Venture

It's 4 AM here and I'm bushed after doing four reviews, so I'm putting off replying to most of this, but just to touch on a big point:

Right, so what would I have to do to avoid 'the Usual Suspects Ending' problem?

Don't have one.

And as to 'you can't do anything' about being played..? Uhm, what options, exactly, could I offer? Branching dialogue or missions aren't possible, and the majority of heroic characters probably wouldn't just go 'screw the global-level danger, nobody makes a fool out of me!' to ram /Hide's words down his throat and demand an explanation.

This is why.

The players are already being railroaded by the linear format. Railroading them again by sticking them into any kind of Usual Suspects, Kobayashi Maru, Catch-22 or other choiceless screwover is twisting the knife in the wound.

The Usual Suspects Ending works for the trope namer because the movie plays fair with the audience. Unless you have a room-temperature IQ who Keyser Soze is should be clear from the opening act, which tells you what you need to know about the rest of the movie. The characters are screwed but the audience is in on the joke. Here, the two are one and the same.

Really, saying that my note about there being too much at stake for your doubts about /Hide be a problem is fair and then turning around and complaining about not being able to do anything about being 'played' is kind of a mixed message; one paragraph, you're saying 'yeah, okay, that makes sense', and then the next you're telling me 'that thing I said makes sense? It sucks, and you shouldn't do it!'


What I said was, "might actually be more annoying to some now"; some people may react even more negatively to what you are doing because the character knows he's being played and isn't allowed to even try to do anything about it. Different people are going to react in different ways. Personally while I still think it's obnoxious I think it's less obnoxious than a compete Butt Pull where you're told after the fact that you were had. Other people may go the other way.

Arc #1285, "Training Day"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: many plot holes, surprise EB/AVs, spelling errors, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Detective Morgan of the PPD's Vanguard Liason Office wants your help in tracking down a "Docter Armington". An apparent typo in the first briefing is not a good sign. Armington has taken an Officer O'Leary hostage. Morgan tells you if there's nothing to bring back to make sure he's not suffering, and reminds you there's no such thing as a brutality charge in his unit. Um, yeah.

The warehouse you're sent to is filled with custom-faction bots. O'Leary has been turned into a cyber-zombie Claws/SR EB (no warning, but nice job on the model). Defeating him spawns a new objective: "Rip Armington a new one for what he's done." Um, this is a Heroic arc, right? Armington is another EB, Bots/FF, and may try to run when low...I'm not sure. On defeat he says "Teleport activate!" but the defeat text says you can rest easy knowing a monster has been taken to justice...um, which is it?

In Act II, you learn that O'Leary survived the battle and now has control over his new body. The scientist responsible is adapting the nanotechnology that was used on O'Leary ("Lockgear") for battlesuit use. Hmm, nanotech that warps people body and mind developed by a mad scientist now being adapted into Vanguard battlesuits? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You're asked to oversee a transfer of the equipment. Once on site the objectives are to retrive 5 components, rescue O'Leary (down to Boss) and defeat Armington again. The enemies on this one are Freakshow, with a patrol of the custom drones tossed in for color. Armington is back with a bunch of Freaks for guards; when you start beating on him he hits you with a threat we don't often see in City: "I will make you MY MONKEY BUTLER!"

Yeah.

When Armington gets low on health "Michael Faraday" spawns, a Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV with machinegun-toting "Cultists" and Energy Blast/Dark Armor "Cultist Ascendant" LTs, the latter's info saying they've been upgraded with Lockgear. They spawned Rocks Fall Everyone Dies style. Even the Contact doesn't know who Faraday is. In Act III you're sent to bust up some of Faraday's cultists in an effort to learn more about him. The mission takes place on an Arachnos lab map, with an Arachnos raid in progress. Heard at entry from a Cultist: "Faraday will whipe this world of life!" Um, yeah. You have to search various computers until you find a Clue stating that Lockgear was invented by one of Faraday's cultists and given to Armington in the hopes that it would end up in Vanguard's hands. Sure enough, Faraday now has control over both Armington and O'Leary, so for Act IV you and Morgan have to recover the Lockgear nanotech before it goes all grey-goo on everyone. Somehow, though, the mission takes place in a sewer. You have to destroy three objects. O'Leary and Armington are present but don't have to be fought. Morgan is supposed to be available as an ally, but spawned in the last room.

For Act V you get a letter from Faraday taunting you into a final showdown. This being a comic RPG you're not allowed to call in an air strike. The match takes place on a small sewer map. It turned out O'Leary was available as an ally but he was behind Faraday and behind some geometry so I didn't see him until well after the fighting was over. Faraday spawns as an AV/EB again and calls multiple ambush waves as he dies.

The plot does not make sense in a lot of places and there are more than a few spelling errors. It also assumes the player is a graduate of the Harry Callahan Police Acadamy. This needs a lot of work.

Arc #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Killer GMing, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

This is a re-review. When my queue clears I'm going to set up a policy on re-reviews, which I haven't quite decided on yet.

I'm only going to discuss changes from the previous review. Search upthread if you want to read that.

The first mission is no longer level-locked at 54. The Cataphract has been replaced with a Vanguard HVAS, which managed to drop me with one Energy Barrage (7.5% chance to hit...). There are a few HTML errors in its description.

Act II makes it more clear that the Virals' plan to take over the Arbiter Drones never made it past that base. Act III makes it more clear that you don't have to fight the Malta or Titans at all, just get to the glowie. An additional Clue lets you know /Hide is lying to you.

The briefing for Act IV now contains a disclaimer for PCs who use or are AIs. The entry pop-up says you can't let your doubts about /Hide concern you now with so much at stake, which is fair. The bots inside make more mention (IIRC) of "testing" and refer to you as "the final variable". I had better luck with the PPD ally spawns but I don't know if that actually means the author changed their spawn areas at all.

Act V uses a smaller map. Two of the three initial objectives spawned up front. I believe they have more substantial ambushes attached to them now. Also, I believe the Repair Bots have been turned up to Extreme/Extreme on their powersets, making their END drains a lot worse. Really, Sappers are less troublesome. The arc still has a The Usual Suspects Ending which might actually be more annoying to some now, as you know about halfway through that you're being played with and can't do anything about it.

I've bumped it up a star, but it does have much the same problems as the earlier version. It's just a bit more playable now.

Arc #33034, "The Descender"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: tedious, overachieving NPCs, impossible to consider as canon

Captain Mako wants you to check up on a strike force he sent off to destroy the Leviathan, following his failed attempt to empower himself in his patron arc. This mission, and all but the last, scale you to the 25-31 range. I decided to run this with Amelia Escobar, my Widow. The map is the Leviathan cave filled with Coralax and "Virtea", a custom faction based on the canon aquatic race the Coralax control. These attack with a variety of electrical, sonic and physical means and include healers. The task force leader you are sent to find is a glowie, a pile of bones. Mako knows nothing of the Virtea, which seems a bit odd given how much he knows about the Coralax, but it's not impossible.

Mako seeks to redress this lack of knowledge in Act II. You are sent to a Circle of Thorns library to "borrow" a book that should have something on the Virtea. Of course, you don't have an Oranbega Library Card. The mission briefing warns you that the Circle has a habit of burning their libraries rather than let anything get stolen from them and you shouldn't let this happen. The Big Bad's room did have several Protect Object objectives but I'd already found the tome in an earlier glowie and none of the Protect objectives were necessary...you just need the glowie and to defeat the Tome Keeper. The Clue is initially disappointingly short but you get an extended one at mission complete. The Tome, it turns out, has a prophecy in it that basically says your trip into the cave marks the end of the Coralax and the start of the Virtea's return to the surface. Oops. In the debriefing it seems you decide not to tell Mako about this (why not?) and claim the library was burned down. He does not even threaten to disembowel you for this.

For Act III Mako is off doing research on his own (which I take to mean he is slaughtering scholars until someone manages to scream something he wants to know moments before being turned into chum). You decided to return to the Leviathan to check out the Tome's story for yourself. This time the Virtea are friendly, fighting the Coralax...and oh look, "Defeat Calystix". Ouch. There are three Boss level allies, though, "Great White" Chieftains of the Virtea. They tell you that the Leviathan spawned their race 60 million years ago (typo: "projenitors") and that only the legend of the Descender (you) has kept them going all this time under the Coralax's rule, which may be contradicting the Coralax entry on the official site, but that's subject to interpretation. Defeating Calystix triggers the spawn of Barracuda with a sizeable number of Arachnos goons. Both tell you repeatedly that trying to fulfill the prophecy would be Bad. In the debriefing you tell Mako that Barracuda is dead; he tells you the Leviathan is awakened and Recluse has called together all the leaders of Arachnos to find a way to stop it.

The briefing for Act IV says Mako is off meeting Recluse, and the Leviathan has destroyed St. Martial (which I happened to be standing on at the time, very inconvenient). You are off to exterminate the Coralax, satisfying the prophecy and (presumably) fulfilling your destiny as the Descender, receiving ultimate power, energy fields bigger than your head, etc. The mission takes place on the Flooded Boomtown map, calling for the defeat of three Shapers. It does offer one ally, a Virtea Elite Boss (Kat/Regen/BadAI, which is not the author's fault of course). One Shaper was defeated by Virtea battlers near his location...I was lucky enough to be nearby and heard his chatter, which said that the Virtea had no ability to prophesize and that I was just someone who blundered into a made-up legend. The other two were in deep denial. When all three (and their guards) were defeated, the mission complete Clue had the Virtea Khan give me the Blood of the Leviathan, supposedly conferring immortality, then asks what you want. You answer that you want domination of the Rogue Isles and eventually the world....

For the last mission, the briefing is given by the Khan, not Mako, who explains the Virtea have taken over an Arachnos submarine base and installed within it some of the "abyss wells" the Coralax used to summon Virtea slaves. These will give you the ability to summon the leaders of Arachnos. The number five is mentioned, implying one for each of the four lieutenants and Recluse himself. You have the help of the Virtea Khan EB again. The first well I found triggered Scirocco's spawn...at the other end of the map. Evidently Coralax teleportation technology is difficult to calibrate.... I took down Scirocco and Black Scorpion without too much trouble thanks the Khan. Mako dropped me at about 15% health. I got him in the rematch. Then the Khan got wedged in the map geometry. Without his help I got Ghost Widow down to about 20% before she got me. On the rematch, the Khan took out her remaining guards and got in a few swipes before he was caught by her uberhold. When that dropped...he ran to the other side of the room and wouldn't come back. I managed to win anyway. That just left Recluse, who again managed to drop me in the first match. The rematch was close, had to pop a green to keep from dying to a DOT at the end, but I won. The debriefing says you have conquered the Rogue Isle, and soon the world...but echoes back to something Ghost Widow said before she died....

The arc has an epic scope, but the gameplay is a little flat in places. NPCs do too much in some places. The last mission in particular is very tedious as you have to run the entire length of the map at least nine times. Because the consequences are so far-reaching it is impossible to consider this as anything other than a holodeck program, unless you want to retire the character afterwards.

Arc #1152, "The Doctor Returns"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: some plot holes, Tomato In The Mirror ending

The Doctor, the disembodied hacker from the Crey arcs, contacts you in a disguised spam message. She's found something sinister in the Architect system. Preposterous, Positron himself assures us this product of Dr. Aeon and Crey is perfectly safe! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, everything. The Doctor says Crey is using the system to keep digitized heros trapped in compressed files while rematerializing copies loyal to the Countess. She's arranged safe passage into the system for you to prove this. Act I has you save Fusionette from the Council lowbie map. You also have to take out four "Rogue Copies" that think they're the original Fusionette. Now, if I thought the Architect system was xeroxing people, a) you wouldn't catch me inside it on a dare, and b) I'd be reaaaaaaaal careful about destroying "copies" until I was damned sure I knew who and where the originals were.

In Act II, the Doctor tells you that she's created a back door into the MA system that will let you grant yourself administrator privleges. The door is found in an office/caves mission labelled "testing 4 bugz". Despite the nav bar saying "Kill all bugz lol!!1" the subtitle tells you to just ignore them. The "bugz" are Arachnoids, so some builds may want to avoid them as much as possible. There are also some Crey mobs, including Paragon Protector Elites, which again some people are going to want to avoid (for those who haven't had the pleasure, they nova). All you really have to do is find and click on the glowie.

The Doctor informs you that as an administrator your data is no longer being captured by Crey when you enter the system, among other privleges, and sends you to a storage area where several supers are being kept captive. The map is a sewer loaded with Freaks and some Crey mobs. One of the captives is a copy of Ghost Widow, which you just delete rather than take the chance of having two of her run around, and it won't kill her anyway. You also find Fusionette, who claims not to remember anything since exiting "that bugged Council mission", Faultline, who went in after Fusionette, and Positron, who's been trapped ever since entering the system to test it, supposedly explaining why he publicly signed off on technology invented by a mad scientist and marketed by a corporation known to engage in mind control. You must also defeat the system administrator, a Noise Tank named H4XX0R, who has some good lines.

Your next trick is to get a copy of the Doctor's file into the central admin complex, and you've only got 60 minutes to do it. This is a straightforward glowie hunt on a tech map versus Crey mobs. The last act has you enter the system to erase all traces of the Doctor's activity then reboot the system. Doing that requires eliminating two special agents that have been responding to all the Doctor's sightings. The Agents are using Paragon Protector Elite models, so watch out. There is a surprise hostage in the mix, Executable Number 6...who tells you that you are a copy of the original "you" and you'll be deleted when the system is trashed. Sure enough when you exit you get a pop-up saying the last thing you remember is entering the MA system for the first time and getting ambushed by six Ghost Widows. The Doctor says that she'll take over monitoring the MA so it can't be used to xerox people again.

The mission has some clever writing, but the Tomato In The Mirrior ending is cheap and likely to rub people the wrong way. (Besides, what if "you" just abort the arc at that point?) While it does provide an explanation for the insane backstory the devs saddled the Architect with, I'd rather just pretend the backstory doesn't even exist, frankly.

(as I fear I hit a lot of tvtropes)

Tropes are tools and not good or bad on their own. It's how they're used that matters.

That said, I'm still not accepting new arcs. I've got 30-40 to go through. I took a break last night to work on my own stuff (in the sig) but now it's back to the queue.

Hey Venture I notice your queue has one of mine list 9028 and the next is 2036 I'm curious if it is actually 9036?

It is 9036 on my written list, sorry for the typo.

I've got a question; you keep using the phrase "Just a bunch of stuff that happens" to describe some of the plots, and although I can kind of pick up what you mean from the context, I'm curious what your actual definition is for it.

A story is "just a bunch of stuff that happened" if it doesn't have any kind of moral, theme or character development to it at all. Humor is an acceptable substitute, as long as it is actually funny. Of course that's subjective. "Hearts on Fire", despite its multitude of sins, does not have this problem, as it has a strong story about unrequited love. "Redoubt Operations I: Fires over Kalago" (just a random example) is an arc that the author very obviously put a lot of work into but has no story beyond "bad guys do bad things until you make them stop".

I swiped the phrase (I think) from "Episode 257-494" of Teen Titans, in which "Control Freak" traps the Titans inside television shows until Beast Boy's superior knowledge of television defeats him. At the end someone says "see what happens when you watch too much TV?" and Starfire points out that they only won because Beast Boy watches too much TV. Raven asks "so, what's the moral here?" and Cyborg says "There isn't one. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened." Cue Everyone Laughs Ending, which quotes the episode differently so maybe I've misremembered the line. I'm sticking with my version though. :-P

Arc Name: "Blowback"
Arc ID: 4643
Length: Very Long (5 mission)
First Published: 4/8/2009 08:42 PM
Morality: Heroic
Description: Malta and the Rikti learn that the enemy of my enemy is my enemy, and a Malta officer learns that you can't retrace your steps after you've walked off a cliff.
Forum Thread: Link

Arc Name: "Chains of Blood"
Arc ID: 4829
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
First Published: 4/8/2009 08:54 PM
Morality: Heroic
Description: A (very) non-canon story about the Circle of Thorns and Legacy Chain.
Forum Thread: Link

I did change Bluehawk to MA/AR. I left her as an EB for now. She hits hard but she has no defensive powers and no knockback protection...a lot of builds can keep her off her feet constantly.

I also found a smaller map for Act III which should make it less annoying, and put in an EB warning for Act II's briefing. I toyed with the idea of changing 2-0's death clue to mention some molten bits of brass (shell casings) among the ashes, but I had someone hit me in the head repeatedly until I felt better. (Word of Gawd: this was not a Nemesis plot.)

Likewise, don't expect him to play mine again (#28430, Sidekicks Can Be A Pain In The Cape)

According to my records, I haven't played it once yet...it's not even in the queue....

I made some changes to this arc tonight. A number of people complained about the Arch-Magi models, which confessedly were Bosses that behaved more like Elites. I took advantage of some of the new Magic Pack costume parts to make custom Bosses instead. The new Blood Redeemers are more challenging in some ways but don't have the huge resists and regen the old Arch-Magi did.

Because of that change, I put the fourth Redeemer back into the last mission. I also downgraded the allies in Acts I and III to Lieutenants (from Bosses) and removed the ally from Act II. The former don't need to be Bosses any more, and the latter wasn't really required by the story in the first place.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm almost certainly going to change Bluehawk to MA/AR tonight, and maybe downgrade her from EB to Boss as well. I haven't decided on that part. She is really not all that tough as an EB.

What the Rikti were doing there was explained...three times. They were deliberately plotting with Malta. Malta used its equipment to set up Steel Canyon for a raid (allowing the Rikti to teleport past the War Walls), and in return the Rikti were to destroy some offices housing people that were giving Malta a hard time.

I used the smallest maps possible for the rescue missions, given what was available for what the story required. Neither is a clear-all. Maybe I can find something better for the Rikti cave run.

Please note that I am still not accepting requests for reviews; I'm still very much backed up. If I've added right (and I'm sure Arcanaville will correct me if I haven't....) I've reviewed 25 arcs so far with an average rating of exactly 3 stars.

Current queue: 1152, 33034, 12669, 1285, 1009, 8774, 8787, 8795, 1665, 12798, 16338, 9028, 2036, 32865, 3615, 19226, 19231, 19238, 4727, 2019, 27136, 34452, 8713, 2409, 1579, 1571, 1831, 18145, 38226, 2922, 1356, 26931, 2142, 2150, 42221, 5299

Arc #16108, "Less Mew Mew, More Pew Pew"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: unfunny joke arc, too many EB/AVs (any) for a joke arc, phoned in a lot of text

An unnamed SWAT Officer wants you to remove an infestation of catgirls from his weapons warehouse (evidently, he's stationed on Virtue). The warehose is filled with catgirls using Claws and Super Reflexes, Willpower or Energy Aura, which may make this problematic for some. The Big Bad is Snow Lion, a Fire Blast/Ice Armor EB who, on agro, hit Aim and Inferno for a 95% chance to kill me instantly. She went down on the rematch. A Clue tells you that someone has scheduled a furry convention in Paragon City and the main speaker is Bobcat. It also asks who could plan such a diabolical thing. I smell brass. You only get "Good job." for the debriefing...that's the whole thing.

Act II's briefing says the city is being overrun by catgirls (and this is different from everyday life how...OK, not everyone plays on Virtue). Your new job is to take down Bobcat to find out where the convention is. She was as much of a pain as usual, summoning one ambush wave. I ended up using Elude after she hit Unstoppable, mostly out of laziness (could have just used another Luck). Your debriefing this time is "Well done."

For the third and final map you have to defeat the convention organizer, who is, say it with me now...

...Nemesis.

Yeah. His defeat test is "OK, so it WAS all a Nemesis plot." Final debriefing, "So... it WAS all a Nemesis plot afterall."

It's supposed to be funny, but it's two missions too long for the joke. (I have a similar mission in an arc I'm working on, which I'll now have to consider removing.) It's also got too much firepower for a joke arc. A lot of the debriefings and such are kind of phoned in as well.

Arc #2180, "Bricked Electronics"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Marc Freeman wants you to check out the store he bought an old cell phone at because there's some suspicious data left on it. (He kind of talks down to the player at this point, which is not a good idea...yes, some characters have a room-temperature IQ and thing the TV remote has imps in it that change the channels, but some are geniuses who invented their own nanotech-based symbiotic AIs.) Level cap for this one is 20 (19 for me). The shop is being robbed by Goldbrickers when you get there, and the owner is not in...the schedule you find shows he wasn't supposed to be in today. You do get his contact information.

For Act II. Freeman contacts the shop's owner and finds out where he buys his refurbished cell phones from. You're sent in to check out that warehouse. It turns out to be infested with Clockwork along with another kind of tiny robot, "Constructs" (in fact, the Clockwork are assigned to the same faction). There was a Boss robot (optional objective) named Barometer with Energy Melee/Storm powers, which didn't last long. You find two boxes of repaired cell phones which seem to be in nearly new condition, and a young girl named "JJ Cartwright" who gives you a near-Freakshow technoanarchist rant and tells you she would have turned the robots off it she'd known you only wanted to know where she got her scavanged goods from. Freeman arranges for her to get a better job with the PPD.

The phones are traced to a cave some vent systems have collapsed into; Freeman hypothesises that people have been dumping stuff there to make it vanish. You're sent in to check out the cave. The data he's been able to recover from the cell phones implies a bank robbery is being planned. " Yeah. Villains want to rob a bank. I know you're surprised." Entering the cave you find...a Council base. Being attacked by Clockwork. I immediately found a glowie (2 total, plus beat the Big Bad) with cute "time bar" text: "Man, what kind of person crates up trash?" The crates contains various broken high-tech goodies. The Boss summons at least one ambush wave to support him, and adds a "3 gas cylinders to destroy" objective with no explanation. (His defeat clue just laments all the trash falling into his base and hopes the Zig is cleaner.) Addition of this objective effectively turns the mission into a defeat-all and makes you run the map twice. Not appreciated. In the debriefing Freeman calls JJ and asks why she sent you into a Council base without warning. Her answer was "why didn't he just turn his cloaking device on?" Freeman notes he has to talk to her about what kinds of tech the average person has. (Venture actually has a stealth IO...in the other build. Wouldn't have helped, of course.)

For Act IV, Freeman has managed to pull photos from the cell phones that reveals where they're hiding. He still doesn't have more info on their planned robbery, but you can get that by going there and busting heads. After accepting the mission Freeman tells you that a Rogue Isles newspaper you found back in Act I that was of interest to the Goldbricker Boss had an editorial in it denouncing Paragon City's banks for seizing unclaimed property in the wake of the Rikti War. I was going to criticize the plot here for implying that there was enough time following the Rikti War for unclaimed property laws to kick in, but a quick trip to Google determined that the state assumes control of unclaimed bank accounts after 3 years in most case in Rhode Island (and NJ, as it happens...I thought it took much longer. Wonder if this has changed lately. Enough digression.) When you get on-site, you find JJ has sent you a little help (literally), some of her robots as allies. Unfortunately several of them spawned in the same place with their guards, turning the area into a deathtrap. After getting back, I found two computers, one of which had an article on the "Committee to Re-Elect the President" that is supposedly suspicious, and a Goldbricker Boss with a large spawn of guards...but at this point I had two Minions and an LT for backup. The Boss does have some nice banter, complaining about how Aeon Tech is all over the place in the Isles and the selection is so much better here. Freeman tells you afterwards that the 70s propaganda piece is code, not encryption, so he can't tell what they're talking about. At least not right away.

Or soon enough, as it turns out. Act V's briefing tells you the heist is going down: a bank is scheduled to bring out abandoned safe deposit boxes for transfer to the state, and the Goldbrickers have used a virus to send off an email cancelling the extra security. (This is tossing the Idiot Ball at minor characters, as no security outfit worth working with would fail to show up just because of an email.) Unfortunately, JJ was around when Freeman heard about this, so you've got 10 minutes to get in there before all hell breaks loose. JJ spawns up front as a LT Bots/Kinetics. You have to rescue her, secure two crates of deposits and beat the Big Bad in 10 minutes. Since it's a small bank map that's not too hard. One of the clues directs your attention to some names on one of the boxes, Orin Marsh and Mr. Geno. Freeman can't find anything on either name, but notes that the account had a huge amount of cash in it, and despite not being accessed for decades was still listed as active, making him suspect tampering.

The arc has good action and a decent plot, though no real theme. There are no EB/AVs or any deliberate attempts to kill the player. I do think JJ gets a bit more screen time than she's entitled to but she's not an author insert as far as I can tell. I'd remove the "package" in Act IV and cut down on the Big Bad's guards. The ending is somewhat anticlimactic as you don't really get told what the plan was...it's inferred that the Goldbrickers needed to retrieve the money in that account because the increased attention being paid to unclaimed accounts revealed it, but that could stand to be made more explicit.

Other than the wall banging, would you say it was well written? Were the other characters consistent (if idiotic), etc?

Yes, but the plot as it stands is unforgivable.

btw...how about giving us your global so we can see what you've published. As detail oriented as you are, they must be really good ones.

There is a link in my signature page to a quick-and-dirty web page on my arcs. Feel free to take revenge and review them (one person already has in this thread). My global is @Venture (@DFH on Test).

Arc #1472, "Hearts on Fire"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Wall Banger Idiot Plot

"Epitaph", a member of the Skulls, wants you to pass "Sally" a note in study hall. OK, not really, but close enough. You're sent to a rave to check her out. "Sally" turns out to be "Salamander", a Hellion Boss. It also appears from her initial dialog that she's playing for the other team, If You Know What I Mean. Epitaph is undeterred. You are autolevelled to 13 for the whole arc (presumably 14 if you're on Heroic/Tenacious).

Your next task is to bust up a bank robbery Sally will be attending, and to find out more about her if you can. It turns out that while the bank is being robbed, Sally was only there to meet her friend Eliza, who is now a hostage. The robbers are Family, whom Sally helps you defeat. Epitath is too busy doing free throws with the Idiot Ball to put two and two together and says he's coming up with some more ideas. I started wondering if he'd prefer emo or country CDs when the inevitable happens.

In Act III it seems the Hellions have kidnapped Eliza. Epitaph wants you to save her, thinking this is some kind of internal power struggle. When you find Eliza she actually does appear to be held hostage, which is something of a surprise. She tells her captors that Sally has gone back to PCU to finish her degree, and they don't believe her. Epitaph tells you the next phase of his plan is "brilliant". I'm not expecting a Nemesis plot here....

...aaaand there's the Idiot Ball. Seems Epitaph lied to you, he knew Eliza was really holed up with the Hellions for safety while Sally beat up the Family a bit. Note that Eliza doesn't scream for help or anything when you beat up the Hellions; she goes with you willingly because she thinks you're Sally's friend after the robbery. Epitaph's plan is to keep Eliza stashed with his Skull buddies for a while, then "rescue" her to get in Sally's good graces. He gets upset when you take the "Rescue Eliza from the Skulls" option. His buddy Skullcrusher is frontloaded and implies that he and his crew have already subjected Eliza to a Fate Worse Than Death. A little farther in you find out that death was part of the bargain: she's been mutilated, and the Skulls took pictures during the process. So your hero is now implicated in kidnap, bodice ripping If You Know What I Mean and first-degree murder. Epitaph says "This isn't how it was supposed to happen! What have you done!" Um, dude....

Epitaph's next brilliant move is to go make a clean breast of things to Sally. As the accept option says "Are you crazy?" You then hear a report of an explosion in Atlas Park, where Sally lives, and Epitaph is off and running (it's inferred). The next mission is in the burning Hellion complex map and requires defeating Epitaph and Sally. Epitaph spawned in front and dropped me before I could click inspirations. After taking him out there was another Hellion Boss to deal with, then Sally, who has gone from Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation to Firey Melee/Fiery Aura. She blames you for Eliza's death (and why not), and says when she falls "Don't you see? She's in Heaven now...and I can never go there..." The final debriefing says Salamander gets life in the Zig and Epitaph can't go back to the Skulls, so he's pretty much suicidal.

I don't mind Downer Endings. I do mind plots that only work if all the main characters are morons. In fact the only thing keeping this from being a second-order Idiot Plot is the fact that Skullcrusher's guys do pretty much what Skulls would do in that situation (which isn't particularly smart, but at least it's in character). I also mind plots that turn my character into a felon...you'd be heading for the Zig (as much of a threat as that is) for your part in this too. I hate to trash it, as the story has a strong theme and in in principle is the kind of thing I'd like to see from Architects. But this needs a lot of rehabilitation.

Also, I'm telling the story *I* want to tell. It would be impossible to try and make sure everything was compatible with all the different possibilities of PC back stories.


It is impossible to avoid conflict completely, but you can minimize the problem by not making definitive statements about obvious "hot topics". These stories are written for a shared universe and that means playing nice with the other kids. Postulating a character or group inspired by Arthurian myth is OK. Making a character the Lancelot du Lac...not so good.

You can play the "this is just a holodeck" card but that just punches your story in the gut. If the story absolutely will not work without using actual historical or mythological figures, you need to step back and reconsider what you're actually doing, because there's a good chance you don't have an actual story in the first place.

I checked three Gamestops, a Best Buy and a Target in the West Orange/Livingston/East Hanover part of NJ, no luck. I'll try a few other places tomorrow.

Well Venture, I took most of your advice and did an overhaul of a decent chunk of my Arc, mostly in the writing areas since the other parts didn't need so much changing. I also switched it up and made it much more magical themed, although only time will tell if I honestly like it better this way (just being honest :P).


I had meant to give you some feedback on your comments, pointing out that there's nothing wrong with technomagic (in this setting, I don't particularly care for it myself but I'm not going to grade off for it 'coz it's part of the canon). The problem was that your presentation was choppy...it wasn't clear what your faction was really doing. This was part of a larger problem in that we really didn't know anything about them, only that "someone" wanted us to beat the stuffing out of them.

Arc #1034, "Getting to Know Crey Financial: the Teaser"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: typos

N.B. this arc was bypassed in the queue earlier when a bug made it unavailable. I'm coming back to it now that it actually shows up in the database.

Jacob Smithy, who appears to be a PPD Detective, asks you to respond to a break-in at Crey Financial. It seems that some disgruntled person is threatening the company's executives. Can't imagine why. Smithy does wonder why Crey is calling them instead of using their own security, but they've got to respond. On acceptance he also asks that you keep an eye out for any evidence of Crey wrongdoing...must have six-slotted Debuff Civil Rights.

The mobs are custom office workers with various powers and somewhat humorous /info. Unfortunately there are typos all over the place. You find a computer with files that might be useful, and a JPEG of "Pam at the Holiday Party", If You Know What I Mean. (You also notice that Jeff's been on break 17 minutes too long. Another Clue contains humor about another staffer.) The vigilante you were sent to stop turns out to be a hostage, who runs away when rescued saying he has to stop them from killing again. He drops a wallet ID'ing him as Charles Reiner of Fouders' Falls. The debriefing is just an ad for the full arc.

The arc is short, fairly easy and contains some decent attempts at humor. Unfortunately it is marred by typos.

Arc #6999, "Seekers of the Grail"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: weak plot, Contact deals in bad faith, overpowered mobs

Your Contact is Lancelot...I don't know if he's that Lancelot because he says that secrecy is vital and his brethren are not ready, etc. His costume is a bit on the garish side, a mixture of gold and bright blues and reds, though I realise that's a pretty subjective thing. He wants you to investigate some new group calling itself the "Seekers".

Entering a warehouse, I first ran into an "Arthur's Sword" Minion (BS/Shield) and "Merlyn's Adept" LT (Necro/Dark). Next was an "Arthur's Guard" LT (Mace/Shield) who popped BuildUp and promptly whacked me for 1036 points. He did spawn as a +2 but this still seems a bit much for an LT. I quickly ran into an "Arthur's Arrow" Minion with Archery...no idea what the second set might be. Finding the target computer triggers a new objective, "defeat the boss". The Boss is "Arthur's Wrath", a Mind Control/Empath. The bio says the Wrath agents are rumored to be telepathically linked to "Arthur". Lancelot gets angry when you tell him the goons use Arthur's name.

You are next sent to a ship (...) being used as a mobile command post by "Bors", one of Arthur's top men. You are warned that he's a powerhouse, and there is even a "WARNING: this mission contains an Elite Boss" at the end of the briefing. (Nit: would be better presented in-character and/or with color so it stands out.) What you are not told until after you accept is that it's a timed mission...30 minutes to reach and defeat an EB at the back of a ship map. I hit stealth and flew past it all, of course. I spotted one Boss spawn, another Wrath, and then another Wrath...right next to Bors. I hit a Luck and Elusive Mind and went in swinging. I managed to drop the Wrath without agroing Bors, then took on him and his (largeish) spawn. Bors is an Axe wielder, and I'm not sure what his second set is. In any case, he didn't have any -KB and was easy pickings. In any case putting the Boss spawn potentially so close is likely to be problematic for many. Afterwards Lancelot tells you that you've confirmed his greatest fears and he must leave to seek his brethren, but has something for you to do first.

That something is to go to another Seeker base to try to find out what happened to the previous hero he asked to help him. Nice time to find out the job's already killed someone, maybe.... The hero "Krieg" (Boss, /info says he's "weakened by captivity") turned out to be alive and triggered a new objective to "Find Merlyn's Tome". He's an escort so I took him to the entrance, but he didn't leave. He wouldn't fight after that so I never found out what his powers were. He did appear to be running a Willpower toggle. The map was an office-to-caves number; the first spawn point in the caves had a large Boss spawn overlapped with a second spawn, the lot becoming much more "fun" after the Wrath cast Regen Aura on everyone.... The new objective was a a "Merlyn's Altar" with a large spawn around it. Evidently the objective was to protect the altar, because defeating the initial spawn around it cleared the mission. (There were a few mobs left from an ambush.) The Clues assume that you take Krieg to the altar and then escape...since the altar is a required objective it would be better to drop the escort portion of Krieg's objective.

The tome not only tells you where Merlyn is but also tells how the entity behind this is something Merlyn summoned but couldn't control, so he submitted to it, and that he convinced it to use the Arthurian myths as a mask. When you get back, Lancelot confesses that he doesn't have an army coming to back you up and you're the city's last hope. In the briefing for the next mission he says he is that Lancelot, that this "entity" is something the Knights of the Round Table fought, and that the "Merlyn" working with "Arthur" is not that Merlyn. He's sent Krieg ahead to Merlyn's location. At this point you are working for someone who has consistently lied to you and left another hero out to dry.... In the accepted text he goes on to say Merlin put all the Knights into suspended animation, set to awake when the "entity" returned, but they don't have the power to compete with superhumans now.

The first target at the base is "Galahad", a Dual Blades/Super Reflexes. He's surrounded by another huge spawn, which included one of the Adept Necro/Darks and one of the Guards, the ones who hit for 1K+. I got caught in a fear off the Necro and faceplanted (it didn't help that I couldn't see the Adept cast a Tar Patch, causing instant interrupts on Aid Self). Defeating Galahad triggered the Defeat Merlyn objective (and gave me a Clue with a misspelled title -- "Galasad". At least I hope that's a typo and not a very bad pun.) Krieg was available as an Ally but I bypassed him. I ran into another four Arthur's Wrath spawns, the first of which was a +2. I popped Elusive Mind and took it out, then stealthed the other three because they weren't listed as objectives. Merlyn himself was a Fire Blast/Force Field; he opened with Inferno, as is usual these days...and missed. On his defeat (which the Clue says is a death, hope you don't have a code versus killing...), Merlyn admits there is no grail (which I thought we'd already established) and with Merlyn gone the Seekers will be weakened as he was partly responsible for enthralling the goons.

The last mission is an assignment to take out "Arthur", whom is said to be an AV. Krieg has gone ahead again. It's an Oranbega map, a large one.... I took down a frontloaded Wrath, and bypassed three more. Krieg spawned on the upper level of one of the big rooms, I left him there. I got dirtnapped later on by a 1252 hit from an LT in the Big Bad's room. "Arthur" turned out to be a Broadsword/Shield AV (EB) who dropped me in the first heat when Practiced Bralwer's autocast interrupted my Aid Self just before I took a 1200 point Head Splitter. (N.B. -- the Big Bad hits about as hard as the Lieutenants.) I took him down in the rematch. His defeat Clue says the armor was empty (typo: "faught") and you can't help but feel he's not gone forever.

Lancelot thanks you, tells you that we still don't know who or what the entity was, and that its enslaved goons will slowly return to their normal lives.

The arc does invoke the Arthurian legends, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. There are probably dozens of bios on each server that involve those stories leading to some potential backlash from fervent RPers, not helped by the fact that it plays loose and fast with them. The Contact deals with the player in bad faith; the arc doesn't really throw the Idiot Ball but it would take a big leap of faith for someone to keep working with Lancelot by act IV. An additional issue is that we never really see the Seekers doing anything bad. We don't bust up a robbery by them, recover stolen goods from them, rescue hostages intended for mind control, etc. We never find out who "Merlyn" really was or what "Arthur" really was. It's pretty clear from the dialog that the Seekers are bad guys, but without that it's as if you've been handed a gun and told to walk into the next room and shoot the first person you see. The arc is Boss-heavy at points but I wouldn't mark down for that; I'm just noting it for the benefit of squishier builds. The Arthur's Guard LTs, however, are way over the top.

What DO you define as a Mary Sue, then? TVTropes defines it as a (female) character that is just perfect, wonderful, is great at everything, has no flaws, and is just the best! That doesn't seem like Tanya Atta to me.

For my purposes here, a Mary Sue is a character of either sex that a) is an obvious stand-in for the author, which is adequately demonstrated by the character being one of the author's PCs or an Expy (thinly disguised version) of such, and b) is being repeatedly glorified by the arc, constantly telling us how powerful/intelligent/wonderful/special/etc. the character is.

Note the conjunct ("and"). Both conditions are necessary, neither independently is sufficient. My two mains, Venture and Starfall (from Virtue) appear in my arc "Chains of Blood" but strictly as guests. I did that deliberately to show what I thought was an acceptable use of one's own characters. I feel this offers a definite enough criterion to avoid Lazarus' charge of simply slapping a label on something I don't like.

Tanya Atta hits both conditions. She's the author's PC (has a nice big page on Virtueverse) and the arc repeatedly tells us how intelligent and powerful and special she is, even after you defeat her (Wincott says "how could you have defeated someone so powerful?") The fact that the script requires her to take a dirt nap at the end does not detract from her Sueness, especially since we all know she'll just leave the Cardboard Prison later. She also hits some of the items on the Encyclopedia Dramatica list: connection to canon character, "special" name, "special" powers (female Troll, AV status).

Also note that removing the connection to the author doesn't really fix the problem. It would make the character not a Mary Sue, but it would still be bad writing -- a "darling" that needs to be killed.

As for David and Goliath being a Mary Sue arc, I don't see how it would have been any better if Dispari had made up some random new troll AV instead.

If nothing was different but the name of the AV, it would still have been bad writing. It just wouldn't be a Mary Sue, at least not as I define it.

Heck, I wonder if Venture would have even made such a comment if he hadn't known Tanya Atta was one of Dispari's PCs. I got similar comments from him on test and wonder what he would have said if I had instead denied it when he asked if a AV in one of my arcs was one of my PCs.

I did not know Tanya was one of Dispari's PCs until I played the arc. The writing made me suspect a Mary Sue, pushing the Awesome Button (Ctrl-X on my keyboard) confirmed it and I threw in a search on Google just for good luck. I don't recall the particulars in your case -- your arc must have been less annoying -- but I'm sure it went much the same way. The question was pretty much pro forma. It is really not that hard for a diligent reader to tell when an author has an unhealthy attachment to a character, plot device or other such "darling".

Arc #29825, "Shadowlight: Part I"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happens", weak plot, semi-surprise EBs

N.B. this arc needed to be republished, changing its number...it did not jump the queue.

Your Contact this time is an Aspect of the Pillar, labelled "Time Crystal". It tells you that an organization of time-travelling thieves called "Shadowlight" is stealing artifacts from the past. A raid has been tracked down and you're being sent in to defeat its leader. The Shadowlight mobs are golems named after chess pieces. The "Pawn Axeman" model was minimum size, I actually overlooked the first one. The only thing you find is an unimportant silver ring...the raid leader, an LT, tells you they've already moved the artifact.

For the next mission, the crystal says that interrogation of the captured Rook from the last run has led "them" (whoever "they" are is not explained at this point...watching out for the Idiot Ball...) to a Shadowlight fortress where you should be able to swipe records of their raids. This was a straightforward glowie hunt on a tech map, which seemed a little out of place for the magical-themed faction (the mobs are mostly golems). This one had a "Bishop Illusionist" Boss using Illusion/Pain Domination. The debriefing says that the artifacts recently stolen shouldn't be dangerous to you, and that if you were powerful enough to retrieve the data you should be powerful enough to retrieve the items. This doesn't really follow....

For the next mission you are told to take on a Knight of Shadowlight who has one of the stolen items. You are told after accepting the mission that you might want to get help. The Knight is currently meeting the Circle of Thorns for a deal. He turned out to be a Boss, Electric Blast/Electric Manipulation, I think, and not difficult at all. The Clues tell you he had the "Orb of Tesla" you were sent after, and an amulet that may have been the one stolen back in the first mission. If there was anything bigger on the map I didn't find it.

For Part IV you are sent after "Robin Hood's Bow", which is currently in the hands of another Knight. You are also told that "they" can't get the location of the Shadowlight time portal out of the last Knight you captured because our laws prevent them from using torture to find out. Um, yeah. You are again warned to bring a friend. The mission takes place on the "burning forest" map, and again, the target is just a Boss, TA/A this time. In the debriefing the crystal says "they" will "extreme rendition" the Knight you just captured. Um, yeah.

In the finale, after waterboarding fails to get any useful info out of the last Knight, you are sent after "Arch Bishop Fianchetto", who is using Da Vinci's Code^H^H^H^HPen to draw up plans for all kinds of Bad Things. Fianchetto is said to be one of the big cheeses in Shadowlight and the constructor of the Gate you've been looking for. You're also told to bring a friend, again after accepting, and to destroy any supplies (there are 6 of them, destructable objects). Immediately on entering I was hit by an Electric Melee/Electric Armor Boss that dropped me in two hits thanks to BuildUp. It went down quickly on the rematch. Fianchetto was a Bots/Electric Blast EB, spawned at +2, and didn't last long (he only ever summoned the Assault Bot). His dialog was less than stellar:

[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: Faster, faster! King Staunton wants this thing finished within the month.
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: Venture, You've just saved me the trouble of having to find you.
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: Surely you can do better then that.
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: You realize your chances of winning are only 3% I hope.
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: Did I say 3%? I meant more like 0%!
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: Your starting to make me angry...
[NPC] Arch Bishop Fianchetto: How could this happen? We were going to be the rulers of time...

Mostly said while he was looking at the ceiling.

The Crystal thanks you for capturing the Arch Bishop and says "For all we know you may have prevented the end of the universe. Then again, you may have just recovered some artifacts. Who knows? We shall see that the pen is returned to its rightful place." Um, yeah.

The arc is fairly mediocre, lacking in theme or any kind of gravitas. The Shadowlight faction is poorly explained. Many of the mobs are said to be golems, and the faction has a clear interest in magical artifacts, but the maps and last mission all imply a technological faction. The people you're working for are even more obscure, setting up the possibility for a big Idiot Ball toss later in the series.