Clave_Dark_5
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I've never even manged that much. Then again I mainly play redside, heh. I'm looking to start a few heroes for the change of pace once GR hits, I'll have to try and make a good sewer run part of their early game, even if I have to turn off XP for a bit.Originally Posted by HellSpite
Man, I've only pulled off a full sewer run twice, and we only managed to make it to King's. The fact that you made it to Boomtown and the group managed to stay together is a great accomplishment. -
Quote:Well said, thank you for taking the time to do the math for Sumericon on that (and thus saving me the time!).Originally Posted by Venture
Right, let me break this down for you.
We are rapidly closing in on 400,000 keys used. While the vast majority of those are no longer in the system (much of the turnover is due to the aforementioned "publish and perish" method used by exploiters, or idiots who publish their arcs to test them and then delete and republish), it is fair to say there are still thousands of arcs available. I don't recall the exact number that was given recently but it was on the order of tens of thousands of extant arcs, so let's go with that.
Assume there are 10,000 arcs (there are probably many more). Now assume that it "only" takes 15 minutes, on the mean, to thoroughly examine one, an estimate that based on my own experience in reviewing over 150 arcs may be charitably described as laughingly optimistic, but we'll roll with it. You're looking at 150,000 man-minutes, or 2500 man-hours, to check them all. That's 62.5 man-weeks, assuming 40-hour weeks. The last estimate I heard of Paragon Studio's staff size was on the order of 50, so if they put 10% of their staff on doing nothing but checking MA arcs they'll be done in about 3 months...and then they can get started on all the arcs that were submitted in that time.
That's using numbers that are almost certainly way too low.
How fast arcs are being added to the system is harder to estimate, because of things like the maximum number of arc slots and how willing people are to delete arcs to make room for new ones, but I think it is fair to say that we are getting on the order of hundreds of new arcs per week (proof does not fit in this margin). Every 100 new arcs would require 25 man-hours to vett with the above assumption of 15 minutes/arc. It should be clear they can't afford to put enough people on this to keep up. It's not laziness.
The "everybody republish your arcs" idea that FredrikSvanberg has is pretty good, but I'd hate to think we might lose some good ones just because an author left the game and isn't around to do it. Then again, considering what we stand to gain... I might be able to live with it. -
You know how pushers work, right? "The first one's always free..."
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I don't think that list has been updated, yeah. The best I can offer is "use that and find the list of the new maps from the update."
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Quote:I wouldn't watch any Freidberger shows, no, but I would (and do) watch Dr. Who or the old Batman TV show - big diff there.Originally Posted by Venture
Yes, some people do have bad taste, and that's why we shouldn't listen to them.
I'm reminded of a story I heard about Space:1999. If you could get past the doofy science the show had some good stories in its first season. That changed in the second and last season, when Fred Freiberger was brought in to run it. Freiberger was the producer of the third and last season of Star Trek, and the (IIRC) fifth and last season of The Six Million Dollar Man. (You may notice a pattern here.) The scripts went from zero to suck instantly. (It didn't help that every single story in the second season was an obvious haircut of a Trek episode.) Freiberger, as it turns out, was of the opinion that writing for television was supposed to be bad. The more 1999's actors complained about how stupid the scripts were the more intractable he became. At one point, it is said, he literally chased a writer out of his office screaming "WHY DO YOU BRING ME WHIPPED CREAM WHEN I ASKED FOR S**T!".
That's the same vibe I'm getting here and it's completely counterproductive. The world has an overabundance of bad writing; there's no need to deliberately set out to add to it. To borrow from Chandler, if the game can be as good as "O, Wretched Man!" or "The Hammer of the World", or even "only" as good as "Kurh'Rekt Revenge" or "Iron Widow", then it can be even better. Nor is it in any way, shape or form necessary to embrace bad writing for the sake of enjoyable gameplay; the above arcs play just as well as anything else in the game.
So why ask for...sewer muck...when you could have whipped cream? Why settle for Michael Bay when you could have Christopher Nolan, or at least James Cameron?
So I look up a definition of "camp" and found this, which sounds pretty good to my understanding of the word in this context (I do not quote it as holy writ but as a rough guide to the meaning of the word):
something that is considered amusing not because of its originality but because of its unoriginality
Nothing is said about 'bad' or 'good' writing; as usual, that's more about you applying your judgement as if it were fact. You're free to make that call, but don't expect everyone to agree with you or to think you even "maybe have a point." -
One time I ran to an arbiter right after a mission and sold all my recipes, which was something like two to four at most. Can't recall my reasoning for it at the time, I just did; I may have had some duds leftover from my last run to the BM, not sure.
I clicked them sold, beep-beep-beep without examining them too closely. So anyway, right after I sold them my brain sort of hiccuped at me... "say, did I see purple text on that first recipe you sold?"
I keep telling myself I must not have because I would have really noticed purple text. Right?
Ah well, ignorance is bliss. -
Quote:Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Maybe that's why I like redside better, the better reactions from the civvies.Originally Posted by Felderburg
I thought they sort of ducked a bit, and slowly turned and crept away, looking out for anyone that be coming after them.
Blueside, all I can recall was them telling me "Maybe I was wrong about capes." What, like 50% of the population thinks "capes" are bad people?! Next time your purse is getting snatched, lady, I'm just walking right past!
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Quote:I best let that pass without comment, but... why?Originally Posted by Sumericon
blah blah blah blah blah... Seriously, Arcanaville lost me at "orthogonal".
It's like how toon names names are or are not allowed. They literally do not have the time to check every name everyone registers for their toons - it would take far more people than they can afford far more time than they can. Unless you parade your toon in front of a mod/dev on a server, they won't see it untill someone reports it, they depend on us to help them track down the infrngers, people who use inappropriate words in their names, etc. So you can consider yourself a willing volunteer as of right now - "Go. Hunt. Report arcs" - go nuts!Quote:Originally Posted by Sumericon
What I am getting out of this is that it's infinitely simpler to attach human eyes and experience to the process, mod the AE and forget all about trying to fully automate the system.
Hell, if Paragon is too cheap to hire playtesters to approve arcs that qualify to get rewards, they might find some willing volunteers right here on this forum. To speed up the process, certain authors, respected and proven to be dedicated, might earn a kind of passport where their newly-published arcs get fast-tracked to full status.
I think vetting "certain authors" would be a bad idea because it opens up a big ol' hole just ripe for easy abuse.
Crime will always be with us but that doesn't mean it's pointless or useless passing laws against it. By the very nature of the relationship devs will be behind the curve - they have to play the "wait and see what they find, then fix it" game with the exploiters. That said, the holes exploiters can find will keep getting smaller and smaller until they're so small it's not worth their time when it's easier to go farm a standard arc.Quote:Originally Posted by Sumericon
More automation will only create more holes for exploiters to slip through, and plugging them all will ruin the AE for legit uses. The collateral damage you're doing to legit arcs is not worth it. Quit wasting your energies playing the numbers game with farmers and exploiters. You will not win. -
I haven't gotten into messing around with these too much yet, but I'm working off the list given here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors
I've used the code for black in one arc and, last I checked it last week, it was still working fine. A good thing to keep in mind is that if the code works, you'll instantly see the color on the text on the right side of the MA window. -
One thing to keep in mind in all this is that you're likely to get comments all over the map from "are you crazy?! This guy was waaaay over-powered !" to "Yawn-fest, waaay too easy." I usually get a range of both on the same arc.
My advice would be to wait and see which direction the wind blows on this (meaning which end of the spectrum of comments seems to predominate), and then make a gut check. It's a tough call. :/ -
Quote:Originally Posted by Valgrisk
...stupid kitten-stomping cartoon evil...
*cough, MMO based on comic books, cough*
Actually though I do like some of your points and it's obvious that the writing on redside could use some punching up (cough) all over the place. -
Quote:Ah, that explains why lately I've been seeing some actual-sounding toon names instead of "TouTou23" on some of those emails I've been getting.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I almost feel bad for some of the actual names I see on those emails, as opposed to "akjfhbgsdnkfushank", since they are hijacked accounts used for spamming purposes. I said I "almost" feel bad because they were stupid enough to do business with an RMT site and got their account jacked. tends to water down my sympathy level.
Poor li'l foolish players! ;_; -
I think my highest had about 30? Then I blew a few to customize his powers and just recently I had to go do that again due to the bug that wiped them. (Funnily enough I discovered that I wasn't really all that upset to have to redo those, even though I know I didn't get them the same as they once were.)
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This hasn't been something I pay much attention to, but I recall that on redside, sometimes a civvie would approach, see me for the villain I was and then turn 180 degrees and walk away, sort of like "hm, robot minions, evil-looking armored bunnygirl... to hell with that noise, I'm not gonna get involved in THAT; I'm outta here..." moment.
I could be wrong but I think it normally happened during street combat. -
U trned down sum mega XP?!? U R a N00OOO000OOB!!!11!1!1
Really, I just have a chuckle over these folks - much like you have - and move along. Even one-starring them is usually not worth the time.
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Quote:Good point there. I was sort of hoping the newer updates such as GR might make changes to to the first problem you mention, but nothing so far....Originally Posted by Zamuel
...but there's a surprisingly limited number of tools for storytelling. Teammates have difficulty following along with the overall story (though that affects all CoH content), the lack of proper conversational objectives forces workarounds like using allies...
Some players still have bad tastes in their mouths about stalkers, there's just no way to regain 100% of player's respect sadly, which is more about their ignorance than the dev's doing a 'bad job' (recall how farmers began to badmouth the AE and leave it in droves when the exploit fixes began rolling out way back when). Not to suggest the devs have been prefect angels when it comes to how they treat the AE - I agree that they should be handling it more carefully.Quote:Originally Posted by Zamuel
Many players have a bad taste in their mouth from the AE. How do we reassure them?... I think the situation could stand to be handled more delicately in the future since AE is too good of a resource to have as bad of a reputation as it does. -
Man, I just had that happen to me about ten minutes ago. Got on, found one of my two good friends online, we start up one of my AE arcs and we get the 30 minute warning.
We managed to do all three missions in the arc, but then we had to go, the ten minute warning had just popped up. The bad part was I had an hour to play before my GF wakes up. Which is why I'm here posting on the forums instead of playing. After that I guess I'll just hang out with the GF.
I kid of course about the, heh heh
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Quote:Any /Dark Miasma MM who doesn't open with those two (or even is afraid to 'start things rolling') deserves far worse than you're giving them.Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
I've certainly teamed with Demon MMs who open with Tar Patch and Fearsome Stare. I liked them. But I've also teamed with lots of Cowardly Lion types who all stand there when you say "Ready". Generally I say "Bored now" and Ice Patch from cover to encourage them to get started.
Then again, perhaps the new set has attracted some players who normally don't run MMs and don't understand them too well yet. -
Quote:Best Venture post ever. I'd love to stick that at the top of ever "lol AE" thread.Originally Posted by Venture
But I can be patient. Sooner or later (and I'll bet sooner), it's going to be pretty well ironed out so it can't be too easily exploited but will provide decent enough returns* and the lazy will just go back to farming missions outside the building. Then we can all look back on these idiotic threads and laugh.
*"decent enough returns" may well end up being less than any normal farm mission on PI or someplace; the goofballs will still chide AE for that, which will show us where there goals in the game lie and why we don't need to pay them any mind. -
If I were currently planning an arc with Dev Earth in it, I'd steal that.
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Quote:Great story, great quote.Originally Posted by Vindicaire
I realized that my normal playstyle is too zen. I have to be twitchy.
I've recently dug out my old 50 scrapper (Kat/Regen). He was my first toon to 50 (still only one of two) and soon after he hit fifty he hit the shelf, altitis was just too strong. So anyways I've dug him out to solo test a new arc I'm working on and I've really been rediscovering the joys of scrapperlock with him. "Jump into that mob of Rikti even though it'll probably agro that mob nearby as well? No problem." "Oh, did the ally agro the elite boss? Better go wail on his face for a bit and let these other spawn trail after me while I ignore them." "Look, a boss surrounded by many minions and Lts - time to hop in with my Combat jumping while popping BU so my first shot (which I'll cue up in mid-air) will hit hard."
It's a full life.
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Quote:Yer darn tootin' there is! You should find a bar for "auras" down at the bottom of the column ("Head", "Upper Body", etc.) in the costume editor. I believe you do have to pay some tickets to unlock them however, so if you don't see it there, that may be why.Originally Posted by Cersei
Is there a way to add auras to custom characters in AE?? I haven't stumbled across a way to do that, but it would really be helpful if there is!
Thanks! -
Quote:This. I was working on my latest and there's an ally with AR. I went over, tackled her surrounding bad-guys, wiped them up and she stood there doing the animation I set for her. Then she stood there. During that time I was double-checking her bio and such (yeah, I wasn't staring at her *coughs* I was just double-checking her bioOriginally Posted by Red_Raccoon
One of my AE missions (created shortly after I14) has an ally--sometimes he fights, and sometimes he stands there like an idiot doing nothing. So the ally AI in AE does seem a bit wonky, and I think always has been.). I was interrupted after like a good twenty seconds when she whipped out her rifle and shot at/agroed a bunch of foes across the room.
Usually, I've found this toon to be pretty blood thirsty and gung-ho when I've been testing my arc, so I haven't seen this problem myself.
Things to check:
- you did make sure and set them for aggressive, right?
- maybe the powerset has something to do with it, try changing it out? I could be wrong but it seems like my toon mentioned above, being set for ranged and having AR, has an incredibly far perception range and isn't afraid to use it. -
Quote:My only experience with them so far was being on a team with three of them, but I was running a Corr - you know, with ranged abilities - and I didn't have that problem.Originally Posted by RobertoLyon
Yeah this is my only issue with there being a surfiet of DS vills right now - the big ones are SO BIG - you put more than 3 or 4 in a tunnel or tight hallway and forget about moving around, targeting what you want to target, or even following the battle.
This weekend I spent half a battle standing on someone's head in a cave - jumped up there to target a specific baddie and *couldn't get down* it was so crowded.
But as long as you don't mind fightin' blind, tons o' demons are pretty unstoppable! Now, mind you, if I had been running a brute...
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Quote:I like how people do the damnedest to find something to complain about and inappropriately post about it in unrelated threads.Originally Posted by MunkiLord
My favorite part is how the market is down.
I also like how the enhancement window is ugly to look at and hard to read now.
I do like the email attachment feature, but it should have been in the game years ago.