Turgenev

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Qr - if I couldntbtrust someone with my coh password, I'm not sure I'd be happy trusting them with my actual life.

Eco

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Welcome to marriage?

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I thought badges were cookies!

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They both are.

Proceed.

This is what I read:

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that accolade would give u the badge [censored] badge at the expense of all your your badges would be destroyed in the process. once u get them all again and if u have the badge [censored] badge, then they are all replaced with the badge pimp badge and u can no longer ever get any badges.

the badge pimp accolade gives u the collective powers of all the accolades, plus instant healing as a accolade power in which its a toggle form and the power recharges once an hour, but if its on for 5 minutes without any hp to heal, it simply kills u, because the cells dividing in your body have thus given u cancer, and u die. do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars, just die.

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This is what I heard in my head:

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Yo dawg I herd u liek badges so we put badges in your badges so you can achieve while you achieve

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I'd rather a Praetorian Azuria. You know, someone who happens to FIND all the lost magickal items that are floating all around Paragon City, instead of LOSING them.

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Yeah, and apparently they're all immune to everything thanks to their magical powers of roleplay. Because when you let everyone determine their own powers, everyone is invulnerable, especially when everyone is a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.

No one ever appreciates the great role play of glaring weaknesses and lack of overt strength anymore... Back in my day, role play based combat was based off of cunning counter moves and intelligence not just "I'm invulnerable cuz I said so, and I kill you with a glance even though you're also invulnerable because I can because I said so".

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That reminds me of some of the classic RP arguments we'd have on the V:tM MUSHes I used to wiz on back in the day. "I cast ULTIMATE POWER!" "...really?" *banned user for an hour*

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Wait, I gotta wait till I am 30ish for this?

BAH!

*grumbles and levels*

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You can do it, the powers scale to your level. I had someone who ran Act I in the late teens and, although he had a hard time due to endurance purposes, was able to get through it without much misery.

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Okay. Now that we're all packed and ready for our hunting trip, it's time to go raid the Rookery at 8:30 EDT. Keep a buddy at your back, don't shoot other Freedomites (at least when the Virtuees are looking), and shoot to kill. Remember, we're there hunting, not collecting pets.

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Beware. There's seminaked rumduggery going on in that thread now.

Man, you know, this is why I avoid Virtue. I feel like I'm giving Pikachu bad touches every time I browse in there.

*lights a maduro cigar*

*turns the charcoals on the Freedom grill*

*breaks into his 'incognito Virtue' duds*

"Catgirl burgers, comin' up. Step up, everyone. Remember, it ain't an endangered species 'til it's hit your lips an' made you go 'yum'!"

Catgurl lure: Check.

Encountered an intermittent boss-spawn bug that affects the final mission for Act II. Reviewing now, may take it down pending debug. (I'm tempted to unpub it for size concerns too, most people who've played it don't understand why I'm capped at 100% with it as-is.) About 10% of players have experienced the bug thus far, and that's too damn high for me to want to keep it up.

Zub: Partially correct. There was supposed to be five mishes. I'd hit my cap by mish 3, and did a lot of revamping to get it under 101% with 4 mishes. My plan was to have that 4th "tie in" mish, then lead to mish 5, but due to size constraint, I had to rework a lot of it into the mission intro/outro text and side clues.

Guys: Hold off on commentary 'til tomorrow. I'm starting a fresh thread for this new arc to keep the feedback in one place (in fact, Zub, I'd ask you repeat your commentary there tomorrow so it can be discussed).

It's okay to not like, Zub. But let's talk about this tomorrow. I'll put it up late tonight if I can. J-Man said something similar, and we summed it up with the phrase, "middle movie syndrome". Chew on that, and I'll re-open the discussion tomorrow. Thanks for playing, Zub.

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* hand snags the doritos and tosses a year of cat gurl kitty litter in* *portal closes*


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Insipid fool. The "doritos" was J-Man's kitty litter.

...you couldn't tell from the asparagus smell?

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Its up ta them ta gits the money.

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...want to go back to my place?

/name that skit...

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Another shot in the dark: are you editing the files from the same account and the same character?

This suggests another test: try copying the entire City Of folder - not just the Mission Architect files, but everything - from one computer to the other. Maybe there's some character or account specific information that's getting attached to the mission; we know some of that is stored locally.

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1. Yeah, I'm consistently editing my arcs from my main, Dr. Turgenev. I dunno why, I just like the way he looks when editing on the MA tablet. XD

2. Hrm. When I first set up the app on my laptop, I copied over, but that was about a month ago? So it's not a perfect copy of all the game system files: Video preferences are different, screenshots folder is different, some of the playernotes files are out of sync, that sorta thing. I could try a raw copy though, I have time this weekend.

(Well, after I publish the blasted Act. )

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1. Backup your MA directories (which you seem to have already done) and then delete them from both computers. Then copy *only* the mission storyarc file to both computers, and see if they show the same discrepancy. The question is whether the problem is actually in the mission arc file or in something related to how the MA resolves references.

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I can do that, sure.

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2. If you don't mind someone looking at your source code, I can try to analyze the storyarc file to see if there is something in it that might be behaving oddly by testing it on a variety of systems. Contact me directly if you want me to take a shot at that.

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I can do that too. Let me try suggestion 1 first tho. And, to Xenite: The two versions between the laptop and desktop are up to date and pointing to the live servers.

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We're sitting in a meeting and our Development Director said "We've contracted some Type R programmers".

I had never heard this term before, so I jotted it down on my notepad, so I could inquire about it later.

Just then our Lead Engineer asks "What is Type R?"

Our Dev Director looked stumped. "What do you mean?"

"You said 'Type R Programmers'" said the Lead Engineer.

"No, I said 'High Powered'." said the Dev Director.

"No you didn't. You said 'Type R.' See I wrote it down." I said, and showed him my notepad that said "Type R?".

So now, everything high powered and awesome in the office is "Type R".

I am now on a crusade to get it used outside our offices. I should add it to urban dictionary or something.

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Thanks for seeding the idea for a new arc. Cheers!

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Back to the original question...

Turg, are you absolutely, positively sure that everything is the same on both systems? I ask because when you edit story arc files, the system will "absorb" any changes made to custom critters or groups. So if you copied the story arc file to another system, but forgot to copy one of the critter group files, you could end up with two different sizes after the story arc "absorbs" the difference.

One thing I'm curious about is the idea of re-saving the story arc file on the machine that shows the increase, and then using a diff tool to see if there are any differences between that and the original. That would detect not only the case I mention above, but any weirdness involving the ever-popular   spam and the like.

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Absolutely, positively sure. What I did was wipe out all the MA folders from both locations, excepting the USB flash; then recopy from the flash source to the two locations. Verified in both laptop and desktop that the actual file size was X for the storyarcs and the various folders. I also ran a file compare on Leandro's suggestion to see what'd it show, and FC showed zero discrepancies on either side. However, with both editors up and editing the file, one would show 98%, the other 102%. The only real difference I saw was in "file size on disk", which showed a 4% difference. The two sets of facts seem pretty direct in this case.

What happens when you login to your NCSoft account page and look up your veteran reward schedule?

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For the most part, I put in text for stuff, no matter how incidental. There are a few I've missed, but that's at least in part because my file sizes are hovering near the 100% mark.

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This, except to say that my files hover near the 120% mark. ;(

Great deal. Wish I did it.*

*To clarify: I already bought all the packs before this was available. It's a good money saver.

(Oh, and, "first after redname". Hi, Niv. How're tricks?)

Bentweilla from Muu's "Footsteps Initiative". All of his archetypal PuGs are great, but an angelic werecat Goddess-worshpper "who is also bisexual" and yiffs on the drop of a dime just makes me giggle like I did back in the old days of MUSHing for my MMO entertainment.

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Ironically, the feedback I sent turg ravinging about how awesome his arc was had to be resent as a forum message, cos he's got me on ignore ingame (quite reasonably, I hasten to add - my level of volubility in chat channels isn't to everyones taste )

Eco

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I must elaborate on this. Capt talks up an insane storm on the Freedom channels - to the point to where I'll miss other conversations and their flow because he'd be waxing rhetorical over stuff like AT game balance to monkey fluff on his keyboard. I /ignored him in my own defense.

One other thing worth noting: When I14 went live, I made it a point to read everyone's feedback, and respond accordingly. I log everything: Feedback is critical, for me, to know where the weak spots are. Even if narrowband testing, where I ask 20 people to play something, there's always that 21st person I didn't think of that will find "hey, your clue titles are too long!"... so in a very real sense, ANYONE who takes the time to give me fair feedback (good or bad) is doing me a huge favor. The very least I can do is acknowledge I hear their concerns, criticisms or compliments, usually discuss with them what my goal was, and if we get chatting, discuss how it could work better, or differently.

So yeah: I've answered EVERY. SINGLE. FEEDBACK. (Except for Capt's, cuz I had him /ignored. ) That's about 400ish tells, most of them within the first 2 weeks of Issue 14 going live. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if my goal is go bigger and better each time, you can bet it all that it's MY cup of tea.

So, to the people who've been sending feedback: Even if you don't get a response, you're doing everyone a favor by keeping it constructive. The least that can happen is nothing. The most that can happen? You can help someone see a new angle they hadn't thought of.

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Now hurry and publish Act II, Mr. Turgenev!

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*clicks publish* Okay.

Actually, I'm in open testing now, so expect to hear the "click" sometime over this weekend. Thanks for the kind words, Aregon! I'm glad the romantic side appealed to you, it was one of the goals I had when I was writing Dani: How to make her touching enough where the player got emotionally invested.

Act II, you buy her a milk shake in a virtual diner, and then LORD RECLUSE COMES IN AND ZOMG^H^H^H^H--- nevermind, someone already did that storyline...

Cheers. You'll be hearing from me this weekend.

Can I settle for an accolade that doesn't go "pew pew"? If it had sort of buildup charge, like the 10 second buildup for the base teleporter, at least it would feel more awesome than it is.

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On minor correction. Grandville did not come out with I6/CoV, it came out many months later with I7, when the level 40-50 content for villains was added.

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Totally correct. Edited my post to reflect your point.