142607: Students of… by @Thelona

My Rating: 2 stars

There is a plot of sorts here. Nosferatu wants you to break into a school in which students are being engineered into mutant weapons of some sort and then capture them for his use, before they grow up and become heroes. He also wants their teachers eliminated.

A custom faction is in use in this mission. It consists of a male and female student, and a male and female teacher. There was a little descriptive text in their biographies, but it wasn’t very evocative. There was some dialogue from the teachers, but it was also very pedestrian. Overall, I didn’t care for this mission at all.

Oh, and Nosferatu speaks like Cobra Commander’s idiot cousin.

181511: Cop Killer by @Black Vegetable

My Rating: 2 stars

This mission is fine for what it is: a run for a brute to solo or duo. As an actual arc however, it doesn’t pass muster. The premise of the job is that the cops have begun to generically engineer supercops. They have to be put down so that villains, such as ourselves, can continue to operate. The mission is populated with Cage Consortium guards, and by 26 (count ’em) “Super Cops” belonging to a faction called “The Law”. You have to defeat all 26 of these juiced flat tops, in – what I’m assuming is – an effort to divert our tax dollars back to their usual benign benefactors. No, actually, the mission just makes some comments about the air smelling like bacon and has you kill the Super Cops. There’s nothing else to it.

Each encounter is the same. As you approach, a Super Cop yells “Intruder!” You then defeat him and his backup. As he dies, he says “You have no chance to survive. Make your time…” I don’t actually know what he means by the second sentence. Whatever he didn’t finish saying before I put my boot in his mouth will just have to remain a mystery, much like why I chose to run this mission instead of just showering and getting ready to go to court to fight someone who I helped register a car for, who then racked up over $1,000 dollars in tickets, 2 years ago, before removing himself from the registration so that I could deal with the mess. We’ll see what the Hearing Examiner has to say about all of that though. I have 2 hours to get ready, so I’m off.

As an aside, I ran this very quickly, in the 15 minutes before morning maintenance today (Friday, 5/22/09). My new SS/Will made it to level 8 in the mission, with about 10 seconds to spare, as it completed.

132570: Bride To Be by @Colossal

My Rating: 2

You are hired by Bunny Lane to retrieve her husband-to-be so that they can exchange wedding vows and she can apparently become wealthy. There were custom mobs present, and some boss dialogue, but overall, there was nothing memorable in this mission. Back on the Test server, when MA was in beta, Pohsyb also uploaded a wedding-themed mission. The bride was human and the groom was demonic, as was the wedding party. It was much more memorable than this, due to ridiculousness and NPC chatter.

So, Bunny Lane, its definately going to be better for you than it was for me.

Bunny Lane's fiance is having second thoughts

173122: Call of Cthulu by @Assault Tech

My Rating: 2 stars

I went into this mission with my new brute at level 5 really hoping for something special, because I’ve been a fan of Lovecraft for something around 16 years. I was disappointed.

You’re recruited by a COT mage named “Shadow Man”. He explains that “The children of Longbow have acquired our sacred text. The fools remain unaware of the our text’s ancient power, we must recover the book before they discover it’s true nature. Lord Cthulu demands you recover the sacred Necronomicon. Bring the text to me that we may begin his ascension!” Yes, he has “the our” in that sentence, comma splices, incorrect use of certain homonyms and the like. I’m not going to nitpick though. I’m not a a super-powered grammar proponent, but I do feel that anyone who is trying to incorporate Lovecraft’s lore into a mission should be well-versed in a particular manner of English.

So, after accepting the task to retrieve said tome, you enter a cargo ship, fight Longbow (not their children, which could have been interesting, if they were being corrupted somehow by the book) and click the glowie. You gain a clue, which says the Necronomicon is a fake. The contact is disappointed. The end.

There’s so much that could have been done with this, even if Longbow were used. There’s no dialogue in the mission, there’s nothing eerie or unnatural happening. I’m actually tempted to try my hand at a Lovecraftian homage, due simply to this mission, so maybe all has not been for naught.

Dead Cthulu should stay dreaming. Its pointless awakening to this.

21710: Beatdown for Hire by @Caustic Mike

My Rating: 2 stars

Another mission with no real plot. It was quick run against Paragon Police with 3 NPC allies that could be rescued and join you: Crazy Joe, Lumpy and Sue Ann. I made a new brute on Pinnacle, the drunk server, to blow off some steam and solo a bit.

Sue Ann, Lumpy & Crazy Joe

164709: The Rise of Legends from the Dark Forest by @Titan Princess

My Rating: 2

I ran this one-mission arc on Relentless with Mechalomaniac who is still at level 44 although she has earned enough XP to be level 46.

In this mission, you are recruited by Shadow Hunter to rescue Arctic Lycan from the Dark Forest. Lycan went into the forest to recruit friends to combat Madam Malice, but the creatures of the forest decided it would be more fun to keep him prisoner than help him.

The enemies in the mission are from a custom group called Legends of the Dark Forest. There was an easily-dispatched Elite Boss called Rancor, in one of the groups, and two rescuable NPC’s, Arctic Lycan (LT) and Amethyst Princess (Boss). The minions weren’t very troublesome, except for one called Frolic, that loved to run all over creation when damaged, and had the ability to rez.

I don’t understand why this mission is flagged as Villainous. There is no villainy being committed in any way by the player. Its a rescue mission, to combat what I’m taking to be a villain named Madam Malice, who is not actually in the mission. Mobs have no flavor text and the rescuable NPCs seemed friendly, and not villainous at all. I’m rating this low because, although there are no technical issues, I was annoyed by the Frolics running during combat (although I do see the humor, given their name) and because its marked as Villainous for no apparent reason.

160906: Amazons by Jessica Part 1, by @Sabrona

My Rating: 2

Ok. This is going to be something of a ramble, because I’m tired.

Sabrona actually put some effort into this, but it still has its flaws, enough that I couldn’t rate it higher than a 2, although I wanted to. There is a good bit of intro text to this mission, but its all one big mass. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are poor, but she definately tries to give some background. The description says that “a group of powerful women seek to change history so women rule the earth,” but there is no mention of that in the mission dialogue anywhere. I also don’t know why this mission is listed as Villainous. Its likely because this is the beginning of something larger, and the villainous aspects haven’t been added yet.

I ran the mission with Mechalomaniac. She’s a level 46 bots/dark MM, but hasn’t trained past 44. The enemies were interesting. I liked the costumes, and they weren’t over- or under-powered for me. Everything ran smoothly, until the end. An ambush of “Amazon of Nature” mobs spawned, and killed me, after I’d completed the mission. It was a group of maybe 6 LTs, all stealthed, possibly with Assassin Strike.

Mission dialogue was there, but was uneven. Some of it seemed to fit the attitude of a warrior culture. Others did not do so well. Following is all of the dialogue that I came across:

[NPC] Amazon: Scout Around
[NPC] Amazon Maiden: Scout Around I heard Something.

[NPC] Seven Heaven Soul: Are you a God is my sister alright?

[NPC] Amazon Queen: I can not stop dancing.
(Does this make her a dancing queen? She looked older than seventeen. Sorry…)
[NPC] Amazon Queen: Defeat me!
(During fight with Amazon Queen. I liked her costume, I think it was the Valkyrie set)
[NPC] Amazon Queen: Weak!
[NPC] Amazon Queen: That’s better!
[NPC] Amazon Queen: Thank you now I can join my sisters.

[NPC] Amazon: I can not control my body!
[NPC] Seven Heaven Soul: Yes, in the begining God loved us more than he created sinners and loved them more.
[NPC] Amazon: We are sorry we must attack you.
[NPC] Seven Heaven Soul: You have captured my heart and freed my soul.

[NPC] Amazon of Nature: You stopped our fun you will pay!
(That didn’t seem very Amazon-like to me at all, and didn’t mesh with the rest of the mission, sans dancing part, at all.)

Overall, I enjoyed the mission, but there were too many text and action flaws. If the mission creator updates this at some point, I’ll try it again.

150164: Assault on the Operative Compound by @Fat Tony

My Rating: 2

I ran this one on Relentless with Ruby as well (thug/storm MM, 39, but only trained to 35). The arc consisted of one mission. The contact uses Black Scorpion’s body, but doesn’t have a name.

Basically, the contact asks if you want to wreck things. You naturally do, by clicking on the acceptance text, and are told that Longbow has a group of trainees called The Operatives. They are together in a recon base and need to be punched in the face a lot. 

The long and short of it is, there is a custom enemy group called The Operatives. They have a little descriptive text, but are basically like Longbow, with more Wyvern-like costumes. There is a plant controller boss called Operative Greenthumb. There are stealth, medic, infantry and ranged troops as well as a drill instructor LT. This group is guarding 4 radios. You have to defeat them and destroy the radios. Once this is done, so is the mission.

The sumary one-liner was forgettable. There was no NPC dialogue. There were no technical issues with the mission, but, like so many others that I’m running, it had no real story.

149866: Assault on Atlas Park by @Mesmerisor1

My Rating: 2

I ran this arc with Blood Red Ruby, a level 39 (only trained to 35 at the moment) thugs/storm MM. There was nothing to it. The arc consists of 1 mission, to defeat an EB and take control of Atlas Park. The mobs were all Rogue Arachnos LT’s, all of them were Crab Spider Longfangs.  The majority of the mobs consisted of exactly 1 Longfang, when run on Relentless. The EB, named Shade, was an Electric/Electric brute. He didn’t last very long. Mission text consisted of, “Go take control of Atlas Park. If you can do it, its yours because you earned it,” or something to that effect. There was no dialogue in-mission. Upon completion, the contact says, “I can’t believe you did it.” The end.

25846: Freaks by @evil undie

My Rating: 2 Stars

I logged in today and grabbed the 5th anniversary badge on my Victory heroes. Afterwards, I switched to Protector and grabbed Mechalomaniac, my level 45ish bots/dark MM. I took her over to Architect Enterprises with the hopes of running something engaging. I decided not to do unrated arcs tonight. Somewhere on the boards, I’d read that 4 stars is the real 5 stars, because people keep 5-starring farms and the story-driven stuff gets pushed down.

So, I set my filters to Villainous and 4-stars. The missions I saw didn’t sound very star-worthy at all, but after a minute, I settled on Freaks, because it was Very Short.

This is another mission with no content. The contact (Fire Axe) has nothing significant to tell you, other than to go kill. The mobs are exclusively Freakshow Tank bosses. At the end, Fire Axe appears, as an LT, with them. I got too tired of it to actually complete the mission, even though I was in the last room. Poor spelling in the 2 sentences for mission description and send off, along with a monotonous array of the same 2 Tank Smasher and Tank Swiper bosses on a tech map just did me in.