5 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on my high-40s DB/Fire brute, +1 x2 with bosses on.

   —

   So here’s something you missed while you were away: contacts can have their own descriptions! Yes!

   Anyway, it’s time to pretend I’m playing that fantasy game that’s got dwarves in it. You know which one it is, I think it’s called ALL OF THEM.

   Also new wrinkle: opening clues. You can actually give the rune thing as a clue passed to us by the contact.

   Oh hey, villain-palette blue caves.

   For a second I wonder if the vines are what you needed, but nope. SHROOMS.

   They do definitely add to the atmosphere, but if you’re just using them as allies to fill in it doesn’t matter if they con grey or not.

   (also new: you can set arcs to be whatever level range you’d like, though it won’t scale up enemies)

   Also also new, you can edit the descriptions of enemies you use in custom groups.

   I was expecting a clue about the rune key on complete, but nope. Briefing on the dwarves.

   I hear some goblins up ahead, but they run into the local flora and die horribly.

   For a second, before I checked out the briefing again, I thought the monument up front was telling me that my contact’s uncle died in the centuries he’s been away. But no, different Dwarven name, wrong timeline.

   —

   Okay, so this time I actually have to fight. I skipped the dwarves last mission since it was recommended against by my contact.

   Now… build up on the lieuts? Ouch. Also new: you can pick which powers enemies have precisely, so taking Aim and Build Up off your rank and file is recommended.

   Also also new, mission pacing actually works, so unless you want your mission to start out with swarms of greens I suggest you see to that.

   Have these shield guys got phalanx fighting or grant cover? They seem to have a lot of defense when they’re all clumped together.

   Damn. Between the earth control and the radiation infection, if the Rune Maidens can land enough stuff on me NOTHING ELSE CAN MISS. Seriously, they’re all swinging at 95%. And I’m down around 50.

   The king is just an ordinary boss of the faction, which seems a little off. I fought several of them to get here.

   No clues at all about what happens after I sit on the king and read at him.

   —

   As is customary among his people, the king demands that we accomplish his fetch quests before he fights the ancient evil that will end all reality.

   Wonder what this armory looks like.

   Oh. More Roman caves.

   Plant/storm. Odd mix for a subterranean critter. Also, Carrion Creepers are a bit bugged when enemies use them and tend to follow you around for several minutes.

   The alchemist poison also seems to zero out my defense.

   Blacktooth is at least an elite boss, and a decent slugfest. There are a bunch of glowie chests kicking around, some are empty, some full of weapons and armor I collect…

   But still no clues.

   —

   Next fight looks like it’s going to be another warlord fight, though, which doesn’t get me very excited.

   Oh. Blue cave.

   Yeah, I know that this arc is about good old-fashioned dungeon running and there aren’t many authentically medieval settings (which is a shame, we need a Castle Doom to storm at some point) but caves aren’t many people’s favorite.

   At least there’s no layer cake.

   This map’s goblins have been supplemented with Pantheon Zombies and Tempest Elementals. The boss, though, is another fighty type. I was expecting like a necromancy mastermind or something. He’s got battle axe and build up, which means I spend the first 15 seconds of the fight trying to stay out of range.

   The altar could use a custom description. It summons some reflavored Lanaruu when it breaks apart, and that’s all. No clues, no exit text.

   I haven’t gotten a clue since mission 1.

   —

   The Red Delve, huh? It’s… another villain blue cave.

   No Troll tunnels? No Arachnoid caves? Those things are pretty cool.

   The “trolls” are DE rock-monsters, which are alright except didn’t I see them in the Creatures of the Deep too?

   …in fact this is exactly a red palette-swap of the last map. Wow.

   Oh. The king has come. …alone. Now that doesn’t seem right. Maybe he could talk about how the beasts killed his guard or something.

   If this is king in the Discworld sense of “mine foreman” it’d make a little more sense for him to be out here but I thought the dude was pretty important. I mean, he’s the same mob type as the runemasters, just call it a guard captain and we’re solid.

   The end boss is a stone/stone tanker. Once I maneuver through his mud pots to get to the cairn, the king and I take him down pretty quickly.

   —

   Storyline - ***. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this exact quest chain in a fantasy game. Verisimilitude aside, though, there’s something this arc really doesn’t do that I would expect it to, as a first arc in a trilogy: set up the Undying One and the threat he poses. Not in terms of things said by my contact, in terms of actually fighting the guy’s minions or learning his plans.

   Unless that was an altar to him I busted up in the fourth mission, in which case that needs to be a little clearer.

   Design - ***. CAVES. So many caves. So many teeny little passages. And the last two of them were identical save for the color choice! You could probably use the Arachnoid caves for one mission outside the dwarf tunnels, and Oranbega would make a serviceable dark temple. The customs were pretty visually distinctive — no complaints about looks.

   Gameplay - ***. Powersets, though, that I have complaints about. The tremendous defense debuffs on the Rune Maidens and Alchemists aren’t much fun to handle, and Build Up is very overpowered on customs - unlike heroes where it’s a 50% damage increase because our powers are already enhanced by 100%, custom villains start with damage on par with hero enhanced damage and get another 100% on top, in addition to the substantial accuracy boost. With Build Up gone, though, they’d be pretty reasonable.

   Detail - **. Getting no clues at all beyond the first mission, even for things I’m supposed to pick up, doesn’t help with this. But now that the stock enemies you use in custom groups can have their names and descriptions edited, that’s really something you should take advantage of. Especially for the last mission, since your average CoH player is going to know what Trolls are - the big muscly dumb green guys - and may be confused at the animate rocks they’ve already seen walking around as random creatures of the deep.

   Overall - ***. Even with the stock mobs getting some different names and descriptions, and the defense debuffs being a little less punishing, there’s still no setup in this first part of the trilogy for the threats in the later part, and that’s something I would have liked to see.

   Posted on March 13th, 2010 at 8:00 pm

2. William Timmins Says:

   Woops, I forgot that it was only the lichen, not the vines… yeah, sensible enough, changing that. Der.

   Design: Well, it’s pretty much a ‘dungeon delve’ oriented arc, so it’s going to be caves. Though the last two caves… yeah, that I missed — I had been swapping a lot of caves trying to find one that was long enough but not too long. Arachnoid, maybe one of the spider caves. Mmm. The CoT tunnels get used later, but may be worth using them earlier. Thanks for tips.

   Gameplay: As for build-up, fair enough. I had heard horror stories of what happens to XP if you remove things (at least until I17), but perhaps I worried too much.
   As for the warriors (dwarven minions), they don’t have anything but straight standard shield set.

   The champions (dwarven lt. fighter types) have phalanx fighting and grant cover. Would removing build up be enough, do you think, or do they need to drop phalanx/grant cover?

   Defense debuffs on rune maidens and alchemists are rough, but they are glass debuffers. So to speak. I’m hoping that comes across as ‘tactical’ rather than ’screwjob’?

   Detail: Good points. I had been going down to the wire on arc size when I originally designed it, and had focused on other things. I’ll try to flesh things out a lot more.

   And fair enough, there isn’t much setup for who or what the Undying One is. Mmm. I’ll have to think on how to integrate it more.

   Thanks for the review!

   Additional:
   Actually, King Bodern IS a different model, and slightly different abilities, than standard dwarf bosses: runelords are Stone/Stone, both at standard, while King Bodern is Stone melee Hard/Invulnerability Standard. Among other things, this gives King Bodern Buildup. Hmm.

   Posted on March 14th, 2010 at 6:17 am

3. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Doing a rereview with the same high-40s DB/Fire brute, +1 x2 with bosses on.

   —

   Opening clue, which is nice.

   The creatures of the deep have much better descriptions, but you still might want to change the names on some of them to give people the impression they’re different. Boulder -> Rock Troll, Sardonyx -> Crystal Troll?

   It’s not that any of the names are ill-fitting, save perhaps “Cobra Hatchling” for the “Naga” lieutenant.

   Huh. All of the missions are locked at level 41 now? That’s… honestly, I don’t really understand that.

   Oh wait, yes I do, that’s when the Devouring Earth stop being anything but rock creatures.

   It’s a fair assessment of the power needed to take the arc on, but non-round numbers frighten and confuse me.

   —

   Radiation blast isn’t really an improvement over radiation emission, when paired with earth control. Still does defense debuffs, and Irradiate is pretty long-duration too.

   …also for some reason both the Champions and Rune Maidens are missing some standard-difficulty power, and are therefore worth NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

   What power(s) did you remove, out of curiosity?

   Anyway, the King (who’s an EB now) goes down, and I’d like to see some kind of clue about his reaction.

   Or get a clue for the what these documents are. Ideally both!

   Oh, okay, his reaction’s an exit popup. Still, a clue for the documents, or at least the notification that they’re sealed and I shouldn’t bother.

   —

   Ah, the successive missions are couched this time as vital impediments to the dwarves, rather than nits to pick for the King.

   Wow. 14 glowies worth of armor and weapons. I guess somebody gave me a bag of holding.

   14 glowies worth of armor and weapons in one teeny little cave bend. I guess you really can fit a lot of ‘em in a little geometry, and while it does make it seem a lot like the goblins have made their own treasury, it really is a bit crowded.

   The boss here is nice - looks like he’s really using armor and weapons looted from the dwarves. He’s just boss-rank, though, and he calls on someone named “Valentin”. Who’s that?

   Let’s find out! Sword-first!

   A-ha. A Red Wizard!

   Okay, two things.

   One, fully upgraded minions from Necromancy can all debuff accuracy, especially the Lich with his manifold dark blasts. Stacking Dark Miasma on top of that is just a recipe for negative to-hits on my part.

   Seriously. Had the combat monitors on and everything.

   Second, even with all that hot missing action, he still wasn’t worth any XP.

   I’d suggest giving him something like Pain Domination. Appropriate SFX.

   Actually, three things. His description mentions the Undying One, but I shouldn’t know anything about that yet, as my contact hasn’t told me. Call him a mysterious wizard and have him invoke the name of the Undying One as he tries to destroy me.

   —

   Now the guy in the fourth mission, he’s appropriately talking about the Undying One. Apparently it’s going to go berserk and eat the world or something and they need to burn relics to keep it docile.

   Also, surprise minotaur. Nice custom paint job and description.

   Now, there’s this ritual around this odd lump of rock in the end room. Seems to be about knee-high, embedded in the floor. I’m seeing something purple but I can’t make it out, so after all the minions are down I can probably get a good WHY HELLO THERE SIR.

   That was either amazing coincidence with the room type or the animation worked out that way naturally. Either way: impressive.

   —

   And now, off to seal the invasion tunnel.

   Reuse of the first map, but this time there’s more reason for the king to be there himself.

   He doesn’t have any text to notify you that you’ve left him behind, though, which in these twisting tunnels is a real concern.

   Anyway, CYCLOPS FINAL BOSS. The only real problem I have is that he and the minotaur have kinda the same gimmick - Unstoppable at low health. At least here I can kite him around the central rock until it wears off.

   The way-marker should probably vanish when I “collect” it, considering I’m supposed to destroy it and it makes a whooshing sound.

   I get a clue on destroying it, which seems more like something my contact should be telling me, as all this stuff about rune keys and way markers is Greek to me and not something I should be able to work out.

   —

   Storyline - ****. The information on the dwarves and the runeways is kind of extraneous, honestly. Unless it becomes important later, if say there are things my contact isn’t telling me. I have so far taken at face value that what he’s telling me to do will actually work.

   Because so far, it has.

   Aside from that, the only story concern I have is my uncanny ability to tell exactly what one of those Red Wizards is when it shows up, and relay that information to my contact. It’d work better as a mysterious figure invoking the name of the Undying One. (name: “Valentin?” description: “You don’t remember passing this figure on your way in. Is he the Valentin that warboss was calling for? What connection does he have with all this?” or something similar)

   Design - ***. Call this 6 minus 3. The rescue in the fourth mission was pretty amazing, so there’s a bonus point, but there are three fairly powerful enemies in this arc that don’t grant any XP at all - the Champion, the Rune Maiden, and the red wizards - Czernobogs or whatever the name was. No XP means no other rewards, including no inspirations, which against the persistent customs is a bit of a punishment.

   The recolors and renames of stock enemies are used to pretty good effect in the arc, and the customs are for the most part pretty distinctive, though the goblin minions could stand to be, say, significantly lighter than the rest of the goblins. As it is because of the general body shape and the rather poor lighting in the caves, it takes some tabbing to find the actual threats among the swarm.

   Gameplay - ***. Runemaidens can still carve a decent chunk out of defense, basically stacking enough on me between earth control and radiation that the minions never missed, instead of whiffing half the time like they’re supposed to.

   And with the full necro/dark arsenal at their disposal, the red wizards can easily take my hit chance into the negatives.

   These would be irksome enough, but the complete lack of rewards for taking down either of these targets turns them into rather cruel jokes.

   Detail - ****. Aside from the odd sidebars about dwarves and runeways most of the added clues are used to good effect, and a decent effort has been made to give all the custom criters of the deep a fitting description.

   Just as a pure aside here, I was expecting the Watchers to make more of an appearance in the Undying One’s ranks, but I suppose there may very well be older and fouler things than it in the dark places of the earth.

   Overall - ****. I’m rounding this one up because a lot of my substantive issues could be fixed by going back in and making those customs actually worth XP again. While you can customize powers, and they’re changing the mechanism for how it works in the next issue, right now if you omit any power on the standard-difficulty list a critter is basically a damaging terrain feature for all the benefits you get from whomping one.

   Posted on March 23rd, 2010 at 10:49 pm

4. William Timmins Says:

   Thank you for the rereview!! I greatly appreciate it.

   The restriction to level 41 came about after a LOT of wrangling with my entire trilogy. It comes out of several bands of enemies I wanted to use. The simplest exclusion is: Devouring Earth mushroom guys’ max level is 41, Soldiers of Rularuu (which I HAD to have with those eyeballs!) are 41-54.
   I contemplated eliminating the mushroom guys, but there were other mobs I wanted to use that didn’t cap much higher. And mushroom folks, IMO, really help highlight the weirdness/fantasy element.
   The secondary advantage of this is that when I’m making a custom group of standard enemies, I don’t have to fill it with standard enemies at other level ranges, eating up space that isn’t going to matter to any particular user.

   A clue as to what the documents are. Der. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me, thanks.

   With respect to the custom power selection, I’m kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place with that one.
   The Champions are missing Build Up and the shield powers Phalanx and Grant Power (from Hard, or extra power from Standard, depending).
   The Rune Maidens have Irradiate instead of XRay Eyes.
   Czarodziej have all Necro except life drain and soul extraction, powers 2-7 in dark miasma (no twilight grasp). Basically, avoiding the boss healing which makes a dark boss go from irritating to OMFG WHAT.

   Unfortunately, I’m a little screwed here until I17: if I use the default standard/hard power lists, the enemies become stupidly hard because of the different way NPC versions of these powers work. If I use carefully selected powers, the enemies give little to no XP.
   Right now I’m hoping the gameplay is better enough for people to stomach the XP until things improve.

   As for Runemaidens in general… they are glass buff/debuffers. Basically, take them out first, which isn’t hard, and the rest will fall more easily. Which I think is an acceptible role for a lt.
   The red wizards, I may have to give a simple standard necro element. I fear that might make them a little toothless, but the to-hit penalties… mmm.

   Comment about Valentin’s desc: Good point! I’ll make the mysterious stranger a bit more mysterious.

   Fourth mission: Not a coincidence. Something cool I noticed with ‘unconsciousness’ animation.

   Way marker vanishing: hmm, yeah. Good idea.

   I like the idea of making goblin minions lighter. Will do!

   Posted on March 24th, 2010 at 6:52 am

5. Mychyl Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Playing as L38 Dark/Regen scrapper, old Heroic setting.

   ~Level sync to 41 per arc parameters (41-41… interestingly arbitrary number, I’m sure there’s a reason)

   ~*~

   OK, so in the medieval realm this guy is from, the dwarves need to show up and help fend off VOlde… I mean, the Nameless One… and this guy needs me to go get the troops moving, because he can’t… he’s outcaste.

   Realistically, if they won’t listen to their own blood, why would they listen to someone from another world? But I digress. Saving other worlds isn’t this character’s speciality, but maybe there’s a handsome reward. Gold, jewels, magical items, the standard medieval-world-spoils fare. We’ll see.

   ~*~

   Hmm, so the spawns of the deep look like a who’s-who of various groups. I’ve already fought an eyeball (gotta love the Rularuu), some reclaimed DE (with their original names… if they’re actually trolls, why not swap the name as well?), a vine (I’m assuming part of the CoT villspec, not sure since I’ve never done one), a couple Tuatha, and whatever the Edderwode were again… I somehow spaced that already. (The Warriors don’t necessarily need to be renamed, unless you want to name them Unseelie Warrior or something similar.)

   And then a small group of dwarves. Very convincing, although since they’re normally more stout, perhaps taking Huge and shrinking them down would portray that better?

   Just noticed… dunno if this has come up before, but the vines you used give gimped XP/shinies. Which might be an annoyance, since they seem to be the predominant enemy so far (aside from the opening patrols and the dwarves). Roughly 1/3, so I’m assuming these used to be farmer stock. MA cheatfarms have a lot to answer for, in my opinion… a lot of stock stuff was nerfed badly to offset for people cheating with them. >.>

   Ah yes, now I remember, the Edderwodes are Arachnoids. Interesting choice, since they make me think of driders more than anything.

   On the goblins (or at least the ‘gobling stickers’), I like the look a lot, but they look more like gnolls than goblins to me. Perhaps it’s more of a RPG system debate, but I expect my goblins to be green and not furry. So I was thrown for a moment.

   The closing clue reads almost like a copy from the D&D 2nd edition rulebook on dwarves, minus the reference to rune wizards.

   OK, so I’m attuned. Back to the contact to see what’s next.

   ~*~

   So, step 2 is beat the King and all his liegemen into submission, so that they listen. I guess force of strength will make them respect me… maybe? And then read to them the documents Sidus gave me. Let’s have a look… No clue? How am I supposed to read papers that don’t exist?

   Ah well, perhaps I’ll make something convincing up. I’ll just rant on about the Undying One and they’ll believe me.

   ~*~

   A minor note: Usually, when setting a custom name, try to capitalize all important words, like you would the title of a book. “Disgruntled miner”, for example.

   Just to see, I skated the mission, and it cleared when I took out the King and his entourage. The wording in the briefing makes it sound like this would be a clear-all, however; perhaps either change the wording to make it sound more like his immediate group, or make it a clear-all, to resolve that.

   No clue for the entire mission… so I have no idea what I told him, just that he didn’t feel like listening.

   In either case, I beat the king up, so back to the contact.

   ~*~

   Wording issue… “can apprehend the truth” should be comprehend, not apprehend. Or is the King going to arrest the concept of truth?

   Now, off to recover the looted weapons and armor from the goblins. And take out their leader. Feels a bit like busywork, but I’ll go with it. Saving their world is starting to feel like it’s more work than it’s worth.

   ~*~

   Why am I smelling sewage? Have they discovered the architectural secret of running water (a prerequisite for sewers) in this world already? Or are the caves simply befouled with goblin waste? If the latter, perhaps there’s a better way to word that while still getting the intent across.

   Found a couple new minions of the deep, one of the being a Hydra spawn as a fungusman (why not use the DE fungoids?) and the other being a Naga (still called Cobra Hatchling — why not Naga, or Naga Hatchling?).

   And then I find the Goblin treasury. Nicely done, confining the spawns to one place, so that it looks like an actual treasury, rather than simply letting them scatter. Shows the supposed intellect of the leader, keeping them in a single location. No clues for the weapons and armor, alas.

   Note about Blacktooth’s description: The ‘H’ on Hobgoblins (right at the beginning) is cut off. That aside, nice job as well on the Hobgoblin look (I’m assuming, from his description, that him and other hobgoblins — which I’ve not yet seen, likely due to my difficulty — are identical in appearance.

   OK, I beat him up, then I beat up his mysterious sidekick, who… looks like a lich. And then summons zombies. Fun.

   Back to the contact with the results.

   ~*~

   Czarodziej? Gezhundeit. Also: So there’s more of this Valentin? How fun.

   OK, time to save the temple from the advancing goblin-and-Russian army. Off I go.

   ~*~

   And this group has managed to summon a bunch of BNP zombies. Which die as easily as the originals, of course. No summoner to be found? Have they mastered the ability to create zombies without having to guard them and spurn them into action? That’s pretty impressive.

   Found another Russian, and this one was looking for artifacts. In a temple full of magic. There’s a good chance he’s on the right track… but I cut his exploration a bit short.

   OK, found an actual Fungoid-style enemy. I see now that you were using both in the group… I’m still not 100% about using the Hydra spawn as a fungus, but… if it works for you. >.>

   OHAI Minotaur. Nice to meet you, fancy seeing you here.

   I just realized, I don’t think I’ve ever tried to solo a Mino as /Regen before. Those hits HURT. A LOT. Was — only slightly — tempted to quit and swap to my MA/SR instead… Elude means never having to say owwie.

   They were waking up Balt? But… wouldn’t they want Balt to stay stuck asleep? Balt is the god of their enemy… Oho, they thought to bind it. Bind an avatar. Of a god. Sure… that’ll happen without divine power.

   Anyways, this gambit is played out. Back to find out what’s next on the laundry list.

   ~*~

   OK, now I go do that magic thing to close off the tunnels. Oh, and destroy the leaders. Sounds like a picnic… although hopefully this one doesn’t have a Minotaur Warlord too. One of those was enough. ^^;

   ~*~

   Aha, I see the King. Normally, I’d treat him as a potential kill stealer, but on the off chance I have to deal with another Mino, I’ll keep him.

   Yup, called it. Total kill stealer. Ah well, it means I’ll be done sooner, and able to possibly fit another arc in. So I’ll go with it.

   Minor note: Dispel only has one ‘l’.

   Slow-mo dwarf running towards the entrance. Weird.

   ……Not sure what I think of squall elementals being infused with darkness and set loose on the caves.

   OHAI CYCL… *garbled battle*

   Too bad that the King got lost way back wherever, but the Cyclops was much easier for me. Probably because he stayed -ACC, as opposed to the Mino. Either way, it’s over, so time to press on.

   Somehow, on the way in, I missed the Russian, so I had to backtrack, in which case I picked the King back up… and didn’t get to abandon him before I found the last general. So now it’s over.

   OK, back out to finish the arc. Overall… well, I’ll get to that in a minute.

   ~*~

   Storyline:: * * *

   It’s half of the RPGs of the last 20 years, thrown in the blender and set to frappe.

   Which is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. However, in the retelling, I feel it lost a good chunk of its integrity. This arc is exceptionally text-light… the busy text is almost all (or was it all?) one-liners. As were one or two debriefs. And not many clues at all. This means a lot of opportunities to expand on the story, as far as what’s actually going on, are lost. Yes, we’ve all played certain RPGs and MMOs with dwarves and trolls and goblins. However, there’s a lot of expansion on the individual story that could’ve been done.

   Design:: * * * *

   While I made a few references to things that could’ve worked differently, those weren’t necessarily to say the existing setup didn’t work.

   I feel you created a couple of nice, strong groups of stock recycles. It worked well, overall.

   The Rune Maiden I fought didn’t leave much of an impression on me… partly because she died before she got more than a couple attacks in, and there was only the one. (That’s likely a flaw in me playing on easymode.) She was an earth controller in part, I got that much from fighting her… she tried to immob me, but the nice thing about scrappers is, they almost all get anti-mez powers.

   Using the Mino and Cyclops serve to reinforce the fantasy feel, although (not discounting the explanations given in clues and descriptions) they did feel a bit out of place. That was probably a personal thing, though.

   The Red Wizards… not much for me to say about them. Necro/Dark Assault was a pretty safe combo, though it probably would get nasty on the -ACC on higher settings… my saving grace being that THEY couldn’t hit ME, because as a dark/regen, I have my own -ACC.

   Gameplay:: * * * *

   Overall, it was entertaining enough that I never felt bored. The story (what I got of it) flowed well between the maps, the monsters, and the battles. (As I mentioned above, though, the supposed kill-all on map 2 isn’t really. Might be well to change one or t’other.) I’m strongly hoping that the second part of the story has a lot more story to it, because if it’s a case of “second verse, same as the first”, it’ll be old hat when I do it, in fairness.

   Detail:: * * *

   I had to dock for the lack of documents (be it just a notice that I got them, but can’t understand them, or actually some real info about the danger the Undying One poses), and further for the multiple one-liners. If you were running low on space, I completely empathize, and hopefully once i17 releases you’ll be able to pad this with some more text.

   A lot more text. I like to swim in the text like some sort of literary Scrooge McDuck. Just jump in there and do a backstroke.

   OK, enough punishing that metaphor. But you get the point.

   Overall:: * * * *

   It’s entertaining, and I’d love to replay it once it gets more text/story/detail to it. More meat on its bones, “Doctor’s” orders. I believe it has the capability to become a truly great arc… if only it didn’t feel like someone tried to turn D&D into a hack-and-slash with a hint of roleplaying added to pacify the nerdy player.

   Posted on March 28th, 2010 at 8:48 am