy gloating about how their super-science dropped a freakin' space rock on the place.

[/ QUOTE ]

I originally used Atlas Park 2, the one with the big meteor, for this mission, but I got multiple complaints of how the NPC allies would aggro on the meteor and get stuck trying to kill it, which was an immersion breaker. That's why I ended up using the ruined Atlas Park map. I actually kind of like the wrecked giant robots on this map, since I think they have either Council or 5th insignia, so sort of fits with the theme. I'll add some description to the mission entry popup to explain the killer robots, though, as you suggest.

I agree that the broken terrain is a pain to maneuver on, but honestly there are no good Atlas Park maps that I've found. Atlas Park 1 doesn't allow most types of mission details; Atlas Park 2 has that hated meteor on it; Arachnos Atlas Park has that big underground tech lab area which doesn't work for this story. The ruined Atlas Park was the best fit for what I was looking for.

My *ideal* map for the last mission would be a completely pristine, shiny happy Atlas Park, but with pillboxes as in RV, and as you blow away each pillbox, that section of Atlas Park turns into the ruined, broken version of Atlas Park, just like taking over pillboxes in RV. That would let you turn the sweet happy Atlas Park into a twisted ruin.


Thanks for your input! I'll look at implementing some of this stuff tonight.

[ QUOTE ]
PW, there's one more thing I should say, and it's not actually going to help in any way at all, but I'm sure you realize there's no good way to make a junior version of somebody's name. If we ever get user-set variables ("Ness thought about some RABBIT and craved eating it") you're going to work them in here sharpish, am I right?

The character I'm gunning for the mission architect accolade on first is a spine/regen scrapper named Harlequin Cirsium (she's a Bladegrass who joined the Carnival of Light, don't ask) and "Kid Harlequin Cirsium" is just a dang mouthful. They might call her "Kid Thistle", but...

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I would absolutely love a $sidekickname string substitution that automatically turns:

"Valkyrie" to "Kid Valkyrie",
"Statesman" to "Statesboy",
"Police Woman" to "Police Girl",
"Ms. Liberty" to "Junior Miss",

etc., but I am pretty sure the devs would not want to add this solely for my story arc. Almost as good would be to let the player enter in a name to use as their sidekickname.

I wanted to give the player a sidekickname and have all the NPCs who interact with him/her use it, so as to build up the sense of immersion; I also liked the conceit that, for example, "Harlequin Cirsium" is a well established heroine, while "Kid Harlequin Cirsium" is her sidekick.

Unfortunately my "Kid $name" paradigm sometimes breaks down (for example, if your name is "Kid Valkyrie" and you play this arc, you get called "Kid Kid Valkyrie") but I decided it was the best I could do with the tools I had available.

The "Kid $origin" name is a neat idea, but I don't think "Kid Science" sounds nearly as connected to your main hero as "Kid $name" is.

Anyway, thanks much for the input!

I had a player tell me he had been virtually certain the end boss would turn out to be Manticora, turned evil, because Statesboy broke her heart. That made me smile that someone had given that much thought to the little melodramatic touches I gave the NPCs.

Freakshow Phalanx review (#33843)

Started with a 3 player team: blaster, dark MM, scrapper. Added a tanker after mission 2.

Mission 1

BAB's briefing seems so short! Maybe that's just his way though.

So Freaks are attacking Atlas Park and we're fighting them. We probably could just stealth to the leader, but we have a scrapper so we kill all in our path.

"Rouge Angle" is mispelled ... but honestly I thought maybe you did this on purpose to make fun of people who name their character this.

Ms Anarchy is cool! I like her Freakified costume. But maybe she should give a clue when she dies, hinting that signature heroes are getting Freaked out?

I crashed exiting the mission, and after that I was no longer team leader so didn't get to see any of the mission debriefings, so can't comment on those.

Mission 2

After a fairly uninformative briefing, BAB sends you to a warehouse to beat up more Freaks. Okay.

I thought Statesmaniac's dialog was very funny! Though I wonder if "Yeah, I talk in the third person. Got a problem with that??" should be "Yeah, Statesmaniac talks in the third person. Got a problem with that??"

I thought Citadel's costume looked quite odd, not his normal look at all; it looked like I caught him coming out of the shower or something.

In the exit popup bubble, it says Statesmaniac is babbling even when unconscious, which doesn't seem like it makes sense.

Mission 3

This mission has a much better briefing than the previous two.

I think Hardc0re should maybe be named H4rdc0r3. It's nice how defeating him then links to Sister Psycho as an objective.

I like the Hardc0re and Sister Psycho costumes

I like the clue in the mission exit popup .. though should it be "Sister Psycho" giving this up, or "Sister Psyche" as described?

Mission 4

In Zapzz's description, I think "premiere" should be "premier".

Love his "Nerf <archetype>!" death message.

Finally meeting Malaise, who seems to be the mastermind of this plot, his motivation for enacting all this was very weak. He had a good AV-style monologue though.

Possible logic problem: Malaise shouldn't be able to beat Sister Psyche in psychic combat, which I assume must've happened to make her into Sister Psycho. Can probably let that slide though for sake of the story.


Overall:
This was a fun romp and I liked the costumes and dialog; I thought the story tying it all together was rather thin, though. Despite that, it was a lot of fun, and so I gave it 4 stars.

I think you could stand to add a few more items of interest in the first two missions, which are a little more bland than the last two; perhaps clues after dropping bosses, and/or glowies that give clues hinting what's going on. And I do think Malaise needs a better motivation for doing all this, better than "to sow chaos".

-------

I still owe a review to:

@Reska - End the Deadstorm? 4066
Stratonexus - The Empire - One Alliance 1044
@Cavatina - Melissa Marksovich 20319
@HolyEvilAoD - 2 of Council's Good Graces 1571, Council's Long Con 1579, Sad Story of Silas Gritch 1831
Lazarus - 1 of MacGuffin Delivery 1567, Amulet of J'gara 1709, Portal Bandits 3326
doodaa - Poaching the Lion 1841
@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307
GlaziusF - 2nd arc

[ QUOTE ]
Can you put the Teen Phalanx base on a slightly larger map? Clamor spawned right on top of Bitty Babs, and I mean RIGHT on top.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, forgot to address this - but for technical reasons this mission has to use a really small map. In order to get the map to start initially empty, I had to define an encounter for every single spawn point on the map, and set it up so that all those encounters are triggered from clicking glowies. The smaller map also helps the player quickly locate each spawn of Freaks as it arrives, which I think helps the sense of immersion.

The idea of Citadel in a red hat (I picture a big red fireman's hat) is hilarious, but with Vista being both a better known OS and more widely hated, I thought "Citadel Vista" made much more sense as a villain name, especially as a villain who wants to prove he is better than Citadel XP and wants to replace him.

I had another player suggest I should have Citadel Vista beat up Citadel XP, but then Citadel 7 should swoop in for a rescue. I thought this was getting a little *too* silly though.

Changes made:

1. Corrected Clockwork King's second ambush to also call the player "Kid Soandso" instead of "Soandso Jr."

2. Added lots of text for the various glowies in mission 3.

Monitor:
"You get bored and your attention wanders. Maybe there's something good to eat in the fridge?" (interrupt)

Refrigerator:
"You start rummaging through the fridge for snacks." (begin)
"You decide you're not hungry after all." (interrupt)
"This ham sandwich looks pretty good! Yum!" (complete)

Kid Valkyrie's locker: (and other lockers given similar messages)
"You start snooping through Val's stuff." (begin)
"You guiltily decide to leave Val's locker alone." (interrupt)
"You find a few things in Val's locker." (complete)

3. Changed Manticora from "extreme trick arrow" to "hard trick arrow", which cuts Oil Slick Arrow from her arsenal, as well as Poison Gas Arrow, Acid Arrow and EMP Arrow. It makes sense to me that oil slick probably makes all the NPCs flip out; shame to lose Acid Arrow, but probably the other two trick arrows are no big loss.

4. I changed the map for mission 4 to Council Set/Large/20, which looks a little more linear to me. Most of those Council maps are horrible rabbit warrens, frankly; but I think I need to use one to match up with the Rogue Robots and pseudo-Vandal. Anyway, hopefully a more linear map will make the player encounter the teen heroes first (2 are "front", 1 is "middle", 1 is "back") and the AV last (always "back"). The one teen who is in "back" is Cora, who I'd prefer to be the last ally you encounter as she was the first one "captured" and hopefully her change of heart towards the protagonist will be more moving that way.

5. I changed Dr. Vahzilok, Clockwork King and Citadel Vista so that you only need to get the boss. I left Clamor as needing to clear her entire encounter, though, because she attacks you in the SG base and logically I think the heroes should want to clear all Freaks from their base.

Thanks a ton for the input! I appreciate it.

Also fixed animations for the hostage in the first mission. Now the hostage should do the "I'm captured" animation, not the zombies guarding her.

Changes made as a result of player feedback:

* Standardized all other NPCs calling the player "Kid <name>" instead of a variety of "Kid <name>", "Teen <name>" and "<name> Jr.", except for Cora, who thinks the player sucks, so calls them "<name> Jr." to annoy them.

* Standardized heights of the NPC allies to all be about the same. This made Val taller and Cora shorter.

* Fixed dialog for a clockwork patrol so they won't say "I hate Kid $name" when no string substitution is possible.

* Shortened "Monitor Duty" clicky; was 30 seconds, but now 20 seconds.

* Made "Monitor Duty" mission a timed mission lasting 2 hours. It should never actually take 2 hours, this is just to scare the player into thinking it might.

* Changed Clamor's dialog from "watch my shows" to "watch my soaps".

@GlaziusF said I could do any of his story arcs, so I picked the one with the fewest plays, which was The Bravuran Jobs (#5073) at the time of this writing.

This was marked as villainous, 5-30, 5-30, 1-54, 30-54, 1-54. Based on this I decided to play a 27 elec/will brute. Difficulty set to Ruthless (4).

The premise appears to be that you become a lackey for the Comte and Contessa of the fictional evil country of Bravura.

Minor quibble: Comte is French, and a Comte's wife is a Comtesse. Contessa is Italian, and a Contessa's husband is a Conte.

Mission 1

Not a bad intro speech. It seems to be hired by the Contessa requires a tryout. Strangely, her idea of a tryout is to leave her bodyguards at home and have the player bodyguard her through an assassination attempt. I think this is logically insane; if she isn't sure I'm reliable, she definitely should not count on me in such a life and death situation! Logically, her tryout should be something less important to her, like maybe defeating her current bodyguards in a fair fight, or murdering some minor enemy or expendable henchman.

If you really want the first mission to be to extract the Contessa from an assassination attempt, I suggest you change the briefing to be more like, "Your references check out. I hope you are as reliable as reported; you will be personally escorting the Contessa through a dangerous area." IE if the villain is being given such a sensitive job, the contact should imply that there is some level of trust.

Lloyd Fredrickson says "when the inevitable happens" in reference to an assassination attempt on the Contessa; how does he know someone'll take a shot at her? This is either a logic flaw or catapults him to #1 suspect for who is behind the assassination attempt.

The goal in the Nav tool is "Extract the Contessa"; this seems to imply she's already in a danger situation even before I enter the mission. I think maybe "Guard Contessa" or "Escort Contessa" would be more appropriate, then have "Extract Contessa" as a subgoal when the time comes to escort her out.

Okay, I'm in the mission now ... hmm, there is no sign of the motorcade that my contact told me to follow. Instead my objective is "Search warehouses for the Contessa." I think maybe the mission briefing needs to be adjusted to match the actual mission.

There's a lot of Wyvern here but I'm not sure why. Is the Contessa wanted by Wyvern for some reason? Needs some explanation.

Okay, I found Contessa Bravura and her description actually says "you wonder why Wyvern's after her".... so I guess it is meant to be a mystery. In that case maybe change the first line of your popup bubble as you enter the mission to include something like "You wonder why Wyvern is here?" instead of "Ahh, Wyvern" (which sounds like you expected it).

I like Contessa's dialog with her captors, very dignified.

As Contessa exits, she says "It seems we shall get on as houses on fire!" This is kind of a weird thing to say. I assume this is intentional because she's not supposed to be a native English speaker?

I've now completed the mission but have no idea what just happened; I guess my motivation is that I'm a hired thug though who doesn't have need to know. But I actually would've liked to have some clue what's going on.

As we exit the Contessa takes a separate car and abandons my "protection"? Logic problem; Wyvern just jumped her, it does not make sense that she would ditch her security detail.

Debriefing: "Under the auspices of diplomatic immunity, I cannot enlist any denizen of the Rogue Isles in our national service" -- this seems an odd thing to say considering he just hired me to do a job.

"I do miss my homeland. And occasionally I read its wonderful paper -- out loud, to practice my English." This doesn't make sense; he's clearly not an English speaker, so his homeland's newspaper would not be in English. I suspect you meant to say he reads the Rogue Isles paper. After having read the full debriefing it looks like he is alluding to the fact that he can't directly hire in the Rogue Isles, but if you want to travel to Bravura, you could find a job there. I think the phrasing of this was a bit confusing. Also, you can hire hitmen and kidnappers and other criminals in the Rogue Isles, so it seems a little peculiar that he can't hire a lackey for the Contessa here.

Mission 2

Briefing: OK, upon seeing this I now understand what he was trying to say in the debriefing of mission 1. You're not actually going to Bravura, you're going to get "orders" by overhearing him pretend to read a significant newspaper article. An interesting idea, I just found it hard to get it from the mission 1 debriefing.

Entering the mission, I like how you have some objectives marked required and others optional in the nav tool, that's an interesting technique. I guess it makes sense that a villain can choose to blow off helping out the farmers and stuff.

Where is this scene supposed to be? I know it is a Croatoa map, but maybe you should say something like "You find yourself in the Bravuran countryside" in the pop up as you enter the mission, as sort of an "establishing shot".

Found Mazapegul, I thought it was rather odd that he's a Red Cap; Red Caps usually have nonsense names, while Mazapegul seems more appropriate for a ghost, CoT demon or BP spirit.

Suddenly I have 3 warding steles to smash. Mazapegul gave me a clue to smack something, but it's not clear what it is or why I should smack it. Maybe you could have him (in the clue or in dialog) offer to bribe the player with some sapphires or something to do it, and explain a little more about the 3 steles. You might also have the dialog say something like "Boy do I have an offer for you!" or "Can you help out with something before I start making you gems?"

I didn't really want to drag Mazapegul all over the place, fighting every encounter on the map while looking for steles, so I flew to one I could see in the distance. Incidentally you named it "Legacy Chain Warding" but the nav tool says "warding stele"; I suggest you make the names consistent.

Unfortunately, the warding I found had spawned in the side of a hill and although I could target it, I could not actually hit it ("out of range").

This made the mission impossible to complete, so I logged out/logged back in to try and reset the map. Found and freed Mazapegul again. Hmm, it seems like the mission title "Say hello to Mazapegul" has already been accomplished, but the mission is still continuing?

Argh, another warding stele is placed on a slopy hillside making it unhittable. So mission still seems uncompletable.

After having this problem happen twice in a row, I figure the only way to complete this mission is if I get lucky on the position of where the 3 wardings spawn. With a lot of slopy terrain and 3 wardings for the mission to place, my odds of getting a good map seem low.

This is probably a bug outside your control, but you may want to change to a flatter map or change the destroyable objects into glowies or something else to avoid this problem.

I feel like you've put some good effort into this arc but I can't really give a good rating for an arc that has a high chance of being impossible to complete. But I don't want to spike you with a bad rating for something that is outside your control, so I quit the story arc and gave you no rating at all. I hope that's fair!


-----


I still owe a review to:

@Vox Populi - Freakshow Phalanx 33843
@Reska - End the Deadstorm? 4066
Stratonexus - The Empire - One Alliance 1044
@Cavatina - Melissa Marksovich 20319
@HolyEvilAoD - 2 of Council's Good Graces 1571, Council's Long Con 1579, Sad Story of Silas Gritch 1831
Lazarus - 1 of MacGuffin Delivery 1567, Amulet of J'gara 1709, Portal Bandits 3326
doodaa - Poaching the Lion 1841
@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307

[ QUOTE ]
My original plan for mission 1 was supposed to be more of a nod to the TV show WMAC Masters. In the Final episode, a masked ninja interrupts the title match between SuperStar and The Machine.

Unfortunately I Just could not get it function properly, no matter how I hard I tried, I kept getting multiple copies of Machine and SuperStar. Made for a real challenging fight taking on 3 Machines and 3 SuperStar's simultaneously, but for really bad balance.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, I don't think you can script a fight between 2 named guys as is, you can only script battles between generic minions of each faction. So I don't think you could get a Superstar vs Machine match in the first place, much less have a ninja jump them.

You *could* have a Superstar vs player match get interrupted by a ninja ambush, though, by setting a ninja ambush to come when Superstar is at 75% health or something; maybe set it rogue so it attacks both parties. Though if you do that I think the other martial artists will also mess with the ambush.

[ QUOTE ]
About he description for SuperStar/Machine, this was somethign that was driving me crazy. Maybe you know what I was doing wrong. Anytime I tried to add line breaks, in-game the code would appear. For my sanity's sake, I took the appreciated form.

[/ QUOTE ]

The text editor in Mission Architect seems to be kinda unstable from day to day. A couple tricks I found to be useful:

* If it won't take a carriage return, insert the hypertag "<br>" and it will interpret it as a carriage return. "<br><br>" seems needed for a paragraph break.

* For a long description I'll often compose it in Notepad (windowing out of CoH to use it), then copy & paste it into the text box in Mission Architect using CTRL-C CTRL-V. Sometimes Mission Architect will cut off part of the text you paste, in which case you have to paste again, but even with that problem I find it works better than editing a lengthy bit of text directly in Mission Architect, whose text editor seems to occasionally flake out on me (which sometimes fails to recognize carriage returns or backspaces or text I enter doesn't show up for some reason).

[ QUOTE ]
I want to try to make quality work, would you be willing to take another look in few days? Assuming your list doesn't get even longer ^_^

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, theoretically I wouldn't mind; in fact you're not the first person who asked for a second look at their arcs after some changes were made. But in fairness I should really work off the current "owed reviews" list before I re-check any story arcs I've already gone through, so I can't definitely promise if or when I could do such a thing.


On a related matter, I wonder what people think of review style? I notice that posting mission arc reviews on this forum has really caught fire over the last few days -- which is a good thing, IMHO. One thing I have noticed that the other reviewers typically use a "movie review" style for each arc they review, telling potential players whether they think the arc is worthwhile; whereas I've been taking more of a "software QA review" style for each arc I review, trying to tell the author problems I found and things I think could be changed or added to make the arc more fun.

Both these review styles seem to be useful; I was wondering if there was a general feeling for which review style is more desirable? If everyone would prefer the film critic style review, I can certainly adjust to match that.


-------

I still owe a review to:

@GlaziusF - 1 of Dream Paper 1874, Bricked Electronics 2180, Bravuran Jobs 5073
@Vox Populi - Freakshow Phalanx 33843
@Reska - End the Deadstorm? 4066
Stratonexus - The Empire - One Alliance 1044
@Cavatina - Melissa Marksovich 20319
@HolyEvilAoD - 2 of Council's Good Graces 1571, Council's Long Con 1579, Sad Story of Silas Gritch 1831
Lazarus - 1 of MacGuffin Delivery 1567, Amulet of J'gara 1709, Portal Bandits 3326
doodaa - Poaching the Lion 1841

I've been trying to track who's reviewed one of my arcs, but have not been as good about tracking who's reviewed 2 or more; if you've run through and rated more than one of my arcs and I haven't marked it as such, let me know.

queued:

@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307

It looked to me like Morac's post had a more up-to-date list than Decorum's, so I rolled back to Morac's post and tried to merge the additions since then.

This Was Not Easy.




[ QUOTE ]
AE System
--------
Welcome to Architect Entertainment -- Neutral
Death for Dollars! -- Neutral
Bare Knuckles of Rage (9304)
Signal to Noise -- Neutral -- 67277
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
--------
Birth of a Fossil -- Heroic
Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V (42221) - Heroic
Noah Reborn -- Heroic (2370)
Jumping in Feet First - Heroic - 1345
Midnight Bells Toll ----Villanious
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------
THE BOMBER --- Heroic --- Arc 16607
In The Shadow of Statesman --Neutral--1160
A Show to Die For! --- Heroic --- 30645
Check... and Mate #15095 - Heroic - Mini Task Force
Teen Phalanx Forever! -- Heroic (67335)
*
Comedy
--------
The Extadine Lab -- Heroic
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567) -- Villainous
ParaCon -- Heroic
The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force -- Villainous (though I wouldn't recommend against a hero )
The Fire Bunnies - Neutral, They are only bunnies after all...
You Say It's Your Birthday! (3630) - Neutral
Trademark Infringement -- Heroic (2220)
Hail to the King Neutral (34640)
Walk On the Wild Side - Neutral - 3580
Shirley You Jest (25474) -- Neutral
The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! - Heroic - 61013
Gnomish Madness (30204) - Heroic
Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist (49661) - Heroic
Laugh? I Thought I'd DIE! - Heroic
*

Comedy/Drama
--------
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 -- Neutral
How to Survive a Robot Uprising -- Heroic (12669)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare -- Neutral
It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding (9059) -- Neutral
TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I - Heroic (althoughs romantic villains could try this too )
Rum Runners of Bloody Bay (3691) - Heroic
Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! (2019)
The Toypocalypse! (49280) - Heroic
*

Crime/Gangs
--------
Bricked Electronics -- Heroic (LIVE! 2180)
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
The Monstrous Regiment of Lesbian Hellions -- Heroic (27178)
Win the 2009 Freak-Lympics (2150) - Villainous
Ninja Crimewave! (2142) - Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
The Internet is for Crime (53385) - Villains
Plastic Pistol Peril (1135) - Heroic
Friends in Need (Of Body Parts) - Villainous (31005)
*

Drama
--------
The Conciliators: Simone -- Heroic (4010)
The Fan Club -- Heroic
Matchstick Women -- Heroic -- 3369
Of Mentors and Legacy - Heroic - 1589
*

Global Domination
--------
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
*

Heist
--------
Celebrity Kidnapping -- Villainous (1388)
Easy Money -- Villainous (31490)
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------
Wrinkle in Time -- Heroic(68920)
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
--------
The War on Superadine - The Regulators in their 1980's drug war (Heroic) (Arc 7959)
Origins - Volume 1 (57077) -- Heroic
*

Holiday
--------
Hectic Holidays -- Heroic (36999) also comedy
*

Horror
--------
Astoria in D Minor (41565) -- Heroic
Dark Dreams (3615)
The Amulet of J'gara (1709) -- Heroic
Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit (#3586) - Neutral (Unless you happen to be a mad cultist, in which case, go nuts!)
Small Fears -- Heroic
Lights, Camera, Scream! (#68627) - 3 Mission arc that get's you into the B-Horror film circuit.
*

Large-Scale Crisis
--------
A Hero's Halo -- Heroic
This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral
Win the Past, Own the Future - Heroic
A Warrior's Friend - Heroic
The Clockwork War -- Heroic (18672)
Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor (20272) -- Neutral
The Human Hive (#1632) - Neutral
*

Magic
--------
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
A Deal with Destiny -- Heroic
*

Military
--------
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Red Storm Rising (Arc 4912) -- Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)

*
Misc. Adventure
--------
The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
--------
Atlantis Attacks! -- Neutral (30898) -- Click for Promotional Poster
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld -- Villainous
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair - Heroic
Witches and Warriors (53006)- Heroic
The War of Fate(12220,46722)- Heroic
Rites of the Maenads (61159) - Heroic
*

Nemesis Plots
--------
Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
*

Player-Chosen Outcome
--------
Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods -- Heroic (51106)
*

Sci-Fi
--------
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington -- Neutral (13215)
The Final Nemesis
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
--------
The Meatgrinder -- Neutral
*

Puzzles/Riddles
--------
Grim Riddles (#1396) - Heroic

[/ QUOTE ]

This arc is basically my love letter to teen superhero team books.


Arc Name: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Faction: Vahzilok, Clockwork, Freakshow, Rogue Robots
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate; there is one (fairly easy, non-customized) AV/EB per mission, but allies are present to help.
Synopsis: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to join Paragon City's most prestigious teen superhero team?
Morality: Heroic
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, estimate 60-90 mins.
Level range: 15-20, 20, 20-25, 29-30 (mission levels gradually increase to "level" you up)

4/15/2009

On Monday night I joined a Sister Psyche TF that was forming on LBX channel. I played Star Amethyst (20 warshade) and our team mix was:

FF controller
warshade (me)
2 blasters
scrapper
sonic defender
tanker
empath defender

I initially asked for and got an SK so I could hit harder and be tougher and stuff, but my mentor wanted to be able to go stealth into missions without worrying about me, so after a couple missions my mentor dropped my SK (I think he also thought he would be helping me get more exp). We seemed to be okay, being nearly invincible due to stacked force fields, sonic shields and empathy, and had pretty decent DPS, so I shrugged and let it go. I did get squished a couple times facing purple mobs, but we mostly did fine. The team did have some disagreement at one point on whether the tanker should herd or we should just follow the tanker into fights, but nothing too serious. Finished the TF in 1hr 56mins, gained 50 merits, and Star Amethyst got to level 24. I picked up Stygian Circle (yay, a heal!) and Super Speed (stacking with warshade Cloak of Darkness for near invisibility) for my level 22 and 24 powers. A Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) recipe dropped for me also, which I was able to instantly sell at Wentworths for 800K infl.

Over Monday and Tuesday night I solo'd through the "Who's the Master?" story arc, playing Kashira (18 db/ninj stalker). This story seemed to be a combination martial arts and blaxploitation flick, which had me fighting ninjas and Harlem street gangs for the title of "Who's the Master?" I really didn't like the contact's attitude towards me and so was glad that I got a chance to beat him up in the final mission. I hit level 19 on this story arc, but also died twice against the final boss, who I think was a MA/willpower boss or EB with build up; a rough customer, but I managed to beat him on the third try, after candy-popping some purple inspirations. A little later I realized that all my level 15 DOs had gone red when I hit level 19, which probably explained why I was having a tough time. The story was thin and the missions needed some polish, but I had fun, so I gave it 3 stars.

Playing Schadenfreude (40 AR/pain corruptor) I joined the tail end of a Scourge of the Phalanx story arc with a 4 player Liberty Force team. This was fun as I got to see one of my villain characters with heavy cyberware modifications running around as an ally helping us fight Crey; I have no idea where the cyberware came from (I missed the first part of the arc) but it was an interesting visual. Didn't give this arc a rating as I hadn't seen most of it.

I spent extensive time over Monday and Tuesday developing and testing a new story arc, "Teen Phalanx Forever!" (Now published as arc #67335. Wow, 60k arcs after only one week.) I had resolved to make my third story a heroic arc since both my others are villainous, and the concept I settled on was an homage to teen superhero team books (Teen Titans/Young Justice/etc). The player is a recruit to a "Teen Phalanx" supergroup, which has NPC members that are children of the signature CoH heroes. I had one toon who already basically fit this concept that I reused, and had fun inventing a few more teen heroes, casting them in archetypical roles: the "good girl", the "bad girl", the "strong boy" and the "smart boy" - plus the player, to make a stereotypical "Five Man Band". I ended up spending way too much time agonizing over characterization, dialog and backstory for my various NPC allies; I'm really wanting players to think that each of them has a very different personality, so they seem more "real", rather than just bosses/lieutenants that follow you around.

I had the conceit that I would make each of the missions of this story arc correspond to one of the main task forces; so in mission one, Positron gives you tips on fighting Vahzilok, and mission two has Synapse telling you about Clockwork, that sort of thing, so you could feel like you did the Posi TF, Synapse TF, etc. with the NPC team. I made the level of each of the missions slowly scale up as the story arc goes on, which I hoped would give the player the feeling that he was gaining experience and leveling up along with the team.

One mission I spent a lot of time on was a "Monitor Duty" mission; this is kind of a classic superhero trope where one team member is always watching the Bat Computer (or whatever) and monitoring for incidents that require the team's attention. I kind of wanted to make the player feel like he or she was part of the Teen Phalanx team so would have to occasionally do team duties; but I didn't actually want to make it tedious and boring, so I tried to furnish the Teen Phalanx base with lots of clues that both give back story while also giving hints as to the overall plot of the story arc; plus I used some trickery with linked mission objectives to make some Freakshow bust in the door and "go after" the player holed up in the base. It was a lot of detail work to get this all working properly.

Something I really noticed while writing this story arc is that custom characters are REALLY the main resource hogs that bloat story arc size. As of this writing, I have only 4 custom characters in this story arc (the various NPC allies); but I also have four different enemy groups, each with its own unique AV, numerous glowies and hostages, and wrote extensive mission briefings and debriefings and probably a dozen clues. Yet with all that, my story arc's disk usage is only 57% ... while my Axis & Allies arc, chock full of custom characters but not nearly as much text, is bursting at the seams at around 98% usage, and only got down to that after I deleted two custom characters.

I have no idea how the general CoH populace will respond to this story (I could easily see people saying it is too fannish, too cutesy, has too many AVs, or a hundred other things), and I have no doubt I'll need to do lots of tweaks as people start offering input, but personally I rather like how it's turned out so far.

I did a lot of testing in the Mission Architect Test Mode, and as a result Police Woman got the badges:

Virtual Ticket Hound (500 tickets in test mode)
Architect L (50 architect badges)
Virtual Rescuer (rescue/kidnap 50 hostages in test mode)
Virtual Destruction (destroy 1 object in test mode)

I was kinda hoping to generate this behavior by chaining ambush 2 to trigger off of ambush 1 being wiped out, then ambush 3 to trigger off of ambush 2, etc., but an ambush being completed didn't seem to be an event that was detected.

I ended up doing a workaround where I had boss 1 appear, then chaining the spawn of boss 2 to the death of boss 1, then chaining an ally with some enemies guarding her to the death of boss 2, then chaining another ally with some enemies guarding him to the completion of ally 1, then chaining an AV to spawn after you rescue ally 2.

I set this up for a "defend your SG base" mission where enemies start showing up while you're hanging out in your base, then some of your allies start responding to the alarms set off by the first enemies, then finally an AV shows up that you have to fight with the help of your buddies.

This seemed work pretty well except for the fact that the faux ambushes don't actually rush the player, the player has to proactively go look for them.

Arc Name: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Faction: Vahzilok, Clockwork, Freakshow, Rogue Robots
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate; there is one AV/EB per mission, but they are intentionally easy AVs/EBs (NOT customized), and allies are present to help.
Synopsis: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to join Paragon City's most prestigious teen superhero team?
Morality: Heroic
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, estimate 60-90 mins.
Level range: 15-20, 20, 20-25, 29-30 (mission levels gradually increase to "level" you up)

Here's my attempt at a heroic story arc, to give you all something else to check out, if you're interested:

Arc Name: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Faction: Vahzilok, Clockwork, Freakshow, Rogue Robots
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate; there is one AV/EB per mission, but they are intentionally easy AVs/EBs (NOT customized), and allies are present to help.
Synopsis: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to join Paragon City's most prestigious teen superhero team?
Morality: Heroic
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, estimate 60-90 mins.
Level range: 15-20, 20, 20-25, 29-30 (mission levels gradually increase to "level" you up)


It's intended to be a rather character-driven story, as well as being an homage to teen superhero team books. Things I'm worried about in this story arc are: is the teen concept "too cute"? are the boss encounters too easy/too hard? am I throwing too much text at the player to read? is it actually fun for other people?

The arc hasn't had many people see it yet, so could probably stand some constructive criticism. I'll certainly count any reviews of this story towards the queue of people I owe a review to.

I'll be doing more reviews tonight, too. Thanks all!

----

I still owe a review to:

@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)
Lazarus
doodaa

Who is the Master?

This was described as a villainous martial arts contest; I decided to play it on an 18 db/ninj stalker.

Mission 1

Briefing: "your some sort of bad [censored]" your should be "you're". "SHo'nuff is the baddest around", SHo'nuff should be Sho'nuff.

Sho'nuff wants to prove that he's the master martial artist, and consequently he sends...me...to beat up the World Martial Arts Council? This plan seems to have a logic problem.

"Go get that belt and might let you join my posse" should be "Go get that belt, and I might let you join my posse"

Mission is titled "Get the Dragon Star"; I'm guessing the Dragon Star is the belt that was mentioned, but maybe this needs to be made more clear.

Lots of ninja inside. Clearly I have picked the correct ninja, I mean villain, to play this arc with. So the whole World Martial Arts Council is ninja? I suppose that actually makes sense in a comic book world. Ninja are pretty overused though, I might suggest you mix them up with some more normal looking karateka or judoka?

Kabuki Trainee's and Novice Kabuki Ninja's descriptions each need a period at the end of the sentence.

Novice Kunoichi's description, "has only fledgling understanding" should be "has only a fledgling understanding".

I like the model used for the Dragon Star Case. I seemed to trigger mad ambushes breaking into it though; looked like 5 or 6 ninja attacked, maybe 2 ambushes combined. Got beat up attempting to fight this group twice; possibly I should've run away though.

Eventually broke open the Dragon Star Case. The Dragon Star clue has "unfortunatly", should be "unfortunately". And I don't know that most people know what KI Symbols are; I eventually figured out that I need to get these from the other two named bosses, but I think some explanation (in the clue maybe) would be helpful.

Superstar's bio looks like it's meant to be a trading card or something; you should format it a bit using line breaks between each vital statistic. Maybe give a few more statistics and/or a brief bio as well. You might spice up SuperStar's dialog a little also; it's functional as is, but I think you could give him a little more character here. Same comments for The Machine, who has a similar bio and also talks in words with only 2 or 3 words at a time.

An idea to make this seem more like a martial arts competition: initially, have only 1 objective, Defeat EasyBoss. Have a new objective triggered off of EasyBoss's death, Defeat MediumBoss. Have another objective triggered off of MediumBoss's death, Defeat HardBoss. This would feel a little more like a martial arts tournament as you face a series of increasingly difficult opponents.

Consider also setting up a few "battles" between NPC martial artists, to make it look like other people are fighting in the tournament, too, and they're not all just fighting you. (Until you aggro them, of course.)

The tech lab is a little bit of an odd choice for a martial arts competition full of ninja. You might try to find the warehouse with the Tsoo shrine in it (not sure if this is in MA, admittedly), or one of the Oranbega maps. Warehouse maps might work too, if these are meant to be urban ninja types.

The popup at the end of the mission "Winner. Kashira Dragon Belt Status: Complete" (where Kashira is my toon's name) has rather odd punctuation. I might suggest you rephrase it to something like "The winner: Kashira by knockout! The Dragon Belt is yours!"

Debriefing: Sho'nuff acknowledges I won the tournament and got the belt, but then insults me, saying I wouldn't last a minute in Harlem. Seems pretty rude! Why am I working for this guy again?

Mission 2

Ohh, so now I get to fight Sho'nuff after all his insults! OK, it's on!

I like the Harlem Shogunate minions and lieutenants, their look has a lot of attitude. Surprised you didn't use more of the "Afro" and "Supa Foxxy" hairdos though; maybe bell bottomed pants, too! As long as we're going blaxploitation, let's go all the way!

I think it's pretty whack for Sho'nuff to challenge me to a fight and then hide behind all these minions, but we'll be teaching him some manners REAL soon now.

So I'm too wimpy to join Sho'nuff's posse but these mere minions can? Logic flaw, I think.

Harlem Brawler's description: "dispopable" should be "disposable"

Harlem Moll's description: "disposal" should be "disposable". Also her description is exactly like Harlem Brawler's; maybe should be slightly different?

Sho'nuff's description: "The Shogun of Harlem" ... needs to be more detailed IMHO considering how much build up you've given him as being a badass. Give him more adjectives, describe some of his feats, his back story...anything really, just to give him more back story.

Not sure why Harlem Moll is wielding a shovel; I kinda think a baseball bat or a wrench is more likely a weapon for a street ganger.

Sho'Nuff's dialog: "Bring it chump!" should be "Bring it, chump!" "Kashira ! Who is the Master!?!" should probably drop the space after the player name and replace "!?!" with "?!" since it's a question.

I suggest you also have him taunt, "Say my name!" interspersed with the "Who is the Master?" taunts. Maybe a "Fo shizzle!" or a "That's right!" after "I am the Master."

"ah..my hand!!!.. ow!! Lemme go!!!! Lemme go!" should be written a little more jive, or otherwise more similar to the rest of his speeches, for the sake of consistency. I get that he's scared when you get him down to low life, but I think he should still talk kinda the same.

Debriefing: "You are the master." I'm torn between thinking this needs more text and thinking the brevity here is just right.

Overall:
The missions functionally work fine, but I think the story has some logic problems. It doesn't make sense that Sho'Nuff would send you to this martial arts tournament in the first place if he has so little respect for you. I might suggest you change the contact to be some wise old Asian guy, a Mr Miyagi type, who is preparing you for the Ultimate Fighting Tournament (Mission 1), then after you win that he tells you that the feared Shogun of Harlem has issued you a challenge (Mission 2) to determine "Who is the Master".

I also think Mission 1 could use some spiffing up to make it look more like a proper martial arts tournament.

Mission 2 seems to have the sole objective of beating Sho'Nuff in a fight, but has a big map full of minions that are essentially irrelevant to the mission. The Harlem Shogunate minions actually seem pretty cool though, so I wouldn't suggest getting rid of them. Instead, maybe set up a structure similar to when the protagonist in a martial arts movie decides to confront the evil martial arts master in his lair: first a bunch of mooks say "Who the hell are you?" and jump you (maybe an ambush or patrol), then you face some lieutenants or intermediate level bosses; maybe you have to fight Sho'Nuff's heavyweight lieutenant and/or his matched set of ninja girl enforcers, or something like that, before Sho'Nuff decides you are "worthy" to be faced by the Master himself (ie make it so Sho'Nuff doesn't spawn as a boss objective until after you beat his main lieutenant or something).

I think the story arc kinda breaks down if the player is not soloing (since a team winning the martial arts tournament is a little silly, and a team beating up Sho'Nuff doesn't prove who the "master" is). But I see no way to get around that.

Just a few thoughts. Overall the arc was okay, I just think there are a few logic problems and you could add some more stuff to make each mission more interesting. Gave it 3 stars.


----

I still owe a review to:

@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)
Lazarus
doodaa

[ QUOTE ]
AE System
--------
Welcome to Architect Entertainment -- Neutral
Death for Dollars! -- Neutral
Bare Knuckles of Rage (9304)
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
--------
Birth of a Fossil -- Heroic
Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V (42221) - Heroic
Noah Reborn -- Heroic (2370)
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------
THE BOMBER --- Heroic --- 16607
*

Comedy
--------
The Extadine Lab -- Heroic
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567) -- Villainous
ParaCon -- Heroic
The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force -- Villainous (though I wouldn't recommend against a hero )
The Fire Bunnies - Neutral, They are only bunnies after all...
You Say It's Your Birthday! (3630) - Neutral
Trademark Infringement -- Heroic (2220)
Hail to the King Neutral (34640)
Walk On the Wild Side - Neutral - 3580
*

Comedy/Drama
--------
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 -- Neutral
How to Survive a Robot Uprising -- Heroic (12669)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare -- Neutral
It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding (9059) -- Neutral
TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I - Heroic (althoughs romantic villains could try this too )
Rum Runners of Bloody Bay (3691) - Heroic
Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! (2019)
The Toypocalypse! (49280) - Heroic
*

Crime/Gangs
--------
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
The Monstrous Regiment of Lesbian Hellions -- Heroic (27178)
Win the 2009 Freak-Lympics (2150) - Villainous
Ninja Crimewave! (2142) - Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
The Internet is for Crime (53385) - Villains
*

Drama
--------
The Conciliators: Simone -- Heroic (4010)
The Fan Club -- Heroic
*

Global Domination
--------
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
*

Heist
--------
Celebrity Kidnapping -- Villainous (1388)
Easy Money -- Villainous (31490)
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
--------
The War on Superadine - The Regulators in their 1980's drug war (Heroic) (Arc 7959)
*

Holiday
--------
*

Horror
--------
Dark Dreams (3615)
The Amulet of J'gara (1709) -- Heroic
Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit (#3586) - Neutral (Unless you happen to be a mad cultist, in which case, go nuts!)
Small Fears -- Heroic
*

Large-Scale Crisis
--------
A Hero's Halo -- Heroic
This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral
Win the Past, Own the Future - Heroic
A Warrior's Friend - Heroic
The Clockwork War -- Heroic (18672)
*

Magic
--------
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
*

Military
--------
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Red Storm Rising (Arc 4912) -- Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)

*
Misc. Adventure
--------
The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
--------
Atlantis Attacks! -- Neutral (30898) -- Click for Promotional Poster
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld -- Villainous
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair - Heroic
Witches and Warriors (53006)- Heroic
The War of Fate(12220,46722)- Heroic
Rites of the Maenads (61159) - Heroic
*

Nemesis Plots
--------
Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
*

Player-Chosen Outcome
--------
Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods -- Heroic (51106)
*

Sci-Fi
--------
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington -- Neutral (13215)
The Final Nemesis
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
--------
The Meatgrinder -- Neutral

[/ QUOTE ]

Just a brief update... I had much of my Monday night eaten up by a Sister Psyche TF, then had some ideas for a new story arc that I really wanted to implement, so I fell a bit behind on arc reviews.

I did start Servercat's "Who is the Master?" arc, though, and am about one mission in. Will post more soon.