Venture

Pretty much any boss will be hard for a Assault rifle/Device blaster.

*gigglesnortchokespittake* no. Beanbag + Taser = Boss never gets to attack, unless the Architect was a jerkass and gave it status protection. The only Bosses my AR/Dev fears in the regular game I can think of offhand are Master Illusionists because of the total cheatmode phase power.

See above. He is an assault rifle/iwillpower both on the lowest settings (standard).

WP, SR and Nin all come with a mandatory +perception power -- something to keep in mind when using them.

Because there are story arcs that specifically tell us that Nemesis is responsible for it from multiple positions and vantage points.

I can get past this in two seconds -- Hro'Dtohz and the Lineage of War, who were the only Rikti to actually interact with the Freedom Phalanx automatons, weren't fooled by them for a moment. They played along because a war meant increased power and status for them as opposed to the ceremonial role they were stuck with. That's why Hro'Dtohz went Axe Crazy when the truth came out. He really is a war criminal; he knowingly and deliberately prosecuted an unjust war.

Probably not true, of course, since it points out that Nemesis is really a bumbling fossil and not the master criminal he's supposed to be, but it is completely consistent with all known facts on the table about the start of the Rikti War.

Arc #32801, "Sharkhead Isle and the Circle of Banished Warriors"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Reviewed on: 6/9/2009
Level Range: 20-29/20-29/20-29/15-29/5-54
Character used: Dr. Solaria/Liberty

Operative Kirkland wants you to look into the Warriors. They've just crept into the Isles and whatever they're doing, they're not paying their "taxes" to Arachnos. You're to enter a cave they're using as a base, see if there's anything interesting lying about and "speak" to whoever is in charge, percussively if necessary. In the former category you find a chest with some minor artifacts and some very suspicious thorns. In the latter, a Circle of Thorns Boss named Pharason who was a Behemoth Lord model -- I don't know if he was supposed to be a demon or if the Architect just set the spawn to "Random CoT Boss". Anyway, Pharason lets on as you approach that the artifacts came from the Mu ruins under Primeva and the Warriors are paying the Circle to obtain them. Kirkland notes that if they're smuggling Mu artifacts they're going to owe a lot more than the usual cut.

After checking with the higher-ups, Kirkland sends you to the dig site some of the artifacts have been traced to. There are supposedly two more Circle Bosses on site and you're to smack them both down. He warns you to keep on your toes as there's no telling where the investigation may lead. Sure enough, the Circle is fighting the Banished Pantheon when you arrive. One of the two Bosses is actually a Spirit captured by the Circle that leaves when you smack down its guards. The other, Regalion, talks about how they're passing the cheap stuff off to the Warriors as bait and keeping the good stuff for themselves. Both the Pantheon and Circle boast about some of the artifacts they've recovered lately, which may sound familiar. Regalion was another Behemoth model but from his chat definitely doesn't sound like he's supposed to be.

Kirkland wants to know more about the artifacts the mystics were bragging about so he does what Arachnos usually does in these circumstances: sends someone to knock over a Legacy Chain stronghold to look for the necessary books. This is a good idea, which is why the Circle and Banished Pantheon had it first -- they're both already there beating up the Chain and looking for the same information you're after. Except it turns out the Circle was there to ask for help and was apparently going to get it. They're trying to stop the Pantheon too, because both of the Pantheon's plots involve destroying the world, which is inconvenient for them (and everyone else). Kirkland tries to keep it all straight, noting that he can respect the Circle for wanting to conquer the world but they'll have to get in line behind Arachnos.

He gets the Mu Mystics branch working on the various threats (they freak out over the mention of one of the names involved...Tielekku) and sends you out for more information on the thorns you found back in Act I. Because there aren't enough factions involved yet you're off to rescue a Tsoo Sorcerer from the Family. This is a straightforward ally-escort rescue. The Sorcerer, "Mighty Wind Master" (that's just not the nickname you want to get stuck with, really...) tells you that the thorns are possession traps. Kirkland tells you Arachnos got the same story after debriefing him, though the version he relates isn't quite what characters eventually learn about the thorns later in life. This isn't a continuity gaffe though, it's just the characters not having all the facts yet.

Time for the Fight Scene: Kirkland's superiors don't like the idea of the Circle using the thorns to steal bodies, so they tell him to tell you to go smash the latest harvest. (Kirkland also tells you that the other artifacts have been recovered by heroes, and Mako is getting involved with that Leviathan thing you heard about so it's not your problem.) You're sent to Thorn Island to take out three Thorn Enchanters (more random Bosses, I got two Behemoths and a Hellfrost) and destroy three crates, again pretty straightforward. There's no text or dialog here. Kirkland thanks you for a job well done, the end.

The arc doesn't have a theme, but other than that it's well written. The seeming use of random Bosses for the Circle is disconcerting. On the plus side there are a lot of references to the canon that are handled well. It has good gameplay for a mid-range arc if a bit on the light side, having no EBs or AVs (which may be what you're looking for). Recommended.

Arc #161865, "Aeon's Nemesis"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: no theme (but comedic)

Reviewed on: 6/8/2009
Level Range: 35-54/33-54/30-54/41-45/46-54
Character used: Amelia Escobar/Virtue

Marshall Brass has his doubts about the Architect system. Preposterous! It was built by Dr. Aeon himself! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? But, Aeon convinced Arbiter Daos it was worth spending Arachnos funds on a "strategic simulation training tool" using the AE technology and that means Brass has to like it...officially. Unofficially, he's willing to pay an independent contractor to poke around. Brass is maybe a bit more verbose than his usual somewhat taciturn self but otherwise he's written spot on. He wants you to start checking it out by running a simulation of a Vanguard attack on an Arachnos base. Not what I want to see on a 35 Widow. Especially when battles tend to leave extra-large spawns of them, all with +perception. The attackers are led by Fusionette, who has some reasonably funny dialog. Brass notes the system handled a routine enemy attack fairly well but wants something more ambitious for the next test.

This time he wants you to set the danger level to "Extreme" and have it come up with a random threat to the Rogue Isles. You find yourself facing down black-suited "Techticians" at Pogodyne Research while looking for a prototype portal generator. The place appears to be a Nemesis front company and the portal generator has been used to raid a Council base. In the debriefing Brass interprets things differently and thinks Nemesis automatons tricked the mercs into attacking the Council. We'll find out soon enough....

The next step, of course, is to continue the simulation and follow up on the lead. Brass points out that the clue was too convenient; if this was a real Nemesis plot you would be walking into some kind of trap. Since it's a simulation it might just be sloppy writing, not that it matters much either way. Defeating the Pogodyne attack team's leader lets you steal the portal generator...which then just vanishes. (Cute clue.) It also doesn't end the simulation. You have to search to find the anomaly, which turns out to be triggered spawns of Nemesis patrols and a Warhulk. Defeating the Warhulk lets you leave. When you get out, Brass seems nonplussed by your report, mainly because he has something more incredible to tell you: several of the Techticians emerged from the datastream and captured Aeon. This is, of course, impossible, but there's no time for lunch at Milliways.

Brass reports a large amount of the AE system's resources are being tied up running a copy of the Shadow Shard. He guesses Aeon is there. (Three guesses who else is, and the first two don't count.) He's not really interested in that right now, though. Brass recognizes the situation as an opportunity to go Off The Rails. If holograms could jump out of the system and steal Aeon, he figures you could use the AE interface in Aeon's "secret office" to break in and steal info on Aeon's secret projects. Once you destroy the security logs the whole thing can be blamed on the rogue Nemesis program. This is a very nice, villainous turn in the plot. You're sent to an office map with nine experiments to investigate (glowies), Arachnos to smack around and the security logs to destroy. The experiments are mostly pretty funny, my favorite being a project to clone Blue Steel that was abandoned when Aeon realized Blue Steel never bleeds. (A close second was the attempt to combine Will of the Earth with a Shivan Shard.) Brass is pleased with your results on your return as he gets lots of dirt to use on Aeon.

But, alas, all good things must end and Brass can't let Aeon just vanish. You have to go into the Shadow Shard simulation and find whatever's preventing Aeon from using his emergency recall to escape, then terminate whatever is responsible for this, whether it's a simulated Nemesis getting involved in the real world or the real Nemesis screwing with your simulation for some reason. Sadly, we don't have any actual Shadow Shard maps available so you end up in a tech lab. You have to destroy two jammers, which triggers a new objective to verify Aeon has left the system. He hasn't. He's so wrapped up in his project he thinks you're just another simulation to beat up. It turns out the AE system's version of Nemesis achieved self-awareness and started to work on a Holographic Hologram Projector, which would let it project itself out into the real world. It couldn't make it work, though, so it brought in Aeon to finish it. He isn't letting a little thing like it being impossible stop him, which is why the system has been drawing more and more computer power as he tries to find a solution. You have to beat him (EB, the Dull Pain/MoG version, was a bit of a pain to deal with) to get him out of the system. That just leaves Holo-Nemesis to deal with. This was going well for me until the last ambush, which consisted of the Techtician guys and their massive -Defense. He went down easily in the second fall. On your exit, Brass tells you he's having all copies of the training sim deleted and even destroying the hardware that hosted your copy, just in case. There's just one loose end, which makes the souvenir....

The arc doesn't have a theme, at least not one I could make out, but it has enough comedy in it to cover for that. It's a Nemesis plot, but it doesn't throw the Idiot Ball at anyone or do anything else objectionable, mainly by having Brass decide to do his own thing in the middle instead of following the script. I would have gone with 4.5 stars if that had been an option because of the lack of theme, but it's really a very good arc and recommended.

Arc #77533, "Kung Fu On The Loose"
tl;dr: 1 star: Offenses: legion

Reviewed on: 6/8/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Character used: Dr. Solaria/Liberty

You're at home watching your televsion (the Contact) when you drop the remote and there's a blinding flash. That's the intro for the first mission...OK.... Entering the mission puts you in a woodland scene from a kung-fu movie you were just watching. You are to defeat Master Gi and find a container of white rice, according to the nav bar. Thanks to a plethora of Super Reflexes and Willpower mobs everything has a huge agro radius. All of the mobs are turned up to Hard or Extreme. The same goes for the next mission, which has an Elite Boss for its Big Bad. In the end the whole thing was just a dream.

There is no story, never mind a theme, just a pile of unfun, tedious mobs to fight. Skip it.

Arc #81378, "The Broken Chain"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happens", undeclared multiple EBs

Reviewed on: 6/8/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Character used: Venture/Freedom

Alderoy, a custom Contact with no introduction, wants your help in dealing with a fallen leader of the Legacy Chain. Adrastus, leader of the Legacy of Light, has been corrupted, hundreds of years ago. Now he has reappeared as the head of something called the Red Night, which is attacking the Chain. You're being called in to help for no clear reason. The first mission takes place on an office-to-caves map with three hostages to rescue and a Boss to smack down. The Red Night is made up of custom mobs in several lines, similar to the Chain...Steel, Pain, Darkness. It's clear from the enemy chat that they're looking for Alderoy, who obviously has been less than forthcoming. He pretty much blows this off by telling you that he's the current minister of the Legacy of Light and there's another attack taking place.

Next up, psychics Alderoy has hired have determined the Red Night is conducting a summoning in some nearby woods. It seems the Chain is outsourcing everything these days...anyway, you're to stop the ceremony while he chats with the other ministers. This is a woods map with four rituals to stop, each of which has a Dark Melee/Dark Blast Elite Boss. There is no EB warning in the briefing. Because the EBs ran for the county line due to my Caltrops and debuffs, this was about as much fun as root canal.

Alderoy's call to the psychic hotline pays off, though, as they've located a Red Night library. You're sent in raid it. The library turns out to be a Cimerora cave map...I hate people who don't take good care of their books.... You have to find a couple of glowies and take down a boss, "Scribe of Darkness" (whose info says he's Gaze of Darkness). As he falls he says the "Ossuarian" will destroy me, whatever that is. On your return Alderoy reveals the undecipherable langauge of the tomes you recovered is one the Legacy Chain itself created and the tomes are a record of Adrastus' dreams.

After reading through the tomes Alderoy concludes Adrastus has taken the title of the Ossuarian, and he will be found presiding over a temple in Nerva. This turns out to be the Infernal map. Ossuarian is a Dark Blast/Dark Melee AV/EB and a fairly straightforward beatdown. Alderoy thanks you for offing him, the end.

The arc has no theme. For a Legacy Chain arc it has a surprising lack of actual Legacy Chain mobs. There is no reason, other than perhaps the author's desire to avoid level restrictions, why this couldn't be set within the usual level range for the Chain. The Contact, at least, could have been a Legacy Chain model. There is very little dialog and no characterization to speak of. The EBs in Act II are particularly odious; there does not seem to be any story-related reason for those mobs to be so powerful and throwing four EBs at a player without warning is more than a little over the line. This is the arc's only real fault but even if it were fixed what's left would still be a lackluster slugfest.

Not really, since you're playing both sides of the fence to support your rather flimsy stance. You're holding time travel stories to an arbitrary set of rules, then pointing out that when you hold it up to a set of rules that arent' defined within the story, said new rules are arbitrary.

The arbitrary rules invariably either get applied or not selectively as the story requires, or create contradictions, or require someone to catch the Idiot Ball (if not an outright Idiot Plot).

Not defining the rules within the story is itself bad writing.

That's not an excuse for bad writing. The audience is not required to buy every bit of codswallop that comes down the pike.

Because every time a new group gets sent into the past, there will be a consequential reaction on the time span between the past and the future.

That's not a given, it's an imposed rule.

Every failure will result in more and more change to the future as the past starts to wise up to the event.

Again.

Even worse, if you win, you probably lose. Now whatever historic event that prompted the time travel in the first place didn't happen as it originally did, and the repercussions of that alter history in untold ways, perhaps in ways that were critical to your own groups formation or reasoning for even wanting to expend so much resources and manpower into sending agents into the past in the first place. Again, paradox.

And again, and this one says "don't use time travel at all".

See where this is going?

But City of Heroes doesn't transpire in this universe.

There is a thread on this in the Mission Architect Stories and Lore section, which is probably where this should be redirected.

However: since the City universe looks like our universe, except for the addition of superheroes, it must...M-U-S-T...be the case that the laws of physics in the City universe are a proper superset of the laws of physics in our universe. That is, anything true in our world must be true in that world as well, but that world has some extra principles that allow superhumans to function.

If this were not the case then the City universe would look nothing at all like ours. It would not have cars, or computers, or houses, or life forms that were identifiable as human or any other form of life with which we are familiar. If you change the laws of thermodynamics the resultant universe will look nothing like our own.

Too many unique maps? Is he running out of things to complain about?


I see on re-reading that a number of other complaints didn't make the tl;dr line, but addressing this: if everything is special, nothing is. Special maps are special because we don't see them all the time. They shouldn't be used willy-nilly, but only because the story really demands it. I felt this arc used them gratuitously.

Actually all of those questions are answered in the game's background files: here.

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Catching up:

From what I can glimmer from your short review (more of a plot summery) is that the arc was technically pretty prefect, had no logic flaws, was pretty well written, had decent and balanced customs[...]but was too short????

Basically. There isn't enough of a story here to have any serious problems.

I thought you might be bias against this arc because it featured time-travel and you have made it clear how much you hate that.

Again, it isn't elaborate enough, and since it's a comedy it gets some slack in any case. Which leads me to....

What about sit-coms? None of them have a theme, they simply have characters who are put into situations for our amusement.

I give comedic arcs a little extra room because in order to make a joke the author may have to play loose and fast with logic and plausibility. That being said, the best comedies do have themes. Up, to use a current example, is a goofy little cartoon about a guy who turns his house into an airship by attaching a billion toy ballons to it. It still has themes, several actually, with more theme in its first four minutes than the average Michael Bay movie has in its entirety. It's not A Farewell to Arms (which I thought was mostly just Hemmingway blogging about his own failed romance anyway), but it's head and shoulders over, say, Gilligan's Isand. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect as much from Architects as I get from a Disney cartoon.

Heck, most tv dramas could be considered the same thing.

The writing on most TV dramas, most writing on TV in general, sucks. Don't assume that it's OK to do something just because someone did it professionaly, even if they made buckets of money doing it. Three words: Jar Jar Binks.

The point I was trying to make is that you don't have to begin conception of a story with a theme.

Someday I'm going to figure out why 90% of the human race seems to have no problem understanding what I say, but there's always someone who has to respond to what he thinks I said instead of what I actually said as straightforward as I could.

I did not say "you must begin writing your story with a theme". I said "a story needs a theme". How it gets one is up to the author. If I said "a car needs wheels" I don't think anyone bright enough to design one in the first place would take that as an admonition to design from the tires up. It just means what it says: without wheels a car won't work. Likewise, a story that has no theme or moral is not literature, it is not even a story, it is just an account of events berift of animus, gravitas or telos. It has no soul.

Mangling Kuhn, there is no decision algorithm for the creative process. If there was I'd write a computer program to write stories for me. There are more methods of writing than there are authors, because authors don't approach every story in quite the same way every time. I'm not going to tell people how to get a theme into their story because there is simply no one way to do it, or even a best way, or even a set of best ways. All that matters is that the story has one when the author puts down his pen.

I don't expect anyone to have actually read "The Maltese Falcon," it's just something that came to mind. But if anyone has read it, I think my point would be made. It doesn't come across as a thematically-oriented story.

I have read it, and it does.

Some would not call Hammett's work "literature,"

I would disregard the opinion of any critic or professor who said The Maltese Falcon is not literature. Whether it is good literature is a debate issue, but to say it is not literature at all is to use a definition of "literature" that is at best far too narrow in scope. Of course that's largely what Chandler is saying in "The Simple Art of Murder".

Isn't mounting discrimination against mutants expressly mentioned as a cause of young mutants banding together under the Outcast's banner, hence the name?

Nope. It's not mentioned on their background page, it's not in any of their /infos, nothing.

No comment?

Sorry, but I don't always follow up on responses to reviews in a timely fashion, or sometimes at all if I don't feel there's anything to be gained by it. Like everyone else my time is limited and I'm investing quite a bit of spare time in reviewing arcs already. There is a limit (a soft one, but a limit nonetheless) on how much time I'm willing to invest in one person's work, especially when I have so many requests waiting.

Finally, an update on the queue status. The asterisk shows which queue I'm scheduled to draw from next. The plus sign by the Rerun queue is a marker showing how many times I've skipped that queue; I only hit Reruns on every third pass.

---

*Hero: 81378, 170506, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 161797, 79354, 75386, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 191775, 4824, 171031, 122569

Villain: 77533, 161865, 32801, 97774, 153720

Neutral: 170547, 123675, 175675, 156389, 143017, 177826, 67356, 1296, 176180

Hero 15-20: 135563, 24926, 108375, 195149, 185895

Villain 15-20:

Neutral 15-20:

+Rerun: 181165, 106553

Arc #114284, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: weak themes, poor portrayal of canon character

Reviewed on: 6/4/2009
Level Range: 15-20
Character used: Amarantia/Virtue

Desdemona the Glint has a job for you: knock over a bank that's currently holding a shipment of diamonds, which she is particularly excited about. When you get there, though, the bank is completely empty...except for Ice Age, an Outcast Boss who's had a sudden attack of heroism. The Outcasts already have the diamonds, the whole thing was a set-up, but you do grab some cash on the way out. Desdemona denies knowing anything about the trap, and offers to help you set up the would-be hero Outcasts to get them back.

She's going to do this by setting herself up as a kidnapping victim, hopefully drawing the Outcasts to "protect" her. This also draws the attention of Longbow so you have to bust their heads first. After you "kidnap" Desdemona another Outcast Boss, Firezone, spawns. After he hits the carpet you get some information out of him: the "hero" Outcasts have set themselves up in Bloody Bay, since no one really cares about the place anyway. They've been protecting some of the people trapped there and plan to use the diamonds to help them out. The Clue heavily implies that you off him after he talks which might not sit will with some, though I don't have a problem with it.

Your next stop is Bloody Bay, which the entry pop-up notes looks a lot like an outdoor St. Martial map. There are Outcasts and Circle of Thorns everywhere, hostile to each other. The Circle guys are going on about getting their crystals back, implying those aren't actually diamonds the Outcasts have. Teremex, a Ruin Mage, tells you on his defeat to take out the (just spawned) Outcast guardian, which turns out to be a custom boss, "The Cthonic" (nit: on All Custom Characters faction). I don't know what his powers were (his info says he's a powerful Brick) because he never got to use them. When he falls the hidden tunnel to the Outcast's base is revealed, and Teremex offers you a deal: get the crystals for the Circle and he'll reward you with real diamonds. He assures you the crystals are of no value to anyone but the Circle.

Desdemona naturally tells you to accept Teremex's terms, and the acceptance text is narrated as coming from him: he tells you he's sent some of his minions ahead and give you an amulet that will identify you as a friendly. The map is a Cimerora cave. There are three Circle allies, two minion Spectrals and one Spectral Daemon Lord. None of these are guarded and two of them shouted from the entrance, suffering from the text substitution bug. The first objective is a chest, which turns out to be locked. Finding it triggers your next objective..."Jiggles" the Shivan Destroyer, the Elite Boss kind (even on Heroic, it didn't downgrade). Just what I wanted to see with an empty Domination bar...fortunately with an SDL on my side it wasn't too bad. The Shivan had the key to the chest, which is filled with white crystals that might be mistaken for diamonds if you're blind, deaf and (very) dumb. Teremex meets you afterward and arranges an exchange that night at a cemetary.

Desdemona admonishes you to be careful as she doesn't trust the Circle, but this seems to be the only way to get the diamonds she's lusting after. The cemetary turns out to be a battlefield, as the leader of this bunch of wayward Outcasts, a Radiation Blast/Stone Armor (I think) Boss/EB named Tunguska (altered by the comet fragments in Bloody Bay, according to his info) has brought his troops out for a showdown. He's torqued off over the death of his pet Jiggles from the last act and rather despondently accepts his fate. Teremex is present as an ally escort; when you lead him back to the entrance he makes good on his promise and hands over a big bag of diamonds. Desdemona is ecstatic with the diamonds, and says " Tonight drinks are on me, and later you can kidnap me again and take me to your hidden base, you wonderful, wonderful Dominator you!" The souvenir is her kiss, too.... Um...yay?

It's a good arc though it does have some problems. Aside from the technical nits, Desdemona's voice is entirely off. She's talking more like Boris, the other Cap au Diable broker (you can almost hear the moose-and-squirrel at points). While the arc does have some themes they aren't very well developed. The faux-kidnap plot in Act II could use some development too. As it stands the Outcasts basically come out of nowhere to rescue your "victim". The souvenir makes a reference to the Outcasts experiencing "mutant discrimination" back in Paragon City...I thought I had spotted a reference to that during the arc but overlooked it. That's an X-Men plot element that doesn't apply here. There are no EB warnings in the briefings, which I think are especially needed given the arc's level range. Still, I recommend the arc, especially if you're looking for low-level villain arcs.

Most literature doesn't package its meaning in simple morals or thematic messages.

If it doesn't have a theme, it's not literature.

What, for example, is the moral lesson or theme of "The Maltese Falcon?"

As Chandler put it in the (highly recommended) titular essay from one of the Seven Books That Contain All You Really Need to Know, The Maltese Falcon is "the record of a man's devotion to his friend".

Or "The Living Shadow," the first story featuring The Shadow?

I've never read it so I couldn't tell you. Maybe it doesn't have one -- maybe it's just a pulp fiction bit of fluff.

The Harry Potter books perhaps have a theme of making sacrifices in the fight against evil, but it's a rather broad theme adopted by pretty much all heroic literature.

The Potter books have various themes depending on the specific book. They tend to be simplistic and heavy-handed but it must be remembered that these books, no matter how popular they turned out to be with adults, are written for children.

I'd say that most literature doesn't dwell on themes so much to provide unity of story - and thereby avoid JABOSTH.

If the story doesn't have a theme, then what is the author saying with it? The answer has to be nothing. If that question does have an answer then there's your theme, but if the author isn't saying anything then what, exactly, about the story in question justifies the killing of even a single tree to produce the paper to print it? Generating suspense may sell books or movie tickets but it doesn't make a story into literature.

Arc #131780, "The Day I Tried to Live"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Mary Sue, Statesman

Reviewed on: 6/4/2009
Level Range: 30-54/41-54/30-54/40-50/41-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

I had the usual type of review mostly done for this, but erased it all because it's better to just cut to the chase. The last mission has Statesman in it. As a hostile. The rest of the arc is an overwrought narrative about the author's character's inner monologue. Presumably the author insert is available as an ally on the last map (the author mentioned there being an ally in a tell; when I played it there was no indication of one in either the briefing or nav bar). Seeing as how it was the Agony Hall map there was no way in hell I was going to grovel over it looking for an ally and then drag it over to Statesman. I can't say I'm terribly interested in being the author's sidekick while he beats down the game's signature hero either. Anyway, I ate at least half a dozen deaths, blowing about 400 merits on medium inspirations to try to have a chance, then tossed in the towel.

Skip it.

It is also clear you read your fellow reviewer's review of this arc and the criticism he took after it.

I am short on time but I wanted to hit this one point: I do not read reviews of arcs I have not played. I did not know anyone even had reviewed your arc until you mentioned it.

Arc #84420, "Death to Disco!"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "It ain't half bad/It ain't half good, neither"

Reviewed on: 6/4/2009
Level Range: 30-54/1-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

The Deity of Rock (looks suspiciously like Meat Loaf) wants your help to deal with some temporal meddling. Dr. Disco Fever is changing history so that disco never dies out and rock fades away. He's traced the divergence to 1977, when Jimmy Carter suddenly introduces a bill to remix the national anthem. You must stop 'The Star Spangled Hustle" in its tracks. You're sent to an abandoned tech map full of Crey. There's no indication what Crey is doing here until you find "Sauer", a former Crey researcher (Energy Blast/Electric Blast Boss) whose experiments on himself were too extreme even for Crey. He and his team have gone rogue, hired by Dr. Disco Fever to brainwash Carter. Sauer himself notes that this is absurd, but a job's a job. He likes Lawrence Welk anyway. Carter is a simple rescue.

Saving Carter has restored the timleline on your return, but Dr. Fever isn't done yet. He's going back again to stop the "Disco Demolition", an event involving rock fans destroying piles of disco music, which as it happens was a real event. You're to make sure all the disco records, cassettes and 8-tracks are destroyed. The mission takes place on a wilderness map, since we don't have a baseball stadium (yet), and you're up against Disco Nation mobs: Dancing Queens, Divas, Kung Fu Fightins, Disco DJs.... One of them told me to "go back to New Jersey, you loser!", at which point it was ON. The Kunf Fu Fightins are worth a mention as they're Martial Arts/Super Reflexes and thus see through stealth. I heard but didn't witness battles against Hard Rockers. Dr. Disco Fever spawns somewhere around the destruction of the fourth or fifth crate out of six (not sure); his bio explains that he was a major disco personality until disco died, then ended up as a janitor at Crey where he lucked into superpowers and an Oroborus portal. He was a Gravity Control/DiedTooFast Boss. The Deity of Rock thanks you for restoring the timeline, and everything's wunnerful, wunnerful.

The arc is just kind of there. It's reasonably cute but underwritten and short. It's not bad, but there's nothing all that great about it, either.

Comparing this arc to something like Escalation (which has been getting great reviews all around, but which also seems to use the Stop The Bad Guy From Doing Bad Stuff plot) - what do you see as the critical difference? Is it the personal relationship between Escalation and the player?

"Escalation" has a primary theme about obsession and revenge. It has a secondary theme about bravery and the willingness to face a hopeless fight. The player goes out to fight Escalation over and over knowing, or at least as of Act V believing, he has no way to stop her for good, that she's only going to come back stronger if he wins.

JABOSTH is the trope I have the most trouble understanding in practice as it applies within the MA. It seems like many, many of the canon arcs suffer from this problem, and while I have something of a spidey sense about it, I don't know that I can quantify what it really means.

While I haven't sat down and tabulated them all, I'd say the majority, maybe even the vast majority, of the canon stories are "just a bunch of stuff that happened".

Gotterdammerung had a good quote on the subject in the old thread:

[ QUOTE ]

You're right in saying that avoiding JABOSTH is a very tricky thing to do, especially in a system where no assumptions can be made about the protagonist. However, I think Venture's right in placing such a big emphasis on this, because I believe it's critical to writing a good arc. The easiest way to do this is to look at your story and ask youself: "what question is this story asking?" If you're asking a question, you've got yourself a theme. If you answer the question, you've got yourself a moral. If you're really not asking anything, then you've got JABOSTH.


[/ QUOTE ]

I should point out, though, that you can go too far in the other direction, resulting in a number of negative tropes: A Very Special Episode, Anvilicious, Narm, Author Filibuster and many others.

Arc #162898, "To Be Incarnate"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: throws the Idiot Ball, "just a bunch of stuff that happened", Shaggy Dog

Reviewed on: 6/3/2009
Level Range: 1-54/1-54/1-54/40-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

"The Trader", an information broker, claims to have an opportunity for you to become an Incarnate, the same kind of superbeing as Statesman and Lord Recluse. He's willing to give you this opportunity in exchange for a few favors later. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Your first step is to knock over an Arachnos base and search its computers for a file on "Scatter-Fist". The entry pop-up does have you wondering why the Trader isn't trying for Incarnate status himself. The map is a short prison map -- one of the patrolling mobs wonders why they're maintaining a prison with no convicts -- and the file is easily obtained. Too easily, as the clue points out. On your return the Trader decrypts the file, notes that it's rather old, and says it contains the locations of vials of water from the Well of the Furies or the Fountain of Zeus.

Act II opens with the Trader trying to assuage your suspicions. He claims that as a trader of information he needs confirmation or he simply doesn't have a product to trade. He's looking for you to do the research. For the next step, he wants you to take the file to someone called "Tinker Tech", a misanthropic genius who surrounds himself with robots. The entry pop-up is cute... Tech's custom faction has a variety of electrical and energy attacks (I'm glad my SoA has a -KB IO) and he himself is a Robotics/Pain Domination Boss. He complains throughout the fight that could just ask (of course, you can't). He tells you that the file was created recently but using an outdated code, which means it's probably a trap. I needed to ask a mad scientist to look at a time/date stamp? OK.... The Trader pooh-poohs this theory on the grounds that Tinker Tech is paranoid, though he does say they have to be mindful of the possibility.

He's examined the file in more detail on its own and found embedded in it the ID code of the Arachnos employee who put the file on the computer, a low-ranking peon. He thinks this means it was a screw-up. I think that's exactly how I would have planted the file if it was supposed to be bait. In any case, the next step is to return to the prison facility to search it codes necessary to open a safe in Ghost Widow's tower. I don't like the direction this is going.... The codes turn out to be even easier to steal. Not a good sign. Unfortunately due to rubberbanding I did not actually get to read the debriefing.

Finally, it's time for the attack on Ghost Widow's tower. (Think it'll work?) The Trader says Ghost Widow herself is off to Grandville on business. There's still an AV warning on the mission...and a 90 minute time limit. Oh, and because it would be too simple for you to just fight the usual security he's sent Longbow an anonymous tip about Ghost Widow hiding some doomsday device for Recluse. Why is my Contact trying to get me killed? There's also supposed to be a clueless ally on the scene. That would be you. When you get to the top of the tower, Ghost Widow has a few Longbow agents cornered, whom she lets you finish off, then informs you that the Trader broke in during the chaos and stole the vial for himself, turning himself into the Scion of Apollo, a Fire Blast/Fiery Aura AV/EB. After he snuffs it Ghost Widow scolds you for catching the Idiot Ball. And why not. The last debriefing is given by a holographic record, a typical I'll Get You Next Time Gadget speech.

While the dialog is decent, the arc tells you time and time again you're walking into a trap and then, surprise, it's a trap. The result is an extremely telegraphed Idiot Ball throw, coupled with a lack of theme and a Shaggy Dog ending. I gave it an extra star for the dialog.

Edit: typo

So... I'm honestly curious here... taking on a rising villain group with a specific plot to take down City Hall counts as JABOSTH?

Yes.

It seems like a pretty common genre plotline.

Most genre plotlines suck.

If the villain group had a distinct motive and/or theme behind them (other than wielding fire) would that fix that problem?

Theme means literary theme, not matching costumes. The story has to have a point other than beating people up. I'm not expecting Dostoyevsky but we can do better than a mindless direct-to-DVD action flick.

Also, was the arc labeled as being intended for a specific level range of player?

Yes, and I was within that range with the chosen character. It has a teams-only advisory on it but that cuts no ice with me. Architect projects are available to groups of size 1 to 8, so that's the design specification. If you're asked to design a row of apartment houses and submit a design for an abattoir instead you've failed, regardless of how cool the abattoir might be.

Arc #161066, "New Flame Rising"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GMing, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Reviewed on: 6/2/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Character used: Justice/Agent Cerulean

Yes, I ran a Heroic arc with a VEAT. Come and get me.

Detective Charlie Rounds asks you to follow up on a lead for him...seems some Hellions busted in Steel Canyon were carrying a note telling them to attend a meeting in Founders' Falls, which is more than a bit out of their league. Your lead takes you to a warehouse filled with "Inferno Force" mobs, using a variety of Fire and Thermal powers, along with a Devices model. Some patrolling guys wonder where the new recruits are, and you find some crates of Inferno Force uniforms. There's also a hostage to rescue (non-escort), a Sheila Keller from Paragon City Action News. The Inferno Force mobs are fairly tough thanks to a few of them packing heals; the Devices models also have Taser for you squishies. The exit popup describes you as fleeing from Keller ASAP, which is a bit of powerposing but I expect would be the case more often than not. Rounds tells you in the debriefing that Keller got a photo of you and ran it in her story.

Which leads to her getting kidnapped in Act II, by someone calling himself "Dr. Inferno". Even though it looks like a trap you have to go in. This is another warehouse crawl, and once again Keller is not an escort. She does trigger a new mob, though, "Fire Fiend", a Super Strength/Fiery Aura EB that had the indecency to spawn at +1. This mob took five defeats to clear. You get some clues about a plan to fire bomb City Hall.

Stopping the bombing in Act III is a 45 minute timed mission. There was another +1 EB, "Volcanix", Stone Melee/Fiery Aura from the looks of it, which flattened me quickly. I slipped past it and took the bombs out, ending the mission. Keller runs live reports as you deal with the bombing, resulting in a threat from Dr. Inferno. He sends a note telling you to meet his team at a designated time and place; beat them and he'll face you himself.

For the last act you have to face Fire Fiend, Arsonette, Tombfire, Solar Wave, and Dr. Inferno, all EBs with various powers. There isn't much to write about here. I took a few defeats, loaded up on inspirations, beat them down. The end. If you insist on inflicting this arc on yourself, Solar Wave and Inferno are Controllers so bring lots of BFs if you don't have status protection. The arc has no story to speak of, never mind a theme, and is less than a bunch of newspaper missions strung together and stuffed with mobs intended to kill you.

The snapshots I linked to came right out of the custom critter editor, trimmed down in GIMP.

Yet you didn't, partly because characters with that particular name aren't all that common in the vast sea of characters period.

Actually I did, the character's name was Ursus Minor. "Kid Ursus Minor" is a bit redundant and more than a bit grating.

As opposed to $Name, which only ever works if your hero just so happens to be A: teen B: from the future C: interested in joining the Teen Phalanx?

Presumably a player that clicks on an arc that says "this arc assumes you're a teen hero" will not be put off by the arc actually assuming he is a teen hero.

Prefixing "Kid" to the player's name assumes the character is not a teen hero, that he is the sidekick of an adult version of himself and that he is not already named "Kid Something". If I had run the arc with a hypothetical "Kid Venture" or "Venture Lad", it would be constantly calling me "Kid Kid Venture"..."Kid Venture Lad"...blech.