cranebump

Perhaps Sinclair’s “edginess” is a blessing. I mean, he could’ve been some sort of frat guy, running around yelling such things as “Manti-SCORE!, bruh!” (offers overly exuberant high five).

Or pinin’ for the fjords

Me personally? Craftsmanship, care and characters.

Well, first off, here are some reviews. As far as favorites, there are a lot. If you troll the AE board, you'll likely find them mentioned somewhere. As far as authors go, the most mentioned/honored are @Ankylosaur and @Darmian (I can personally vouch for the quality of their work). I like @Clave Dark 5's stuff a lot (which I'd term ecletic).:-) @Jiro Ito does excellent work all around. There's plenty more great stories, many of which carry the Dev's Choice seal from back in the day. And plenty more excellent stories flying way under the radar (unfortunately).

Money.

When I think of this guy, this saying comes to mind: there’s a G at the end of every douchebaG. 🙂

I find this conversation uplifting, yet, a downer.

To Dream of Nothing [ID: ] by @Zaphir This L20-29 heroic arc has you helping out Mel Gibs-, I mean Detective Martins on a missing scientist case (because in the world of superheroing, only scientists count!). Kidding there, of course. Tracklash, my obligatory “Sure, I’ll try a regen scrapper [omg...what have I done?]" is all too happy to help (esp. Since Crane has sidelined him at L46 for, like, a gillion days). We dive in to discover: BAD GUYS ARE INVOLVED! Who knew? (We did. We most certainly did. It’s like it was planned that way).:-) But, yes - bad guys. Who? I’ll give you one clue: FREEEEEEEM! Yup. THOSE guys. Oh, we ‘ve got some Family involvement here. But mainly, it’s everyone’s favorite fascists, embroiled in a complex little story that is well-paced, with great clues, nice details, a great deal of mandatory “Council-ing,” Nicti, a professor in over his head, an enigmatic something known as "the Voice," and... And that’s all I’ll say on story, because you should check this one out without me spoilering anything (else).:-) Overall: I really enjoyed this one. A great blend of story/design using familiar baddies, some strong NPCs, and excellent foreshadowing. A purplish Seal of Approval emitting an unavoidable gravitational pull (not that I’m hinting at anything there…noooooooo…):-) PLAY IF: your thing is a detailed story. There’s plenty here, and it’s very well-crafted. Worth your time! Stay frosty everyone (like, for real if you’re in this vortex thing), Crane P.S. There are semicolons in character dialogue. People don’t speak in semicolons. They just don’t. And everyone knows semicolons suck. Or rather, I know that, and… Okay, so my nonexistent staff is telling me this is a personal thing, and that I’m proselytizing. They’re also saying it’s annoying, overbearing, nitpicking, and…OKAY! I GET IT! Stepping aside right...NOW!:-) Design Deets (for those interested)

I can relate. Got into it (in PMs) with mods from The Big Purple over them giving me a warning while giving a succession of passes to a longtime poster/troll. They decided to slap a short term ban on me. I wrote back that they could go fuck themselves and my time there was done. I'd probably do things a bit differently today.:-)

Even though I've had my douchey moments (including a recent one), I don't think anything discussed on the forums is so all-encompassing that it can adequately (or even marginally) serve as a litmus test for how to be be "true to the self." It's just a f'in video game, after all. Whether we like it or not, the truth is it's not what you say, it's how you say it. I could have the cure for cancer, but if I presented it to the world by being a colossal jerk, no one's gonna give a shit. I don't know what Snarky wrote, but receiving a warning is small taters. Not every discussion is - or should be - about who wins the argument. I mean, geez -- a dustup over KB? There has to be a taller hill to die on.

Yeah, that would be a commitment.:-) Best I've done is watch the video later in the day.

Logging in in a few. I'll be running Whipsmart:-)

A Light Within the Darkness (ID: 843) by @Steel Dancer This L25-37 arc from 2019 has you working with the Midnighters to secure some of their valuables (the main worry being possible theft by the Circle of Thorns). You agree to help and, of course, run into CoT right off the bat. However, your in-mish contact tells you that most of the raid damage doesn’t appear to be done by the Thorns. Your own initial investigations back this up, so…shenanigans! By an as yet unrevealed somebody/something! Involving a scary, mystical (stolen) tome! Actually “council bot” Montague (see below) is much more composed than that, but this is our basic setup. With your only real lead being the Thorny crew, you naturally pay them a visit. Here, you discover the 3rd party involved in the theft, which, in a nice little twist, leads you back to…Well, you’ll just have to see.:-) VERDICT: A clean, clear, well-constructed arc, made with care and attention to detail. Strikes a nice balance between "stuff" and story. Antagonists are well-drawn. Customs are nicely done. Great map choices (esp for the finale). Overall, I give it a solid, raddy-green Seal of Approval (I ran this with my Atomic blaster):-). PLAY IF: You want a solidly constructed, well-balanced mish. It's listed as story-heavy, but it didn't feel that way. The arc moves along very nicely. FYI: Arc ID 844:An Exchange of Words is a companion piece to this one. A few items of note: The contact model isn’t Montague, but rather the default council bot model the system uses, indicating the need for some updating. Also: There's no text on interact with some glowies in M1, nor do any clues drop from them. This only occurs in M1, and is the only noticeable error I found in the whole arc. There IS a timer on one of the mishes, but the map isn’t huge. I had plenty of time leftover (though I DID beeline to the objectives).

I script with the soloist in mind, and usually an experienced one at that. I'm thinking new players have enough other things to do before they decide to delve into player-made content. I'm not sure what can be done to truly raise the profile any more than it is, other than seeing some player-made content becoming in-game content. I'd say the chances of that happening or pretty small, at best. The return of Dev's Choice would certainly help matters, however.

I imagine this has been said by someone already, but one very obvious aspect of why more people don't attempt to create (or get discouraged from creating) story arcs is the wonkiness of Architect feature itself. Unless you're doing something very, very basic, it takes a WHOLE LOT of time to produce a decent, workable mission, much less an entire arc. You can spend forever just editing/testing/editing/testing and still not have it work 100% the way you want it. Then, if you do decide you've got something decent, and you publicize it, you could STILL have the very first person go through it, and that spawn you set up that always appeared on the first floor is suddenly appearing somewhere else, making you look like you don't know what you're doing. It's tough enough you're exposing yourself to various opinions about quality content. Add in the prospect that the production system itself can also work against you, we shouldn't be surprised when we don't see many people truly diving into the shallow pool.

As a player. I’ll play just about anything. As an author, I tend toward noir.

Nature of the beast these days. They’re a small group of busy volunteers, so I don’t begrudge them having a life outside the game. And I do think a Devs Choice equivalent produced by players is too problematic to implement. I mean, we can’t even discuss ways to grant recognition to more authors without arousing suspicions of elitism during a discussion of hypotheticals. @Dacy’s right. You can have good intentions and things can still go shitty. The question is whether (and how long) anyone wants to put up with it.

Didn’t really want to wade into this, considering my week in the forums, but: I think if anyone understands how easy it is to miss typos, it’s the people who’ve worked with the AE the most. It’s a somewhat unavoidable and forgivable “offense.” Beyond that, no one’s saying there’s a single “standard of excellence.” This started with a benign question asking what people would look for if they were Dev’s Choice judges. More than one person mentioned proper composition skills as a component (not a litmus test for the entire effort, but a part, at least). How we leaped from that to “there’s an elitist cadre driving people away from scripting!” boggles the mind, but, here we are. My advice to anyone who wants to promote SFMA AE stories is to publicize them. Create your own forum to raise the profile according to whatever guidelines or standards you want to follow. That will have a much greater impact than vague insinuations against what is obviously either an imaginary, or very poorly organized, cabal of so-called gatekeepers.

To be fair the response was to a longer, harsher review. I edited and refined the longer one. But still…yeah.

I learn ever so slowly, sensei.:-)

I hope to make the Torch run!

I did offer up a rather harsh, poorly-composed review. I've edited it to present something more balanced (and indicative of what I normally present). That said, another review is a good idea. I keep saying I'm only one opinion. Not sure that's being heard.

Well...I'll avoid any sort of argument about how to write, since I know quite a bit about that. I'll grant that saying the story was illogical was an inaccurate assessment. Whether I do reviews all the time or not doesn't make me mistake-proof. Given that, then, It would be more accurate for me to say that I found the story rather thin, and nearly devoid of characterization. These are deficiencies in my view, since I like a strong story with my AE. I have my own ideas on that, and, as a consumer, I'm entitled to them (as you've already said, above) Please bear in mind, though, that plenty of other people don't give a shit about story and character detail. I'm just one opinion. I do think that, by focusing so much on "challenge" you lose an opportunity to enjoy what details you actually do have there. Especially in the finale, which I was forced to rush through due to the timer being so short. In any case, I presented a more balanced version of the review, above, one that I hope recognizes differences in taste. My last word on the whole story thing is that, the story might've been "logical," but, the bare bones way it was presented felt like it was something obligatory that was getting in the way of your level design. Something set in the background to get to the next mission, or mob, or objective. But, again, I'm just one person. Others prefer just that in their missions. I do have some nagging questions, btw: (1) Why AM I helping Daniels? I assume this is tied in with the original Shivan invasion, right? Blue Spectrum showing up and such? Okay, then. I didn't see it blatantly stated there (or, really, what my specific task was in the whole affair -- gathering some sort of info, iirc). Regardless, it struck me that I was told NOT to go underground, and then was placed directly underground. Why did I do that? Do I know something Daniels doesn't? I found that hard to get past. (2) Why did I get ambushed by Trolls after I rescued some Trolls? I couldn't sort that out. Maybe it's in there, but, since I was on a short timer, I didn't have time to peruse the details (assuming they were there). Oh, and by the by: personal attacks? C'mon... While I admit douche baggery was a prime motivation for my initial, scattered review, a personal attack goes like this: "Cranebump is a douche bag." Whereas: "Cranebump's arcs are heavy-handed on useless details and filled with time-wasting glowies. He also makes his bosses too hard" is not. I might not've liked your story, but I don't know shit about - nor did I say shit about - you personally. We may differ on what constitutes strong writing, or story, but I feel like we can both agree that, when putting work into the public arena, it's a good idea to separate the work from the person. I don't know about anyone else, but, when it comes to crafting stories and such, I know I don't shit gold. (Anky does that--effortlessly):-)

Ha! I guess. I wouldn't consider any of it major. The one thing I wish everyone would embrace is the subjectivity of the whole thing. One person's masterpiece is another person's "wha-?" From the writing side of it, you say thanks for the kudos and take what's usable from the criticism. Speaking of, I need to go back and actually provide some useful criticism. My last review post wasn't too beneficial.

There isn’t, but it sure seems like someone wants to start one. As far as what the original Devs looked for, it’s beyond me. There’s an eclectic range of arcs that were recognized (including more than a few that aren’t “literary gems”). It really comes down to who’s doing the judging, I think. Whatever the case, anyone who creates more than a few mishes isn’t doing it for an award. They’re doing it because they like doing it. They’ll continue to do it whether they receive a pat on the ass or not. So I’m not sure that formal awards will encourage anyone to dive into the design pool. That said, if we are considering basic, uniform expectations, @Police Woman’s criteria are pretty solid. If you expect people to take their valuable time to play your arc, it’s a reasonable expectation that you spent some time and effort to make it worth their while. If you’re doing things that unduly frustrate a large proportion of your audience (like having a shit-ton of distracting typos), you’re doing something wrong. Most of what’s on PWs list covers the common frustrations.