Venture

In light of recent discussions on level ranges, I played around with a second version of this arc. By removing the Minion and LT VINOs in Act III I was able to create Minion and LT mutants for Act I, which let me set the entire arc to a 40+ level range. This does make Act I somewhat bland.

Personally I think the disjointed level range is justifiable in this case. The arc is a comedy, and it is a collection of vignettes as opposed to a single story. I think these warrant a little slack and the extra variety in act I is worth the concession. Still, if anyone who's played the live version would like to comment one way or the other I'd like to hear it.

Whether the choice of enemies is appropriate to the story is something that I think may only be known a posteriori; I believe it is foolish to dismiss the use of a given enemy group at a given level without knowing the role that that group plays in the narrative.

If you can't be bothered to explain yourself then I can't be bothered to play your mission to see what you did. It is virtually certain that it is either the case that what you want to do can be done without munging level ranges or your story is "just a bunch of stuff that happened".

I urge players who feel that way to attempt to abandon any prejudice when playing an arc for its story, and if they feel that the level inconsistency warrants a reduced rating at the end, to be fair-minded in applying that reduction.

That's not an answer. Life is short, we don't have time to play every arc. I've already got almost thirty requests pending for reviews. If you want me to take the time to play your mission you have to give me a reason to want to play it. So far you're giving people reasons not to want to play it.

Because this thread is dedicated to requests for Lazarus's reviews and the reviews themselves, I do not believe that this is the proper place to discuss this further. As such, I will refrain from doing so and I hope that others do the same.

You don't appear to have any threads started for discussing your arcs.

If there is a feature of the architect system that permits a designer to force Vahzilok (for example) to spawn at level 50, please point me to the appropriate resource for implementing this feature and I will gladly change my arc.

If your story requires level 50 characters to fight Vahzilok, your story is broken.

So I CAN use custom faction lieutenants in boss spawns?

You can use LTs or Minions from custom factions as Boss details if they are custom mobs. Not if they are standard mobs.

No, I don't know the reason for the distinction, but there it is.

The interesting thing about this is that, if it changes the difficulty at all, it makes the mission sequence harder, not easier. So I guess the point is to make everything the same to make the decision easier for the player?

It doesn't make the arc harder because the arc is as hard as its hardest part. What it does is make that clear. So yes, it's making the decision easier for the player by disclosing its true difficulty.

And everybody playing the Venture Drinking Game take a shot for 'Doing X is bad, except when I do it, when it's legitimate.'

Feel free to run the arc in question (#253990) and explain why what I did was inappropriate. I don't mind complaints, as long as you show your work.

Just review it in your own thread or the arc's thread, not here, please.

If any of these seem appropriate for your characters, feel free:

<ul type="square">[*]"Blowback" #4643, 41-50 -- Malta/Rikti, the stakes aren't quite the world but there are two big attacks in Steel Canyon to deal with[*]"Chains of Blood" #4829, 45-50 -- Circle of Thorns, does have a global threat at the end[*]"Two Households Alike" #126582, 21-29 -- a Romeo and Juliet pastiche using two custom Family sub-factions. Thematically appropriate for True Gentleman but at 15 he'd have his hands full with the AV at the end.[*]"Why We Fight" #253990, disjointed level range -- an Arachnos propaganda piece intended as an AE production "in-game". This is a satire intended mainly for the player than for the character and contains nothing bigger than a Boss (no matter what the nav bar says).[*]"Splintered Shields" #253991, 45-50 -- a cop story involving Arachnos and Longbow; again, the stakes aren't the world but Ultimo Girl might like it[/list]

The floor should be set realistically. Looking at the last review, if a level 35 character hits the following mission with a 41 floor he's going to be missing two powers and 12 slots, which is significant. He'll also be missing the tier-9 from his secondary.

It also suggests the Architect is using factions from differing level brackets, which in turn suggest a disjointed story. There are legitimate reason for doing this -- I did it in "Why We Fight" -- but in the vast majority of the cases I've reviewed a disjointed level range is just the result of sloppy work.

How can I make a "defeat boss" objective spawn a lieutenant instead of a boss, or at least how can I make it let me pick from the default group bosses?

If you are working with a standard faction, you won't be able to choose a Lieutenant or under. You can use Snipers, if the faction has those.

If you are working with a custom faction, you can only choose custom mobs from that faction, but they can be any rank. If you want to use a standard Boss you've added to a custom faction, you'll need to choose that Boss from his standard faction and then override the faction display under Boss Text. No, I don't know why you have to jump through hoops like that.

Players can skip an objective that isn't part of a chain of triggered events too, and have to backtrack, so it amounts to pretty much the same thing: If you hate having to go back over an empty map, make sure you search it on the first pass.

The difference is: if someone skips or misses a single objective, he has to go back for one objective, but if that objective triggers a chain, he may have a lot more running around to do.

That isn't to say that one should never use triggered objectives. I've used them. "Splintered Shields" has an objective at the back of the map in act II that triggers a new objective at the front -- but as commentators have noted, the fight back to the front is at least as entertaining as the original pass through the map. You just have to stay aware when using triggered objectives that you are creating the potential for some frustration no matter what you do. Ask yourself if your story really requires them, or if you're just making the player run all over hell's half acre because you want to show off how clever you can be with triggers.

(Also, pohsyb confirmed something to me a lot of people have noticed -- there's about a 10% chance that any given triggered event won't happen. It's an intermittent bug they're having a hard time nailing down. For now, at least, if you're using triggered required objectives at least some of your players are going to get skunked, which will probably affect your ratings.)

Arc #176180, "Meet the Icerya"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: legion

Reviewed on: 7/20/2009
Level Range: 35-54/41-54/1-54/1-54/1-54
Architect's Keywords: None
My Keywords: Challenging
Character used: Ghostblaze/Infinity

Another disjointed level range. Come on, people. Flagged as Challenging due to the excessive use of EBs and an AV in the last mission.

"Carabid", a custom Contact with no bio, wants you to help her learn more about "the Icerya" so she can write a book about them, it says here. Your first stop is Cimerora, which I just got back from.... Only it seems for some reason the Cimerorans you're supposed to beat information out of are on a modern warehouse map.

It's going to be one of those arcs.

You have one glowie to click, which gives no Clue, just says "you now know what the Cimerorans know", and a Super Strength/Willpower Elite Boss "Coleoptera", with Rage and Rise to the Challenge. This means she does double damage and ignores most Defense for two minutes out of ever four and regenerates like crazy. That right there is enough reason to recommend people skip the arc, but moving on.... You don't get to find out whatever it is you found out about the Icerya. You just get a thank you for getting the information.

Carabid tells you that what you've learned so far (which is evidently nothing) points to the Rularuu as the next most likely source of information. You're sent to some Snake caves...not Rularuu caves, that would be too obvious -- to beat up some Rularuu, along with this guy:

[ QUOTE ]

Adephaga is one of the 4 top under bosses of The Icerya. There is two sets of siblings that make up the four. He and his sister Coleoptera are a destructive force. Mowing down everything. Adephaga hit like..no with a ton of bricks, and he stops attacks with the same fury. He is a wreaking ball, and crew all in one. Your day just got worse.


[/ QUOTE ]

Right. That's pretty much indicative of the quality of writing in this arc. He was a Stone Melee/Shield Defense Elite Boss and had the indecency to spawn as a +2, too (I was on CL4). That's two acts in a row with a ramped-up Big Bad, and it seems safe to guess the rest are going to be like this, too. Once again there's a glowie and once again you don't really learn anything; it just says that you've got a lead on the Icerya's lair.

Which of course is where you're sent next. This one is on an office-to-caves map...what?...and is a defeat-all. The map is populated with the Icerya custom faction, all beetle-themed mobs with a variety of powers, none really noteworthy. The EB at the end this time is "Elytra", a Plant Control/Energy Blast, and you're narrated as having taken her alive.

After Carabid has a chance to extreme rendition Elytra, you get sent to a sewers map...the hell?...to find three more Icerya. You have to defeat Scarab (Earth Control/Sonic Blast), Myxophaga (Ice Control/NotSure, and his info suggests he actually has Scarab's powers) and Silphid (Ice Control/Storm Summoning? Not sure), all Elite Bosses.

You're told in the next briefing that last mission you learned about the Icerya's queen, Epilachna, and her son Calosoma. You're to go beat the location of their big nest out of him. You're sent to another office-to-caves map to beat up a Spines/Electric Manipulation Elite Boss, the end. Carabid tells you the Queen moved the nest and is now gunning for you, have a nice life.

The arc has no plot, never mind a theme, and is nothing more than a showcase for some uninteresting and often overpowered mobs. Skip it.

&lt;QR&gt;

Check out "The Heart of Talos," #175660. It has a specialized ally designed to enable soloists to defeat Elite Bosses in Mission 2. It also features a final AV fight set up to prevent scrappers from simply tearing the AV to shreds.

My 40 Fire/Shield Scrapper pretty much just tore the AV to shreds. The only thing that made the fight even remotely difficult was the massive spawn around him, which did take me down the first time because I evidently hit keys too fast for OWTS to actually trigger. The second try went much more smoothly. I had more trouble with Talos because of the high Fire resists. On a thematic note, I have no idea why anyone would think Odysseus (leader of the Warriors) should be an Archery/Trick Arrow build that uses the laser sight bow....

I didn't use the ally in act II, either.

Also, take a look at "Urban Renewal," which I designed specifically as a "complex mechanics" arc.

Haven't tried it yet but I'm not optimistic.

Making sure there's no backtracking required is completely impossible

Fixed. Unless the entire objective chain is not required for completion, of course, but then I'd have to wonder why you'd bother.

First, I chose maps where front, middle and back actually means front, middle and back.

Which is the best you can do, and it's not enough. If the player misses or skips a trigger he's going to have to backtrack. Unless it's physically impossible for the player to progress past a trigger -- and we don't have the tech for that yet -- it's always going to be possible for the player to confound the Architect's intent.

Arc #1296, "A Day in the Life of...Dr. Aeon"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: "just a bunch of stuff that happened" (but comedic), continuity gaffe

Reviewed on: 7/20/2009
Level Range: 41-52/1-54/40-54/46-52
Architect's Keywords: Canon Related, Comedy
My Keywords:
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

That level range needs help.

And so does Dr. Aeon. He's contacting you via comlink as he's managed to get himself stuck in the Shadow Shard. Some Natterlings made off with his portal gadget, so he needs you to track them down and retrieve it. You're sent to a tech map (not caves?) full of Rularuu to find three boxes of parts. Finding them triggers his spawn as a captive; rescuing him (cute animation) ends the mission. He had asked you in the entry pop-up to remind him of something when you get back.....

...oh yes, he left his latest project running. It's going to overheat, which would be Bad. How bad? "Let's just say Cap au Diable would become Lagoon au Diable." You're only told after acceptance that it's a 10 minute timed mission...and only told on entry that you don't know which console is the right one, and there are 15 of them. Why did anyone think we needed a re-run of Tina's 10-minute mission? Anyway, I was on a character with Hide and the proper glowie turned out to be the first one anyway. Then when you get back Aeon says he realized that there was never any danger in the first place because he hadn't used the components he thought he used.

Next, Aeon needs you to make a pick-up...meaning, he needs you to steal a component for his project from Crey. You have to steal the part, then take out the Head of Security (Scorpinonx Boss, triggered spawn, two ambushes).

Finally, you get to be there for the activation of Aeon's Time Diverter. Unlike the buggy Time Deflector, this one can pull people in from the future without needing them to be traveling in time already or such. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, how about finding the place full of Dr. Aeons, some of which are trying to keep the current one from activating the Diverter. You also find a "Young Dr. Aeon" to rescue and escort out (small gaffe, should be Dr. Egon). In the end, Aeon (the current one) determines that activating the Diverter actually caused all of space-time to start to converge, in turn causing multiple versions of himself to be drawn to him. He decides not to activate the Diverter after all (take that, causality!).

The arc is very funny and worth a run. Recommended.

Arc #179354, "A Crusher Crimewave #1: Crisis at The Citadel"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: plagiarized, "just a bunch of stuff that happened", poor dialog, plot issues

Reviewed on: 7/20/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Architect's Keywords: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Complex Mechanics
My Keywords: Challenging
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

First off, a note on keywords -- I tagged this with "Challenging" because it contains an AV. It wasn't that hard, and would have been even easier if I'd actually dragged around all the allies in the last act.

"Finnegan", a civilain whose info says he's the groundskeeper for the Paragon Crusaders, says he's locked out of his shed and needs your help. This looks like a job for a superhuman...actually, it doesn't, but moving on.... He goes on to say that he doesn't believe the Crusaders are on vacation and thinks the Crushers (presumably a villain group) have something to do with their absence. There's a Crusher attack in progress in Steel Canyon so off you go for some percussive interrogation. You're sent to the small Steel Canyon map to find one Boss, "F.I.S.T", Energy Blast/Don'tKnow, and defeat him. He calls at least two ambush waves. The rest of the mobs are 5th Column for some unexplained reason. Defeating F.I.S.T. nets you a GPS unit that gives the location of the other Crushers.

Unfortunately , they're all over at Manning Enterprises, the tech company that supplies most of the Crusaders' equipment. You have to destroy what they came for and take out the three Crushers on scene, Temper (Mind Control/Illusion Control), Red Bull (Super Strength/Don'tKnow) and the Mercury Mercenary (Assault Rifle/Don'tKnow). I found these guys out of order so their Clues didn't make much sense. The wreckage of the equipment you destroyed somehow gives Finnegan what he needs to track down the rest of the Crushers.

Which wasn't very hard, because he's known where they are the whole time. He finally lets on that he's really Enforcer, one of the Crusaders. The Crushers took over the Crusaders' tower while he was out on patrol and barricaded themselves inside, using the telepads to conduct raids. Enforcer has kept this quiet to avoid thinks like panic or prematurely solving the problem. Anyway, he can now portal the two of you into the base (portal tech map) to take out the remaining Crushers. Enforcer spawned up front with some guards; I just stealthed past. The first named I found was "Hornet" (typo in info: "orgamization"), a Radiation Blast/Radiation Emission Boss. Next up was "Shocker", Electric Blast/Martial Arts (inferred from info), who managed to drop me with a nuke. Then I ran into "The Mace" (info: "The name says it all."...yeah), a War Mace/Willpower Elite Boss. He managed to drop me too thanks to a spurious Boss entering the fight. "Stormlord" (Electric Blast/Storm Summoning Boss) and "Mocker", Sonic Blast/NotSure AV/EB turned out to be in the same room. After taking them out I went back for Enforcer, which triggered the spawn of two more ally rescues, "Evergreen" and "Manta-Man". I found Evergreen first and her rescue ended the mission. Manta-Man was spawned nearby; I believe the current toggle bug caused his Lightning Field to kill his guards. You get a standard thank-you, the end.

The arc has no theme, the presence of the 5th Column is never explained, and while I haven't provided examples of it, the dialog is pretty wretched. What's worse is that a check to see if these characters were author inserts instead turned up the fact that they're plagiarized. The whole thing is lifted from Crisis at Crusader Citadel, a Villains and Vigilantes module. (I didn't play V&amp;V for very long; Champions came out right after I bought V&amp;V, and I almost never bought adventure modules for any of my RPGs. This is why I didn't recognize it off the bat.) Not only does this earn a low rating, but I reported it for content as well.

The next arc in the queue was #161797, "The Revenge of Dr. Marcovivi". This is a four-part arc that, according to its browser info, requires you to choose an ending by picking one of two other arcs, one three-part and the other two-part. This is a failure on two grounds, one being that the arc is incomplete and the other being that it is more than five acts.

It would be virtually impossible for this arc to earn a good rating from me, so I have decided simply not to review it. I don't see the point in reviewing something that says it's incomplete on the label, and I'm not running two arcs to review one story.

I've had one arc come up as invalid. If and when its Architect lets me know it's fixed I'll get back to it.

Hero: 179354, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 191775, 4824, 171031, 242442, 227331, 41646, 77311, 81043, 67087

Neutral: 1296, 176180, 215257, 207827

INVALIDATED: 137705

Recent changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Updated Victor Praetorius' costume to match the PC version (now uses Death Goggles and Guard instead of Cyborg face pieces)[*]Act II rebalanced to make the Longbow/Family fights a little less one-sided[*]Act V moved to an abandoned warehouse, seemed more fitting for the rendezvous.[*]Changes to the Malta Engima Silver faction in "Blowback" propagated to the Malta RDF here, as the RDF is intended to be the "production version" of Enigma Silver's prototypes[*]Small text edits, including a change to the Big Bad's combat dialog in Act V lampshading one of the arc's inspirations, which if anyone's figured out they haven't mentioned....[/list]
Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Great arc, though i find your use of hero-helpers funny given how you yourself tend to ignroe such elements when playing other people's arcs regaurdless, five stars!" (I included the allies because I felt the plot demanded them, not as "helpers".)[*]"This is more like it. 5 stars for you. Stick to the serious stuff. The custom malta were pretty cool but seemed a bit too, I don't know, super-y? One of them shot lightning from his hands. He could at least have some kind of gloves or cybernetic hands or something, you know?" (The player immediately retracted this as he realized the RDF units do use the Banded Robotic gauntlet for precisely this reason.)[/list]

The only recent changes to this were a few small text edits.

Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Very nice arc. Clever idea, 5 stars to you sir."[*]"Nice, much better than some of the Dev Choice out there. If you have the time, mine is 64855, no review needed, just looking for feedback. Well done."[*]"Lots of fun, 5 stars "[*]"Bravissimo!" (To be fair, this one came from an SGmate. )[*]"I love the concept, and over all it worked out nicely. I thought the LOLCats in mission 4 fell a bit flat; even for a parody of Nemesis plots, they just seemed out of the blue. But the rest (including the guy who was definitely Nemesis) was quite funny. The non-cat custom groups and costumes were very well done, too. 4 Stars!"[*]"I enjoyed it on test and passing on the rating here on live where it counts."[/list]

Recent changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Level range changed to 25-29 because Darrin won't spawn under level 25[*]Hostages reworked in act I in a mostly-vain attempt to adjust mission pacing and deal with faction oddities. I may have to change to a larger map or make this a defeat-all[*]Rival gang patrols in act II reduced in strength, Boss guard parties bumped to Medium, both in an attempt to keep Bosses from getting ganked by the map[*]Minor text edits[/list]
Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Very nice arc. Good story, enjoyable missions. 5 stars"[*]"Excellent arc, short, sweet and very fun. Nice work!"[*]"Mission 2 is too many gangs, too few mobsters. MIssion 4, Darrin refuses to scale down below 25. I'm curious, what's his base mob? Private Security? Vittorio is &lt;Family&gt;. Mish 5, glowie is 'fallen Streghe', while enemies are 'strega'. &gt; at end of last debrief. There's some problems with the theme (the perceived loss is order of magnitude different each side), and, well. Optimist in me saw the surprise happy ending. Still, I liked it. Only gripe is, the two groups are IMO insufficiently introduced." (Darrin is from the "Loyalist" faction, used in the Mender Tesseract TF. "Streghe" is the plural of "Strega", still I changed the label on the detail.)[*]"Diablo was a tough customer for my Katana/SR scrapper. I had to munch a lot of inspirations to hurt him, and to survive. He went down on the third try. I was a bit surprised that the cops didn't offer the kids witness protection and faked their deaths though, but on the other hand maybe that's what happened. Four stars." (I immediately asked if the player had read the souvenir; he hadn't.... I changed the pointer to it in the final debriefing to yellow, should be much more visible now.)[*]"Solo'd on lvl 50 SS/INV brute. Good interpretation of the tale, though I got a little frustrated when I thought you kept the original ending. Thankfully I read all the boxes. Nice arc."[/list]

I made some small text edits, nothing worth singling out. Only one comment received since i15's logging went in:

<ul type="square">[*]"I really felt the challenge level very bland. I would throw in some AV's.. I don't feel like its fun unless there is a chance I can be beaten. I ran through your arc without using an inspire, a accolade power or my tier 9 power."[/list]
I'm satisfied with the difficulty...a number of people have actually complained that it's too hard. I don't believe in "challenge" arcs in any case, since teams can steamroller anything.

Recent updates:
<ul type="square">[*]Changed the appearance of Malta Enigma Silver units slightly.[*]Added a "Robotics Commander" LT (Bots/FF) to Malta Enigma Silver, deleted the Hercules[*]Deleted the Zeus as well[*]Theseus Class Titan now uses Icy Assault/Energy Aura[*]Perseus Class Titan now uses Fiery Assault/Energy Aura[*]Above changes also propagated to the Malta RDF faction in "Splintered Shields"[*]Small text edits[/list]
Recent comments (names redacted):
<ul type="square">[*]"Well written. Liked the exploration of the psychological stresses inside Malta. Some quick nits: the clue says the final fight was in a Malta robotics facility. I assume that's left over from a previous version, since final fight in Steel Canyon. Also, there's the bit where Crimson says "Nah...this isn't a Nemesis plot." Love the reference, but, personally, using "nah",not sure that fits Crimson's character voice, which seems measured and non-casual to me. Maybe: "Heh. No. This isn't a Nemesis plot." "(I fixed the souvenir. I like Crimson's line the way it is.)[*]"definitely need a team, pref. with a healer." (Player was a bit surprised to hear the list of squishies I'd tested the arc with, many under level 40)[*]"Another excellent arc. Not quite as good as Splintered Shields but 4 stars." [/i][/list]

Arc #67356, "Shadow Initiation"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happens", some plot issues, low text content

Reviewed on: 7/17/2009
Level Range: 15-40
Architect's Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Drama
My Keywords: Challenging, Magic
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

"Elder Dark Sation" offers you a chance to undergo a simulation of the initiation procedure for "Darks", the Jounin rank in her ninja clan. All proceeds go to charity, of course (that being the Elder Dark Retirement Fund, I'd wager....) You're warned both in the first briefing and the browser that this is intended for a team. The first "Physical Trial" requires you to retrieve a scroll and activate a portal on the outdoor Talos coastline map. You're warned to clear the area of the Tsoo first. I found very few Tsoo spawns (one a spurious Boss), and they were in a custom faction also employing Nerva Spectrals. I cleared them out then clicked on the scroll. This caused a few more Tsoo to spawn along with "Dark Sation", described as a shadow version of the Contact, an Ice Assault/Ninjitsu Boss with two guards. After clearing them I clicked the portal, which triggered an ambush of "Ancestral Shades" but also ended the mission. On your return Sation says she's impressed but during the trial the Tsoo made off with some of the clan's students. This seems a bit out of place for a training simulation but moving on....

You're sent to a casino map to rescue one of the students and to deal with any Tsoo present. Sation makes it clear any Tsoo captured will be extreme renditioned. Rescuing the student triggers the spawn of a Tsoo Boss, who smacks you with a hefty ambush before gnawing the carpet. This leads directly to a rescue attempt for the rest of the students. The briefing says this takes place in an office; you're actually sent to an abandoned warehouse. Dark Sation appears in the mission as an EB Ally, with no guards, and with Ninjitsu, meaning I just blundered into her and suddenly had an EB along sucking up all the tickets. This was not appreciated. I ditched her by parking her behind a crate and teleporting off the map. There are a few students to rescue and "Moonless Night", a Necromancy/Shield Defense EB for the big bad (using the "dark" shield model, very striking). He put up a bit of a fight, scoring a last-minute DOT that had me hitting a green to prevent a Pyrrhic victory. You get a fairly perfunctory thank you on return.

Next up is the "Test of Stealth", requiring you to steal a number of magical tokens from a Tsoo base. There is no "stealth" involved really as you're pretty much going to have to take out the Tsoo near the glowies at least. There are six tokens plus a "peculiar" token, which triggers a silent Rocks Fall Everyone Dies ambush when retrieved. Otherwise the map is pretty straighforward.

For your last task, you are to use the "peculiar token" (which is a sort of mystic key) to enter a Tsoo hideout and kill "Burning Eclipse", an enemy of the clan. Yes, it specifies kill, but this is a Neutral mission. There's a bodyguard, "Passing Night" to dispose of to trigger Eclipse's spawn, who is herself an EB, and a "Ninja Girl" to rescue. You learn after defeating Passing Night that she was the sister of the Ninja Girl with a case of Plot Induced Amnesia. I took down the Big Bad (whose info describes him as tracing his lineage to ancient China, which is out of place for a Tsoo, who are Hmong) without Ninja Girl's help, though this time I didn't quite click a green in time to avoid mutual destruction. Then I went back for her, ending the mission.

The arc has some good gameplay, even if it does use the hated high-end Tsoo mobs. The gratuitous helpers are annoying, though, especially the one in act III. There are some small gaffes and the arc does lack any noticeable theme, which is not helped by declaring it to be a simulation. I also felt there was not enough text in general to convey much of a plot. It would benefit from some extra polish.

Venture, how come you never mention the name of the author in your reviews?

Because I'm reviewing the arc, not the Architect.

Arc #171149, "A helping hand can lead to broken fingers"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", canon issues, weak plot

Reviewed on: 7/16/2009
Level Range: 1-54/1-54/35-54
Architect's Keywords: None
My Keywords: Challenging, Magic, Horror
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

"Drawback", a custom Contact who says he works for Vanguard, rather abusively asks for your help dealing with some kind of creature attack in the sewers. There may be some rookie heroes trapped down there still. The place turns out to be infested with some demonic-looking entities, led by a "Mysterious Woman", Lieutenant strength, who went on about not being ready and such. There are also several newbie heroes to rescue, some of which (along with the Big Bad) trigger ambushes. When you return you're told the Big Bad regained consciousness on the way to the hospital and escaped, which is of course your fault.

She turns up in Kings Row, having thrown some Skulls out of their hideout. Drawback has consulted with Dark Watcher on the case, who says her name is "Voxxa" and now that you "bear her mark" you'll have to fight her. Or...what? Anyway...Drawback has already sent in "Swingarm", you're to catch up and take Voxxa down. This one's on the burning Skulls map. Voxxa is in the top room and she runs on engagement. Since the elevator is only a few feet away, unless you can hold or root a Boss she's going to get away.

For the last act, Voxxa has been tracked to the RWZ. It seems she's an old enemy of the Dark Watcher and is looking for him. Unfortunately he's not in our dimension at the moment. You have to stop her before she gets any stronger, and you're told to "send her to Hell". This might have some ethical issues for the Code Versus Killing crowd, but on the other hand she is a demon. You're sent to one of the Vanguard base maps (the outdoor ones), with Vanguard versus Rikti versus Voxxa and her crew. It wasn't too hard to spot her from the air, now AV/EB strength. Her expanded bio says she was once a lover of Anansi the Spider, but he tricked her into a prison dimension. Once every so often she's released for a year; if in that time she can kiss Anansi she wins her freedom. It is implied that the Dark Watcher is Anansi, which constitutes Canon Defilement. You take her down, the end.

It's a short arc with not much too it. Ain't half bad, ain't half good neither.

Arc #177826, "Lights, Camera, Scream!"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: no plot but still throws the Idiot Ball, Killer GM

Reviewed on: 7/16/2009
Level Range: 25-54
Architect's Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Horror
My Keywords: Same
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

"Carrie S. Hutters", a filmmaker, wants your help in making a short "holo-film" about vampires. As part of the research for a larger film effort, she wants you to head into a vampire enclave and retrieve both a specimen and a diary, all while wearing a mini-camera and microphone. This takes you to the Midnighter's map to fight a few custom mobs, none of which are particularly noteworthy. You do find the diary, but the Clues say you get a sample of the boss vampire's flesh (the defeat text says "blood") and there's another Clue about Carrie being involved with the Council that makes absolutely no sense at this point. All she says in the debriefing is "Fantastic job! We'll definately keep you in mind for our next flick." OK.....

The next flick turns out to be "A Dozen Deadly Roses", a story about a jilted bride cursing her married friends and causing wacky supernatural hijinks involving her reanimated victims and all the brides or prospective or former brides in the area. You're sent in to retrieve the wedding rings of the victims and break the curse. You have to fight six parties of triggered spawns on the burning Hellions office map, meaning you have to run all over the place. All of the mobs are Lieutenants with Regen and they all resurrect on death. This was tedious enough for the arc to hit one star right there. The Clues also mention the Council again, and again there is not one single Council mob on the map.

The next one is "Frat Party Massacre", in which a frat party held at a graveyard (are people really that stupid in Paragon City?) You're to go in and clean up the inevitable zombie attack, paying particular attention to the "B'arat Triplets". These turn out to be "Brats", Plant Control/Dark Miasma (I think, not sure) Bosses, surrounded by large groups of frat-themed zombies with annoying powers. You're on one of the fog-covered graveyard maps too; fortunately the Brats have bright pnk auras making them fairly easy to spot from the air. Again the clues mention the Council. The entire final debriefing is: " You're beautiful. We like the way you work; we'll be starting our next set of films soon and we'll call you. . . for real, we will." That's it. There's an extremely perfunctory souvenir.

The arc has no plot but still managed to throw the Idiot Ball thanks to the Council references. It is really nothing more than a shooting gallery of cliched, uninteresting and overpowered custom mobs. Skip it.

I can speak for my own characters as being completely unique.

Give us a list of them and their backstories and I'm sure we'll be happy to tell you who did them first.