Venture

I use my gf as a barometer on whether terms such as Mary Sue make sense. Even after an explanation based on the tropes site, it was still clear... as mud.

I'm simply not going to address the majority of these complaints as I've already made my position explicit, but this....

...are you seriously implying I should change the way I write to make your girlfriend happy? I wouldn't change the way I write to make my girlfriend happy, unless she made me very happy first, If You Know What I Mean.

Here's another one for the "avoid" list: #72114, "Training Day with the Bomb Squad" or somesuch (don't have the title in front of me). The first mission is loaded with mobs with autohit debuffs and/or END drains and a couple of AV/EBs. The second is mostly a straight DE run until the last objective triggers, which is a Quarry. For whatever reason Monsters used in MA arcs don't downgrade to EB status like the ones in regular arcs. You're supposed to use the author's Mary Sues to beat it up, but even with them a Claws/SR and Widow, both tricked out, couldn't even scratch it. The Widow eventually swapped to an equally well-built Corruptor which was able to debuff its regen enough to let us actually hurt it. Needless to say there is no story to speak of.

I don't have time to deal with all of this, but here:

If the site is not intended to be a list of cliches and things not to do, why is he using it for that purpose?

Because some of the things on it are cliches and are things not to do. These are things that tend to crop up in the "offenses" line. Or are you seriously prepared to argue that someone should toss the player the Idiot Ball? Is it even remotely possible to have a justifiable Wall Banger, or (as I suspect) does that make as much sense as a married bachelor?

Why even write an arc if Venture's going to inevitably mark it down and his can't-think-for-themselves fans will one star it down further?

Who are these people? If I've got legions of disciples why wasn't I informed?

In any case, as of the last tabulation my arithmetic mean was running just under 3 stars. This means the arcs I've reviewed are beating Sturgeon's Law by lightyears, and this "Venture haetz everything!" codswallop is exactly that.

Arc# 1288, “Celebrity Kidnapping”
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: aggravating mobs

Reviewed on: 5/9/2009
Level Range: varies 5-40, non-monotonic
Character used: Mother Night/Virtue

This one starts off with an offer from Willy Wheeler. Willy is an unusual choice of Contact as his canon arc is one of the most spectacular Idiot Ball free-throws in the game.... This time, he wants you to kidnap famous hotel heiress Paris Hil^H^H^HHoliday, a fire-using super recently incarcerated for drunk driving. Willy thinks she'll be worth millions in ransom, and as he says What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You head to the Zig map for a breakout. While I stopped to type this paragraph, it seems a wandering patrol of Convicts ran into Ms. Holiday and set off her ambush of Cameramen, which wandered inside my stealth radius and killed me.... While the idea of being attacked by the paparazzi is cute, these guys were all Illusion Controllers, meaning mass Holds. Paris is a Fire Blast/Thermal Radiation Boss ally escort. (She doesn't appear to have Thaw, alas.)

Once you're out, Willy contacts the producers of Paris' reality TV show and arranges payment of the ransom. You're sent to pick up half at a dead drop, the other half to be paid at the exchange. Unfortunately the “dead drop” is occupied by squatters, a mix of custom mobs and Scrapyarders. Near the drop is Terry Mal^H^H^HWheeler, an Super Strength/Willpower Boss ex-boxer who could have been a contender but took a dive at his brother's urging to...you get the picture. There's no mention of this in the debriefing, which is a bit odd unless the names are just a coincidence.

Finally, you're sent to the safehouse where Willy's Family allies are keeping Paris. Willy hints that if the Family players were out of the picture there'd be more money to go around.... Unfortunately, a) the Family has come to a similar conclusion, and b) the map boss is a Consigliere type, and thanks to the level cap one of the ones with a Singularity. I ran out of Break Frees, got held and killed in short order. On my return, Amanda Vines was spawned near the mission exit with more of the Cameramen types. I'm not sure what triggered her. Fortunately I didn't have to dip into my supply of Break Frees.... Vines is coded as a hostage escort, presumably because of her “protected” status, and thanks to bugs ended up following me around the map. Taking down the Boss triggered an ambush of more Cameramen, which finished off my Break Frees...again. And I could see a triggered static of spawn of Cameramen in the distance.... Luckily a medium Break Free dropped during the fight to spring Paris. Freeing Paris herself triggered the spawn of several PPD Bosses, one of which would have been a Rocks Fall Everyone Dies deal, having spawned just outside my Shadow Fall, but fortunately facing the other way. That Camerman spawn turned out to be Lois Watson and her photographer Jimmy, who tries to signal Unbelievable Man with his watch.... Watson is a hostage and runs for it, triggering yet another wave of Cameramen...there went the last BF. The last obstacle is Police Woman (author insert), Assault Rifle/Devices Boss, with a large spawn of PPD. The exit pop-up has you wondering who could have tipped the police off, and the debriefing makes it clear that you throw the Idiot Ball back and beat up Willy for setting you up. The souvenir adds a note that you kept all the money for yourself.

It's a cute arc and doesn't overplay its joke, but the rampant use of control powers is likely to frustrate a lot of squishies. Carry lots of Break Frees and/or be able to lock down mass enemy Controllers before they can lock down you.

No, I'm saying that if you want to use a term repeatedly for a specific problem inside mission arc reviews, either coin a term, or use something with that agreed-upon definition without increasing ambiguity.

I'm sorry but there's nothing increasing ambiguity here. There just isn't. Language is ambiguous by nature, about the only useful thing deconstructionism has to say. Every academic paper or book I've ever read takes terms that have a lot of baggage attached to them and uses them in very precise ways, either implicitly or explicitly conveying how the author is using the term.

What, exactly, would be improved if I said self-indulgent author insertion instead of Mary Sue? I would expect the vast majority of readers would say to themselves "oh, he means a Mary Sue". I don't expect any smaller proportion would ask me to clarify that term than have asked what a Mary Sue is. N.B. that I did essentially coin/swipe the term "just a bunch of stuff that happened" for a story problem and not only did the community figure out what I meant by it but I'm seeing it crop up in other peoples' reviews now. This tells me that people around here can figure this language thing out for themselves, requiring neither a caretaker nor writers who restrict themselves to small words.

Bottom line, I am not changing the way I write to make you or anyone else here happy. As I have said many times before, I am not Burger King; you cannot Have Me Your Way. If you don't like the way I write, don't read it.

Then maybe you shouldn't pick up a term with a dozen definitions, attach ANOTHER definition to it, and then wield it.

What you are saying is no one should use the term, ever.

No.

I don't see the definintional issues being any different here than they are in fanfic. No one in fanfic circles agrees on what a Mary Sue is, either. If I were critiquing fanfic I'd still have to pick a definition and stick to it.

I'd add rescue animations for both captives. I've noticed that if you don't, captives will immediately take off like Olympic sprinters, which just looks strange.

It wouldn't let me pick any animation that would reasonably fit the circumstances. I have no freaking idea why. Both are stock mobs from the Civilians list.

I think there's enough common ground to identify a particular type of pathological behavior here. I do agree that it's easy to stretch the label to apply to just about any character you don't like, which is why I define it precisely for my purposes.

Made a few changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Made the Polettis a bit more visually distinct...gave them vests instead of jackets, used a lighter color[*]Poletti Capos changed to Dual Blades/Regen, both Standard[*]Poletti Underbosses all use the white suit/bald model now[*]Significant clues added to Acts II and IV[*]Assorted text changes; fixed typos, gave some extra details in a few places[/list]
Edit: Or maybe not. I just started playing the arc over (took a break for dinner first) and not one of the changes I made actually took effect. Trying again.

This is one of Venture's arcs? What is the arc number?

126582. The link in my signature will take you a page listing all my MA projects.

Thank you for the review, and the top rating.

Assistant Chief Pope^H^H^H^HBishop's dialog was meant to capture the voice of the character he's based on. DC stands for Deputy Chief; I don't know if the PPD has Deputy Chiefs (or Commanders) but I don't know they don't, either.... While I'm at it, Kyra Sedewick's middle name is Minturn (Minnie) and she's married to Kevin Bacon. "Baker" reads as "Taylor"; like his namesake usually is, he's wrong . All the other cops in the game come from cop shows, so I used some from my favorite, The Closer. OCB stands for Organized Crime Bureau, a term used often enough on cop shows that I thought people would recognize it.

I thought I had corrected the typos you pointed out, but evidently not. I had trouble with the arc updating earlier when I added bios to all the goons.

I can understand some frustration with the custom goons, but I doubt I'll try to do any more with them. Every time I tried putting standard Family in the mix I got funny results...like, I'd enter the first mission and all the hostages would spontaneously release. I know there's too much similarity between the mobs but there aren't enough weapons to go around for Mafia types. I'd have given the Polettis pistols if I could do that without also having them whip out Thugs. I'll see if I can make them more visually distinct.

I tried putting the Underboss model into the custom factions so the Boss spawns would have the right faction tag. No go...it wouldn't let me pick a non-custom character from the custom factions. Actually the Underboss models are still in the faction to satisfy the need for a Boss-level spawn in the event of large teams taking on the arc. I left Consliglieri out.

The two Underbosses in Act I give a little information in their Unaware text. There are Bianchi/Poletti battles but they tend to end quickly. The problem with patrols is if you set them to Rogue they will attack anything including mobs of their own faction. We really need a "faction standing editor" with a grid that lets you set the relationship between all the factions on a map, so A and B will shoot at C but not each other. I don't see that happening any time soon. Likewise with the dialog explosion in Act III, it's a technical problem and the only way I can deal with it is to not have dialog at all.

You can't "just fly them out of the country" because they won't have anything to do with the police. Nicia may not be a criminal but she is a Mafia princess and her boyfriend is a repeat offender. They're just not going to deal with cops. Arguably under the circumstances this is stupid of them, but I'd reply that it's reasonably stupid.

I thought it was pretty weird for Federico to be a robotics mastermind, it's rather out of theme for this mafia drama. Especially when Federico is labeled as the "Old School" don.

Deliberately set up against type to throw a curveball at the player. Federico's /info does say that his old-school attitudes don't extend to his choice of hardware.

Found that Nicia had already taken off though... now how on earth did she slip away from an army of Polettis when every single other Bianchi was captured or killed, and the Polettis came here specifically looking for her?

That army of Bianchis that got taken out was in between her and the Polettis.

I found Diablo Navarra and managed to solo him (as an EB), though he was pretty tough; willpower secondary is nasty on an EB.

I have gotten some comments about this. He's standing in for Vash the Stampede (with a dash of Luca Brasi) so I tried to make him tough.... I was able to take him out, after a few tries, with a level 30 Storm/Electric Defender (that's built for grouping and has very little set slotting) so personally I think he's within the line. I may change my opinion if a significant number of complaints come in later. I did keep his Willpower to Standard so he doesn't get the outrageous regen and certainly doesn't rez. I briefly considered going with Fire Control for the secondary but really, that would just totally screw squishies trying to solo him. (There is a surprise waiting for anyone who brings a large team into the mission, though...the Boss versions of those flame critters are Fire Control/Thermal.)

Souvenir: OK, I just read the souvenir. All I can say is YOU BA$+ARD! It's a really well written souvenir, though.

Why, thank you.

The true ending is foreshadowed in the last act. Proof left as an exercise for the player.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks again.

Mary Sue

As this page indicates there is much dispute over exactly what constitutes a Mary Sue. The Other Wiki has a page on Mary Sues as well which you may note is not entirely consonant with TVTropes. N.B. that since City is a comic book environment some traits that normally flag a character as a Mary Sue get a pass here. The obvious example is "the character has superpowers", which is perfectly normal for a City character. In fact, it would be more Sueish for the character not to have superpowers (or gadgets emulating them) and still manage to show up the superpowered opposition. A superpowered character in City would have to have powers that were excessive or exotic in some way to qualify for this particular Mary Sue trait.

For my purposes here, I use a very specific definition. The character must be one of the author's player-characters or an obvious proxy (though that is much harder to spot, proof does not fit in the margin), and the story must serve to glorify the character in some way. That would include all the various ways of making the world revolve around the character described in those articles. I don't differentiate by gender (Marty Sue, Gary Stu, etc.)

Simply including a character you play doesn't qualify as a Mary Sue or even necessarily bad writing in my book. Two of mine appear in "Chains of Blood" as victims of the Circle's plot. (As of the last edit, they don't even fight; they're depowered and wounded so they must retreat.) Likewise, while obnoxious characters that possess enough gravitas as to become dramatic black holes are certainly bad writing, they don't quite hit the pinnacle unless they're also obvious author inserts.

Diablo Navarra is an example of a character in my own arcs ("Two Households Alike") that some might consider a Mary Sue by the standards of TVTropes/Wiki. Obviously I think I stayed within the lines, and no one has made that particular complaint about him (one commentator expressed concerns about his difficulty, one just didn't like him), but I could see how someone might feel that way. While I think he's an interesting character and I like the way he turned out graphically I doubt I'll use him again for that reason.

Right, it's on. I actually went back through this wretched thing to check the facts, this time with Venture/Virtue.

In the first mission, the target is fighting Arachnos when you arrive. Her defeat clue makes it clear that your character does not identify himself as working with PPD; evidently you just spontaneously come to blows. Either Milgram was right and the player will open fire on another registered hero without warning just because an authority figure said to or the NPC heroes are trigger-happy and shoot at any super they don't know (my character has the Superstar badge, but whatever). This pattern is repeated five more times. It's a hard sell to pull off just once, seeing as how the game is not set on the planet Levram. The detective you're working for says they're going to interrogate her psionically...um, yeah. Sister Psyche is clearly rubbing off on the PPD.

Here is the briefing for the second mission, cut and pasted:

[ QUOTE ]

With Disgruntled Ex in custody being examined by our psychics, it's time to shift focus. She hangs out with a few other heroes who've formed something of an unofficial supergroup, and somewhere in the base they're renting out is bound to be some evidence we can use against her... and possibly her allies.

Don't look so surprised. Her "friends" include a guy imbued with evil magic, a former Outcast, a supposedly reformed alien invader, a crey experiment gone wrong and a magic entity we don't know jack about. In short, not exactly the most trustworthy bunch.

Anyway, I want you to break into thier base and search thier computers for anything that can help our case. Use these USB sticks to copy their HDs. Then our tech boys can sift through the data, and you don't have to waste any time.
Speaking of wasting time, you'll only have 30 minutes before thier control equipment locks onto you and forces you out of the base, so work quickly!


[/ QUOTE ]

Notice that it explicitly says you break into their base. I think we can assume there's no search warrant. If the detective did have probable cause to search the group's computers he'd get a warrant and a bunch of CSI types would show up to examine and/or seize them. If the supers or their pet bots resisted then they'd call in SWAT, other supers, Longbow, whatever. Of course, the plot would fall down and die if this happened, since the supers aren't doing anything wrong so they wouldn't resist, and there's no probable cause to search them in the first place. The detective proffers no reason for the search beyond "I don't like them". The mission entry popup, which I accidentally banished trying to copy from, once again says you're breaking in.

N.B. that whether or not the devs mention warrants when they should is irrelevant. Mistakes do not stop being mistakes because the devs made them first. The majority of missions in the game take place under some plausible exigent-circumstances situation. If a bunch of 'dyned-up hoods with machine guns are shooting up an office building you don't need to play mother-may-I with a judge before going in and cracking heads. That doesn't apply here as the NPCs are fighting known offenders or in the privacy of their own base when the player attacks them. The canon does specify that heroes have to follow police procedure (mentioned in the first history file on the company site).

Oh, and FWIW, "The Eternal Nemesis" also mentions warrants in the next-to-last mission, as Christopher says "I have warrants galore" before sending you into a Nemesis facility. This is odd since you probably wouldn't need one, but whatever.

In the third act we get to see how seriously to take this:

[ QUOTE ]

[NPC] Patty-Sue Ivanova: What're you stupid? Don't you see how many badges I have?! You don't stand a chance!

[NPC] Patty-Sue Ivanova: [tell] Malaise, Oh hey! Nothing, just fighting some turds who raided my instance... Oh crud MT!


[/ QUOTE ]

This time you actually have the detective with you, or you're supposed to. He spawned behind the heroes as it happened. Why the colossal misunderstanding, if a PPD detective is presumably ordering them to stand down, etc.? Because the plot requires it. Arguing that the game engine doesn't allow you stop fighting and talk is irrelevant because the entire circumstance is contrived. Neither the player nor the NPCs have any kind of casus belli; they just go at it on sight because that's what the script says.

Of course, in Act IV the Contact goes Axe Crazy. Once again I stealthed past all the allies and took out Lee, this time without cracking a sweat. Once again, Kalinda failed to spawn. Shooting from the hip I'm guessing this means she tried to spawn at an occupied point and failed, or the map doesn't actually have the amount of room it says it does. Normally I would kick this in the head again and forget it but since we're making an issue out of it I reset the mission and tried it the "right" way, dragging the moron brigade around. The first room, BTW, is probably a death trap for anyone the mobs can actually hit, but whatever.... Kalinda deigned to spawn this time and folded like a busted flush. I'm not sure what the custom Fortunata did since they couldn't hit me...looked like PsyBlast/SR, and it looked like they were all LTs. IOW, basic killer GMing. The debriefing is fairly vanilla and there is no souvenir.

There is nothing in here that requires a character to be Genre Savvy in order to realize something is wrong. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of civil rights (say, with a high school education in civics) would know Lee's orders are illegal. The player and the NPC heroes fight only because the plot demands that they do so. "I'm just going to do what he says for now and wait for the other shoe to drop" requires beating people up and arresting them under false pretenses.

Ironically the only characters in the script who aren't acting like idiots are Lee, who is mind controlled, and Kalinda, who is controlling him. Everyone else catches the Idiot Ball and runs for the end zone.

However, this has only stopped one person from enjoying it afiak... and he hates self-insert/sues/other peoples characters in general so much that he REFUSED to rescue any of them and got his butt handed to him by an AV who was designed AROUND HAVING SIX HELPERS TO DEFEAT... and then he complained it was TOO HARD.

I didn't have my butt handed to me. I didn't even complain that it was too hard. I explicitly said I couldn't judge its difficulty accurately because I was playing a weak character, a 32 EnB/Dark Corruptor. That notwithstanding, I soloed the AV in question. Had Kalinda bothered to actually spawn I'm confident I could have dealt with her as well.

I always leave NPC allies for last or skip them altogether if at all possible. There are two reasons for this. The most important of these is that the story is supposed to be about the player. If the mission won't work unless the player lets NPCs do all the heavy lifting, it's broken. The player isn't supposed to be a spectator. The second reason is that NPC allies diminish rewards, including tickets. Dragging one EB around pretty much means you're wasting your time. Having to compete with two EBs and four Bosses...well, we're back to the game turning into a spectator sport.

I one-starred the arc because the plot was absurd. I knew what was going on in act I; the rest was, in Arcanaville's words, "riding the slow train to stupidville". The player just runs around blindly following a cop's orders with no offer of proof of any crime having been committed and no illegal activity on the scene when the player arrives. Act II in particular Fails Police Procedure Forever. Idiot Plot + Mary Sue = Wall Banger.

the problem with yours, for example, is that fighting your secondary objectives does not add anything additional. the clue is added upon completion. as they were, they were just bosses in the way and you are just highlighting them for no appearant reason

If you fight the side bosses in Act I, you hear one of them talking about the wedding, so you learn about that before you're told.

The optional objectives in Act V give you the information you need to make an inductive leap as to the actual outcome of the story....

There's clues, and then there's Clues.

Anyone else have an opinion on that? I'm kinda curious about the impact.

I don't ask that people play my arcs in exchange for my reviews of theirs. It would be nice if they did, but I don't ask it.

Thanks for the review. This is only the third time anyone's reviewed any of my arcs. You'd think people would be lining up to seek revenge.

"Optional objectives will appear in this color." i am sure since you do reviews for a lot of other people and you want them to do yours for feedback, that this was included for their sake. but is it really that necessary? seriously... if it is optional, does it really need to be spelled out?

It's a trend that is slowly gaining momentum. I decided to use it for objectives that the player really should look into, but doesn't have to for mission completion.

i saw one, maybe two, patrols/battles of tsoo and i thought i caught a glimpse of vazh. you did mention that there might be other groups in there, but these kind of felt thrown in. they did not really add anythning because they hardly made an appearance.

There are two (or was it four? Now I forget) Freakshow patrols, one Tsoo and one Banished Pantheon. They're only included for color.

i was thinking that you could make darrin an ally. his running away just did not seem right. if you made him a weak LT and he is defeated, you could make some passing reference in the debrief that he is shaken but alright and in hiding. it is also perfectly plausible to make nicki an ally also, just in case she is found first.

I'm pretty sure I don't have room for more customs, and in any case I couldn't give them abilities that wouldn't make them supers. While I may (or may not) be at odds with the canon, as far as I'm concerned the only thing an ordinary person with a pistol can do if caught in a superfight in City is shoot himself to keep from being killed in a more unpleasant fashion. And I can't even just give them a pistol without them pulling out Thug henchmen.

your red highlighted warning in the 4th mission brief works for me there, though it is distractingly bright. was a similar highlight there for the last mission? i did not notice it, though there was a warning.

There is.

on the final mission, you run into problems. you state this in your description and your MA page.

Dramatically the story is pretty much the way I want it. There are technical issues. I wish I could just use stock Family mobs instead of the customs but they won't spawn correctly. Likewise I'd leave out the imps if I could spawn Diablo Navarra solo.

truthfully i did not like the diablo. i took him down, though it took a long time. but he just felt contrived. he did not feel like he belonged in this story at all.

He does come out of nowhere in a sense, and that's either going to work for you or it doesn't. The same for the ending, people will either like or they won't. I swiped the idea from a short summary of an episode of Trigun (which I'd only seen one episode of, not that one) mentioned on a TVTropes page, as I said in my website notes. I just wanted to see what I could do with it.

Leaving it at the "sad ending" would, I think, make this a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story, as it would likely leave the player wondering why he bothered going through any of this.

you admit the end sucks. i agree, but i want to know what exactly you feel "sucks" about it...

Ah...you seem to be a bit confused. The "ending sucks" reference in the browser info is referring to the ending of another story about star-crossed lovers and feuding families....

Do you mean that using unique maps just for the hell of it is bad, but using them for story purposes is fine?

The latter.

Or do you mean that using nothing but special maps period is bad?

However, if you are using nothing but special maps, you'd better have a gorram good reason for it.

Arc# 119228, “Hero Therapy! (TM)”
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: overuse of special maps,

Reviewed on: 5/6/2009
Level Range: varies from 5-54, monotonic increasing
Morality: Heroic
Character used: Mother Night/Virtue

The Contact for this one is just called “The Therapist”. He says you've been referred to him by a “Dr. Ichi Budi” due to recurring nightmares from your work as a hero. He proposes a form of dream therapy that allows you to confront your anxieties and defeat them. I believe this is the Kirby school of psychoanalysis.... The acceptance text describes you as being hypnotized, which may not sit well with some of the more serious roleplayers. The level range on this one is all over the place, be prepared for some jumps.

The first mission, which caps at 20, takes place on the Midnighters' Club map. You have to rescue the Therapist, then defeat your high school Librarian. “Don't ask me why”, he says, “it's your dream.” He follows you around as a non-combatant, which means once you rescue him your stealth is blown. Having him follow the player is a cute dramatic device but it's probably not worth it for that reason. The Librarian is a Lieutenant with Mind Control/Sonic Blast, who makes a few insulting comments as you beat her down. You can pick up an ally, “The Steel You Lack”, a Boss-level Broadsword/Sheild, that hardly seems necessary. Thanks to the recent changes to mob powers, the Librarian gets Confuse now, meaning the ally may turn out to be worse than useless. There are also a few Outcasts, Trolls and Vahzilok about; the Therapist explains afterwards that you can expect to see these “echoes” of your past enemies will always be about in the dream sessions, and that now that you've defeated the Librarian she will appear as an ally in future sessions, along with Steel. Some “Little Dream People” custom mobs appear as well, which the Therapist doesn't talk about.

The next “session” takes you to Mother Mayhem's hospital, capped at 29. It's filled with glowies representing “broken promises” and “broken friendships”, all of which are your fault. The primary enemies are the Little Dream People again, with a variety of powers; Freaks, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon and Warriors battle it out with each other. At least one of the glowies appeared to be a trap, springing an ambush of “Little Nightmares”, Dual Blades/Kinetics Minions. Springing the Therapist this time spawns your Vanity, a female Archery/Trick Arrow Boss, guarded by Freaks. Repeated holds and sleeps kept turning off Darkest Night, making this fight a bit of a pain. Fortunately she didn't spawn far away from the Therapist; I'd have hated to have had to grovel all the way back over that map.

The third act, capped at 40, follows the same pattern, calling for you to defeat “an old, painful memory” after finding the Therapist. This one takes place on the “Dark Victory” map from the Statesman TF (Aeon's “trap”), meaning it may be disconcerting to people who haven't done that TF. The triggered Big Bad is a schoolgirl named “Secret Shame”, an Elite Boss (Fire Blast/Fiery Armor) that had the poor graces to spawn at +1. The fight pretty much drained my tray but I took her on the first try, Scourge 4TW. She spawned in the outdoor section of the map, and there is no mention in the briefing that you can leave the building (though the exit is an elevator, so there's a good chance people will stumble on it). Again, this is a very dramatic effect but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble.

The last act, capped at 50, takes you to...the sewers, the Dr. Vahzilok map. (This is four special maps in four missions...too many. It's not at all clear that any of these need this kind of special treatment.) The Therapist tells you on rescue you must go through the Door. Like the previous missions there are various objects (glowies and destroyables) meant to represent various memories, at least one of which was booby-trapped. “The Door” is an Illusion Control/Dark Armor Elite Boss and spawned right next to a “Little Dream Person” Boss with Mind Control, meaning there were two mobs with Confuse powers, and me with two hard-hitting allies. This is not a good combination. I was killed instantly on my first try (Superior Invisibility, never saw it coming) and the second try was a very frustrating fight as I was getting Confused every few seconds.

The Architect set a high bar with this project, but unfortunately it falls short. The arc has zero clues, none at all. In an attempt to keep the powerposing to a minimum all the psychological aspects have to be soft-pedaled to a near-meaningless level. The arc overuses special maps. Using the Therapist as a rescue to trigger the actual objective doesn't really add anything and causes issues for some builds. An attempt at innovation should be rewarded but I felt there were a lot of technical problems in this.

Feel free to review mine if you like, they're listed on my MA Page (linked in the .sig).

Photonic Savior, Venture, other takers, what's your opinions of arcs that, were they canon, would seriously violate the status quo?

I wrote one -- #4829, "Chains of Blood".

Mind you, I wrote it in a way that doesn't contradict anything actually said in the game, but expands upon it.

He's not affiliated with me. That's a real karmic exchange, considering my avatar....

Arc# 128109, “All in the Family”
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Did Not Do The Research, plot holes

Reviewed on: 5/2/2009
Level Range: 21-30; author recommends 25-30
Character used: Mother Night/Virtue

Vincenzo Raffaelli has been asked by his superiors to “take care of” some troublesome witnesses to a recent Family heist. He's been promised a promotion to consigliere if he does. I don't think that's the way we^H^Hthey normally do it here in Jersey but it sounds passable for CoH. He thinks this job is going to require a lot of work and feels a villain would be more reliable than his usual crew. You're told up front the job is going to require killing and isn't for an “honorable” villain. The first step is to rescue the operative who was looking into the witnesses for them, Hanna the Ghost, whom we may remember from the last review.

You're sent to an office map with PPD mobs. Yes, Ghost and Equalizers...fun. There's one PPD Boss, and Hanna who needs to be escorted out. The Boss calls one ambush, you get one when Hanna is sprung and another right on your heels as you hit the door. Hanna unfortunately doesn't have the information any more, her notes having been confiscated by an Inspector Rosa Hadley. You'd think someone in the information business would have a bit of a memory, but, moving on.... She also implies that Raffaelli has no idea what he's doing.

Hanna's leads on Hadley take you to a warehouse being used by her PPD Family task force as a safehouse. Raffaelli thinks at least one of the witnesses may be stashed there as well. You are to kill Hadley and any witnessess. The witness turns out to be Giovanni “Lucky” Scalia, a Super Strength/Willpower (I think) Boss. His dialog indicates he knows Raffaelli is after him. Hadley is an Assault Rifle/Devices Boss who summons one wave of PPD, so expect stacked control effects. Unfortunately the information is not here either, Hadley has uploaded the files to the PPD network. You do get a name from her paper notes and from Scalia, Marcello Corleone (movie reference collision!). When you tell this to Raffaelli, along with Scalia's identity, he freaks out a bit.

Here, the plot pulls something of a Wall Banger. Raffaelli tells you that both men are ex-Family members. Corleone is said to have joined Longbow but Scalia was supposedly allowed to quit. No one quits organized crime. Ever. I might believe that someone defected to Longbow and was thus too well-protected to take out, but nobody just quits. They might be allowed to “retire” in some way but the only way out of cosa nostra is feet first. I'll chalk this up to Did Not Do The Research and move on.... You are sent to track down Corleone and find out what he knows. Raffaelli starts making noises here like he's looking for the door too, which does not bode well for his future.

Once inside, you quickly meet Mario Barzini, a Family Boss and ally. On being sprung he informs you that the Family is aware of Raffaelli's vacillations and that you are to eliminate the witnesses regardless. Failure to do so will be extremely unfortunate for you. A laptop belonging to Corleone has files revealing the heist that precipitated all this took place at Raffaelli Imports and all four witnesses are connected by a single individual. Hmm, now who could that be.... Corleone is a Longbow Warden, Martial Arts type. After his dirt nap you find a photograph on him of a young couple, obviously in love, and probably not long for this world.

Sure enough, Raffaelli identifies the couple as an old picture of his parents, the ones who were robbed. He's now stuck between two unpleasant alternatives: kill his parents or get rubbed out himself by Barzini and friends. The finale is a 30 minute timed mission in which you get to decide whether or not Raffaelli's parents live or die. He begs you to let them live, that he'll leave the Family himself and go underground. I didn't. I stealthed the majority of the base (passing an Agent McClain....) and took out both parents, Minion class mobs. Raffaelli actually gets his promotion, realizing he has nowhere else to go now.

This is a potential five-star arc, but it has some problems with its plot. There's the aforementioned bit about someone quitting the Family. The “anonymous tip” in the first act stands out as a seeming Chekhov's Gun violation. One obvious answer might seem to be that Raffaelli himself called it in, but that grinds up against the later reveal. Another problem is that Hanna, who is supposed to be a serious operative, conveniently catches the Idiot Ball by not being able to remember four names. Of course, that's because if we get the names in Act I the arc peaks too early. Raffaelli's promotion rubs me the wrong way but that's largely because of the difference between what a consigliere is in real life and what one is in City. If it were me I'd put a note in the success debriefing that his body is found a few weeks later.... There are a few references to what the mob used to be, an organization formed to protect powerless workers, but it hasn't been that for centuries and no one seriously tries to describe it that way any more. Aside from these problems the writing, particularly the dialog, is excellent. If the plot issues were corrected this would be a stellar example of what the Architect system is capable of.

Arc# 37724, "Brokering the Brickers"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Reviewed on: 5/2/2009
Level Range: 11-20
Character used: Mother Night/Virtue

N.B. While I may post reviews in the next few days, I am still not taking requests.

"Hanna the Ghost", a would-be broker, needs your help to recover her USB drive. It was stolen from her while she was doing research at Aeon U. She's hoping the thief doesn't know its value, which is why she's not getting involved directly. The first first lead sends you to an Arachnos base to take out an unnamed "special target" and retrive his or her notebook. If I don't know the name then how...oh, never mind. The first thing I found that looked out of place was "Dirt Digger", an Earth Control/Stone Melee Boss that dropped me instantly. Adding to the inconvenience, she was in the huge Arachnos "reactor room", meaning on the rematch as soon as I hit her she went flying off into the wild black yonder. I managed to stay with her allllllll the way to the floor and finished her off. Her notebook turned out to have a lot of information on many things, including Hanna the Ghost and the PC. It does not have information on the missing USB drive though, something Hanna knows even without looking at it. It turns out she asked you to whack her rival to see if you could be trusted. She points out that this was just part of the contract and you'll be paid for it.

The real target is the Goldbrickers. Hanna knows where they're stashing their loot. Your objective is to connect another USB drive to their computer network. The software on it will locate the contents of Hanna's old drive, download them and then erase all copies on the network. Of course, it's not that simple. When you get to the warehouse and find the mainframe, connecting the USB drive doesn't do anything. The information isn't there. As you find out after clobbering the base's commander and getting back to Hanna, the information has already been moved to King Midas' personal system.

So...time for a royal audience. You have 60 minutes to take out Midas himself and retrieve the information. This is a fairly straightforward run on a tech lab map. Midas was a Super Strength/Invul EB, seeming to lack status protection (this may have been the PToD bug if he was intended as an AV). When you get out you peek at Hanna's data, despite her having told you not to. You are told (but not shown) that it contains ominous data on Operation Destiny and the "Destined Ones". In the debriefing Hanna assumes you read her files and asks you to keep silent about what you've seen, offering you Dirt Digger's notebook (with lots of data on you) as an additional payment.

This is a decent arc, but it's really not much more than an extended newspaper run. There is no theme. It writes a lot of checks it really can't cash, tossing around references to big dark secrets that don't go anywhere because they can't. It's not bad, but it doesn't really stand out in any way.