Ctrl + Alt + Reset!
May
18
Story Description: Foreshadow sends you to retrieve an artifact that he believes has strong temporal powers. Guess what? It goes off, and now you’re stuck going through the same mission until you find what you need to do to break free.
Story Arc ID: 137561
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Bubbawheat
Length: Medium (4 missions)
Mission Status: Looking for Feedback
Alignment: Neutral
Designer Notes: Story-focused, humor, many clues, and a hidden detail or two.
In-Game Keywords: Original Story, Sci-Fi
CoH Forums Link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=13416049&page=0&vc=1&PHPSESSID=#Post13416049
Similar Missions:
Filed under: Reviews, Length: Medium, Neutral, Wyvern
Rugiel
Says:
Beautifully designed arc; I enjoyed the treatment of the time loop and not-quite-replayed missions, which kept it from feeling repetitive. The numerous clues were amusing to read, as was the subtly shifting dialogue among the Wyvern. The evolution of the Time Shifter is the crowning touch. I wish I’d remembered to look for those hidden details!
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Tahlana
Says:
The clever thing about this one is that you repeat content and yet you LIKE it. The maps are cleverly chosen, the clues cleverly hidden. The design is brilliant. You definitely have to pay attention to every little detail, name, clue and dialog. Well written, lots of fun, very immersive.
I’d play it again. Very fun arc to play. Very fun arc to play. Very fun arc ….aww, not again!
Posted on May 21st, 2009 at 11:52 am
Thomas
Says:
Wow. Very clever and fun! I got a number of chuckles out of this one. I can’t say any more than has already been said. Thumb’s-up!
Posted on May 25th, 2009 at 3:10 am
Glazius
Says:
@GlaziusF
Live feedback from a low 40s DB/fire brute, on diff 2, so bosses is bosses. Mission Engineer draws ever closer.
—
Oh boy, mishandled temporal equipment. That never goes that never goes that never goes vergo vergo vergo vergoes wrong.
Hmm. Marx is awfully unconcerned about being beaten on. I wonder if he’s out-of-sync with the timestream before he finally acknowledges that I’m beating him into unconsciousness.
—
Huh. Uh, what happened to the artifact? I don’t know how to interpret Foreshadow’s reaction - it isn’t until I enter the mission again that I realize it’s vanished.
Maybe mention it in an end-of-mission clue or a debrief?
I’m not sure why I fixate on the computer specifically here, but okay, I click it, go fight Marx, come back… and prevent Wyvern from breaking it? I guess come I15 this’ll be replaced with a chained click.
Be nice if I got a clue about trying to interact with the computer, then getting pulled out, or “bumping up against the edge of the loop” and replaying the same actions over and over.
—
Heh. So this is how it keeps from going stale. W-Space!
Marx’s recollection of the event seems to be moving further back into the past. Interesting touch.
It wouldn’t hurt to have actual interaction time and text with all the stuff to frob, especially since you’re just picking things up blind.
…you know, Steve was still up when I punched out Marx this mission. I could have just said “HEY STEVE!” and there ya go.
—
Be nice to get a clue from Steve, who after all this was just another Wyvern boss. Maybe the artifact he was talking about, so I get a picture of what it looks like before it melts down into a closed loop of causality.
Y’all were coexisting just fine, man. In the same warehouse and everything. Maybe like “we must not touch”, or “if it comes that close, then…”
Three months? Is that three actual months or did it eat three months from me? And wasn’t I coming out just slightly before I went in? Four loops does not really make three months.
Also, how the hell does Foreshadow know what the device is when I never got that information and it’s disappeared up its own behind now?
—
Storyline - ***. There’s never actually a reveal what the device IS until I fight it. And some of the steps in the chain that I repeat don’t make sense in that I knew everything I needed to LAST loop and the stuff to interact with was still there. If you’ve got space (and I don’t see why not) use the fourth mission for the reveal (maybe by now Marx is a non-combat ally), have both artifacts “disappear” back to the start of the loop, and then the fifth mission is an outdoor map (”wait, what? This… was a warehouse. Right?”) full of hideous monstrosities with Steve and Marx and the computer unaffected by their journey sidewise through time because of exposure to antichronons in the lab or something.
Design: *****. Thoroughly excellent map choice reinforces the idea of the same “boss room” being at the end of an ever-lengthening labyrinth.
Gameplay - *****. Nothing off here, everything was pretty much smooth sailing.
Detail - ****. Marx had a standard description every time I bothered to check. He should be getting tweaked over time as well. Aside from that and a request for actual interaction with the filler glowies in the third mission, no complaints about the detail.
Overall - ****. An interesting concept, but with all the actual explanation crammed up against the very end. It needs to be spread throughout the arc a little more, or the arc needs to not end in the same mission where everything’s explained. Either or.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
@PW
Says:
Neat story overall, with some good writing. However, I felt there were some logic issues with how the time loop worked; the fact that the Wyvern base changes each mission, and stuff appears that wasn’t there before, was rather disconcerting. The plot seemed to force the player into certain key actions (beating up Marx and starting the Time Loop in the first place; learning Steve has the second artifact in mission 3, but being unable to look for Steve even though he’s presumably somewhere in the base, until mission 4).
In a true time loop I would expect everything to be exactly the same each time, except for changes that the dis-entimed person makes. I thought that it was particularly weird that the contents of the computer changed from one loop to the next, and one loop had 15 artifacts and others had none. I can see that for your plot, you NEED stuff to change each time, but I feel like the story would benefit if you better describe why/how this is happening.
I also felt that the contact, Foreshadow, was very underused - he basically gives the same canned speech every time, and while I understand why the time loop forces him to do it, you really don’t get very much out of the briefings/debriefings as a result. The bits where you interrupt him and he changes his speech are the most interesting parts of the briefings. At the end of the arc, it would be nice if he helped provide more explanation to neatly tie things up; as it currently stands, a lot of weird stuff happens and while it is neat, it’s not at all clear why it’s happening.
Anyway, some of these plot issues left me confused at times, but I enjoyed it overall.
Posted on June 16th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Bubbawheat
Says:
Just wanted to say thanks for all the kind words. I’ve worked on some of the problem notes, and still have more work to do which I’m mostly waiting until issue 15 for. Also, the arc title is now less generic:
Ctrl + Alt + Reset!
Posted on June 18th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Adoniel
Says:
Love, love, loved the arc. I’m assuming I played through after your editing pass, and it shows.
Good story, and very clever use of the toolkit. I’m a grammar Nazi though, so the typos got to me after awhile. One good copy editing pass and you’re gold.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
@Rokkwarr
Says:
Very well done, was a group of enemies on the last level that just stood there and didn’t do anything but not adversely affecting the gameplay of the mission. The storyline could use a bit more stretching… Perhaps a sequel to this one.
Personally I’m not too good at reviews as I’m half-asleep atm But all in all a good arc and I only died twice (I’m a level 5, I’m allowed to face plant here and there)
Posted on July 25th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Glazius
Says:
@GlaziusF
So for my first formal replay (merc/TA diff 3) I’ll just roll a bunch of quick hits up and put most of the details in the stars.
—
I’d still like an opening/closing clue (m1/m2) that explains the absence of the artifact.
m2: again with the “you feel yourself being pulled back”. Make the compy vanish when its job is done, considering how it vanished once already!
m3: Can I at least get a little interaction time with the objects so I can see what funny names you may or may not have given them? Also could you put Steve up at the middle of the mission this time so it’s a given you’ve encountered him and probably wiped him out? Lastly, the important clues really need to be at the end of the list of random stuff to pick up.
m4: For some reason the map’s completely empty this time. I still have to backtrack back a couple rooms to get the boss incarnation of Mr. Time Woogie. And… what? Not even an EB? Just a piddly little destructo object that Marx could wreck in a couple seconds? Wow.
—
Storyline - ***. Really not much better. My main beef is the weird “forcing” of my character out of the mission. It’d work better if the stuff just vanished back into the ether. Mysteriously.
Design - ****. I was a little miffed to not actually be able to see what any of the weird stuff I was investigating was, and it didn’t seem right for the last mission to be so completely empty. Also ending it all on a destructible really felt like an anticlimax.
Gameplay - ****. The weird little backtracking bit in the last mission sent me all the way to the end before I realized I missed something.
Detail - ****. What was there was pretty solid, but I’d like to see some evolving bug text from Foreshadow to match with the rest of the mission.
Overall - ****. The arc reinforced some minor problems with the first arc, but the newly introduced final fight is a real drag of an anticlimax with an annoying setup.
Posted on August 16th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Mythosfan
Says:
I loved the concept, but I felt it wasn’t implemented as well as it could have been. Niggling details and plot holes bugged me. Some of the “science” involved felt like it came out of an MST3K episode.
I have to agree with @PW on a lot of what he found wanting. I really don’t think you need to change the map. My recommendation would be to change all the maps to be the same. If that means changing them all to be the last map you use so that you have enough room, so be it. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that space is being manipulated as well as time, but since it doesn’t seem to serve a purpose other than to “confuse” the player’s character at one point, I think it could be dispensed with.
My other major issue is where the main antagonist takes from various NPCs, causing the NPCs to be changed. I felt like they should have been changed in the way someone would normally expect them to change.
[Tried to avoid revealing too much]
I’d also probably be happier if things were explained a bit better as you went along. I do see that you went back and added a lot of explanation at the end, but it’d feel smoother and less forced if you used clues to help follow what the player character’s thought flow is.
I think this arc has SO much potential, but I feel it didn’t follow through completely…yet.
Posted on September 10th, 2009 at 10:32 am
@Unregistered
Says:
(I’ve played the first reincarnation of this arc and it has come a long way. Possibly my view of it is biased because I saw its early incarnation and compare it to the current one, but all reviews are subjective.)
The premise of the story-arc is very simple (time loop). Because of the simplicity, the writing is constrained to be repetitive by nature. The story-arc, I think, is focused on a concept, and the entire plot constrained to display that concept.
So, with this in mind, I look at how the missions achieve this. There are a number of details: mobs, blinkies, that in a mission would be overlooked — things the player just rampage past in as he moves towards the objective. By changing each mission slightly, to alter the objective, hitherto unimportant details become the focus in the player’s mind, displaying how a single mission can change depending on the mission text. This is very well done.
There is a slight twist, which includes some funny and even creepy parts. However, for the sake of not giving spoilers, I won’t mention them here, I’ll just say the map and mobs do change. This alleviates the boredom that might set in if the player were really made to go through five missions of the same map.
The ending and the writing at the ending is a bit weak though, so that’s why I don’t give storyline and detail 5 stars.
Posted on October 7th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
SRS
Says:
Storyline - Fun and a very neat twist. Nits have been noted by other reviewers, but they didn’t warrant dropping any stars.
Design - I agree about the map changes being a little disconcerting. That said, it would have been redundant otherwise. Since I’m not a believer in perfection (often), this is where I dinged him.
Gameplay - It was neat feeling the curiosity build from mission to mission, waiting to see what the newest time loop would bring.
Detail - I like a lot of detail. While there were areas this could have had more, I think what was written worked well with the theme.
Posted on March 14th, 2010 at 8:02 pm