3 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on my level 50 stone/ice tanker, +1 x1 with bosses on.

   —

   Okay, an illegal salvage operation trying to remove Rikti UXBs. That can’t possibly go wrong. My contact shares my skepticism and she wants to know why people are sending a man out to do a Clockwork’s job.

   Ah. Human supremacists. Mostly mundane weapons, though they do have some Vanguard sympathizers who are a little more of a challenge.

   —

   The opening briefing seems a bit circuitous. I don’t think Borea needs to tell me exactly how they planned this whole sting, only the specific part that’s gone wrong — their token resistence got pocketed.

   Dammit, Fusionette! Okay, time to go be a hero.

   Interesting: Humanity First seems to have converted some Rikti drones, who try to reacquire Fusionette.

   Not so interesting: I find Fusionette in the sewer and have to lead her out through the tunnels and office parts of this tripartite map.

   …oh wait, that’s all? There’s nothing in the big room at the end? Kind of a letdown.

   —

   Now time to break into a building and destroy the junk inside.

   Hmm. These Burners aren’t worth any XP. Just flamethrowers? I’ll give you the same advice I gave some other guy with the same exact setup: use fire blast instead. You could probably give him some gauntlets or something.

   And Gadgeteers. Rad/rad defender types, which isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think “Gadgeteer”.

   So taking out this surprise heavy assault suit (seriously, it’s an EB, drop a warning) completes the “salvaged machinery” but not “kitbashed machinery” objective, even though it had kitbashed in its title.

   A boss and her escort spawn inside of a sheet-metal column. Fortunately they pop out when they start fighting me. And just short of the Freaklympics award room is the “kitbashed machinery” - a Robotics boss henchman. I was expecting an HVAS, so this is pleasant.

   The human boss talked about shipping things out to the Isles. Looks like I’m going on a road trip.

   —

   Be nice to get some warning about the timer before I accepted the mission.

   Also since you seem to favor verbose briefings, might I suggest highlighting the important parts in color? You can do it even if you’ve maxed out the text, as long as you’re using stock colors — just select and apply.

   Two more Lieutenants, a Medic with some Empathy, and a… more different Gadgeteer? This one’s an elec/elec tanker.

   The (elite) boss is a DB/Ninja, who again I would appreciate a warning about, but who isn’t a bad fight.

   There’s mention of someone named Partisan, who I guess is a teaser for some kind of sequel. I’d certainly be interested in playing one.

   —

   Storyline - *****. Simple, but solid. About the only complaint I have is that mission 2 seems to be more reactionary — it doesn’t really show off much of the enemy group, and it doesn’t leave anything in the way of persistent clues. I might want to know what they took, at least, assuming they weren’t just grabbing everything they could.

   Overall it’s a decent first part to what I suspect will be an ongoing story. It sets up some activities of a group without necessarily giving us the whole picture, because it only dealt with a small part of them.

   Design - ****. You have two options with the Burners - fire blast, or wait for I17. Either or both, really.

   The second mission is kind of a letdown. There’s Fusionette to rescue but the end room is empty, though I was expecting some kind of boss fight. If all that you’ve got in the custom group are male and female version of the same boss, I can understand not wanting to do that three missions in a row. Rogue Vanguard or Longbow maybe?

   Gameplay - ***. Leading Fusionette back through three layers of mission was a bit boring. But the two surprise EBs and the surprise timer were the real offenders here.

   The DBlade/Nin not so much, but the heavy assault suit can eliminate regen and send any non-defense set into a cascading -defense loop of undodgeable pain.

   Detail - ****. All the rank-and-file enemies in the new group start out with a giant block of information about Humanity First in general, and then a single line at the end specific to the enemy. Seems a bit of overkill. We could get some general enemy information as an opening/ending clue to some mission, with shorter descriptions on the rank and file.

   There’s also a lot of text in the briefings, so in addition to adding warnings about elite bosses and the timer, you should call out important information with color highlighting. Biggest offender is Borea’s detailing the trap the Vanguard laid in mission 2 - it might be nice to know, but the important elements to the mission are how it went wrong and what I need to fix.

   Overall - ****. Nothing major wrong with the story or the enemy group. It just needs a little more in the way of warning and highlighting and a little better end to mission 2 than just going through the whole place backwards.

   Posted on April 18th, 2010 at 11:17 pm

2. Mech Monkey Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Ok I thought I would check out this site to see what ideas I could steal… I mean be inspired by Anyway being of a lazy disposition I thought I would try the first of the featured arcs that flash
   ed up sdo here is my take on Salvage Rights.

   Got to start by saying I loved this arc. The story is straightforward but enjoyable to follow and I even read all the clues I found so I didn’t miss anything. I was really impressed on how even small details obviously had a logical thought process behind them and you never end up thinking why is my character doing that? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the authorities etc to take over now?

   Excellent choice of standard enemies and the custom group is one of the best I have seen in the AE. I really love that there is a really good variety of critters that each look different but at the same time keep enough shared details for a uniform group identity. Again special care has been taken to justify detailsd such as powers keeping the critters in concept for the story theme.

   Gameplay for this arc was a real rollercoaster of action. It was a real scrapfest all the way through and there was a couple of really surprising enemies that popped up in the arc. I don’t want to give any spoilers but the EB in mission 3 is fantastic and I actually found myself laughing at its dialog.

   In all Salvage Rights is a great piece of Architect Entertainment I have no problems recommending it.

   Posted on May 2nd, 2010 at 4:07 pm

3. Drakmarth Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Ran this with a L48 SS/Inv Brute just for clarity.

   I can see how much effort was taken into the creation of the group, Humanity First, this arc was built to showcase them and it does so with style.

   I enjoy using /info on Custom Critters, so the level of detail and the information you provided was of great interest to me, I personally don’t always see that with customs. And the various powers used, especially for the Lieutenants was refreshing and well explained.

   The storyline was simple, but well paced and I enjoyed it, partly it felt like ‘another War zone’ arc, but it also had its own stamp by the author, it didn’t feel out of place for the setting or the contact. Nice to see Borea with an arc rather than a timed repeat.

   My experiece of the arc came after quite a few changes judging by the comments left here. A lot more polish went into addressing some issues regarding EBs or the Timed event, this meant there were few ‘bad’ surprises and I was left with the good surprises, like Junkyard Dog.

   On mentioning Junkyard, I’d like to say that all the named bosses had a unique flair despite being suited up like the other Humanity First Blackshirts, its nice to uniformity and uniqueness mixing so they stand out, but don’t stand apart.

   There were some minor spelling errors and a problem with a mission critical item spawning in a wall, which was an unavoidable negative due to the map on Mission 3. Couldn’t be helped unfortunately and I was still able to destroy the objective to complete the mission.

   I did die once due to the ambush from rescuing the resident Vanguardian Hostage, Fusionette, spawning right on top of my head as I was already engaged with a mob overspill (a regular mob and the Hostage mob were in the same space). That didn’t ruin my day, maybe dragging Fusionette by the hair to a mission exit may have dampened it, but not ruined.

   The arc wasn’t terribly hard overall, but only because I was kept on my toes and that made it enjoyable and not a grind, that with a great story and interesting mobs means I will recommend it highly to my friends. Kudos!

   Posted on July 12th, 2010 at 4:07 pm