Secrets of the Lake (21590)

[StorytellingMonkey]

 

An earthquake unearths creatures that have lived in aquatic seclusion for centuries. We really don't know much about them, so if you are willing to gather some data for us, please apply through this link to join our research team today!

 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by StorytellingMonkey

[cranebump]

Damn, Monk. You been busy.:-)

[cranebump]

Alright, I'll bite (apologies in advance for my typos--I know I have some...I always do):-)

Spoiler

• Cosmetics. You need carriage returns to put spaces between paragraphs. Otherwise, you get this:
• 
• Your contact has no info when I click on Ask about this contact. This is a good opportunity to let me know more about who I'm dealing with.
• I don't think you need to spend as much time discussing security level. As a player, I'm assuming that you vetted this mish, and assigned the proper range. If you are worried about it being touch for some reason (i.e., difficult bosses), suggest placing that in the mish selection text that appears on the choose list. 
• Color coding important stuff is nice shorthand. Careful of getting overly busy with it, though. It can be distracting if everything is important.
• Use of clues: they should actually be clues, rather than recaps. Two clues at end of Mish1 told me what I have just done. I already know this. What a clue should do is point toward deepening the mystery. Maybe foreshadowing something I'm due to see. Simply saying, You have gathered X widgets is not the best use of your clue space (especially since your End Pop reminds me, again, that I've done just that [as does the Doc]). On a positive note, all your text is pretty clean. I caught a missing period in one of the creature texts (I think it was the spawnling, but I can't recall just now). I'm running with a L50 Inc on standard diff, so I breezed through it, which is fine for an opening mish.
• On to M2: You're missing an opportunity for creativity in your mission titles. For ex, this:
• 
• ...is basically a Nav objective. Your subtitle is a chance to establish a theme, or have some fun dropping an easter egg. Or just to be creative. Save Rescue the Fishing Crew for the nav objective. Give your mish a title worth remembering.
• Formatting: Same thing with spaces between paragraphs. However, you don't need spaces between elipses:
•  
• Judicious use of color on the intro screen. Good job on the send off. Establishes some of the personality of the contact.
• Looks like we prefer outdoor maps, so far (just an observation).
• Siren was a serious pain the arse. (that's good!) Had some end drain going on there. Naturally, I kicked its butt, but still.:-)
• Clue in M2 is used exactly how a clue should be. Nicely done.
• Small map (and one I like a lot).
• End pop reads "solo survivor." Should be "sole survivor." This also is a good clue (where's the rest of them?). I assume it's foreshadowing something.
• M3: This title is much better. More evocative.
• Timer warning is nice of you. But if there's plenty of time, maybe reconsider your need for a timer anyway. I say this because I learned the hard way that players don't generally like timers. But if there's a LOT of time, you probably won't get any flack from it. That said, if you HAVE given enough time, I wouldn't bother warning anybody. I'd consider a warning if the timer is short, and I REALLY need to move. Otherwise, the timer is incidental, tbh.
• By the way...there is not timer on Mish 3.:-)
• Thine love and Thine juice should be thy love, etc. Thine is sorta like saying "yours," whereas "thy" is a substitute for "your." EX: My love is thine vs. Give me thy love. Thou, of course, is "you."
• Great job with effects on Mermaids to make them easy to spot.
• Good job with LB patrol text. FYI: ?! is not technically proper punctuation. I don't think players will care, however (unless they're like me).:-)
• Legendary creatures are digging. Interesting...wonder if that's a clue?
• I clicked on some "Remains." The click had a loooooooong timer, and did not give me any text. It did not appear as an objective, either, so....what is its purpose?
• Pretty straightforward mish. I brought back some info for the doc, but she doesn't seem to have much to tell me about what I've already brought her, so I'm a tad disappointed in her effort.:-)
• M4: Says I have a timer. We'll see...:-)
• No timer. Okey doke.
• Alright, so...this is yet another collection mission on an outdoor map. Mishes have a sameness about them, save for some changes in bad guy composition. 
• I got the clue that said I obtained all the recordings I needed after defeating 1 Mermistress. Yet I have 7 to go. This clue would be better for the mish End Pop, since it's basically inaccurate.
• What's on my player mind right now is Why are these things here? I wish the Doc would offer some clues, or that I'd recover some clues that point toward what we can do to end them, other than me street sweeping them all.
• The bosses are using the exact same text as the previous bosses. I suppose this is what they do, but it doesn't tell me anything new. Maybe consider changing this up a bit. Or giving me the first part of the text in the previous mission, and the other part here.
• The starlet was an interesting add. But she seems superfluous. What would be interesting is if this was ALL a publicity stunt that got out of hand, and now we need to clean it up (by maybe finding the weird relic she used to cause this mess in the first place). It looks like she's just sorta there, though. Not integral to the plot, which is okay. But if she WERE integral, I think your story would have a nice twist (which it could use at this point, frankly).
• I'm not sure why I'm listed as a member of Inherent. I'm not. I'm not even sure what it is.
• Spelling: aweful should be awful (no e).
• Finale: Okay, while I like the doc's plan, how in the hell did she and a group of grad students get high tech emitters? Feels like she should be working with LB on this by now. (and at this point, I sorta feel like I'm helping LB, and discovering that the Grad Students caused all this somehow).
• No timer again (after being warned of one). And the mish title is the same as M4.
• Open map. Multiple objectives. Defeat a boss. I strongly suggest a bit more variety.
• I clicked on a pile of bones. Nothing happened.
• The glowies have very long timers. Suggest shortening them.
• I am ignoring the bones, since I figured out they're just cosmetic. There IS a way to keep them from glowing, but I think you have bigger fish to fry. Er...so to speak...:-)
• Glowie timers are like, what, 12 seconds? Seriously needs to be dropped to no more than 3-4. This will annoy players.
• Bone glowies will misdirect from your actual objectives, since they emit the same sound cue.
• Your end pop clue pops up after the first glowie is done. So I'm reading I've succeeded when I have many things left to do. Delete the clue, use it in the end pop, like you did before (in the previous mish, where you should also delete the objective clue there, too, since it mirrors end pop).
• Urg. I defeated the BB, and then the grad student save popped up. I've been ignoring them for the emitters. Suggest that be a goal when I walk in, since they're spawning already?
• Once again, a clue pops up telling me I've rescued all of them when I've only gotten the first one (Save the Grad Students).
• Mixing in citizens with grad students muddies up the waters for objectives. May as well just have me save them, too. In fact, since this is a big map, with multiple objectives, you may as well keep me busy. Full disclosure: this is the hunt map from in-game mishes that are a pain in the ass. Finding the last glowie can be tough, unless I'm clearing it all. And I have a lot of them to hunt for. Then, when I find them, I have to wait a long time to activate the device. It feels like a slog, hombre.
• Some new creatures popped up (Lake Priestess, Shaman, a Herder). Nice change of pace.
• The punching sound cue is helpful in locating captured citizens. Even though they're not an objective.

Okay finally found the last of those poor grad students. Here's the skinny:

Strengths:

• Clean writing.
• Your contact does have a personality (starstruck, and a bit incompetent, frankly).:-) The asking me out at the end was a nice touch.
• Nice work on custom critters.
• Good use of window dressing, in terms of patrols and even the citizens (though I feel you don't really need them).
• Shows strong grasp of the basic use of AE tools.

 

Tweaks

• Variety: every mish is an open map with a series of bosses/glowies. The last map is a "bad memories" map for me (the blue side mishes where you have to locate 4-5 glowies across a large space). Other maps are serviceable, and there IS variety in size. But it's a bit repetitive.
• Clue repetition (appears when glowies complete, AND end of mish)
• Glowies timers are WAAAAAAY TOO LONG (this simple HAS to be changed, my friend).
• Story is thin: My contact takes a long time to figure out anything. I keep having to gather samples. I'm still at a loss for what these things want and why they're here. The mish description mentions and earthquake, but I don't recall the contact talking about it. That's important, because an earthquake might keep the big guns (like LB) too busy to work on this issue, forcing the plucky grad students to fix the issue. What I'm most interested in is why the quake in the first place? I have to assume it's been created by something. So, did the grad students do it? Or did someone else? is there a Namor-like boss who wants surface dwellers to die? Or did these things just "pop up?" If the latter, why am I not being recruited by someone higher on the food chain (a city official, or the cops or something)? I think it's be more interesting if I reacted to the natural disaster, then discovered the grad students caused this whole mess with a school project. Then I might have this secondary objective to help out the poor, hapless Doc whose students messed things up. Maybe I'm trying to fix it, AND keep them all out of trouble. Getting investment from the player is simply a matter of making them care about nor just what they have to do, but who they're doing it for. 

Suggestions:

(1) MUST DO: Clean up the spacing between paragraphs.

(2) MUST DO: Get rid of extraneous glowies until you learn how to set them as window dressing (non-clickable). Or slap a clue on them to let me know I don't really need to click them (ex: There are numerous bones from citizens drained by the creatures. Unfortunately, you were not able to save these poor souls.)

(3) MUST DO: Shorten the glowie timers. Please. I'm very patient, and this was bothering me. Some players might bail on you, since they don't have to be here.

(4) MUST DO: Remove timer warnings. None of the mishes were timed. And you really don't need timers on any of them. Players understand that when you say Hurry! it's just the narrative.

(5) CONSIDER: Reframing the story. Mysterious quake. I get involved with some rescue effort, discover the mer thingies (while maybe dealing with opportunists trying to loot or something). Contact tells me about some experiments at the college, but those guys seem to have disappeared. I rescue the Doc, get details on the experiment. She sends me to gather samples and find her crew. I return with the sample, she thinks she has a device to stop everything (or knows someone who does). I help her place everything. I rescue her students (who were taken by the Mermies because [insert reason here, but maybe just the male students didn't return because they were charmed?]). City saved and all that.

(6) CONSIDER: Mixing in a cave map? We DID just have an earthquake, right? 

 

Your scripting/tool mojo is good. You know what you're doing. A little work on the story will make your tools shine.

 

Keep at it,

Crane

 

P.S. If you need a primer of what not to do, my early stories have all the mistakes you would need to see.:-)

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by cranebump