Scuzzbopper

Per week? That makes a BIG difference.

Just published a 4-mission arc specifically intended for low-level heroes (levels 1-14).

Arc Name: The Other Heroes
Arc ID: 95788
Description: When Paragon's Mightiest aren't available to answer the call, it's up to the other heroes to foil an Arachnos invasion of Paragon and discover the secret behind this daring attack.

Enemies are Arachnos & Hydra, with a few cameos by Hellions and Vahzilok. There are no custom groups and just one custom boss (3rd mission) that I tried to keep toned down for low levels.

It's moderately tongue-in-cheek and flirts with the fourth wall a bit. But isn't overly-silly (I hope).

The title is inspired by the Stargate episode "The Other Guys".

I've seen some different ones, but I know Soul_journ posted some here.

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Nice!

I stole it and added it to the Mystic Fortune page on Paragonwiki ^^;

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I was actually hoping someone would do that.

If anyone wants to try to figure out what the hermit is saying (the more I listen the more I think it's just gibberish), you can just make a *.cohdemo file and copy & paste in the following text:

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1 0 Version 2
0 0 Map maps/City_Zones/City_01_01/City_09_09.txt
0 0 Time 23.80001
0 20 NEW "Card Target"
0 20 NPC Puddle
0 20 POS 128 -10025.5 -215.5
0 20 PYR 0 0.012272 0
0 20 MOV READY 0
0 1915 Player
0 1915 NEW "Your Name Here"
0 1915 NPC Puddle
0 1915 HP 628.80
0 1915 HPMAX 628.80
0 1915 MOV READY 0
0 1915 POS 127.5 -10022 -206.6
0 1915 PYR 0 0.012272 0
0 CAM POS 127.498878 -10021.999983 -206.60733
0 CAM PYR 0.138 -0.021593 0
3000 SKYFILE SKY 1 0 1.000000
0 20 FX Maintained 50001 POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THEHERMIT_CONTINUING.FX 0
7000 SKYFILE SKY 1 0 1.000000


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And then play back the demo.

Here are all the cards collected together, hacked up with demo editing so it's a uniform background and no players.

EDIT: Oh, in case it's not clear:
Top Row: Death, The Fool, The Hermit, The Lovers
Bottom Row: The Magician, The Moon, The Sun, The Tower, Wheel of Fortune

There is also an audio component to the FX with a different sound effect for each. Here's what I was able to figure out (unfortunately I have a hearing disability, so some of them it was a little hard for me to tell):

<ul type="square">[*]Death - Scream[*]Fool - (Manic) Laughter[*]Hermit - Indistinct Speaking (Sounds someone with a deep voice speaking, insofar as I could tell, but couldn't make out what he's saying; someone else with full hearing should see if they can figure it out.)[*]Lovers - Big Smooch (Kissing Noise)[*]Magician - Explosion (&amp; Debris Raining Down???)[*]Moon - Wolf Howling[*]Sun - Birds Chirping[*]Tower - Strong Wind Blowing[*]Wheel - Wheel with Clicker Spinning (like one of the wheels of fortune at a casino or on the TV show of same name)[/list]
FX for D_R:

FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_DEATH_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THEFOOL_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THEHERMIT_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THELOVERS_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THEMAGICIAN_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THEMOON_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THESUN_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_THETOWER_CONTINUING.FX 0
FX Maintained &lt;FXID#&gt; POWERS/ITEMSANDTEMPPOWERS/TAROTCARDS/FORTUNE_WHEELOFFORTUNE_CONTINUING.FX 0

KeepDistance,

So here's a suggestion for a way to go about it that'll reduce the impact from the foibles of human nature a bit. Use or not at your discretion.

Apologies if this is TMI/TL;DR. My brain just went off on this for some reason.

<ul type="square">[*]In addition to your pool of judges, have one person (or more) act as a non-voting facilitator.[*]Assemble your pool of judges in advance and have them give their arcs they want rated/reviewed as payment for their services as judges.[*]Post this list of arcs and anyone who wants to enter the contest must pick one of the arcs to play and rate. They should be specifically instructed to rate the arc anonymously (no comments/feedback posted through the in-game system).[*]The entrants then send a PM to the facilitator (not to the judges) saying which arc they chose, and that they have played the arc, and giving their own arc info for entry into the contest. Entrants should be strongly encouraged (required?) to provide feedback/criticism on the arc they played as their entry requirement so that the judges get the benefit of more than just a "naked" rating. And also as their proof of payment just like you proposed. Be sure entrants are instructed to do this through PMs to the facilitator and not post their entry fee picks on the boards.[*]The entrant comments/feedback about the judges' arcs are then passed on to the judges anonymously by the facilitator, so the judges don't know which entrants played which of their arcs. That prevents any bias on the part of the judges, however inadvertent, from knowing which entrants played/rated their arcs.[*]Optional: If the entrants make lopsided picks about which judge's arc they play for their entry fee, some judges might get short-changed. You could keep a running post on the boards of how many plays each judge's arc has received and instruct entrants to pick the one with the fewest plays. You could assign judges arcs to players, but that creates an extra cycle of required communications, so easier to use a method that lets entrant choose up-front.[*]If you also want to protect the judges from the possibility of "revenge ratings", the judges could give their reviews to the facilitator to actually post to the boards without the name of the judge for each specific review. I don't know if that's necessary, but a quick glance through the boards will show that a number of people are concerned about other players deliberately marking down their arcs because they provided feedback/constructive criticism. Maybe leave it up to the judges to decide on that point. And hopefully, with the facilitator being non-voting, no one takes anything out on them.
[*]Also, although the facilitator is non-voting, I'd say it's fair for them to include an arc for review in the entry fee pool along with judges, since they'll be doing work too. [/list]

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So here's my revised plan: both the entrance fee and the judges' compensation is measured in arc plays. In order to enter, all you have to do is play one arc by one of the judges. PM the judge of your choice the title of your entry as well as some detail of the arc you played to confirm you played it, and you get in. Note that rating the judge's arc isn't an enforceable requirement, but the rules would ask (via the honor system) that entrants give what they feel are fair ratings to the arc they played.


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I think the contest idea is a great one, but that entrance fee idea seems inherently problematic.

If I'm reading this correctly, you are proposing that the entrants play a judge's arc before the contest and the judging of their own arc takes place, as the entrance fee.

If you're going to use this sort of quid pro quo system as an entrance fee, then I really think you should have some sort of double-blind on it.

Having the judges know which entrant is playing their arcs beforehand (possibly even guessing, rightly or wrongly, as to which recent rating came from an entrant) and having the players be able to pick which judges' arc to play... There's a lot of potential there for either conscious or unconscious bias.

To keep the judges as impartial as possible, they shouldn't know anything about which entrants are playing their arcs (and especially not what they've rated them, let alone more specific feedback, which is always more valuable than a "naked" rating). A judge could also be favorably biased towards an entrant for a bad rating if it also came with constructive and useful criticism.

You could have the entrants "pay" after the contest, but then that opens the judges up to "revenge ratings" if they lose (or positive bias by the entrants if they win).

Better if you have some sort of entrance gate that doesn't create the potential for beforehand bias between the judges and entrants, and also allows the judges to benefit from full feedback instead of just an anonymous rating.

EDIT/P.S. I do have a suggestion for a double-blind process that could be applied to this, but need to run shortly. I'll post that in a follow-up in a few hours.

Take care, Ex!

Best of luck at the next stop down the road.

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Argh, I wonder if there are different democode FX for these... grrrrrrrr.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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I'll be poking at 'em once some purchasing issues have been resolved and I get the booster pack.

BadStorm will be a sad puppy that you didn't try searching by "Nipple".

You can also use clues to give "Mission Briefings" much like NPC contacts for the Hazard Zones do.

I'll trade (will try to hit your new one tonight):

Arc Name: What Price Victory?
Arc ID: 58307
Creator Global: @Scuzzbopper
Faction: Heroic
Difficulty: Medium
Style: Serious/Tragic
Estimated Time To Play: 30-40 minutes
Enemy Groups: Freakshow, Rikti
Level Range: Best for 30+

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Scuzzbopper was the one who put together the picture portfolio of unique maps. However, there are unique maps which are unlockable and unique maps which come standard. That wiki page doesn't distinguish between them.

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If anyone wants to edit that up to include which are default vs. unlockable, feel free. That's what wikis are for.

Happy B-Day!

Sin -

Looks really good.

I occasionally put together demo edit screenshots for fun, but given the time I spend just making one single screenshot, positioning everything, getting the timing on the animations set up how I want 'em, etc., etc., I'm always impressed by the work folks put into making an entire comic or movie.

Well done.

Very cool!

Congratulations, Balshor!

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As for the fog, this should work but for the future, where do i go to see the fog and take a demo record of it?

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I think the only place it shows up "live" is in one of the early Croatoa missions, but you can just make a demo recording of any random NPC and substitute that model name for it to see it.

Another possibility, although I haven't tried it and don't remember how it looks, is the "fog cloud" NPC:

Croatoa_Rolling_Fog

(It's an NPC model, rather than an FX.)

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Here is the next demo file:

http://justiceknights.net/comic/p17f2EDITED3.cohdemo


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Just a little bit of bad code seems to be the source of the problem. The Manticore stand-in is missing POS &amp; PYR code (replaced by invalid MOV commands):

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0 3045 NEW "Dark Psyk"
0 3045 NPC Model_Manticore_NoRing
0 3045 MOV EMOTE_THEWAVE 0
0 3045 MOV 878.302856 65.078926 -1222.971924
0 3045 MOV 0 1.327921 0


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Just fix those last two lines to:

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0 3045 POS 878.302856 65.078926 -1222.971924
0 3045 PYR 0 1.327921 0


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That did the trick for me.

Relentless mentions the Player tag, which every demo needs, so if you try deleting every PC, you will inevitably also delete the Player tag which will fustigate the demo.

As far as only one NPC showing up, my best guess without seeing the code is that you may have cut and pasted a bunch of NPC code, but possibly forgot to change the ID number associated with all the additions. Each NPC needs a unique ID number, so if you cut and paste a bunch without changing their ID number (even if you change the models), then only one will ever show up.

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that worked perfect! Thank you very much.
I loved the random snake arrows you put in there. I didnt know they had those in the game. Any idea what villain group or enemy has that?

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If I remember right, those are from the high level Snakes (Children of Stheno) red-side once they start showing up around levels 40+.

How about this.

A few weren't working for me either, but these seem OK.

Ok, some odd stuff with #2.

Anyway, #1 does indeed seem to be the problem. If you insert these lines in there, I think that will fix the arrow problem for you:

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0 2738 NEW Target1
0 2738 NPC Puddle
0 2738 POS 1120 18 -1225
0 2738 PYR 0 0 0
0 2738 MOV READY
0 2739 NEW Target2
0 2739 NPC Puddle
0 2739 POS 1120 18 -1225
0 2739 PYR 0 0 0
0 2739 MOV READY


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Here's a copy with those lines added.

Strangely, though, when I tried to clean up the negative time increments, all the MOVs seemed to stop working. Not sure what's up with that (I didn't really try to look to closely), but I think I'll just leave well enough alone.

Well, can't actually play it to see as I'm at work right now (shhh!), but I see two things in the raw code that I don't like and I'd suggest changing:

1. For all of the bow FX calls, it looks like you're specifying a couple of targets that don't exist:

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0 34 TARGET ENT 2739 0
0 34 TARGET ENT 2738 0


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I don't see any entities in there with ID 2739 or 2738, so it looks like you're trying to target something that doesn't exist. The demo might be saying to itself "if there's no target for my arrow, why should I bother rendering it?" I'd suggest adding an NPC target with ID 2739/2738 (or changing those IDs to an existing NPC you want to shoot).


2. I'm also not sure about those negative time increments in there:

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-76284 34 MOV BOW_HEAVY_DRAW 2
-12000 0 NUL "new command"


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I don't know what effect a negative time increment has (if any), but you might want to change that. I'd also make that 76284 time increment a little smaller, even if the demo just treats negative values as positive, since that's a bit of a delay (76+ seconds) if it's reading that as a full positive value.


Those are the first things I'd try.

EDIT: "a" to "e"