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Quote:The latter has nothing at all to do with the former, being as how the latter did not even exist when the former was created.
The devs have explicitly stated that the Nictus Romulus Agustus, and the Warshade Romulus are NOT the same person.
Furthermore, the devs have said at various times that there is and is not a relationship between the two. I have no idea if this one is on flip or flop at the moment, and I doubt they do either.
Quote:EDIT: Also, "The Path Into Darkness" is a Villain arc, therefore, it could NOT have been in the game when it went live. -
Romulus Augustus is first mentioned in the arc "A Path into Darkness", which was present when the game went live. It it specifically mentioned that he is the Romulus Augustus.
The story kind of went downhill from there....
So this isn't exactly "news". -
I don't like art-house cinema or foreign films...actually I got a big kick out of that beer commercial many years ago (Bud Dry I think) that showed two guys trying to make sense out of an incomprehensible scene of an Italian actress lamenting her failed romance on a wind-blown crag with a clown.
I think a fair and accurate vetting of my reviews and ratings will bear that out. I will also note that a significant number of the nominees in both the official and player-run MA awards received four or five-star reviews from me. The charge that my views are unrealistic or out of touch does bear close examination.
The rest will have to wait. -
Edited the review of "Sibling Rivalry" to include screenshots -- Comcast's FTP server was out yesterday.
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Quote:I do not consider this to be "replayability" in any meaningful sense of the word.
I like this kind of arc cause it has replayability built right into it rather than forcing me to adjust my difficulty slider every time I want more of a challenge.
Eva has already adequately refuted the idea of "developer infallibility". -
Arc #118690, "Sibling Rivalry"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: stilted dialog, weak theme
Reviewed on: 11/7/2009
Level Range: 1-20/1-20/5-20/1-20/1-20
Factions: Outcasts, Clockworks, Custom
Architect's Keywords: Custom Characters, Origin Story
My Keywords:
Character used: Ursus Minor/Freedom
Difficulty: +0x2+B-AV
War Witch (bio not copied) wants you to look into a Clockwork bank robbery. She wants you to find out why they're robbing a bank, which is unusual for them. The mission is a simple defeat-all on a bank map full of Clockwork. When the last one falls the end Clue narrates you hearing a voice in your mind angrily complaining that "Sister Flame" was supposed to come and stop him. War Witch tells you that she knows Sister Flame and she'll have to be warned of the threat.
War Witch manages to contact Sister Flame at the start of Act II via a scrying glass. Flame is judging a dance contest but before the two could talk much contact was lost thanks to a Troll attack. You have to race over and save Sister Flame from the...Disco Trolls.
It seems their leader Fudor found some disco movies in a dump, fell in love with the style and decided to bring disco back by force. My favorite was the Raging Fro troll whose power was "incredible hair, and he won't let you forget it". They were trying to get Sister Flame (non-combatant hostage, she leaves to make sure everyone else gets out OK when rescued) to declare Fudor the winner of the contest. In the debriefing, War Witch tells you that Sister Flame knows who made the telepathic threat at the bank: it was her brother.
Sister Flame's brother is a villain named Gearmaster. Flame won't tell why Gearmaster wants revenge against her but does want him stopped before he endangers anyone. Unfortunately War Witch's powers can't locate him. She has located one of his known associates though, a villainess named Sidestep. You and Flame are sent to capture her at an Outcasts hideout. She is a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Boss (her bio says her actual superpower is the ability to see three seconds into the future, a nice touch) and didn't last too long with both Ursus and Sister Flame pounding on her. Following percussive interrogation she gives up the addresses of three of Gearmaster's hideouts.
Act IV opens with Sister Flame going to check out the addresses Sidestep provided. You'd be doing that with her but...Fudor has escaped and demands a rematch. He's threatening to blow up part of Faultline if you don't show, so off you go. This is another simple map, Troll caves, with three bombs to disarm and a rematch with Fudor to win. Of course, when you get back Sister Flame has not returned from checking the last of the three addresses...
...so it's Time for the Fight Scene. You're off to the rescue with a bring-friends warning. The showdown takes place on an abandoned office map full of Clockwork. Sister Flame spawns as an ally rescue about midway through (typo: "calvary"); I passed by her and took on Gearmaster alone. He was a Fiery Blast/Psychic Blast Elite Boss with a substantial guard party. He dropped me quickly in the first round; I came back with more aggressive inspiration use to win in the second. His defeat clue narrates a fate I won't spoil, another nice touch. I doubled back to free Sister Flame and end the mission. War Witch thanks you for saving Sister Flame and wonders if we've seen the last of Gearmaster.
Normally this would get three stars from me. It gets an extra star for the humor in the Disco Trolls and out of acknowledgment that it's an incredible achievement given the architect's age. The arc has a theme, even if it doesn't do much with it, and shows a strong grasp of the fundamentals. The dialog could use some work but that will improve with time. Recommended. -
Quote:ORLY?The funniest thing about this comment to me is I genuinely wonder whether Venture realizes he has insulted the intelligence of pretty much everyone involved in these awards. This is, yet again, another demonstration of why I don't take his reviews seriously and wonder why anyone would trust his judgment as a reviewer on any level. The wisdom of Solomon, indeed!
Which do you want to be, the pot or the kettle? -
Votes for Best TO Range:
1st: Mercytown, the one with the fish #6017 @Tangler
2nd: Nuclear in 90: The Fusionette Task Force #58363 @Cavatina
"Mercytown" was light-years ahead of the competition. "Nuclear in 90" got the second-place nod over "15+ Minute Tutorial" because the latter is not a story arc. "Day Job Hell" had issues and "The Marconeville Horror" shouldn't have been nominated in the first place. -
Arc #178278, "The Marconeville Horror"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: throws the Idiot Ball, poor portrayal of canon faction, problematic mobs, plot issues, undeclared AVs and EBs, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
Reviewed on: 11/6/2009
Level Range: 10-20/10-20/10-20/10-20/15-20
Factions: Family, Mooks, Legacy Chain, Custom
Architect's Keywords: Canon Related, Horror
My Keywords: Challenging
Character used: Master Kasai/Justice
Difficulty: +0x2+B-AV
Billy Heck (bio not copied over) needs some muscle to deal with a theft of Family goods. The goombas who were supposed to be watching the stuff say it was some "Whitfinger" guy, but Heck (demonstrating the insight one would expect of a rhesus monkey detective squad) decides it must have been the Mooks. You're sent to the instanced Mercy map from Creed's arc (again...this time one of the Bosses mentions the fact there's an "inside" at least) to deal with two Bosses and two "spooked Mook" captives inside the warehouse. The Bosses claim that they were robbed too, and the Spooked Mooks insist it was Whitfinger...who, you are finally told in the mission end clue, is dead.
Heck admits in the next briefing that he should have told you about Whitfinger, who was a violent mobster killed a while ago for torquing off Don Marcone. He's become something of a boogeyman figure in mob culture since, something mob moms threaten their little hoods with. Some say that he isn't really dead or his ghost is running around but Heck doesn't believe that. Given the world he lives in that makes him a pretty dim bulb. His next great idea is to have you pretend to be Whitfinger so Emil Marcone can personally expose you as a fraud, thus (he thinks) convincing everyone that there's nothing to the story. You catch the Idiot Ball and run with it to a warehouse map. Stealing some gold from a safe triggers the spawn of Emil, who is a an Assault Rifle/Force Field custom Boss for some reason. Defeating him triggers an objective to "Escape, defeating anyone in your path" which is code for "Defeat Whitfinger and his undead mobster goons". "Whitfinger's Wrath" spawns as a Dark Blast/Dark Miasma Boss (invisible thanks to Shadow Fall). Heck thinks everything went according to plan until he talks to you.
All of a sudden Heck remembers he can see a fortress full of pirate ghosts from his house and realizes there must be something to this Whitfinger thing after all. The problem is that now that Emil Marcone is telling everyone Whitfinger is a fraud who's been dealt with Heck can't let him in on the truth. So he wants you to deal with Whitfinger. He's sending you to meet Mr. Bocor with a written question, because Bocor has agreed to answer one and only one question. You head to one of Bocor's hideouts (Banished Pantheon cave map) only to find him being harassed by Legacy Chain troops (with very bad dialog). I'm going to assume Bocor decided to amuse himself by watching you fight them instead of vaporizing them himself.... Once freed, you have to escort him to the door, which triggers a very annoying ambush full of Mook Hitmen. When you reach the door the mission end Clue reveals the question: "how do we kill Whitfinger". Bocor tells you he can't just tell you the answer, you have to see it for yourself. He offers you a blue pill^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspirit trance that will reveal the answer.
The trance takes you to a tech lab map to witness Whitfinger's death. The first death I witnessed was mine as I ran into (literally, thanks to the enclosed map) a young version of one of the Mook Bosses from act I as a hostage, guarded by a bunch of custom "Marcone Hatchet Men" LTs that cut me down instantly. These are Battle Axe/Pain Domination making them very nasty and completely over the top for an arc in this range. You have to defeat Whitfinger, optionally free Don Marcone and find what Whitfinger stole, the "Bitter Ossuary", a solid gold pitcher (hmmm) he pinched from the Legacy Chain. The mission end clue says that Don Marcone led the Chain's troops to Whitfinger because he'd stolen the Ossuary without permission. It also says Marcone was afraid of a confrontation with the Chain, which would make him the only character in the game that could be said of.... The pitcher actually comes out of the trance with you.
This gives Billy an idea: return the pitcher to the place of Whitfinger's death to lure him out so you can take him out. It doesn't seem like just beating up a ghost is going to lay it to rest, but whatever.... As it turns out, it doesn't matter because Whitfinger isn't a ghost. He's an Eidolon created by Dr. Vahzilok, who is present in the mission. I can see the architect wanted to pull a misdirect here but it just doesn't work. Too much of the plot depends on Whitfinger being a supernatural entity. I'm not sure if I had to defeat Vahzilok to spawn Whitfinger because it took me about an hour of trying to defeat Whitfinger and I just don't remember. Whitfinger was a Dark Blast/Fiery Aura Elite Boss, with both Blazing Aura and Healing Flames, and had Dark Blast/Dark Miasma guards with Shadow Fall. He was able to hit for about 60% of my HP, my pets died from standing in attack range and I couldn't stand still to heal them. I finally got him by stacking Lucks with a Cryonite Armor temp and feeding my Jounin a few reds, and even then it was close. In the end Billy thanks you for your work, etc. yadda yadda yadda.
The arc has no theme and a large number of issues. Skip it. -
Quote:I don't consider "multi-arc" a valid format. One arc is supposed to be a complete story. Whether the developers drew the line at three or five or fifty acts, that's how much space you get. If you can't fit what you want into the provided space you have to start deciding what stays and what goes. To the extent that the architect failed to color within the lines, the arc fails. So as far as I'm concerned there are no "multi-arcs", only cases of multiple incomplete arcs that may reference each other.
Or are you saying that none of the multi-arcs are worthy of the award?
Quote:Re. the second comment--what, exactly, is it you don't like that you're seeing?
Quote:I'd have thought that, if you were going to make one of your trademarked Venture pot-stirring comments, you'd support it with some of your trademarked pot-stirring commentary. -
Quote:Outside of the forums, I have spoken with precisely zero players who think Nemesis is anything but a trite, unimaginative and poorly-written plot device. (And I'm on some very active globals.)
I'd be curious where you're coming up with that conclusion. Most of the people I know are actually amused by Nemesis and how he seems to have his fingers in absolutely everything. -
Quote:Not lampshading the sub-map in act III and not discussing the pitcher at all.
What technical issues exactly? I'm curious (see below)
I didn't mind the Tuatha craving peanut butter. There's nothing in the canon that says they don't and besides, it might have just been a foible of that particular bunch of Tuatha.
Quote:Except in the case of the cake; reviewers who've faulted me for not explaining the pitcher haven't said anything about how I didn't explain the cake until the end.
Quote:When I update I'll be working towards trying to keep more of the final mission "mysterious", becuase when it comes to seeing a villain (or anyone) enact their master plan, I think mystery makes it more entertaining to watch.
Quote:You missed some text where it explains that you're calling them with a hot tip right before actually smashing it.
Quote:I'll admit to not knowing tons about how they would speak and I'm open to revising their speech, although once again I'll plead "it was done for lulz"; feel free to make suggestions or point me somewhere that would help. -
Quote:I'd have to. But the bar would be pretty high for a ten-act arc. There's a reason the number of acts in official content has been declining to about five for a while now.
Ah, I see. Out of interest, if the Devs upped the number of missions allowable for one slot, let's say to 10 for example, and then people were able to combine their previously multi-slot arcs into one slot, would you consider such an arc as complete?
Quote:And I think there are some categories with very good arcs in it that are worth of playing. -
I was planning to skip the multi-part section anyway (as far as I'm concerned, there are none), and will probably skip everything after TOs (except Serious which I've already voted on). I don't like what I'm seeing in the public votes and I'm beginning to think there's not much point to it.
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In the highly likely case that I don't get to all of them before the voting ends, I probably won't review the remaining arcs.
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Arc #322480, "Day Job Hell: A Villain's First Day Job"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: poor portrayal of canon faction, technical issues
Reviewed on: 11/3/2009
Level Range: 1-10
Factions: Clockwork, Tuatha de Dannon, Custom
Architect's Keywords: Easy, Solo Friendly, Canon Related
My Keywords: Easy, Solo Friendly, Comedy
Character used: Caldera/Justice
Difficulty: +0x1+B-AV
This arc presents an "alternate origin path" for villains who don't want to do Kalinda's or Burke's tracks again. It opens with your villain being too cool to listen to the instructions given by "Fats Squalor", a Mercy sewer worker running an "underground badge network". If you check your Clues you "remember" the instructions, which are to (it says here) collect Snake guano from a cave and spread some Snake-B-Gone to keep them from coming back. Oh, and there should be a box for Fats in the cave that you're to retrieve without examining or asking questions. Your friend Jim is already there to help out if you find him (spawned up front as an Assault Rifle/Devices LT). The caves are filled with...guano monsters. Yep. They're the result of magical energy seeping from the Snakes' various artifacts, one of which (a pitcher) you make off with. There are 23 piles of guano but you don't actually need to click any of them (something you're told after you've clicked one), and a few cans of Snake-B-Gone to click on. Fat's box turns out to be full of cash, evidently from a Clockwork heist in Atlas. In the exit clue Fats gives you the "Guano Expert" badge (a fake) and twenty bucks, which you find outrageous.
Later that week on your day off Fats calls you in to cover for Jim. Seems he's got an outbreak of Tuatha to deal with (with a deliberately-lame gag). You're to catch up to "Ron-ster" and clear them out. When you get to the sewers, there are 15 "important clues" but the first one you click says you can ignore them. They're boxes of pipes, which Fats should be using for sewer work but it appears the Tuatha are boxing them up for the Clockwork...on Fats' orders. He lured them to the sewers with promises of peanut butter (which they love, it says here) and enslaved them. When freed from his Clockwork captors, the lead Tuatha says he'll tell you about the pitcher you found, but I couldn't find any Clues or such on the subject.
Next, Fats fires you because of your bad attitude. This turns out to be just what it takes to complete your journey to the dark side. You begin scheming and planning your revenge, starting with trashing Fats' home, which is on the instanced Mercy map from Creed's arc. There is no hint given that you can enter the building so people who haven't seen this map before may be flummoxed a bit. Inside the building there's a safe with records proving Fats is billing the Mercy DPW for the pipe he's giving the Clockwork and a bomb to plant. Each of these triggers a Clockwork ambush, though you can just click out from the second.
For the big finale, you crash the Sewer Worker's Anniversary party with Jim and Ron-ster's help. The party takes place on the Vahzilok's Lab map with Contaminated as the sewer workers. You have to hook up with your allies (whom you are setting up to take the fall for this), warn off "Rabittual Criminal" (someone who worked with Fats whom you actually liked; seems like a gratuitous insert), and plant a cake laced with laxatives. That triggers Fats, whom you beat up (no idea what his powers were, he was held the whole time), and that opens a new objective to smash the pitcher. There's still nothing that tells you what it actually does, but smashing it ends the mission and triggers a big Longbow ambush.
This would have been a 2-star arc if not for the comedy, which was reasonably funny if overly poo-related. You're never actually told what the pitcher does, so why Longbow show up when you break it in the last act isn't at all clear. Not highlighting the sub-map in act III is going to confuse at least some people. Finally, the portrayal of the Clockwork is just way off; they're too loquacious and out of character. The arc does take liberties with the player's mental states but that's probably necessary for what it's trying to do; people who have a problem with that probably aren't looking for an origin arc anyway. This one would benefit from some revisions. -
Quote:I don't see that as being true at all. Adding more types of objectives does not require increasing file size unless people plan on using them all at once and it's not clear that's a good thing. Think of how many arcs you've run that have had you exasperated at the number of things you're expected to do and/or the number of chained objectives.
Text and formatting. If we hopefully get more types of objectives and more direct control over our arcs then arc size needs to increase by default.
I don't see formatting as being a factor. I don't need extra space for bold or italic codes.
Quote:I can't recall off the top of my head a single arc I've played that hasn't included a single custom mob. That includes yours.
Quote:The quality of MA arcs will not improve if the FX budget remains the same either.
Quote:The quality of gameplay in some arcs will improve with a bigger filesize
Quote:The wants of the many outweigh the wants of you.
Quote:Hopefully this means MA power customization too.
Quote:Oh and I'd like the ability to select custom powersets with NPC models. Would be awesome.
Quote:I'm sitting on 99.98% on my arc with no formatting.
Quote:And yes, my arc would be better if I had more file space simply because I could make it easier for the player to read it. -
You would be hard-pressed to use all the available space now without using custom mobs. In fact I'm not even sure it's possible.
Because of that, anyone complaining about runnning out of space has to be complaining they can't use as many custom mobs as they'd like, and that almost certainly means the arc in question is "just a bunch of stuff that happens". The quality of MA arcs will not improve because the FX budget is doubled, and frankly I expect it to degrade. -
If they're not increasing the number of missions then there is really nothing you can use that much file space on except custom mobs, and we really, really do not need arcs with twice as many custom mobs as we get now.
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Egads, that's horrible. If they increase the number of missions it's going to mean more interminable boring arcs. Whether they do or not it's going to mean arcs stuffed with even more custom mobs, the vast majority of which will be ugly and no fun to fight.
The file size limit ain't broke. They shouldn't be screwing with it. We don't need ten-mission arcs and we don't need arcs with thirty custom mobs in them. -
Quote:I wouldn't change my difficulty settings to play my mother's arc.
I noticed you've submitted your vote, so I'm not challenging that, but if you'd care to give my arc set another go, read the notes I put in the arc description for recommended play level settings. -
Arc #58363, "Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", canon issues, not funny
Reviewed on: 10/31/2009
Level Range: 1-14
Factions: Hellions
Architect's Keywords: Easy, Comedy, Kid Friendly
My Keywords: Challenging, Magic
Character used: Iphigenia/Justice
Difficulty: +0x1+B-AV
Fusionette, who sounds ditzier than usual (and lacks a bio), tells you that several of the "Nuclear 90" have gone missing. They vanished investigating warehouses in Atlas Park. She wants you to investigate the next one because she's late for Vanguard patrol duty. I heard Marty Feldman saying "careful, it might be dangerous...you go first!" Anyway, off you go, branded with the sickening moniker "Task Force Superawesome". The place turns out to be full of Hellions, inexplicably led by "Molecular Mandy", one of the Nuclear 90. Fusionette is confused...OK, more confused than usual....
...and the fun keeps coming, as "Neutrino Nick", another Nuclear 90 kid, is now leading a Hellions attack on a MAGI vault. Fusionette wants you to stop them, bringing along a jamming device supplied by Lady Grey that will divert a Medicom teleport to a Vanguard cell. You have to take down Nick (Fiery Melee/DiedTooFast Boss) and retrieve three crates of artifacts. Nick doesn't seem to know where he is or what he was doing when he hits the carpet. It turns out he had an amulet on that broke during the fight. Fusionette tells you Vanguard is looking into it, and admonishes you for forgetting to bring her the burger she asked for.
The amulet turns out to be a "Mark of Command", a mind-control item, and it means Mandy and the other missing 90s are probably still under control of whoever is behind this. Worse, Fusionette's boyfriend was with her when she learned all this and now he's missing. She figures he's run off to save the day and will probably need help too. You're given a divining rod that will hopefully lead you to the amulets. It leads you to a warehouse, where you find Hellions along with "Electron Elly" (Electric Blast/Pain Domination Boss), Jim Temblor (Fusionette's boyfriend a.k.a. Faultline, who just runs away when rescued), and "Radioactive Reimi", an Energy Blast/DiedTooFast Boss. One of her guards gives up the name "Immolation Ken" after his beatdown, saying Ken used to work for MAGI but was fired by Azuria. He then turned to the Hellions and gave them the amulets.
Time for the Fight Scene: Fusionette says Lady Grey had her guys "extract" some information from the captured Hellions so you now know where Ken is. Time to go in and take him out (bring-friends warning). You have to take down Mandy and Ken, a Fiery Assault/Kinetics Elite Boss, the end. Fusionette thanks you and invites you to join her and Jim for burgers.
The arc has some fairly standard gameplay with a non-very-compelling plot, no theme and some issues with the portrayal of Fusionette. While it is confessedly hard to tell from the game, Fusionette and Faultline are in their early 20s or so. They're older than Penelope Yin and she's just starting college. The teeny-bopper/Valley-Girl thing just doesn't work. There are some attempts at comedy in the dialog but they fell flat, at least for me. There's nothing terribly wrong with this arc but there's nothing to recommend about it either. -
ARBFAB -- replaces all of the targeted player's costumes with the default Phantom Army graphic. Now I don't have to look at you.
WULFERINE -- generics targeted player's name -
Quote:Good luck with that....
And we're doing it in such a way that it shouldn't clash with any existing or future storyline (aside from the visuals that is, but they can be changed easily). -
If you think that's a flame, you haven't even seen the pilot light.