Kitsune9tails

Wow. Although I see your point about everyone fighting over the Idiot Ball, it sounds like a very emotional story with a lot of attention to detail from your description.

I like your reviews, but I must say I want to check out this mission despite the single star.

Other than the wall banging, would you say it was well written? Were the other characters consistent (if idiotic), etc?

*ding* Grats!

Name: "Every Rose..."
Arc ID #: 17702
Forum Handle: Kitsune9tails
Level Range: 1-10 (Villainous)

This is designed as an alternate starting arc for new villains who want to work for the Circle of Thorns, rather than Arachnos.

Please add #17702 to your queue, please.

I hereby submit for review my arc, Every Rose (#17702). You might want to try it on a low level villain; that's what it is designed for. It is also slanted toward Magic characters in that it revolves around joining the Circle of Thorns rather than Arachnos.

It's sad, and I feel your pain. Still, if someone gives me constructive insight on an arc of mine and wants to discuss it, I'd like to be able to. Although I suppose anonymous feedback could work, since you can choose to put your email address or global in the feedback itself.

On the other hand, maybe feedbacks include your global to deter people from sending anonymous malicious feedback as a form of greifing.

All of the custom critters I make come with power sets pre selected, because they have a pre existing backstory, at least in my mind. If they turn out to be fairly tough (IMHO), I just note that in the arc description.

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Indeed that is a problem for us all. I can't really find excuses to recruit ppl into helping me test... it is just too selfish (even for me) to expect people to slog through missions they may not even like so that *I* can be happy with them!

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Form Arc Trading teams.

Form the team, make a list of one arc everyone has made, then take turns running through all of them as a team. If you run out o time, everyone promises to finish trying the arcs on the list and send feedback, so everyone knows who lived up to the bargain.

It's fun! Nothing like giving or receiving instant live feed back on your missions, and seeing the tactics people will come up with to handle things.

By definition, a Deve very well could give out DC's to their friends and there would be nothing wrong with it.

The only criteria is that they like the arc enough to DC it.

The way I look at it is this:

The Devs promised us 3 slots each. They make no promisies that I will get more. If I get more, I will thank the players (HoF) or Devs (DC) and write a new arc.

There is basically NOTHING you can do to earn an extra slot as it stands. Writing an awesome story, using the tools cleverly, having a nice reputation, and not having typos all help. But nothing you can do will give you a guarantee.

Players may say they want 'a fighting chance', but what many of them really mean is that they want a guaranteed method of getting another slot. If it alos happens to imply that they are a great writer, hey, that's gravy.

When and if another method of getting slots appears (Vet Rewards, purchase, crafting, whatever), there will suddenly be a slew of haves, and a whole group of have-nots who will immediately say that the new additional criteria is unfair.

"We shouldn't have to pay for everything with money!"
"Now I have to farm for inf!"
"But I hate badging!"
"I have to wait how many months?"
"I earned mine with my writing skill, but Joe Deeppockets/Nolife now has more than me..."

It doesn't matter what the criteria are: they will be unfair.

The only 'fair' thing would be to limit everyone to 3 arcs period forever. And that would suck.

1: PM Ex Libris and Hero 1
2: A GM has probably been issued an order to ban obvious farm missions. They might just be searching for the word 'farm' and banning away, before getting down to the business of playing random arcs and trying to analyze how they are constructed (which will take years, no exagerration).

So the question is should the Devs:

- Leave PvP in it's current state, but try to attract more people by adding new features
- Try to make it more casual friendly and similar to PvE to increase the number of players
- Try to make it more hardcore and fun for the hardcore players to lure them back
- Leave the mechanics alone and try to get the players to change how they approach it via PvP lessons and events and such?

Actually, I think the OP has a point.

I would love to see, not some kind of specific document that paralyzes all future development of the game by locking the devs into impossible and/or contradictory promises, but just a general idea of what the 'roles' of each power are intended to be.

What role does Temperature Protection play, for instance? I think it's primarily a 'flavor' power intended to give extra RP to an AT that doesn't really NEED it. Just an extra option, not a core power. Essentially it's there because the set would be just as good with an empty slot in that position.

But maybe that's not how the Devs see it at all.

I'd love to see periodical posts on how the Devs see a power and why it's where it is in the power tree, why they feel the cost is balanced, and what they'd like to do to it 'someday'.

It would be interesting, and a nice place for the Devs to say things like "here is the role Domination should play, how can we get there without breaking Doms?"

I don't know if anyone's ever told you this before, Jay, but...
...you're sexy

Undead Beauty Pageant!

Not currently possible. Can't even give them a teleport movement set yet.

Transitions from map to map will not be in at release. However, the specific map you refer to might be actually a single map that would be available.

I see your point to an extent. But keep in mind that those people who acted 2 weeks ago based on info from the Beta could very well have acted on erroneous info.

You could actually have dodged a bullet there.

I'm sure a lot of those people acted on uninformed speculation as well.

If all current critters are available, you can use actual Nictus Crystals in your missions.

If all NPC powersets are available, you can give whatever power that Nictus Crystals use to spawn critters to any critter you wish.

The one caveat is that some critters may be using custom scripting, and not actual powers, for some of their tricks.

If they were to say, "All rewards are purchasable via skeeball tickets currently, but that is subject to change." How would that affect your market activities.

Whatever it is...do that.

If it turns out not to be right *shrug* it changed.

I liked this tidbit: [ QUOTE ]
So you can create an enjoyable storyline, but how simple is it to use? I sat down with an idea in mind ("Be all that you can be," where Statesman says I have a mere 15 minutes before Stallin' (get it?) releases a terrifying T-34 attack on Paragon City. I had my first mission built in about 20 minutes, complete with an ambush halfway through the boss fight by the ghostly Lenin. With a little more time maybe I could have changed Lenin to Lennon, the ghostly guitar-wielding hippy whose ally, Yoko Ono, attacks you with what she calls her Beatle-breaker - but now I'm probably getting carried away. The fun thing is that you could do this and more; it's possible to prototype something in fifteen minutes (as I did, using the Spetznaz villain group instead of custom enemies and characters) and spend days tweaking and testing something until you have something incredibly fun to play.

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Are the 10 Ton Hammer guys fanboyish, or do you think he's keeping it real?

The fact that you receive ticket bonuses rather than xp bonuses upon Mission Complete in the MArc may make farming non-cost-effective.

We'll see.

No matter what, though, some kind of Farming MArc FotM will emerge. That's okay. The people who farm now will continue to farm, MArc or no. Thy don't have to make the MArc unfarmable, just less farmable than the most farmable Dev mission.

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IIRC, back when the architect was going to be part of i13, there was mention that if an arc of yours graduated to the "hall of fame" or some sort of distinction, it would no longer count as one of your published arcs, freeing up a slot for you to publish another.


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This is still the case.

The Devs do not hate farming, per se. They hate farming that is overdone to the point of causing burnout for those people that farm but do not enjoy it, and dissatisfaction among those who do not farm but want the shinies.

They are trying to make content for both farmers and non-farmers. They want farming be viable for those who enjoy it, but not so huge an advantage that you 'have to' farm to get shinies at the 'average' rate.

That's why they seem schizophrenic; they are playing to both crowds.

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Can we expect to ever see customizable maps or temp powers? This seems kind of make-or-break.

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Not at launch. Pohsyb has hinted these will be stretch features here.