Judgement_Dave

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You're talking as though any MMO released stays as they were on release in a static condition.

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No - they're released half-finished after losing many potential-players through late-beta changes that alienated half the overlarge beta testing crowd, get slammed in reviews and then, once the damage is done, steadily improve the game over the course of a year whilst the reviewers ignore it and the paymasters grow impatient and pull the plug.

Not still upset about Tabula Rasa at all.

So I guess that since it's running over the alloted time we'll be getting an update from a redname any second now...

Yikes - just realised I posted this thread early by accident.... I was still editing.

Errrr.... arc ids and indeed the arcs will appear when th eservers are back up!

TL;DR - JD does a couple of connected, non-humorous arcs and would like feedback on whether it works or if he should stick to poor puns.


Like a first class idiot (ok - maybe 2nd class - there's always room for improving my idiocy) I had an idea for a serious arc which soon became a couple of connected yet standalone arcs.

Now I'd love people to try them to let me know if the darn thing works at all... but I wanted to give some notes/background/spoiler on what I've tried to do. Since that'd probably hijack a review/announcement thread I thought I'd best stick it in it's own thread...

First, the arc details:

arc name: To Save A Single World
arc id: ?????
author: @Electric Barbarella
morality: heroic
lvl range: 29 to 40
arc info:
It's rumoured that the Council is developing a new secret weapon, so you infiltrate a base to find out more - but soon things take a turn for the unexpected...


arc name: Marketing Opportunity
arc id: ?????
author: @Electric Barbarella
morality: villainous
lvl range: 30 to 40
arc info:
Discrete freelancer required to market Crey services to parallel dimension. Applicants with dynamic, go-getting moral framework preferred.



They are designed to work together, but unlike some multipart stories they are also meant to work well as standalone arcs. The problem is that each arc is possibly better played if you don't know about the other arc...

I'll explain - but whiting-out as this'll contain spoilers:


Both arcs try to tell the story of an alternate dimension's dealings with our dimension. The two arcs involving Tau-Phi-71 are opposite moralities as in the villainous one you play the badguy who wrecks a pretty peaceful dimension, and the heroic arc finds you helping save the dimension from the consequences of the villainous arc.

The whole thing started with the basic idea for the heroic arc: wondering why, when our heroes go to alternate dimensions, do they never get mistaken for villains - even though we usually just turn up and start bashing the crud out of anyone we see!

So I decided to do an arc showing the flipside, where starts with an early misunderstanding about a hero come to our dimension to save her own world being mistaken for a villain.

Whilst the villainous arc is first chronologically, it effectively acts as spoilers for the heroic arc (as you, the player, already knows that the superpowered person is a heroine from TP71 even though you, the character, do not).

Does the idea of heroic and villainous arcs telling opposite sides of the same story work? Or did I need to recap too much about TP71 in the heroic arc?

BTW - there are some minor bugs/annoyances just now and things I wish MA was changed to support:

* In To Save A Single World
--- I used a couple of mission clues to deliver testimony/reports that you get 'after leaving the mission'... not the nicest way to do it, but MA doesn't let you give a clue when returning to the contact after a mission.
--- mission 1: The destructible object sometimes appears in 'odd' places (wich you could chain glowy objectives - then I'd use a glowy) and the 'Secret Weapon' doesn't battle her Council escort until after engaging in combat with you...
--- mission 2: The police and prisoners are meant to be battling near the escort. On one of the test runs, AFAIK, the police didn't bother turning up for the fight and multiple ambushes spawned (instead?). All other test runs have been fine.
--- mission 3: The civilians just stand there when rescued, even the one you escort.
--- mission 5: Why oh why can't you enter a mission with an ally? Instead I had to have your ally race to the mission 5min ahead of you...

* In Marketing Opportunity:
--- mission 3: Again - why can't you have an ally start with you...

So if anyone has chance I'd like any feedback. Especially as some of the feedback may vary depending on whether you play one or both arcs and which order you play them in...

Over the past few weeks, I've played missions from both arcs solo on a few characters - and there's nothing that was too scary. But your soloing mileage may vary and they've not been tested with teams yet. Solo with characters that can solo (even squishies) each arc has usually taken me up to c.30 minutes checking all text/info/clues as I go...

Hopefully you'll like them, but, being way out of my defensive-humour comfort zone, it's very possible that I've just written the biggest pile of tosh so far seen in the MA...

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How come GR is leaving?

Also, there's a patch being applied. Anyone see any patch notes?

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The big shake up turning NC Brighton into a small branch of marketing - see past announcements(Nov/Dec?? or was it more recent??).

It's what saw Avatea move to the uS and start looking after our boards.


And we just about never get timely patch notes... think it's still blamed upon translations being needed. It's usually best to see the US boards or wait for someone to copy th euS patch notes here.

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they used to mention on the forums well im sure Bridger /Rockjaw used to announce when server down time was gonna happen., maybe give us some notice.

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If it's being run from the US can we even be sure that GR is being told about downtime? ANd if my clockwatching is correct it's still pretty early in the US, so it's possible that Avatea (or any other community people with access to EU boards) may not be in work yet or may only just be being told...

It's bad that we're getting 30min ingame but it's not certain that it's GR/Avatea failing us on this score.

(And, IIRC, GR is leaving around the end of the month - so they may be trying to organise communications without relying on his role anymore)


EDIT: Also this may well be temporary - I14 launched too early and the MA service is very possibly being thrashed harder than the devs ever thought... so plenty of bugs/problems/improvements to make that probably need dev attendance - so are pretty much bound to US time.

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Suggestions, comments, flames, support?

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I still like that you're trying to help search, but the coding system is still too cumbersome.

Heck - I'm (at least) part nerd/geek and I think it's too cumbersome... I'm guessing that most normal people wouldn't take to this at all... and something like this needs universal appeal as you need enough people to understand and use it for it to become truly useful.

As it is, if you and a few others start using it: great - but it'll be like being one of only 10 people with telephones...

Suggestions? We press for decent search/categorisation in the client browser.

Until then use cityofguides - they're taking decent steps to a better (categorised) search, show reviews and are a darn sight easier to pick up and use than any arbitrary sequence of codes.

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You only search for those things that interest you. If you want challenge just type cd1 av and you get missions that will provide you with a challenge and av's


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If you want AVs then doing what you suggest would also bring back any arc with 'have' in the title/info, any that stated 'no ebs/avs', any by '@Madeup Avenger' or '@JDs example Saviour', etc

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when it drops down to a 4 it loses HoF status, for HoF you have to be atleast 4.5 average to achieve it.


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You got a redname quote on that?

As far as I know the only time the specification for HoF was given was when Ex Libris (US redname) posted that The Hall of Fame is where the best player rated content goes. To get to this rank you need to have over a 1000 votes with an average of 5 stars (we round up).

As I've pointed out several times, this seems to mean that the mean average is used and that the score is rounded up, not rounded to the nearest integer, so to get in HoF the arc needs 1000+ votes with a mean average score above 4.

So it's not >4.5 it's >4.0

So it could be easy to lose HoF:
You have the following:
499 3 star votes
1 4 star vote
500 5 satr votes
Mean average = (499*3+1*4+500*5)/1000 = 4.001 which is rounded up to 5, making the arc a HoF arc

If the next vote is a 3 then the mean average drops to (500*3+1*4+500*5)/1001 = 4 exactly, which is not a rating good enough for HoF.

So, obviously, it's possible to drop an arc from a HoF rating without 1 starring it.

Although it's worse if the rating is 1 starred to grief - every 1 star rating needs 3 5 star ratings to 'cancel-out' for the purposes of HoF.

Gratz - Happy cakeday, TheMess.

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Mars is our ruler anyway, we will be victorious.

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I know an army marches on it's stomach, but you can't seriously be promoting any chocolate confectionary to become your leader...

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Don't know about defendable object but I have a strange problem with destructible objects. Mission is fine with just one, adding any more results in them all becoming 'invalid targets'. Some frustrating bugs at the moment

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Always 'invalid targets' or just invalid until the guard mobs are aggro'd/attacked?

I know on my missions it's always given the 'invalid target' message until the guards were attacked.

That's my memory losing track of time...

Will edit previous post.

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No, there's no official news here, obviously, just more of a general meandering wonderment.

Of the little we've heard, the rumours were that it was going to hit around the 5th anniverary, which I believe is the middle of May? Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that date, can't find the cool calendar to check the numbers.


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IIRC April 28th - they usually run the anniversary badge for the month of May.

Posi (I think) dropped hints in interview about the fith... anniversary.

I'd guess that they want to hit as close as possible to the anniversary - but all schedules slip, and there never was a definite statement about aiming for the birthday.

I'd hope that they manage something good for the anniversary that leads up to the new issue (as I wouldn't imagine it's ready to go at the start of May...)

Having said that, due to MA being bumped much of I15 may have been ready for months now... Hmmm - wonder if they kept on adding to I15 or got a jump on I17?

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So, what things are we expecting? New zones? New AT's? Power Proliferation? Raise the cap to 60? A massive return of old villains such as the 5th Column? (this one at least has been hinted at) Or maybe a whole new villain threat to shock us?

Will we get a massive graphics upgrade, potentially upsetting players on lower end machines? Will it be another badge-gasm like the Architect is? Will we see Architect 2.0? Or is it too early for that?


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I still can't decide if I15 sees the Coming Storm or if that's I16 with I15 throwing masses of twisty turny weirdness at us before the Storm arrives. That actually causes me problems guessing what will come when - as I'm hoping 15/16 are both story-driven. Heck - if the Coming Storm is such a big deal then things need escalating now, but I can see it spread over 2 issues... And somewhere in the story will be the 5th and moon/space/alien-world...

I guess if pushed I'd have to plump at I15 having moon/space/alien zone(s) and the 5th (space nazis with dinosaurs and frikkin' lasers), with I16/7 possibly throwing in an underwater zone (replace dinosaurs with sharks).

I'd expect I15 to see some MA improvements - not really MA v2.0 (I'd guess Nov/Dec for that) but there are enough small improvements (search, glowy chaining, named-entity ambush) that could possibly be made fairly quickly that it's not worth holding an issue back for - so I hope they'll be in I15 rather than before it...

I expect something graphics related to happen soon - but I'd been guessing later this year - I'd want to get I15 with minimal chance of breaking everything with new graphics.


I'm also guessing that I16/7 will allow us to turn our characters a red colour.


EDIT: I thought the comments about the fith... anniversary were earlier than they actually were.

Wasn't it said that when the Coming Storm arrives we'll all be kicking ourselves at the small clues/teasers that had been staring us in the face for so long but we missed them?

ok - I'm paraphrasing, but they said something like that - about the time of Faultline revamp iirc. It may not have been 'The Coming Storm' they said, but some big development is coming...

So it's still possible that the Rikti war, shenanigans in the ancient Mediterranean and people trying to alter/mess with time are all still threads that will pull together (hopefully in I15).

It's CoH only, but I'd expect the FL revamp could still be tied in to this (re: Moon and gravitational effects).


Even without these threads being pulled together into a steaming, kettle-driven plot of Machievellian cunning there has still been story content:
- Ouroboros brought in 3 mini TFs.
- RWZ brought in an enjoyable series of arcs and a darn fine TF
- Cimerora brought some throwaway repeatable missions and a darn fine TF

Okay, Cimerora/Midnighters brought had less than some might like (myself included) - but, IIRC, this was also used as a learning zone for some of the new hires at NCNC (as was). The sale of CoX IP, creation of NCNC, moving offices, finding/hiring/integrating new staff all takes time away from pure development (of both story and engine).

I15/16 are the telling issues for me. I actually think they've done quite well if I15 is as big as we've been thinking after reading redname comments in interviews... If they get back on track then they had a year of serious disruption and a 3-month hiatus to normal service due to MA.

I15/6 are the new-improved-team big-content issues that were probbaly planned for early and mid 2009 (before MA mucked up the schedule).

btw - don't forget that I14 was I13 part 2... I'd guess that by now if MA hadn't had to be bumped to it's own issue we'd already be on the believed-to-be-story-heavy I15...

And given that, I suspect that I16 is story heavy as well, as the story/developments of I16 would have been looking at being the closest issue to CO launch if the schedule hadn't been bumped by MA. Pretty sure that the devs will have been planning some cracking story developments to arrive around CO...

We've already mentioned what seems to be a repeatable way to recreate this error though...

So griefers could already grief.

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Did I get one single feedback message?

Did I heck.

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Feedback still looks broken to me.

Since I14 went live:
I've received about 14 or 15 comments (I missed a couple before I started copying them to a text file - there are 12 comments in that text file).
This is from about 600 ratings (and who-knows how many players, since some may not rate).
I'm pretty certain that all feedback I've received since going live is from EU accounts.

So it looks to me like feedback is probably broken, if nothing else it seems to not work for cross-region comments (US<->EU) and I'm not certain that all same-region comments are delivered.

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I just wish everyone would stop using the bloody ships.

Last night I picked 4 on the trot that were all inside ships.

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It would be very difficult to tell a story about pirates in the caribbean without at least one mission set on a ship.

[/ QUOTE ]You could have them set in a tech lab or university instead.

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Or the Mercy pier section

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Or an office acting as Johnny Depp's Agent's offices.

Re-activated your main account - that due to I14? Welcome back either way.

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Whether they're unpublished or not makes zero difference, the devs are obviously going to keep an eye out for both fast levelling characters and missions that have been unpublished and republished several times.

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Whilst I agree on the rest, I doubt that they look for missions used this way and if they do then I'd doubt it's very sophisticated.

Unpublishing possibly leaves a copy of the mission on the arc servers (in case there are serious complaints due to content - just like chat logs are kept) but publishing an arc a second time does not link it to any copies that were previously published.

I doubt very much that the system compares newly published arcs to existing and past arcs, if it did then I'd hope that they'd automatically stop duplicate arcs being published by over-eagre button pressing and not knowing how to edit/republish. It probably doesn't even store some form of hash of a mission to detect duplicates and ones that are removed and later published again.

And if they do do that then minor changes to the arc or publishing under an alternate account would probably avoid detection.

Not strange - I'm pretty sure that hitting 'Quit Story' in the Architect Options window or 'Quit Task Force' in the team window both just quit the MA arc. Once you've hit the button to quit do not get chance to rate/comment.

AFAIK What they both mean is:

1 - click the 'Architect Options' button that should be just under the compass in the navigation window.

2 - Choose your rating and enter a comment if you want. Click 'Submit Comment' if you do want to send a comment.

3 - Then click 'Quit Story'.


EDIT - OK - Just logged in and checked. 'Quit Story' from the Architect Options window brought up the ratings/comment screen again after I quit - so you can comment/rate after quitting. However I'd probably still be tempted to rate/comment just before quitting - if the options are presented just before you quit why not use them rather than hope that they appear again after quitting?

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Tested this last night and was able to get it to work as Dave described, setting the two bosses & their ambushes to Any made everything appear as designed. The Ally appeared near the start, the two bosses appeared in the corridors before the big open room, the AV appeared either in the "lobby" of the big room (the small room opening into the large one) or in the big room itself.


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So glad you managed to get it working using my pointers.

Partly because I was able to help! But particularly as I hadn't formally tested what I was saying - and you've helped confirm that I'm not way off!

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So really it's up to a Mission Designer to see if the map is suitable to what they had planned and tweaking accordingly as part of the design process.

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Yup - like I said above. There are, I believe but haven't tested, benefits/effects that can be achieved by overloading an area to get 'partial randomisation' - for want of a better term.

So if anything a warning (but not an error) should be issued for exceeding number of spawns in a preferred area. One of those 'You might not mean to do this or understand what the outcome will be' kind of warnings that programming languages are sometimes fond of.

Some maps have civilians running around wildly (and some city maps have traffic) but you can't add them if they aren't there nor can you stop them appearing if they are there.

AFAIK their appearance is tied to the map.

A toggle/selection for non-combatants mobs would be a fine idea.

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Yes, we can write top of the line, novel quality stories, but unless you have only one objective, the random element makes the story seem ridiculous (barring some incredible miracle which makes everything spawn where you want it, but like I've said in some other thread, it only spawns correctly once out of 100 runs, because of Random.)

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To me this sounds more like you have a couple of ideas that need specific placement, and because you can't do it (or can't spot how to do it - there may be a workaround) you're stating that only silly arcs and farms are possible. That's almost throwing a tantrum.

There's plenty of serious stories that can and are being told.

So there are limits - work within them. Some limits can seem a right-royal-pain at first but can help tighten up your story telling...

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How many novels do you read that say "Dr Desparo was standing in the third room on the right, 2.4 meters North West of the left hand starecase. His doomsday machine was in another room, 10 meters further down the corridor, underneath an abstract painting? Most of the time, that sort of detail just isn't nessassary to the story.

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IIRC it was that level of detail describing rooms where nothing happens that made me give up on both attempts at reading Anne Rice...

Of course, if you don't like farms you could always try shutting one down...

YES - IT'S A SHAMELESSS PLUG FOR 'Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh!' arc 3662

Consistently voted 'funniest arc between 3661 and 3663'!

Hear what the critics said:
"mildly amusing"
"Nearly funny"
"stop pestering me to play your <censored> arc - welcome to /ignore n00b"

With reviews like that you know you can't go wrong!


Brought to you by the House of Mohawk - the mark of quality humour... though not neccessarily high quality.

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You'd almost think they didn't want us to give them our money. And I do. I really do.

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If you just need someone to give your money to may I offer my services?

You need to have a group or ally/boss/hostage who is restricted to the required range.

The range of a mission is the intersection of level spreads for all groups/specified mobs within the mission. And custom mobs count as 1-54.

So if you want to lockdown a mission with rikti as the default group to 30-38 you could try adding a group of prisoners (range 30-38) at some point. And you can do this in many cases so it's not easily noticeable.


It's due an update to a revised version (though RL issues have stopped me doing this so far) but see Notes on Groups and Spawns - part 5 has some notes on using groups for locking down level ranges.

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*Grumbles incoherently about how things were going to change when Avatea went to the States, about how we would be kept informed of things, about how Wagon Wheels used to be bigger and, indeed, still exist.....*

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I had a Wagon Wheel only 2 nights ago. Can't you get them 'round your way?

It's Texan bars that I miss.

EDIT - And they did used to be bigger.