Apollinaris

I do know that if you change the arc then finish a mission it will change the arc difficult. The same thing occurs if the mission leader changes between one mission to the next and they have different difficulties set.

Venture,

I just wanted to thank you for the review on my arc. I found it extremely helpful and shined a light on a few things I didn't even consider as problems. Specifically, plot holes, which to me seemed sufficiently explained, weren't. And the positioning and highlighting of things like bring a team and time limits which I hadn't considered doing. I've got a list of those things now and assuming the filesize holds up Gilgamesh will be handing out case files on the Imperium to players after the first mission which should explain more thoroughly who they are and how their presence fits their usual profile of activities.

I don't know why Kali Erinyes spawned as an AV for you in one mission and an EB in the other. In both instances she's the same custom character who is an Arch-Villain. I have no idea why the game would spawn her as an AV for you in one mission and an then scale her down to an EB in the other, but that certainly doesn't sound like the way mission scaling is supposed to work. I imagine that if you were soloing she was probably supposed to spawn as an EB in both instances.

I will admit, I could have told the exact same story with already created factions and canon lore but didn't. I could say that I did it because I didn't want to risk running afoul of a plot point I wasn't aware of considering I run afoul of it somewhat already. Like if imperiuvm is an ore or does it come from meteorites or is it artificial? I sure couldn't figure that out but thought it was important to keep it impervium anyway in the story. And would you believe I didn't remember anything about West Libertonia until after I'd written the arc and it was too late to easily change it?

But unfortunately the truth is I wanted to create something new and talk about it. And I like robots.

In any case. Thanks again. I've got my lovely list of plot holes to fill up and some changes to make. Though they'll all still probably be purple, throw -defense, and Kali will still be obnoxious for some groups.

Addendum: Here's a list of changes that have been made to the arc based on Venture's feedback.

- Spectre now spawns in the middle instead of the back in Mission 1, which should prevent him from spawning right where Sizwe is.
- Gilgamesh refers to the Mechanius Imperium specifically in Mission 1 instead of calling them "heavier opposition than anticipated".
- After completing Mission 1 players receive a file on the Mechanius Imperium. This file reveals who the Mechanius Imperium are, who their leader is, and reveals that they have been involved in other similar attacks on other countries in the region. They appear to be chiefly interested in gaining resources, personnel, or concessions from local governments.
- Sky Raider hostage guards in Mission 2 now clean their guns which will hopefully make them stand out more.
- The "bring a team" entry in Mission 3 is highlighted in orange now.
- Gilgamesh now tells players they have a ninety minute window to accomplish the goal in the Mission 3 briefing and explains why in the send off dialgoue.
- Gilgamesh doesn't forget to thank players for rescuing Sizwe in the Mission completion text in Mission 3.
- The nintey minute timelimit is also highlighted in orange.
- In mission 4 Gilgamesh asks the player if, "You and your team" are ready to go in. Your team is highlighted in orange.
- The difficulty of Kali Erinyes' Invulnerability has been reduced from Extreme to Hard.

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Agreed. That attitude has always baffled me. Of course we should always set the bar high and keep raising it! Imagine what would have happened if novelists, film makers, and artists had always said the same thing?

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Micheal Bay would finally get his wish to title all his movies, "Mother@#$@ing Explosions!", Product Tie-ins the Movie would be #1 at the boxoffice, and Uwe Boll films would be exactly the same?

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How high can we get?

Then...we raise the bar.

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<British>Our story arcs goto eleven.</British>

To anyone who's thinking about following those links to Tvtropes just be warned, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life. Do what I do and set a timer before entering. Bonus points for getting a friend to knock you unconscious if you don't exit after 2 minutes of the timer going off.

Somehow I knew you were going to get swamped when I saw this post. Still even if it'll take a while I'd really love to get a review of Arc 1297 if I could. Real constructively analyzed advice is worth it's weight in gold.

I warn the arc can be on the hard side. Having played it a few times with different groups it seems either people adapt to the new types of enemies, or keep getting smacked around.

Another thing to remember is that when you create a boss they allow multiple triggers for events based on their health. So you could trigger other events when they're engaged, at 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, and 0 health.

Just to chime in here I remember someone saying that things like auras "break" them out of their animation loop. That might by why so many emotes aren't working. It may or may not be true, but in review all the bosses I couldn't get to emote had auras and the ones that worked didn't or were standard enemies.

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A. Those go to email or are stored on the items. You don't have to phone someone to give them the feedback. Which to me a /tell in a game is equivalent to picking up the phone.

B. With the handles associated with the feedback on a system that has rewards associated with ratings, you get punitive responses. Look at ebay for a great example of how this plays out. I bet ebay spends incredible amopunts of time resolving punitive rating attacks. On many other rating systems people use alternate accounts/email for their paper tigers.

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Your arguement doesn't really plan out. To address your first point it's not a phone call. It's a transmitted block of text. Comments on ebay, amazon, youtube, etc. are transmitted blocks of text, which in both cases have your user name associated with them. Granted, it'd be much nicer if the feedback was attached to the arc and stayed there. But it doesn't. And even if it did your name would still be on the feedback. It still wouldn't be anonymous. You still might get messages send back to you from the arc creator and you still might have them decided to 1-star everything you've ever written.

On your second point. No, they don't do that. That's something for people to decide. Everything pans out the larger your sample of people is. The number of people who are "assassinating" your rating would have to be substantially large to gain long term traction, and by that point they're not "griefing" they're the prevailing opinion.

But really in the end it doesn't matter because it comes down to the fact that you're afraid to put your name on something you wrote and sent to someone else. And that's just sad.

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I'm not a big fan of it either, if i do get feedback its buried in the scroll of stuff that happens when I log in, and I have to go back through and type the address of the people to reply. This would be better as an e-mail, and really more welcome than the spam bin that is my e-mail box.

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I have a feeling that you're getting feedback as tells because of the spam bin that is your email box. Can you imagine how many people would be accidentally marked as spammers if feedback came as a email?

Personally I like the feature as it allows me to converse with the leaver off feedback and get a better idea of what went wrong.

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I'll go back to pointing out people's typos and making suggestions how to improve their arcs when Feedback goes back to being anonymous.

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That's kind of cowardly don't you think? People can see who left comments on just about everything you can review from youtube to amazon. Why should this be any different? I don't think the majority of people are going to be out for blood for constructive criticism.

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Can I have some Arc ID's for both test and live versions please.

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Sure thing!

Arc name in both instances is Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago

Test Arc ID#: 12193
Live Arc ID#: 1297

The live arc is identical to the test arc except one custom critter has been removed to allow publishing and the contact was changed from an AV to a duplicate of the person type.

Arc Name: Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago
Arc ID: 1297
Morality: Heroic
Faction: Sky Raiders, Mechanius Imperium
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Andromeda / Apollinaris
Level Range: 20-35
Difficulty Level: Medium - Hard
Synopsis: The recent discovery of impervium deposits has sparked unrest in the small country of Kalago in southern Africa. When tensions escalate Redoubt requests assistance from heroes to keep the peace. Little does anyone know the chaos is about to attract an even bigger threat. Players will face a series of four different missions in their quest to return peace to the country of Kalago. Along the way they'll accomplish such tasks as rescuing the abducted Prime Minister, rescuing civilians caught in the middle of a Sky Raider and Mechnaius Imperium warzone, repelling an Imperium sneak attack, and finally riding the region of Mechanius forces. The arc contains one Elite Boss and one Arch-villain.
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours
Link to More Details or Feedback: Trailer Video, Redoubt Operations Arc Series on VirtueVerse, and Comments and Feedback Page



The VirtueVerse page contains further information, Redoubt, the Mechanius Imperium, Kalago, and a timeline. The information includes images and descriptions of all the enemies that appear in the arc.

Arc Name: Redoubt Operations #2: Wrath of the Imperium
Arc ID: 269283
Morality: Villainous
Faction: Crey, Paragon Police Department, Longbow, Redoubt
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Andromeda / Apollinaris
Level Range: 30-50
Difficulty Level: Medium - Hard
Synopsis: After their bid for control of the nation of Kalago has been thwarted by Redoubt and their heroicallies the Mechanius Imperium focuses it's ire squarely upon the forcesof Redoubt as First Emperor Surtr declares total war against them.Players will take on the role of villains who have agreed to assist First Emperor Surtr of the Mechanius Imperium in his master plan to take revenge on Redoubt in exchange for "something they desire".Players will be engaged in such fun tasks as blowing up buildings,kidnapping world leaders, inciting a civil war through fabricated evidence, and crushing the stalwart defenders of peace and prosperity under their heel. Contains two elite bosses and one arch-villain.
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours
Link to More Details or Feedback: Trailer Video, Redoubt Operations Arc Series on VirtueVerse, and Comments and Feedback Page



The VirtueVerse page contains further information, Redoubt the Mechanius Imperium, and a timeline. The information includes images and descriptions of all the enemies that appear in the arc.

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Apollinaris,

When did you last play your mission on test?

The limitations for size were adjusted during beta, so you may be bumping against those parameters.

Ex

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Let's see, the last time I actually played the arc was on 4/1/09. However I can go ahead onto the test server right now and open up my arc and it will show me a file size of 98.13%. I assume I could launch and play the arc, put I haven't actually tried it yet.

Addendum: I went on onto test server just now (6:03 Eastern Time today), logged onto the training room server, and launched and successfully played two copies of my mission, the version Published on the test server (Arc# 12193) and played the local copy of this same arc I have on my hard drive in test most. Both arcs played without difficulty on the test server. The local file on the hard drive is the identical file that was copied over to my live CoH folder to transfer the mission to the live servers.

Is it possible that if there was a reduction to the arc size it maybe missed the test servers and made it onto the live servers? Or could I be doing something wrong, making something duplicate somehow? Is this an actual bug? Is there anything else I can do to help?

Oh wow, I thought it was just me. BTW, I went back onto test server to check the arc and sure enough the exact same mission arc file on test server comes in at 98.5% file size. Transfer that same exact file to live and it becomes 105%

Libris, to expound upon this issue I've noticed that my arc increased in size when I transferred it from test to live. Previously it was at 98.5% and when I try to play it on live it shoots up to 105%. I did have two unlockable items in the arc, which I removed for now, but the size is the same either way. I had to remove a custom character to get the size down, but I'd really like to have them back. I'm a little confused as to why my arc increased in size in the transfer.

What's even stranger to me is that I can load up the test server right now, load up the exact same mission file and it's within the size limit. Transfer that same file over to live and then it ballons.

I'm curious if this happened to anyone else. I had an arc which I had published on the test server. It was at 98.5% of the size limit. When I transferred it over to the live servers the size of it jumped from 98.5% to 105%. I'm a little curious as to why. Did I do something wrong? I really hate to have to cut anything else out but I'm not seeing any other options here.

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AE System
--------
Welcome to Architect Entertainment --- Neutral
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
----------------
Birth of a Fossil - Heroic
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------------
*

Comedy
--------
The Extadine Lab -- Heroic
The Great Chicken Caper of '09 -- Heroic
ParaCon -- Heroic


*

Comedy/Drama
--------
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Attack of the Space Clowns (18749)-Neutral
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings - Neutral
Lawyers of Ghastly Horror - Heroic
How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Heroic
*

Crime/Gangs
------------
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
*

Drama
-------------
*

Global Domination
----------------
Axis and Allies - Villainous (10597)
*

Heist
----------------
Celebrity Kidnapping - Villainous (20161)
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------------------
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
-------------------
*

Holiday
---------
*

Horror
---------
Small Fears - Heroic
Dark Dreams - Heroic (18914)
*

Large-Scale Crisis
----------------
A Hero's Halo -- Heroic
This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz --- Neutral
*

Magic
--------
The Amulet of J'gara - Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) - Heroic
*

Military
--------
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago - Heroic
*

Misc. Adventure
----------------
The Portal Bandits - Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) - Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
----------------
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld - Villainous
The War of Fate: Betrayal (19698) - Neutral
*

Nemesis Plots
----------------
Brass Reaver: Part 1 --- Neutral
*

Sci-Fi
--------
Adventures of the Space Marines --- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 ---Neutral
Netrunner - Heroic (14434)
Above Mars: Part 1 - The Wellington -- Neutral
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
-----------------------
The Meatgrinder - Neutral
*


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Yeah, you normally don't include "The" in alphabetizing. I went ahead and fixed that.

I have a new video created as a trailer for an architect arc.


Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago Trailer

Arc Name: Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago
Arc ID: 12193
Faction: Sky Raiders, Mechanius Imperium
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Andromeda / Apollinaris
Difficulty Level :Medium - Hard
Synopsis: The recent discovery of impervium deposits has sparked unrest in the small country of Kalago in southern Africa. When tensions escalate Redoubt requests assistance from heroes to keep the peace. Little does anyone know the chaos is about to attract an even bigger threat. Players will face a series of four different missions in their quest to return peace to the country of Kalago. Along the way they'll accomplish such tasks as rescuing the abducted Prime Minister, rescuing civilians caught in the middle of a Sky Raider and Mechnaius Imperium warzone, repelling an Imperium sneak attack, and finally riding the region of Mechanius forces. The arc contains one Elite Boss and one Arch-villain.
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours
Link to More Details or Feedback: Trailer Video, VirtueVerse Page, and Comments & Updates Page

The VirtueVerse page contains further information on Redoubt and the Mechanius Imperium. Information in Kalago and a timeline are currently pending.

Links to trailers, my VirtueVerse articles, and any of my other works may be found at my homepage at http://furluge.gotdns.com

Notices and updates regarding the arc, trailers, related VirtueVerse, etc will be editted into the first post of the Comments & Updates Page

I just wanted to get some clarification on something, which I think has been mentioned once before but I just want to nail it down.

There isn't any ability to make cutscenes with this tool, right?

My only comment I have is that, I hope, you'll consider expanding the number of arcs one can publish. Maybe make it it linked to veteran reward badges. 3 just sounds so very very small, even with hall of fame or dev choice helping expand that.

I have two more videos I've done to add to the Fan Video collection.

The Origin of Kali Erinyes
The Paragonian Knights Invade Outbreak

First off, I'm going to dissent with everyone and say, yes, video 1 was funnider. This one was still good though. The villain is a bit hard to understand towards the end. It's a nice touch that what the villain guesses are all available jobs in the game.

Oh, and yes, costume change emote would be good. More emotes are always good.

I also shudder to think how hard drawing the mouths on the characters must be.

Just to note, to anyone who might be looking for it, the URL for Apollinaris goes to 50 has changed. I had to move the video from one youtube account to another. The new URL for Apollinaris goes to 50 is in these links.

For anyone who's looking, I've added annotations to the video which highlight where a lot of the various pieces of footage are taken and when.

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I'm genuinely curious, now that we've moved the line from gameplay-affecting to game-breaking, where is your limit of tolerance? Is everything fair game? What if they start selling access to new zones? Selling access to new archetypes? Selling access to task force/trial rewards? Straight out selling influence/infamy/prestige for cash?

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The "line" is the point at which people are no longer willing to pay for what's offered at the price that's asked. That's where the "line" always was.

/em dance7