Venture

Arc #137561, "Time Loop"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Reviewed on: 5/26/2009
Level Range: 15-30
Character used: Amarantia/Virtue

Foreshadow has detected a temporal anomaly that concerns him. It was located in the basement of a mad scientist recently busted by Wyvern and they've taken whatever is generating the anomaly to one of their bases. He's tried going through channels but they're not taking him seriously...so he wants someone who will "unofficially" obtain it for him. While Foreshadow has his weird reincarnation thing going on, he doesn't have any scientific skills or awareness of time distortions I know of in the canon, but whatever.... On entry to the warehouse map I immediately overheard a Wyvern patrol complaining of "flashbacks" to the arrest in question...not a good sign. The desired object is in the hands of an Agent Marx, who accidentally pushes its jolly candy-like button as you beat him up. There's also a computer you ignore as it doesn't seem important.

Until the next time Foreshadow asks you to go get the artifact. For whatever reason he doesn't believe you when you say you already have it and sends you off to get it again. This time you get a decryption code from Marx and have to take it back to the computer, which is now guarded. Also, somewhere along the way I picked up an ambush, making this "interesting", but I survived. The artifact now seems to be larger and has seven buttons arranged in a helix pattern. The computer says there's another artifact but before you can do anything about it you're back at Foreshadow.

A jump to the left and you're back in the warehouse.... The problem is, the place is bigger now. And there's 15 possible artifacts in it, according to the nav bar. None of the glowies are actually important or necessary, though at least some of them are recognizable from various stories involving time loops. The artifact is on Marx again, even bigger, and he says as you clobber him the other one is in the possession of a Wing Sting Agent named Steve. Then you're back at Foreshadow.

...and a twist to the right and you're back at the even larger warehouse. After finding and clobbering Steve you get a cube and push its jolly candy-like button. Off in the distance you hear a strange noise and your new objective is to destroy Marx's artifact. Marx's artifact is now a robot called "Time Shifter" with a Hydra Spawn for a guard. Its info said something about the artifact manipulating time to accelerate its own construction but I didn't really have time to read it, especially with the ambush of Spawn and Shivans it called. It did complain that it couldn't exist along with the "time splitter" as it died, its defeat text describing the cube launching itself at the robot and both melting into scrap metal. In the debriefing Foreshadow says you were trapped in the loop for three months. Eh?

There isn't much to say about this one. There's no theme, either you think this kind of thing is cute or you don't. I don't.

Arc #67335, "Teen Phalanx Forever!"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: overpowered allies, dissonance in narrative

Reviewed on: 5/26/2009
Level Range: 15-20/20-20/20-25/29-30
Character used: Ursus Minor/Freedom

N.B: This review was not requested, so it is jumping the queue, but I felt like playing the arc and decided to give it a full review. Call it professional courtesy, as its Architect is doing reviews herself.

Coyote is riding herd on the "Teen Phalanx", a supergroup full of kids. The arc assumes you are a teen sidekick of your character. Ursus Minor is 10 or so, meaning he'd be an older version of himself, so we'll just ignore that and assume Coyote is talking to Ursus directly.... He sends you to aid the Teens in their attack on Dr. Vahzilok, giving you some tactical advice on fighting the Vahz and warning you that Manticora has gone emo since Statesboy quit. The tactical advice is probably old news to the player but completely in character. Mission objectives including meeting up with Manticora, Kid Valkyrie, Back Alley Boy and Citadel XP, rescue 4 hostages and beat up Dr. Vahzilok. Manticora (Psychic Blast/Trick Arrow, daughter of Manticore and Sister Psyche; either they were fooling around long before the wedding or their kid's been aging in an alternate accelerated timeline...) was up first, accusing me of being a cheap knock-off of me...I can see this is going to be a recurring problem.... Kid Valkyrie was next, Broadsword/Regeneration, daughter of Valkyrie wearing a power suit built by Positron. Citadel XP, a combination of Citadel's hardware and Luminary's software (rimshot) and Back Alley Boy, adopted son of the Brawler, were next in the same room. I'm not sure what some of their powers were as mobs were dying way too quickly. XP gives you a "tactical update" on rescue, informing you that the not-so-good Doctor was running an internet dating site scam to attract victims. There were a couple of Vahzilok Brides in the last room, Claws/EvaporatedOnSight Minions. In the debriefing, Kid Valkyrie nominates you as a member and you're voted in.

Next, Coyote wants you to help the team with the Clockwork King. Actually he's been trying to get to you for hours, but Manticora forgot to give you a Teen Phalanx Communicator. Evidently it's OK to let kids run around with superpowers but cell phones are out.... Once again you're given some tactical advice on Clockwork and the King himself, and told there are two hostages in the mix. Once again you have to hook up with the other kids, and again XP fills you in: the Clockwork King has created "World of Clockwork", populated by fantasy MMO Clockworks (he was guarded by a Clockwork Mage and two Clockwork Rangers, who wanted to kill me because I had good drops...the rest of their dialog is along those lines) and kidnapped innocent people to serve as "beta testers". The King folded like a busted flush; there's just too much firepower. (BABy hits for 800+ with KO Blow and Rage...I have 774 HP.) As you leave Manticora gives you the communicator but runs off as if she's in a hurry. Kid Valkyrie thinks she's gone to make up with Statesboy.

Your next task is a stint on monitor duty. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You get to rummage through your teammates' stuff before checking the monitor...to find Freaks attacking the base! You first have to deal with Freak Tank C4TS, whose dialog is pretty much what you expect. After that the kids spawn one by one, returning to deal with the alarm except for Manticora and XP. Clamor spawns after BABy is rescued, right on top of me as it happened, but since he punched off about 80% of her HP in one shot that wasn't a problem.... The Freaks appear to have been sent by a "Mr. V", who also sent XP a threatening note. Coyote is disturbed about the two absent members, and concludes someone is targeting the kids.

Sure enough, Citadel XP has been kidnapped by Council robots. You and the other kids are off to save him and (presumably) Manticora as well at an "abandoned" Council base in Striga. Manticora reveals that the note from Statesboy that had her off and running was a forgery that got her captures, and XP tells you he's met the Big Bad, a completely insane fusion of Citadel's and Council's technology calling itself Citadel Vista. As if we didn't know Vista was the result of Technology Gone Wrong already.... XP managed to get himself wedged into the geometry on the way to the last room, putting him out of the fight. Citadel Vista (Vandal) got in a lucky shot after calling an ambush wave of robot duplicates of the Phalanx (which spawned all RoboCora and RoboVal, maybe on purpose) and downed me on the first try. He went down quickly on the second. Coyote thanks you and is sorry your mentor is requesting more of your time now but reminds you you'll always be a member of the Teen Phalanx.

It's a cute arc that handles its motif well. Paralleling the first four TFs (well, subbing the Dr. Vahz mission for the horrid Positron TF) was a nice touch. There are some nits. For starters, for most of the arc the Teens are just too much firepower. The player is really just along for the ride once the kids join in. Both the Clockwork King and Clamor were ZOMGRANGERDOWNPWNED by BABy. The other is assuming the player is his teen sidekick when the player might just be a teen hero in his own right. It wouldn't be so bad if this was only mentioned in the opening briefing and never again. Other than that the arc is a good comedy, recommended.

Anyway, the custom boss was custom interesting - I guess grav/emp was just too much of a pain to mow down the minions with?

The stock Arch-Magi just weren't any fun to fight. They were naiively-upscaled versions of low-level mobs, meaning they were just given a huge pile of HP and tons of regen to make them work outside their normal level range. The custom Blood Redeemers are easier to kill in terms of how much damage it takes to bring them down but provide a more interesting fight.

Hmm. Is that the Midnighter- no, just one of the alternatives. A Latin-speaking Peacebringer? Or a scholar? Eh, I have the feeling this is a minor character. Nice touch with the Voids though.

She's one of my PCs, Venture's twin sister. As far as the story is concerned she's a minor character. Latin phrases are one of her quirks; she was an art history major with an interest in the period.

(But why's Venture got a techno-restraint field? It makes sense for the Peacebringer but the Circle couldn't create something like that.)

It was a nice graphic so I used it. Nothing about it really screams "techno" to me. YMMV.

Hmm. The Circle have whacked this guy upside the head one too many times. his description thinks he's Ken Kellerman!

GHAHAHAH!! *jumps up and down* I fixed that ages ago! Or thought I did, obviously it didn't take. I fixed it again last night and it appears to have stuck.

The mental/pain guy is a lot more of a challenge. Maybe because he's got the busted version of psy shockwave?

I tried the arc last night with my 50 AR/Dev and Esiliaar gave her more trouble than the Big Bad in Act V. This was with her never being anywhere near PSW range. He's just that tough.

I clear out the portal room looking for the glowie and then backtrack to find it tucked away in one of the nonillion tiny little alcoves dotting Oranbega. Maybe you could just roll the papers in with the boss's notes?

Since I had the case open to fix the hostage in Act II, I moved the mission end Clue to Belastios' defeat Clue, removed the collection entirely and moved its Clue to the mission end Clue.

Okay, if Cinoval is convinced this sympathetic sacrifice won't work, why does Azuria seem to think it will when I tag back to her?

Her text is in there to offsent potential ethical concerns, and to remind the player he's not just pulling a Phipps, kicking the Circle in the head just to keep them down. What the Redeemers want, in principle, is not a bad thing, but they can't be permitted to pursue the method they've chosen.

Well, I guess this is more to throw 14 millennia of regrets on the fire, but still, what's he going to change?

If Cinoval hadn't sacrificed himself, defeating the Redeemers would have accomplished nothing. More of the Circle's magi would have stepped up to take their place. This way anyone who might have been willing to follow in their footsteps will see the ritual didn't work under the best possible conditions.

Hmm. I wonder if Azuria should be so chummy with Akarist, given that Cirnoval's diaries paint him as the head pitchman for the whole "slaughter the Mu" pact.

If I were telling the story of the Mu-Oranbega war, Akarist's plan would have been to get a contract with the Prince of Demons that would get Oranbega the aid they needed but with a loophole or three he could use to let them spare the non-combatants after they'd won. It would not have worked, of course: no one beats the Devil.

There are two sequel arcs I have in mind for this, one using Akarist for the Contact and the third using [NAME REDACTED]. I doubt I'll actually write them, though, as that's a lot of work for alternate continuity.

Thanks for the feedback!

Am I the only one who thinks that the 15 minutes of playing the mission should be more interesting? And I don't mean clicking on 8 blinkies instead of 1. I mean having dialog inside them, or a series of steps to accomplish a goal?


The problem with bad ideas is they sound like good ideas until you think about them.

What you're asking for here is basically chained objectives. The primary effect of chained objectives is to make the player run all over hell's half acre to try to find where the new target has spawned. This loses its appeal very quickly, as in usually the first time you see it. If we could position objectives or at least get them to spawn in the right freaking regions this might not be so bad. That would, of course, depend on Architects to actually place the new objectives in such a way as to preserve some kind of narrative flow and not deliberately make the player run over the map four times, which some twits would do anyway.

I don't know if you've played my missions (they're on the page linked in my sig) but I do try to provide an ample amount of text and story. This gets complaints too, from people who don't want to have to read anything.

A lot of things people ask for are things that might work great in a dedicated adventure game but would rapidly lose their appeal in an MMO. Making the player solve a mini-game logic puzzle to get a Clue sounds like a great idea until the 20th time you have to do it. Then you're going to want to put your fist through the monitor every time you see one.

In short, things are the way they are for reasons, even if those reasons aren't immediately apparent, and if you're not enjoying the game it may simply be time for you to move on.

In retrospect the Captain Dynamic videos are more tragic than anything else, as the player base overwhemlingly voted with its feet in favor of being Captain Dynamic over writing and playing legitimate story arcs.

Arc #103878, "Gamble for Oakes"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: badly disjointed level range, excessive ambush, bordeline Idiot Plot, no closure

Reviewed on: 5/25/2009
Level Range: 1-54/5-14/1-14/6-12/1-54
Character used: Amarantia/Virtue

You get a phone call from someone named Gil, who claims to be the leader of the local Hellions. He says one of two Skulls who recently defected, both of whom are his childhood friends, was just kidnapped by the Council. He wants your help in getting the hostage back. Sure, I don't mind working for a voice on the phone claiming to be someone I've never met.... The hostage, Cage, turned out to be a simple rescue. There's also a weapons rack that's already been looted ("but by whom?" it asks) and a computer with a file on "Operation Fuschia: Zwei" describing how the Council sent a Cor Leonis codenamed Fuschia (?) into the Family as a sleeper agent, from where she (??) convinced them to assign her to work undercover in the Skulls (???). She's now reporting that the Skulls are about to begin a big plan. Cage, the hostage, speaks on the phone for the debriefing, thanking you for rescuing him and claiming the Council was going to brainwash him or use him in their experiments. In the mission, his approach text says "I just wanted to join you guys, I swear." Yep.

Next, Gil invites you over for pizza. No, not really, he really wants your help on another big job. It seems the other one of his childhood friends who defected, Fujin, was also grabbed by the Council but she (first mention of gender, I'm pretty sure) managed to grab some weapons and escape. Gil wants you hit a Family warehouse and plant the Council weapons to frame them for it. The entry pop-up says "Time to throw the Idiot Ball and hope the Family catches'...OK.... This is a defeat-all on a medium-sized map with four glowies. Gil is on site as a free-willed ally hostage (i.e. he doesn't follow you when released). He has no info and his garb makes him look more like a Prisoner than a Hellion. "Consigliere Zwei" was in the last room, a hostile custom mob. I have no idea what her powers were since she was confused and held in short order. She very tersely expresses her consternation at your interference. In the debriefing Gil says Fujin took a beating "which is weird" (you'd think he'd notice the conspicuous giant thorns and stuff) and is gleeful at the prospect of the Family and the Council going for each others' throats.

There's no indication of that actually going down in the next act, though, as Cage has been grabbed by the Skulls now. Gil and Fujin are going to get him back and he wants your help. This is a three-hostage rescue on a large warehouse map, effectively making it a kill-all, and when you rescue the third he triggers the spawn of two more boss objectives. Just in case you weren't ready to reach though the monitor and throttle the Architect, downing the first of those resulted in a tidal wave of Skulls that easily dispatched all three of us. I zoned back in and cleaned up the mess. On exit, you get a call from Cage explaining that he and Fujin joining leaving the Skulls for the Hellions was supposed to be a trick. The plan was to be for Cage to join with the Council and that was to provoke the Hellions into a war to get him back...they thought the Hellions were going to take on the Council?!?!?!?!?! In any case it didn't work because the Council knew about the plan somehow. I can't imagine how.

Cage calls again to tell you he's taken over the local Skulls and arranged an uneasy truce with Gil -- uneasy because the rank-and-file don't like the idea, that is. They're making a big move now and want your help. The Family is tied up with the Council, so they aim to send the Mooks packing by taking out a bunch of their leaders, including Emil Marcone (bring a team warning, and that's the wrong leader -- the Mook's leader is Guido Verandi). The office turns out to have Council and Family in it. For a Mook HQ, it didn't have any actual Mooks in it. There were one or two tense spots dealing with Emil but he went down on the first fall. So did two Council Archons, both complaining about things not going according to plan. In the debriefing Gil thinks this means the Skulls and Hellions now own Port Oakes. I can just hear him saying "extended warranty? How can I lose!"

The last mission, entitled "The Big Bloody Reset Button", opens with Arbiter Unger on the phone, informing you that allowing the Skulls and Hellions to control the area is not in Recluse's best interests, and it is up to you to fix it by killing Gil, Cage and whoever the hell Fujin/Zwei/Fuschia/Mata Hari/Lee Harvey Oswald/Nemesis is. You're warned that they'll try to run and that cannot be allowed. Entry popup: "For some people, failure is the only option".... The ending faction for this is "Skullions", which was cute. As I was on CL1 and playing a Dominator none of the targets had any real chance. In the debriefing Unger mocks you for having killed all your friends and co-workers, then congratulates you on having dealt with everyone who would have tried to control Oakes and being wise enough to obey Arachnos when necessary.

The arc doesn't really throw the Idiot Ball (except at Gil, who runs for the end zone with it), but you have to be a pretty dim bulb not to realize that "Fu" is playing everyone for saps. There are two problems with this. One is that you have no real incentive to play along, unless it's being assumed that your character has about fifty fewer IQ points than you do, in which case this is an Idiot Plot. The other is that it's pretty clear, from the fact that she never speaks in sentences containing more than one word, that Fu is chipped or mind controlled or a Nemesis Automaton or something along those lines, and there's never any indication as to who she is really working for or what she really is. The gameplay is decent except for the Ambush From Hell, but you're going to be left scratching your head at the end.

Current queue status is listed below. When requesting a review, please include morality and level range.

Hero: 161066, 81378, 170506, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 161797, 79354, 75386, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 118009, 191775

Villain: 162898, 77533, 161865, 32801, 97774, 153720

Neutral: 84420, 170547, 123675, 175675, 156389, 143017, 177826, 67356, 1296

Hero 13-20: 131780, 135563, 24926

Villain 13-20: 103878, 114284

Neutral 13-20: 137561

Rerun: 128109, 181165, 106553

Arc #132673, "The Galaxy Girl Maneuver"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", Timey Wimey Ball, no closure, muddled morality

Reviewed on: 5/25/2009
Level Range: 5-15
Character used: Amy Sunflower/Virtue

Mender Lazarus needs your help. The last time you worked with him, which is three years from now, you stopped a villain named the Silver Scarab from robbing a bank decades ago. One of his henchmen was Lou Pardelli, the man who would go on to mug Kelly Graham, causing her to become Galaxy Girl. That won't happen if Lou goes to jail, so Lazarus wants you to rescue him from the cops. This is not a good start for a Heroic arc.... You have to return to the bank and rescue Lou (ally escort) from the police and bank security. On his way out he insists he had nothing to do with the robbery and shows you a note telling him to be there at that time so he'd "learn something of interest". Lazarus concludes that someone intended to frame him using your own flashback, and runs off to consult Nem^H^H^HSilos.

After getting reprimanded by Silos, Lazarus re-examines the timline around Galaxy Girl and discovers another "hot spot": someone is trying to prevent Dauntless, her kid sidekick, from reaching her in time to save her from an attack by Protean -- a battle that costs Dauntless his life. You have to rescue Dauntless from his captors so he can go die on schedule. The ethical implications are not lost in the narrative. You are sent to a warehouse full of Pumicites. Just what my Controller needed, a map full of mobs that can't be rooted.... You are to free Dauntless, optionally two smugglers (all simple rescues) and defeat the "Central Processor", which was an Igneous named Core Dump. His defeat triggers an ambush, but you have to defeat his whole encounter to clear the objective, which made things "interesting". Fortunately I managed to take down the last of his guards then click out while the ambush was beating on me (error: defeat text says "Return to Mender Silos"). On return, Lazarus notes how displeased you are over the last mission and tells you the next one is a strike against the perpetrator.

The Enemy has been using an abandoned superhero base in Eastgate, but accidentally attracted the attention of Longbow. You're to use Longbow's raid as a distraction. Unfortunately because Longbow are a bunch of trigger-happy idiots they're going to treat you as an enemy. Um, yeah. The place is filled with Pumicites and Longbow, occasionally fighting each other, and three copies of The Hood, described only as "a mysterious masked figure attempting to erase Galaxy Girl from history". These are numbered IV, III and II. There are a total of five Clues to find, four of which make it sound as if the real goal of the Hood is to erase Ms. Liberty. The last is from Mystery Letter Writing Guy who once again mocks you for having no freaking idea what you're really doing.

Lazarus comes to the same conclusion. And the Enemy has had enough of the indirect approach and has jumped back to the night Kelly Graham was mugged. You have to flashback and save her yourself. The map is the narrow city map, and yes, more Pumicites. Egads. Goals are to protect Kelly and defeat The Hood, with optional goals to rescue "Rosie" and Lou Pardelli. Fortunately I was able to fly over the map and cherry-pick the objectives, taking out the Hood and Galaxy Girl's keepers with Seeds of Win. This time the Hood is routed to an Ouroboros temporal prison when he tries to jump out. Lazarus is somewhat put off by the way things went but the timeline appears to be in order so it's all good. You don't get to find out who the Hood is or why exactly he wanted Ms. Liberty erased.

The arc suffers from the usual Timey Wimey Ball problems and has no closure. Twice in a four-mission Heroic arc you're sent up against law enforcement. You're left with no idea who you were up against, what was going on or even (as usual for Ouroboros) whether or not you're working for the right people. This means it's impossible to criticize the plot; it also means that's because there isn't one.

I gave it another run-through myself, this time on Mr. Pagliacci/Virtue (28 Dark/Psy Defender). The changes were all for the better.

Now Escalation can stew over being sent to jail by a clown.

Stacked onto a Hero's damage, resists and hp regen, I strongly doubt that this beast could be beaten even by a team.

It was said in VU2009 that the RSF Ms. Liberty could be defeated without using the Orestes Rifle. That's probably quite a fight. (The RSF is one of the few things in the game I haven't done personally.)

Arc #113956, "The Devs must die!"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: not funny, possibly reportable

Reviewed on: 5/24/2009
Level Range: 30-54/1-54/30-54/1-54
Character used: Amelia Escobar/Virtue

Your Contact on this one is not just Nemesis, but Angry Nemesis. Evidently he's been to Burger King lately. After ODing on Angry Whoppers, though, he tried to take over the city with an army of robotic hobos. His idea that no one notices homeless people so they could strike without warning. And it would have worked, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids^H^H^H^Hprogrammers. It seems the people he had programming the robots, known as "The Devs" decided they wanted to rule the world and programmed the bots accordingly. You're asked to stop them. The first target is the Crey facility where the bots were being made. Nemesis already told them to destroy the prototypes but thinks the Countess is likely to try to hold onto a few for herself. For some bizarre reason this facility is a cargo ship. You have to find one glowie and take out one Hobobot, a Super Strength/Invulnerability Boss that dropped me twice thanks to KO Blow. (Typo in fight spam: "inherant") The glowie is a list of the programmers' names, but they're all aliases like "Steaksman" and "Applecore". Um, yeah.

Angry Nemesis next asks you to take the coded list to his expert cryptographer, Arbiter Something, hidden in the ranks of Arachnos. This will expose him and probably result in his death but Nemesis doesn't care. Yes, this arc says "Neutral" on the label.... The Arbiter, whose actual name is "Sumting", was already being held hostage, seems his Nemesis decoder ring gave him away despite his claim that he just enjoyed Nemesis' TV show. After rescuing him, he took off for the door and said that list is not encoded, these are the forum names of the programmers. The exit clue says Sumter gave you a hastily-scribbled address Nemesis immediately sends you off to smite the Devs....

...but, when I got there, a voice over the intercom said the Devs were long gone and I'd have to deal with their Hobobots of Dooooooooom. The bots come in a variety of types, there's one hostage to rescue (which, though being a required objective, involves "rescuing" an enemy bot from your allies) and a few glowies, most of which contain insulting comments about the game's developers that I won't repeat. The "hostage" slips you a note from the Devs challenging Nemesis to meet them in Dimension Z.

Nemesis sends you instead, explaining that Dimension Z is not another dimension but a casino in Bloody Bay. You have to defeat-all in a small bar map, including the "DevBot Destroyer Beta Test Version", an Electric Assault/Shield Elite Boss. There's really nothing to write about there. When you finish, Nemesis thanks you and says you can rest comfortably knowing that when the city is taken over it will be by a benevolent genius and not crazy programmers.

The arc is really not funny and makes some insulting comments that might be considered reportable for content.

I will say, that map is supposed to seem like the last stand, but I've mostly gotten very positive feedback on it. I've been told it feels "epic" and even "feels like star wars!" with all the red lasers and energy swords and lightning flying around

How many of these people were playing Scrappers?

I'm sure if you take a Scrapper or Brute in it's a blast (though the Thunder Strike on the EBs can probably oneshot a SR or the like). Anything the slightest bit squishy is going to be problematic.

There are three EBs, and 3 floors. They are set to spawn front, middle, and back.

There are four EBs. Really.

I saw they were set to standard. Unfortunately the latest round of almost totally unrequested changes to custom critters shoved some very wacky ideas of what powers should go with which difficulty levels down our throats. Hopefully the changes said to be coming with i15 will fix this.

One thing I will point out, is that in the last mission, you said there were several side objectives who "somehow" survived the first sortie, that being the scientists.

No, I said somehow the ARTIFACT survived MY first sortie, despite my hitting the pavement sometime after the second Boss shivved me in the back.

Arc 139281: Ghost Widow's Strike Force

I gave this one a quick spin myself using my DM/EnA Brute. He's got Smash/Lethal Defenses at 52% thanks to set bonuses, with the others up there as well. It's even worse than you said. That "Miss Liberty" mob (aside from having the wrong name) is actually the version of Ms. Liberty from the Recluse SF. Not only won't she scale, she has an extra "Liberty Belt" self-buff that pushed her tohit from 8-9% to just under 90% and about tripled her damage. You're supposed to need the SF's temp power to kill her. I have no idea why this (or any other non-scaling mob) is even available in the Architect.

Needless to say, I couldn't solo her either (I might have been able to without that buff, though it would have taken all day) and one-starred the arc. The rest of it was wretched too, writing was terrible.

Arc #174586, "Assault on Aru Prime"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", problematic mobs, some plot holes

Reviewed on: 5/24/2009
Level Range: 1-54/1-54/1-54/1-54/41-54
Character used: Amelia Escobar/Virtue

The first thing to note is that the arc has a warning on it not to play below level 31. Evidently an object used in one of the missions doesn't scale properly. The next note is that this arc takes place entirely outside of CoX canon; it's a science-fiction adventure casting you as a "Federation Meta-Sapient Ranger".

Admiral Ayala wants your help with the Federation's stalled invasion of the Azeri Alliance. There's a report in of an archaeological find on neutral planet Aru Prime, an artifact that might help disrupt the Azeri's psionic technology. You're to do this under the pretense of negotiating for medical supplies, during which process you are to kill their ambassador, hack into the planetary database to find the dig site, and break into a command bunker for military information as a distraction. The map is an office-to-caves-to-Rikti one with "Aru Civilians", Martial Arts/Regen (I think), and "Aru Security Officers" (Mace/Shield). You have to click two computer glowies and beat up the Ambassador, who has climbed into a suit of powered armor (Martial Arts/DiedTooFast Boss). When you get back, the Admiral tells you they've destroyed the Arusian fleet, but the planet's defense shields were too strong and they managed to get off a distress signal.

It turns out the military information you swiped was the location of the Arusian's central defense installation. While another team checks out the dig site, you're to invade that, knock down the planetary shield, steal any information that looks valuable and plant a neurotoxin bomb to kill as many Arusians as possible after you leave. A Boss, "Major Vezija", spawned frontloaded (Martial Arts/Electrical Blast), and some Aru Security Officer Lietenants entered the mix (Assault Rifle/DiedTooFast). The goals were to take down 5 generators, plant the toxin and find four "shield technologies". There turned out to be a number of the Boss spawns, reminding me yet again that the END drain on my Widow could suck the chrome off a fender through 20 feet of garden hose.... On return, the Admiral orders a planetary bombardment and says they're going to need your help with the dig site.

It turns out the Arusians caught the Federation spy, so they know about the artifact in question. A courier was tranporting it through the capitol but that's in ruins now. You'll have to go in after him, and quickly because the Azeri fleet just showed up and they're busting caps both in orbit and planetside. You beam down to a ruined city map to find two glowies and the Azeri team leader, a Katana/Kinetics Boss, and her cohorts, Robotics/Pain Domination Minions. The result of all this is you discover the artifact is gone, probably taken by an Azeri team. You beam back up to a bad situation.

The command ship's scans confirm the artifact is now aboard the enemy flagship. Even with the new shield modifications online, your fleet has lost a third of its ships with negligible enemy casualties. Despite the fact that Azeri ships are deathtraps for boarding parties, you're going in. The artifact is near the enemy's reactor core, so you're also to plant explosives to destroy the flagship from the inside. The map is an Arachnos lab, with the Big Room...kill me now...in which you find an "Azari MSR" Elite Boss, Electric Assault/Invulnerability, which dropped me when it was nearly dead with an 760-point or so Havoc Punch backed up by a 290 point Charged Brawl. It was surrounded by the Engineers which had to be entirely cleared out first, as they're all healers, and (of course) turned out to be personally guarding the artifact. I wondered at this point why, if it actually does what the Federation thinks it will, it wasn't destroyed by now.... Then I lost conn and had to do it all...over...again.... The rerun went a bit more smoothly, though I had to drain my tray to beat the MSR. On your return to the command ship, the Admiral reveals she's herded the Azeri ships in towards their flagship just in time to have it blow up. That's the good news.

The bad news is that even though you'll win this battle, an Azeri force three times the size of the last one is coming in. If the artifact does what everyone thinks it does and the techs can get it working, you might have a chance...but an Azeri boarding party including several MSRs has taken over the lab section. You have to get in and protect the artifact. At this point the arc takes a major nosedive as the difficulty skyrockets. The first room contained the artifact, two Bosses and (on CL2) about 15 of the healer mobs right up front. If you deal with that, you have to put up with four of the Azeri MSRs, all of which are surrounded by healers. There are battles with your ship's marines but they're going to be over in the Azeri's favor by the time you see them, and all that means is everyone already has their pets out when you attack. There are assorted objectives to deal with other than protecting the artifact (which, somehow, survived despite my biting it on the first sortie) but none of them matter because the map is a kill-all. I died five times trying to get rid of the first EB, which is capable of one-shotting a VEAT. I stopped counting after that but I must have died at least 15-20 times on the last map. In the debriefing the Admiral tells you the artifact works beyond their expectations: it doesn't just disable Azeri technology, it kills them outright. Once the incoming fleet is wiped out by pushing a button, it's on to the Azeri homeworld. You get a medal and a promotion for making genocide possible.

This was heading for four stars until I hit the last map. It would have gotten two but I gave it the benefit of the doubt since my Widow was only 34. Huge piles of healers backing up Bosses and Elite Bosses are more than a bit much. The writing is decent, but it's not clear why the Azeri didn't destroy the artifact when they had the chance, or made an all out effort to take out your ship after you steal it. When their ships are herded together and can't get out except by ramming...well, if I thought the enemy command ship was carrying something that could utterly disable all my technology, ramming is exactly what I'd do. They also take their sweet time about destroying it when their boarding party reaches the labs. Some players may balk at the Federation's tactics but it is a villainous arc. Just bring a build that can solo the Nimitz and you'll be fine.

Edit: typo

If we're really lucky, the "Coming Storm" is nothing but a macguffin explaining the existence of Ouroboros, and it will never actually occur.

If we're not, there is no limit to how badly this could potentially suck.

And I have a hard time figuring out what kind of hero would look askance on getting a couple of innocent people out of harm's way and stopping a blood feud running riot in the streets at the same time.


Serious law-and-order types are going to balk at letting someone walk into a court and cop to two crimes he didn't commit, under oath, regardless of how many he has committed.

Thank you, sir, for all your kind words, and the good commentary. And, may I use the above for a "pull quote" if I make a movie poster?

Sure, go for it.

What is the difference between doing things with steam that everyone else thinks is impossible and cutting edge superscience, other than a bit of flavor and cosmetics?

The former strains disbelief way beyond the breaking point. The latter does not.

The audience only has a limited ability to suspend disbelief. As I've said before, quoting Campbell, they'll swallow one porcupine but not two. Do you really want to use your one and only get-out-of-jail-free card on getting them to accept (e.g.) steam-powered robots that can pass for human beings?

How much logical consistency can we reasonably demand of a game that intentionally incorporates so many disparate "reasons" for super-powered-ness?

Lots. There is no imperative to be logical inconsistent.

For instance, would it actually hurt anything if the /info on a Nemesis soldier said "The weapons used by these troops may look archaic, but that's just an affectation. On the inside, Nemesis technology is nothing but cutting edge superscience" instead of trying to tell us that Nemesis is so CRAZY BRILLIANT that he can do things with steam that are utterly impossible?

Hmm. The Streghe really need pumps, not sneakers. Chucks don't go too well with their businesslike attire.

They've learned it's best to wear sensible shoes on the job.

Had to laugh at some Red Ink Men just slipping into a group of Family and carving them up. Yeah, that's who really owns the streets in Paragon.

Hey, with the old custom mobs, the Red Inks got ZOMGRANGERDOWNPWNED all the time.


But that souvie tanked my opinion of the arc, because what it boiled down to when I read it was "You couldn't do anything. Aren't you glad the NPC did it for you?"

And no. No, I'm not.

I knew that was a possible reaction. So far you're the only one to express it.

The player does do quite a bit in the story. You rescue innocents from harm's way in Act I, contain a mob war in Act II, rescue Nicki and Darrin in Act III, busted a Family Don in Act IV and put an archvillain in the Zig in Act V (however briefly, of course). If you hadn't rescued the lovebirds in Act III, the story would have ended there, most likely with them and Leo dead after he finally faced the music with his father.

I could have written Act V to trigger Nicki and Darrin as captive rescues after Diablo faceplants, and then had the mission end Clue narrate the player and the kids accepting Diablo's offer to fake their deaths. That would have meant powerposing the player in an ethical decision, which to me is a far worse sin than having an NPC provide the happy ending. I can see a lot of character types who would have problems going along with that.

End of the day, it's an artistic decision that's going to work for some people and not work for others. If you're in the latter camp, I respect your preference, but we disagree.

Arc #49035, "A South Side Story"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: zero Clues, excessive AVs/EBs for the level range, problematic escort

Reviewed on: 5/21/2009
Level Range: 5-14/1-14/5-14/5-14/1-14
Character used: Amy Sunflower/Virtue

Detective Rachel Torres asks you to help out "Teardrop", one of her CIs...who happens to be a female Skull. According to Teardrop the "Bone Mama" has split from the main Skull gang to form the Southside Skulls, which has provoked a turf war. That doesn't seem to be the main issue right now, though. Torres has a man inside the Lost (problem: no one gets inside the Lost without being exposed to Shift) who needs to be extracted. Her first plan was to get her brother Chico, a Skulls boss (it says, not Bone Daddy), to go after the Lost. The plan was for Teardrop to go along with Chico and get the cop out in the confusion. Teardrop seems surprised for some reason that her brother doesn't trust her...well, duh, factional issues up the first paragraph honey...so she can't go along on the raid. It falls to you to head in and bring out the undercover cop. He turns out to be named "This must be the guy" and is a Lost Minion...combatant escort. Unless this mission is intended to fail (which is bad) this makes things interesting as you have to keep him alive past respawned patrols. Fortunately for him, I was playing a Controller with a +res buff and two heals, which he needed. The Architect did deal with the Shift problem, as the cop's guards were complaining about him being "unevolved" and threatening to "evolve" him.

Next up, Teardrop says she's found out through her cousin that Chico has declared war on the Hellions and called for a rumble, Sharks^H^H^H^H^H^HSkulls to the east, Hellions to the west.... He won't be going himself but he's sending a bunch of guys. You're to go in and arrest as many of both gangs as possible. The target warehouse is filled with Skull/Hellion battles, one of which triggered an ambush upon resolution that spawned right on top of me. Fortunately for me, Seeds of Win (sic) was up. The nav bar objective called for defeating the Skulls leader, Toothbreaker Jones. When he hit the cement it changed to "Defeat Hellion Leader". I also got an ambush of Hellions saying "Devil Dawg is down, avenge him!" The Hellion leader turned out to be a custom mob, "Fire Fist", whose info said he preferred to use his martial arts training. He never got into melee range so mostly used Fire Blasts on me, did throw a shuriken once. When he got low an ambush wave spawned silently and hit me in the back, which made things "interesting" for a bit but I pulled it off. Both Fire Fist and Toothbreaker Jones spawned as Bosses for me solo on Heroic, suggesting they are really Elites. There was never any sign of "Devil Dawg"...maybe there was a body bag somewhere I missed.

Act III is when the star-crossed lovers foreshadowed by the arc title finally make their appearance. It turns out Teardrop is in love with a Hellion named Johnny. She had been worried that he'd be at the brawl you just busted because Devil Dawg was his leader. He wasn't. Both of them want to get away from their gangs but they're both getting the leave-and-you-die treatment. Now just to make things worse, the Hellions are going after Chico since he got Devil Dawg killed. And it turns out Chico knows about her and Johnny and is afraid she'll be killed if the other Skulls find out. He provoked the rumble hoping to get Johnny killed so she'd be safe. For now, Teardrop wants you to bust Chico, giving up his location, so he'll be safe from the Hellions coming to kill him. This one says it is a defeat-all on an abandoned office map but actually ended when I downed Chico (custom Boss, Dark Blast/Assaut Rifle). Again, clearing a battle dropped an ambush on my head. Chico vows to rise again after his defeat.

New problem, though: with Chico in stir his second, Cryptic, has taken over what's left of the gang and is now specifically hunting down Johnny. Again, you're asked to bust the Hellions so the Skulls can't get them. The plan is for Torres to separate Johnny during processing so he can get his family to safety and split with Teardrop. It occurs to me that even if the mission goes off successfully this will put Chico and Johnny is close proximity.... Immediately on entry to the warehouse, though, there was a "Captive Hellion" being threatened by other Hellions. On rescue he said they'd already killed Johnny for being an informant and fled. The warehouse was already under attack by Skulls and Lost, including a custom Lost Boss (Broadsword/Psychic Blast) named "Shoeless Joe". Eventually I found Johnny's corpse, ending the mission.

Teardrop's response to this is to take Johnny's corpse to the Bone Mama to see if she can resurrect him. Cue Pet Sematary flashbacks. The Bone Mama has told Teardrop there's a chance if Johnny's soul hasn't fled yet...that's what, d4 days per level? It's been a while...anyway, new complication: Cryptic is following Teardrop around. She's skipping the restraining order and going right to having you clobber him at her next meeting with the Bone Mama, more or less as payment for her help since this will greatly weaken the Bone Mama's competition. The mission takes place on a small abandoned office map. Teardrop and the Bone Mama are both unguarded allies, both (I think) Dark Blast/Dark Melee Lieutenants (presumably Bosses). When you get upstairs you run into Cryptic, an Elite Boss. I have no idea what his powers were because between the initial spawn and an almost instant ambush I was casting like crazy trying to keep myself and both allies alive. Johnny was in this room as a hostage, back from the dead and feeling much better, it seems. The mission is a defeat-all and in searching for the last mobs I ran into none other than Marrow Drinker, one of the two Skull leaders, also an Elite Boss. Both he and Cryptic should have been downgraded AVs, but neither one's PToDs kicked in, a bug I've seen a fair number of times in Architect missions. Marrow Drinker tried to run but that's when I finally got some holds stacked on him, then it was all over. As a result of having multiple allies the whole time, I got a whole one bonus ticket for the mission. On exit a popup declares Failure Is The Only Option: Marrow Drinker slips away somehow. Teardrop and Johnny get away from their gangs with the Bone Mama's help, and gang violence in Kings Row is diminished thanks to you arresting so many punks.

The arc has a lot of strong points. The theme is a classic of course, which is why I used it too. Teardrop's dialog is reasonably well-written and the Architect was read up on the canon. Unfortunately there are some problems too. There are exactly zero Clues. Not a one. This means there is really no significant dialog that does not come from Teardrop. The mission would benefit a lot from expansion here. The use of a Minion ally escort in Act I is very problematic. If the mission is intended to fail it really shouldn't be. If I'm right about the proper enemy ranks, there are really way too many EBs and AVs for such a low-level arc. A number of ambushes, as you may have noticed, are set to spawn in the same region as the triggering objective, meaning it's likely the player will get hit with a potential Rocks Fall Everyone Dies issue. Johnny's resurrection is really too convenient, but I suppose given how many times players snuff it and get better this can be overlooked. Finally, it is somewhat irritating to have Torres speak through Teardrop so often. Either Torres should hand off the player to Teardrop in the intro, or maybe Torres should be the Contact and Teardrop a character we meet and hear from in the missions. This arc could easily hit five stars with a little more work.

This, unfortunately, negates any point you may have Venture. You cannot acknowledge that it is acceptable to strain disbelief in the comic genre, while simultaneously berate someone for doing just that.

I did not say it was acceptable. I just said it was being done.

I have expressly said on several occasions, some recently, the developers make mistakes; what they do is not right simply because they did it. This is one such occasion. Nemesis' technology is beyond stupid. I don't blame the Architect in question for wanted to provide a more reasonable explanation. The problem is that any such explanation would have to stand up to the fact that DATA, Positron, Aeon, etc. have all had many opportunities over the years to examine Nemesis technology (think of how many destroyed Jaegers and Automatons you've left in your wake) and haven't found anything. Either Nemesis' "real" technology is so advanced that it doesn't even look like technology (in which case why hasn't he won already?), or it's really Magic (it isn't, we know from the canon that Nemesis has little knowledge of magic), or it's just bad writing.

Which it is.

PS- I also recommend you all try playing a couple of characters from 1-50 without any dev tricks, just as a normal player, to see how grindy things are.

I've played 12 characters to 50, with four more on approach (40+) and dozens more to come. None of them were PLed or used farms to level in any way.

That's how grindy things aren't in this game. The leveling curve is laughably short.

If I'm going to use a Rikti character I'll use a Rikti model for it, not throw a human into a rubber suit and hope the player doesn't see the zipper.

<QR>

So, before digging into this I went and did something I should have done in the first place and found that sure enough, Magenta Rogue is an author insert. Why am I not surprised.

Not true. Magenta Rogue is the Third Party overseeing the experiment, so he knows what he is doing. The Player is the Researcher conducting the experiment, so he doesn't know exactly what is necessarily going on.

The player is not "researching" anything, he's a rat in a maze. The only person researching anything is Magenta Rogue, and he's way too deep in this to call it any kind of "double blind".

I am not familiar with [The Web of Arachnos] as it is an extra-game product. It is not required reading, and wouldn't be able to say how many players actually have read it, or if it is really even applicable to canon.

Whether you are familiar with it or not, it exists, it is considered canon as much as we might wish it wasn't unless directly contradicted by the game (which it is not in this case) and it contains a more or less complete biography of Nemesis not given from any character's point of view.

I don't know why that should not be considered compatible with the canon.

It is not compatible with the canon because Nemesis' history is not up for grabs. It's been spelled out in detail. Even if you take the book off the table you can't just discard everything ever said or written about Nemesis as being an elaborate lie and expect anyone to take you seriously.

His involvement in Time Travel is fairly founded in the existance of Ouroboros with the fact that Mender Silos is an anagram for Lord Nemesis, and the fact that Mender Silos's appearance looks very suspiciously like that of the many Fake Nemeses

Yeah, we know. It does not, however, mean any other version of Nemesis has access to time travel. Since working time travel would be an instant I Win card for Nemesis (or just about anyone else) my argument would be that either Nemesis doesn't have it or it doesn't work.

that Nemesis seems to disappear from existance for decades on end, only to reappear strong as before

Time travel is hardly necessary to explain that.

and that his technology is highly complex and not entirely understood even if it is archaic in appearance. Explain, for example, how entirely mechanical Jaeger Automatons in the 1820's can actually sense the presence of a target at range when vacuum tubes were not even invented until the late 19th Century and electronic sensing devices not invented till the early 20th Century.

Here's the explanation: it's really bad writing. Nemesis' technology is taken to work as a genre convention, just like superpowers in general. Yes, this strains disbelief well past the breaking point but some people, the ones who run this game among them, just don't care.

It IS a challenge to the estabilished canon's portrayal of Nemesis. It is not intended to violate the canon, which incidently Nemesis does not seem to officially exist in.

It is hard to see how dismissing out of hand all known history of a character is not "violating canon", and the company web page does not even pretend to be comprehensive. (It is, in fact, pretty much abandoned since Arctic Sun's departure.)

The plot of the arc is actually simple, but apparently hard to catch on to.

Simple plots do not require pages of explication after the fact.

The plot hinges on "laws" of time travel you have invented for your own purposes and apply selectively as necessary for the plot to work. For instance, if Nemesis' resources are destroyed in the past, why does he not simply bring new resources from the future? He (or she, in this case) could spend 10 years rebuilding in the future and bring it all back to ten seconds after the player's actions. For that matter, why build robots in the past at all when he could build them in the future? Answer: because then the plot doesn't work. It also requires near-omniscience on the part of the Contact, meaning we can add Xanatos Roulette to the arc's litany of sins, and several instances of Plot Induced Stupidity on the part of Lady Nemesis (really, attracting Clockwork was the best she could do for getting scrap metal, as opposed to, say, just buying it?).

I think when an arc involves an author insert throwing Nemesis the Idiot Ball we can just stick the Mary Sue fork in it and call it done.

Catch 22: Nemesis stylizes himself in an egotistical, anachronistic manner (1950's? try 1850's) and would and has used anagrams in canon. To portray Nemesis as not using anagrams would be a violation of canon. Thus, one charge can not be avoided without invoking the other.

It is not a violation of canon to have a canon character stop making stupid mistakes.

Have you ever thought that anagrams are not really meant for the characters in the story (that in fact, those are not the real names, which is why the characters never seem to catch on except in old Batman serials), but more for the reader as a meta-clue as to something about the story, or is that what your also objecting to?

Tipping the player off early that he's stuck in a Nemesis plot is throwing the character the Idiot Ball.

As for Wrong Number's question:

Does this mean not to submit arcs with any time-travel element because you feel these are bad no matter how well done?

No, but if your arc has logical flaws because of time travel I'm not going to give them a pass on MST3K Mantra grounds.