Want Dev's choice for your AE?

[Thagdal]

Hello Heroes and Villains, and anything in-between.

Dev's choice on a story arc created in AE will allow players to choose between getting AE ticket or normal rewards (recipes, salvage, etc) for defeating mobs and completing the mission. It also grants the creator an extra slot to make another story arc.

If you want your story arc to be played, and possibly promoted to a Dev's Choice, then please leave your mission ID and/or name of the mission below.

[Quinch]

Why the heck not?

490, Back Alley Brawler's training arc.

[Thagdal]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[ElBee]

Going to do a round of checks this Saturday if anyone has any other recommendations.

[SmallMedium]

469 - Trick or Treat

This was a contest winner, but it never ended up getting Dev's Choiced due to an AE wipe.

[ElBee]

469 - Trick or Treat

This was a contest winner, but it never ended up getting Dev's Choiced due to an AE wipe.

Ooh. Yeah. I'll have to check with the others if I can just put a pin in that.

[ElBee]

Why the heck not?

490, Back Alley Brawler's training arc.

This arc was the best written I had done that night. This is getting DC'd.

Here are your scores:

Story Premise - 9/10
Is the premise interesting or well thought out? Is it super basic?
A training arc! Point docked because it doesn't really step outside of that.

Contact Writing - 20/20
Does the contact have details? How well does the contact explain what's going on?
Quinch NAILED this. Using colors to both highlight important details and for differentiating speech. The text was well written and delved into the lore quite a bit near the end. They got the voice of the character spot on too.

Enemy Design - 18/20
Does it use existing assets in an interesting way or does it have its own? Do those have descriptions? How are those written to explain who they are?
Giving us a wide variety of gangs to punch and learn about. Points docked because of how they didn't really act anything surprising save for some of the Clockwork.

Mission Details - 17/20
Are the missions explained well? Are the missions fun to play?
Points docked for overuse of objectives in certain missions and for the protect missions possibly overwhelming lower level players with ambushes unintentionally.

Show vs Tell - 19/20
How does the arc convey it's story? Is it all in clues? Do the NPCs exposit in NPC dialogue? Is there any exposition at all?
This goes into detail about what the gangs are. The only point docked was from directly referencing an outside piece of information and even that is just me being nitpicky.

Overall Quality - 10/10
How do I personally feel about the arc?
You explained what a glowie was in a way that I could believe it was in universe. This is a solid introduction to the mission structure of the game. I laughed at some of the jokes and it was the best arc I played tonight. Hands down.

Final Score - 93/100
I give 5 stars to anything above an 80. This was phenomenal. Well done!

[Brigg]

Can I request a Dev Choice for my ArcID: #752? I gave it a story and some flair

[Destan]

Sure... I'll throw my hat in the ring. When Brigg's was put up as Dev stamped, I wasn't going to bother. But now that the old messed up version is back, I'd like to see how people feel about my farm when it's got standard rewards.

To be honest, it's XP/Inf yields are at least 35% higher, and you get to punch a bunch of Destans all over.

Plus, the map is big, the mobs are big and stationary, and there's no danger for doorsitters at the entrance.

Arc ID: 537

[ElBee]

I just wanted to lay out what's been going on with the effort to highlight more story driven arcs and why nothing has happened even before Ri2. To put the story short, I'm the one who's handling the matter and I've been *ultra* busy in the past few months.

I do have a small batch I played through recently and will probably highlight one of these next week as a Dev's Choice. But due to mitigating circumstances in my non-CoH life, I might not get to that task on this schedule. I can only hope for your understanding and patience especially given the frustrations of taking down the fire farm's Developer's Choices.

Once again we on the Rebirth Staff apologize for any delays and thank you for your patience.

[ElBee]

Back in May of this year, I had searched for more arcs to spotlight. Of the three I found I have awarded arc 797 - The Search for Dillo Developer's Choice.

Here are my reviews
774 - The May Lives of Lord Recluse
[spoiler]Premise - 7/10
Is the premise interesting or well thought out? Is it super basic?
City of Heroes is no stranger to interdimensional shinanigans. This is one such story exploring many versions of Lord Recluse.

Contact Writing - 14/20
Does the contact have details? How well does the contact explain what's going on?
Contact acts similarly to how a portal corp tech would. They deliver a lot of exposition. I felt, however, that the information could have been presented better by reformatting paragraphs and adding more line breaks.

Enemy Design - 16/20
Does it use existing assets in an interesting way or does it have its own? Do those have descriptions? How are those written to explain who they are?
A mix of Custom and Normal content exploring various kinds of crazy dimensions. One of the missions mob choice was not able to scale to level 50.

Mission Details - 20/20
Are the missions explained well? Are the missions fun to play?
These are quick missions with optional EB/GM. They can be as arduous as you want them to be.

Show vs Tell - 15/20
How does the arc convey it's story? Is it all in clues? Do the NPCs exposit in NPC dialogue? Is there any exposition at all?
There is a lot of exposition delivered from the contact. Some of the clues directly tell you something is supposed to convey something without describing it.

Overall Quality - 8/10
How do I personally feel about the arc?
Arc was pretty solid, if a bit long winded.
[/spoiler]
Final Score 80/100
Barely scraping a 5 star rating. Its interesting premise and plot is held back by simple presentation.

790 - Style over Substance
[spoiler]
Premise - 9/10
Is the premise interesting or well thought out? Is it super basic?
Hiring help to help manage your social media presense and the highjinks that ensue? That's a good premise for an episode of a sitcom.

Contact Writing - 18/20
Does the contact have details? How well does the contact explain what's going on?
The contact has details that describe the career of a moderately successful PR person for a company "Liberty Search and Rescue" rather well. I had quite a few laughs at how hard it goes into the social media theme.

Enemy Design - 16/20
Does it use existing assets in an interesting way or does it have its own? Do those have descriptions? How are those written to explain who they are?
The descriptions of the custom enemies were pretty short, but still did the job. The costumes used by them were fantastic! Some were missing descriptions though. The final mission features Villains of other players too!

Mission Details - 16/20
Are the missions explained well? Are the missions fun to play?
Missions were realitively short with a decent enough mixture of objectives. The reasons you are doing the objectives is the main fun of it.

Show vs Tell - 17/20
How does the arc convey it's story? Is it all in clues? Do the NPCs exposit in NPC dialogue? Is there any exposition at all?
The premise doesn't really lend itself to a heavy storyline. It missed one opportunity for a joke in the first mission, but otherwise its presentation was great for a comedy arc.

Overall Quality - 8/10
How do I personally feel about the arc?
Pretty well written. A good take on social media and all the antics therein. To quote the game, It #slayed.
[/spoiler]
Final Score 84/100
I had quite a few laughs at this arc. It has minor issues, but those do not get in the way of the enjoyment by anyone not going over it with a fine tooth comb. I did take mild umbrage with one of the joke mobs in the zombie mission however. I recognize it's a looney tooney kind of joke however.

797 - The Search for Dillo Awarded Developer's Choice
[spoiler]
Premise - 8/10
Is the premise interesting or well thought out? Is it super basic?
Following up on an existing series of arcs is a good jumping point for a story.

Contact Writing - 18/20
Does the contact have details? How well does the contact explain what's going on?
Twinshots speech was captured really well. As was the speech of other characters during the arc. Especially Dillo's

Enemy Design - 17/20
Does it use existing assets in an interesting way or does it have its own? Do those have descriptions? How are those written to explain who they are?
This used entirely existing assets but in clever ways that called back to the other arcs as well.

Mission Details - 15/20
Are the missions explained well? Are the missions fun to play?
The missions were great to play. Had quite a few twists during it.

Show vs Tell - 18/20
How does the arc convey it's story? Is it all in clues? Do the NPCs exposit in NPC dialogue? Is there any exposition at all?
The NPCs are super well written in this one. They react to clues you find and exposit in dialogue.

Overall Quality - 10/10
How do I personally feel about the arc?
The arc was extremely well produced. The characters are written well and the missions are designed well.
[/spoiler]
Final Score 86/100
This arc is a perfect example of one that is short and to the point. Though the premise of it being a mystery does cause the quick pace of the arc to be a slight detriment, The arc is still fantastically written and designed.


I hope to be able to make time to continue my delve into the architect and find more gems to award Developer's Choice. Until such time, thank you for your patience.

[RandomRabbit]

Oh!  I wish I had seen this topic sooner. 

894 The bone fiend.  Though this might have already been mentioned to El Bee.  I was aiming for a lowbie friendly arc.  I managed to bonk the EB at the end with a level 16 guardian. 

Map 3 still vaguely annoys me.  (I originally wanted it to be a "walk up to a NPC talk to them and then shit happens" mission but AE doesn't seem to have that as an option that I can see.")