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If the story is about the group, then no other group will do. A story where any group can substitute would have to be so damn generic that there would be no point it running it over a paper mission.
The settings of Shakespearean plays are customarily changed from Denmark or Venice or Scotland to New York City or San Francisco or Jamaica or pretty much anyplace else, and that's even when the story is being kept intact and not revised (as Romeo and Juliet was for West Side Story). Does this mean those plays are "so damn generic" as to not be worth watching?
The story is never about the group. If it is, it's almost certainly not even a story...just a bunch of stuff that happened. -
Arc #171031, "The Fracturing of Time"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory, takes liberties with the PC, plot issues, annoying maps
Reviewed on: 9/26/2009
Level Range: 25-54/25-54/25-54/41-54/41-54
Architect's Keywords: Solo Friendly, Non-Canon Story, Sci-Fi
My Keywords: Solo Friendly, Non-Canon Story, Drama
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Difficulty: +2x5+B-AV
Horrible level range. I'm going to start docking for that in the next set of reviews.
You are contacted in your dreams by a "Fractured One", which claims a peaceful world called Kyrdos is about to be destroyed by the Raigaus, an invading race. It says the Kyrdosi have built a device that will allow them to leave their universe and exist in the "Void Shadow" until they can find a new homeworld. The trouble is only someone from outside their universe can activate the device, which is where you come in. How do you know that you're not actually activating a doomsday weapon for the Raigaus, or helping an evil race escape justice, or that this device is going to do anything at all like what you've been told? You don't. But, the show must go on, so ignoring the potential negative tropes, onward.... You're sent to a tech map, where you have to rescue a scientist to learn how to operate the device, then find and click on it and take out "Worldslayer Krezyrax", a Dual Blades/Willpower (I think) Boss. Raigaus Minions had Claws, Lieutenants had Assault Rifle, all with Willpower secondaries I think. There were some Kyrdosi allies to optionally rescue but they all died on impact. You're told in the exit pop-up that you feel a sense of unease on return to your world. The Fractured One tells you the Kyrdosi did not fully enter the Void Shadow so he still needs your help.
For your next trick he sends you to the fringe of the Void Shadow (you can't enter it entirely for unspecified techobabble reasons), there to find out what happened to the Kyrdosi. You're sent to one of the horrible Arachnoid cave maps, filled with "Echoes" of the Kyrdosi, who have gone all goth and spikey-haired now. You have to confront Echoes of a Scientist, Champion and Hero, all of which blame you for turning everyone into monsters, and why not. The Hero tells you the Kyrdosi wll now destroy your world in retaliation.
The Fractured One says they can pull it off, too, as they are somehow "burrowing" from the Void Shadow into Time itself, and if they are not stopped your world will never have existed at all. In you go, then. The fringes now look like a Rikti cave/base map (you're told the Kyrdosi's efforts are changing the Void Shadow itself), with a couple of Fractures (Shadow Cysts) to destroy. Unfortunately, stopping them here doesn't do much as the bulk of their efforts are deeper in the Void Shadow.
The Fractured One tells you the only way to travel into the Void Shadow is to become unstuck in time, which he fears would turn you into a creature like the Kyrdosi. You decide to do it anyway...it says here.... The Fractured One becomes angry, telling you this means destroying the strongest aspects of yourself and could unmake you worse than the Kyrdosi. He refuses to help but you end up where you need to go anyway, which is the Agony Hall map. Your objectives are to destroy your Love, your Mind and your Hope. These were all Bosses with Ice powers (I think, it was hard to tell), protected by Fragments of Memory, Dream and such (retasked Lanaruu mobs). On exit the pop-up says you too have gone emo and feel immersed in the Void Shadow. The Fractured One confesses that he is a fragment of you, now trapped in the Void Shadow, and had hoped that you would fail so he would be free of his cursed existence. So why did he send me...oh, never mind.
The only thing left to do is to enter the Void Shadow and close the fractures. You tel l yourself the fractures are too large now and can only be sealed if you absorb them into yourself. This will supposedly delete you from Time itself, meaning we can already see the Jolly Candy-Like History Eraser Button being polished.... The Void Shadow now looks like Cimeroran caves, filled with Echoes, along with Echoes of What Was (Love), What Is (Mind), and What Will Be (Hope), captives that spawn the Fractures of Past, Present and Future when rescued. Once all three fractures are destroyed, the Void Shadow is sealed off from your universe, which should destroy you, but the Echoes are able to "preserve your essence" and send you back. The exit pop-up says you feel hollow inside, though, at least until you pull the fading Fractured One back into yourself in the debriefing. I'd actually expected it to end with a time loop as you erase yourself thus preventing the precipitating incident thus restoring yourself, but no.
I gave this one the benefit of the doubt and rounded up from 3.5 stars. There's a theme but it's too heavy-handed and obvious. The precipitating event borders on throwing the Idiot Ball, as you're basically in the "handed a gun" scenario. The arc takes a lot of liberties with the PC, particularly in telling the player what his character feels in a lot of places. The gameplay is adequate; the mob selection is too limited but there is nothing bigger than a Boss and nothing with terribly obnoxious powers (I did see some status effects go by, squishies take note). -
Unfortunately the answer is probably: infinite.
That's because it's false.
If the system can be used for reward then it can be abused for reward. This is exactly what happened, and exactly what lots of people on these forums saw coming right from the announcement. It is extremely unlikely that the devs are going to magically find a way to have AE give standard levels of rewards while simultaneously preventing it from being abused. The only way to stem the tide of abuse is to lower the reward level below the norm, possibly greatly so. And if that's what it takes then I'm OK with it. -
Frankly, a very small minority agrees with you, not nearly enough to make the feature worth the development effort put into it.
I'm sure a no-reward AE model would be at least as popular as PvP, which still has enough of an audience to be worth continued developer attention.
I'd rather the system was used only by people who care about content and not by people looking for yet another Easy Mode. If that meant restricting it to a niche I'm OK with that. -
I'm trying to think of a reason why they were available in the first place. There isn't one. The mitos and a few other mobs (the LRSF version of Ms. Liberty leaps to mind) never should have been available at all.
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Because I think the number of people who stopped using it because they were "simply doing other things" is negligible.
I don't, since that's the reason I haven't been around so much.
I could not possibly care less how much XP a player gets from an MA arc. Frankly, it should have been zero from the beginning. -
It's my feeling that a number of seriously overcritical reviewers on the forums helped contribute to the downturn in MA story output by disheartening authors.
If someone decided not to put up a story arc because of what critics in this forum say, the vast likelyhood is that it's no loss. -
Arc #4824, "Legacy Chain Task Force"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: weak theme, tedious mob, morality issues, plot issues
Reviewed on: 9/24/09
Level Range: 45-54/45-54/35-54/45-54
Architect's Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
My Keywords: same
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Difficulty: +2x5+B-AV
Abernathy, a Legacy Chain mage, has learned of a plot by a Circle mage named Berith to summon the Demon Kings. This would be Bad. He claims to have specialized knowledge of this guy so he's recruiting help directly instead of passing the info along to MAGI or the like. It turns out Berith was a member of a supergroup called the Conjurers, whom he betrayed to join the Circle. Your first task is to try to recruit the three surviving members, starting with the two he drove insane. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? The mission takes place on the (say it with me now) Mother Mayhem map, with her forces retasked as "Asylum Inmates". The first ex-hero you run into is George "Firecaller" Mathers, who turns out to be in control of his faculties but is also totally uninterested in taking on Berith again. The other, "Ice Qube" (Boss, Icy Assault/Cold Domination, I think), is totally wacky, at least until you administer some kinetic psychotherapy. Abernathy tells you in the debriefing that Ice Qube has recovered enough to want to help.
That leaves the last surviving Conjurer, their former leader Aimi. She almost took out Berith but unfortunately one of her final attacks accidentally blew up a loaded school bus, so you have to...break her out of the Zig. Yep, this is a Heroic arc.... There are three "optional" AV/EBs to fight: Maestro, Drek and the Psychic Clockwork King. These aren't very optional as they'll be spawned in-between you and the exit on the way out, as this mission is an escort. Aimi, an Electric Blast/Storm Summoning Boss, is happy to have a chance at revenge. Maybe too happy, according to her release Clue.
Next, you have to check a book out of the Circle's library for information on how the Demon Kings will be summoned. Naturally you don't have an Oranbega Library Card and they're not on the state's inter-library loan system. Abernathy decides Ice Qube is still too fragile and Aimi too eager for revenge to accompany you, and actually regrets involving them (what a surprise). The map is filled with bookshelf glowies, most of them decoys. One of the early ones actually gave up the necessary Clue, but defeating the Librarian was still necessary. Fortunately this mission uses one of the smaller Oranbega maps. The Librarian taunts you by telling you the summoning ritual has already begun.
Time for the Fight Scene: you have to take on Berith, aided by Ice Qube and Aimi. Abernathy finally admits he was one of the Conjurers but won't be going along for unspecified reasons. The summoning takes place on one of the Vaults of Mu maps. All three Conjurers are present as optional allies; I rescued them all but they all died instantly on the spawn following their rescue thanks to my high difficulty setting. Just in case this wasn't tedious enough, Berith uses the Akarist model, which has insane resists and regen -- it took me about ten minutes to wear him down. Abernathy confesses afterward that Berith was his brother, and he'd had a chance to strike Berith down in the last battle with the Conjurers but couldn't bring himself to do it.
This is a decent arc but it could use some work. It does have a theme but doesn't really do much with it. The level range should be made uniform. The Zig breakout and use of the Akarist model are problematic, but what really bugged me is that this arc really has nothing to do with the Legacy Chain. They're not really involved in it and we don't learn anything new about them, which makes calling this a Legacy Chain TF kind of problematic. There's nothing terrible about this arc but it's got lots of room for improvement. -
I played "Once and Future King", it's about a 3-star arc. There's no theme and it's got a few technical and canon issues. The reveal at the end comes out of nowhere and really, should have stayed there; I can't imagine why anyone would want to build off of the novels.
It does seem as though the devs have given up on Dev's Choice. I wouldn't care to speculate as to why. -
Are there any particular I16 changes you think are mandatory for a better story?
No, not really. Some people might want to tweak their custom mobs if they're concerned about XP. There are the new "betrayal" options that might be of interest to some, and there could be any number of undocumented changes that mess up published arcs though I haven't heard of any. I just wanted to give people time to make any adjustments they thought were needed for the new issue. -
Actually opinions, while not true, can be cogent. Whether or not an arc deserves DC status is not an opinion, though, it is an aesthetic judgment. Those are not true, false, or cogent; they simply are.
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Apologies for the absence, I was derailed partly by RL and partly by that Other Game, then decided to put things on hold a bit longer to let i16 come out.
Here's the current queue: 4824, 171031, 242442, 227331, 41646, 77311, 81043, 67087. I am still not accepting requests. When the queue empties I am either only going to review arcs I choose to review, or switch to a QPQ format. I haven't decided.
I intend to start reviewing again on 9/23. That gives everyone about a week to make sure their work is up to date with the new issue. If you're not going to make it by that date, or feel that i16's changes make your arc unworkable, etc. and want to be removed from the queue you've got until then to say so.... -
People can go after my opinions until the cows come home, but there is a line between attacking an opinion and attacking a person. Writing things like "you have mental issues" in someone's rep track pole-vaults over it.
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Wow, I wonder why he turned off his forum reputation thingy...
I got tired of immature hate speech in the reputation track. -
Now that they fixed Transference in a previous patch, this is putting Kinetics right into "Forbidden Set" territory as players are generally not going to enjoy critters who can spam a -55% end power on them.
Transference has a thirty-second recharge time, which doesn't exactly lend itself to "spamming"...that's why I used it on my replacements for Malta Sappers. If you let them live long enough to shoot you twice, you deserve it.
Edit: I just gave the first mission of "Blowback" a try on Test (didn't have time for a full run) and while Neutralizers are definitely more troublesome with the Transference fix, they are still waaaaaay less irritating than Sappers. -
Must a painter find and grind their own pigments, weave their own canvas, or create the universe before they are "allowed" to create what they imagine?
No, but if they're working for someone, or in an art class, or submitting work for a contest, or in any other situation wherein they are called upon to work within specified parameters, they work to those parameters or they fail.
Consider that (if I recall correctly), every single existing arc in the game follows the "just a bunch of stuff that happened" template
You don't.
It seems to me that by your same logic, mission architects should not seek to deviate from that established model by attempting to add meaning, persistent consequences, and other concepts not supported by the system.
The poor quality of the bulk of the canon stories are not the product of the requirements, i.e., it is not the case that it is simply not possible to write a good story under these conditions. Plenty of people already have.
And since Venture is the one who signed an agreement with every existing arc creator allowing them use of the Architect as long as they make an arc that fits his standards, it's entirely his call what the framework is and how much deviation from it is acceptable.
Everyone has standards. Mine are just better than yours.
Apparently, in the alternate reality Venture lives in, editors are only for traditional paper newspapers
I distinctly recall saying....
Quote:...which they do. If you are, e.g., writing a short story to submit to a magazine that magazine will have standards for submissions that you have to meet. If you're writing a novel your publisher is going to assign you to an editor who is going to say things like "the focus groups thought it was too long at 600 pages, cut it to 450". Hell, if one of my professors tells the class to write 3-5 pages on topic X I'd better not come back with 2 or 7 if I care about my grade.Writers in every field have to deal with similar requirements.
And while I'm shooting from the hip here, I expect that if you are putting your work into MA in the hopes of getting "noticed" you'd better write arcs that fit into the space provided and look and feel somewhat like canon content. PS isn't looking to put someone on the payroll to write a 47-act magnum opus about their supergroup's Mary Sues. New hires are going to be told something like "we need 10 Skull and Hellion arcs for this new lowbie zone we're opening, get to work". You're going to be working on the company's material for a while before they start entertaining your ideas about new directions.
and there's never any reference to other articles, papers or books in any article.
In a technical article, sure, but that's an entirely different breed of catgirl. A short story that breaks in the middle and says you need to go read another short story before continuing is a failure.
This would be valid IF the MA was a finished product. As it is now it is a story telling medium in development. Our creativity will help the system grow.
There is no indication that any of the underlying parameters are likely to change any time soon. In particular I very much doubt the devs would even consider adding cut scenes. -
Someone working in MA is not an "independent artist", they are working within a provided framework. If they want to be independent they can design their own game.
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There are characters and players who require what you would call "killer GMing" in order to be challenged at all.
I don't agree that anything in MA is challenging at all, Killer GMing or no. Writing something that was an actual challenge, as opposed to just making the numbers bigger, would require tools we don't have and likely never will. The only thing you accomplish by trying to kill the players is to vastly limit the number of people who will actually experience your story. It's a stupid self-limiting thing to do. -
and some people have psychological issues with any unusual storytelling methods.
Does that include every editor on the face of the earth? Do they all have "psychological issues"?
If a newspaper editor tells a reporter to write four column inches he writes four column inches. Not three and a half, not five, four. He'll have written it so that it can be cut down or extended if necessary, but what he turns in will be what the editor asked for. Writers in every field have to deal with similar requirements. The ability to meet specifications is part of the reason why the professionals get paid and we don't. People who can't aren't "creative", they're would-be prima donnas.
Expecting the material to fit in the space provided is not indicative of "psychological issues". It isn't an outrageous or unreasonable request. It isn't even an unusual one. -
I've done this arc as a L50 scrapper, a L50 blaster and a L50 WS, and it can be done.
I've cleared "Psychophage" too, but it's still a great example of killer GMing. -
You want to play an arc that makes you think about what you want to do before you do it and has a learning curve, try this one.
No one's arc does this. Not even the one I wrote that was intended to kill people. Turning the mobs up to 11 is just killer GMing, not creating some kind of tactical challenge. -
Absolutely not; your work is expected to fit in the space provided.
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But this is locked at 45-54, right? Do any Arachnos in that level range even USE guns anymore? I remember lots of mace beams and energy bursts... I guess maybe the crabs still have a normal gun in their spider backpacks?
Yep, they do. -
Thanks for the review!
Huh. Is Livingston supposed to come free the second you step in the door?
He's an unguarded hostage so he's supposed to come free on approach. Unfortunately the system is considering "approach" to mean "the same map".
And the "defeat Knives" objective completes when Themis goes down, even though I'm still getting darted and shurikened by her lady friends.
If I set Themis to entire-encounter, or the mission to defeat-all, then you have to wait for the Caltrops to time out before the mission will complete. All 894,723,927 Caltrop patches.....
I would actually rather this be on a very slightly larger map, but then again that would have the risk of putting a crate behind something earlier on and Themis would pop up in view of the player anyway.
The next size up from "Tiny" resembles a shopping mall. And I had to settle for the cobweb-ridden Abandoned Warehouse set, too. I really didn't want to put what was almost a non-combat mission on a large map.
Thanks for the warehouse base, by the way.
h8 Arachnos base maps, won't use them.
Bane spiders are linked together via a giant groupmind web thingy.
A "freethinking" bane spider is up for more than reprimands, he's going to be hunted down and killed just on principle. They did it with Gally's boyfriend in that one Phipps arc/Gunnm tribute.
And there are now skeighty-billion player-character Bane Spiders running around with no group-mind baggage. As far as I'm concerned the devs have rendered "Bane of the Heart" Canon Discontinuity with the introduction of the VEATs.
Maybe he should be a crab? Can you get crabs in this level range? ...yeah, you can. Just checked. Fits his personal mission more too, since the Banes are Recluse's guards and the Crabs are described as equivalent to SWAT units.
Don't like the Crabs, and we see Bane Executioners in roles other than guarding Recluse all the time.
I need to wipe out the last of Livingston's Longbow before he counts as defeated. Doesn't seem right.
I thought I had set him to boss-only. I'll check it.
Those frustrations aside, the custom Malta were pretty nice thematic redesigns with about 95% less frustration.
They're the ones I designed for "Blowback", the "Enigma Silver" advanced R&D cell. I repurposed the mobs as the "Malta RDF" (Rapid Deployment Force) and will probably use them in place of Malta for all my arcs.
A couple of backtracks over emptiness. The first one was your deliberate creation in the cargo ship, the second was a tiny oversight on my part in the final mission that still drained most of the little victory celebration I had going.
I tried to spawn as much as I could for the second run-through on the cargo ship. I realized when I did it that some people weren't going to like it, but I wanted to try to make things more dynamic. Most of the feedback on Act II has been very positive.
Not much I can do about missing the glowie. It doesn't make sense to me that WMD would know about it...if she'd found Kobushi before getting caputred she'd have mediported him out already.
I probably wouldn't be so bothered about this if everything else didn't fit together as well as it did, but one of the pieces of evidence that WMD gives for Livingston's betrayal is a little friendly-fire incident during the first mission, and I never saw or heard anything about that.
If you look closely in Act I, the patroling Longbow are hostile to the static spawns and the battle spawns. I did not lampshade this on purpose. If you see it, it's explained in WMD's briefings. If not, you shouldn't be able to tell right there at the scene that any particular bullet-ridden Longbow body was the result of friendly fire. That's the kind of thing that would come out in ballistics reports. -
The one power that irritates me is Caltrops, especially now that you can't just fly over the damn things.