dugfromthearth

The MA has issues

I have created and published one arc. And gone over it extensively. I am in no rush to fill my slots. I am now working on a second arc.

My first arc now has 52 ratings I think. It seems slow compared to the dev choice. But if I write a brilliant short story and it sits on my computer - no one reads it. If I make a module for my pen and paper gaming group - 4 people play it. So compared to the alternatives, MA is getting me a lot more players than anything else.

The loss of a map was annoying, but I will live. My arc wasn't perfect with the map, it is not terrible now.

Really, I think the key is to accept the limits and have moderation in your use of it.

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CoX is the only MMO I couldn't ever stick it out to reach 50. Everquest, DAoC, LoTRO, WoW all capped out toons.

CoH I peeter out at about 43. Thats pretty wierd.

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oddly CoH is the only game I've reached the level cap on - or even come close.

AC, AO, WoW, LotRO - never came close

battles work if you open in a large room and they are right there - a boat sort of thing

also, dialog in general is messed up and often plays all at once - either when you enter, or when you trigger a boss.

ah, thanks
that's much better for dev choices.
I already changed mine, and I'm fine with that.

does that mean that they keep the maps even if they are pulled from other missions?

I assume they aren't invalidated - but if you replace a map with a random other map it has to hurt the arc.

the samurai arc is
Jidaigeki - 117204

if the mission was below you, you should receive no xp.
just like be exemped in a standard mission.

if the mission had an ally that killed everything you would get no xp

I gain levels in real life by playing CoX.

in my published arc a map was pulled, so another was auto-replaced. I found something else - not as good, but it will do. I also adjusted my custom critters.

I know that dev choice arcs supposedly got corrupted moving from test to live. As each patch changes MA, removes maps, etc - and no one can edit the dev choice arcs - are they just turning into random maps with who knows what powers?

It seems like they are going to need to let the authors edit and fix those missions or they may not be playable in a few patches.

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The forest-on-fire map seems to have been removed. On the other hand, an outdoor Eden map was added, along with the Faultline Highrise map.

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that's bad - I use that one.

That may explain the error I saw when I tried to republish

[That is the very height of unprofessional and immature behaviour, especially for the head of a studio. What a professional person would have said was:]

You keep using that word "professional" - I don't think it means what you think it means.

I just discovered the upper level doors yesterday - very nice feature.

I think having them all point to the same "instance" which can spawn additional instances makes some sense - but what happens when you exit?

I edited mine to check the powers of the villains - changed one from extreme/hard to standard/standard. When I clicked republish it said it couldn't publish because there were too many allies, ambushes, etc .

I re-edit - the villain powersets had changed difficulty, and there were no errors listed.

I haven't tried playing it though - wacky things are afoot

small map 7 I think

It is the one with two rooms - the first has pools of water, the second has all of the columns.

I get crystals on the map - can I get it without the healing, hurting, etc crystals?

a guide to fleshing out bases in MA

non-technical mostly (although it lists animations).
ideas on encounters and details to put in a villain base, to give it flavor and to make it seem like a real headquarters and not just another abandoned warehouse.

Fleshing Out Enemy Bases in MA

The hero enters a warehouse to fight some Hellions. Without reading the intro text, can the player tell if the hero is stopping a Hellion robbery at a warehouse or if he found their headquarters? As a tip, the Hellions probably have not set their own headquarters on fire.

This guide offers advice on what you can add on any map to make a mission feel like an enemy headquarters. It assumes you will not use every detail suggested, but will choose a few and tailor them to your arc and to your villain group.

What Are the Villains Doing?
Villains in their headquarters probably are not all standing around waiting for trouble, although some should be. We are not talking realism – when enemies stand around 20 feet from where their friends are being attacked, this is about flavor and what can be done.

In functional terms, villains are doing their animation. That means to have the villains doing non-standard things you need to set up spawns where you control their animation. The easiest is to do a Defeat a Boss, select an lt or a minion as the boss, and you can choose the animation for the boss and the rest of the spawn (for custom critters the animation for the boss does not work). Defendable and destructible objects also work well for this.

- Mass Animations
These animations you can set many spawns to be doing as just general flavor.

Training – are the enemies physically or mentally skilled?
- Book Research – reading a book
- Floating Books – reading books magically floating in the air
- Training Hand to Hand – practicing punches and kicks
- Training Jumping Jacks – doing jumping jacks
- If you can set the boss to their own animation try setting the boss to Drill Instructor if the rest of the spawn is training

Resting – they need so sleep or just hang out sometime
- Bum Slump – sitting or lying down, a mix of the two
- Unconcious – lying down
- Crate (Sit) – sitting on a crate
- Being Repaird – standing bent over at waist, robot resting
- Vampire (Standing) – standing stiffly with arms crossed, robot or mystic resting

Eating – Almost everyone needs to eat
- Eat (Donut) – holding donut, occasionally taking a bite
- Eat (Hamburger) – holding a hamburger, occasionally taking a bite
- Drinker (Clay Mug) – holding a cup and occasionally taking a sip
- Drinker (Coffee) - holding a cup and occasionally taking a sip
- Teabag – holding a tea cup and dipping a teabag into it (very proper)

Working – Doing chores around the base
- Carrying Crate – holding a crate
- Carrying Pipe – holding a pipe
- Bodybag – holding a bodybag
- Bookie – writing on a notepad and looking around
- Clipboard – just writing in notepad
- Reading blueprint – reading a blueprint
- Welding (low or medium) – welding, but there is nothing in front of you
- Tech Scanner – scanning with a device

Killing Time – Just hanging out
- Warm Hands – blowing on hands
- Waiting – tapping foot
- Walkie Talkie – holding a walkie talkie
- Reading (newspaper) – holding and reading newspaper, choose Paragon or Rogue Isles
- Dancing - dancing
- Zombie drumming – drumming (nothing zombie about it)

What Are the Villains Saying?
People generally talk at least some, and what they say tells us about them and what they are doing. As a basic rule you can’t have too many spots with dialog – if they only say it when you interact with them. Too many spawns broadcasting dialog when you enter the mission looks bad. And too much dialog within a spawn is a problem – if 4 dialog balloons go up at once the player can’t read them all (unless they check back in their chat window). It is better to have more spawns with short dialog, then fewer spawns with longer dialog.

- Arc Flavor Dialog
This dialog references the plot of the arc and reinforces the overall story. A few references to the arc in a mission add to the flavor, too many make it seem contrived. And the references cannot be detailed explanations (the big boss can do this of course), just bits of the plot.
“Once we rob that bank we won’t need to live in this dump”
“Everyone is afraid of us now that Big Bad joined us”
“I can’t believe we are going to the moon”

- Villain Group Flavor Dialog
This dialog adds flavor to the villain group. Tech groups talk about tech, magic groups talk about magic, etc. This is a good chance to add flavor and be funny. You can add flavor with them talking about almost anything.
TV Shows – Warriors watch Survivor, Skulls watch Bones, Vahzilok watch House, etc
Movies – Freaks like Terminator, Hellions like Reign of Fire, Nemesis like Metropolis
Songs – the villains can sing a bit of a song’s lyrics, 5th Column “Du hast me’
Food – trolls like steak, Malta like French food, Crey are vegetarian (or eat protein bars)

- Base Flavor Group
This dialog reinforces that this is the villains’ base. Again, don’t do too much of this, but a few references add flavor.
“I can’t believe we have to stay in this dump”
“At least our new base has a T1 connection”
“Living in an office is dumb, but they ley lines converged here”

How Do the Villains Decorate
Everybody wants stuff and villains are no different. Tech groups need tech stuff, robbers need crates of stolen goods, magic groups need scroll racks, religious groups need altars. Items are added through clickies, destructible objects, and defendable objects. Clickies have no enemies and thus no dialog, the other two can have dialog.

- Tech
Barrels, Crates, Refrigerator, Forklift, Machines

- Magic
Bookcase, cauldrons

- Important Notes
A whiteboard or tablet clickie can have important clues or flavor if the hero takes the time to read them. This can be an oblique clue – the formula for napalm, or as explicit as “step 1: steal underwear”. Treat this as an easter egg – a reward for the player if the hero clicks on it.

- Computer discussion
A defendable computer. The enemies stand around talking about some data on the computer. When the hero finds it, more enemies rush to secure the data.

- Altar worship
A destructible altar. The enemies are bowing before it and praying. The hero can defeat them and destroy the altar.

Guards
The villains will have some guards. Having them stand in place until the hero comes to them is a bit unrealistic. Making the villains react or be proactive adds a touch of realism and variety.

- Patrols
Simple patrol objective. The villains aren’t intelligent but at least they are mobile. Patrols should have only one line of dialog unless the two interact (question and answer). Best dialog is a simple “Keep an eye out” or “Don’t let anyone sneak past” – makes it clear they are guards, and isn’t odd if there are 4 patrols saying the same thing.

- Lookouts
Lookouts are defeat boss objectives with attached ambushes. When the boss is at ¾ health they call out and the ambush is triggered.

- Alarms
Alarms are when the villains respond to something being touched. This can be a click object objective with a triggered ambush, or a defendable object with a built in ambush. In addition to adding variety to the mission, they emphasize the importance of the item. Defendable items are best for very important items – if it is really that important the villains will have guards around it and more on call.


Miscellaneous Bits
You probably don’t want more than one of each of these in a mission, if that. They can add flavor, but in short missions may confuse the player who thinks it is part of the plot and not just an easter egg.

- Non-Combatant Villain
Set an enemy as an ally and rescue them – they can fight as your ally or just leave. Many groups (such as the Council) recruit by force – one of them wants to get out of the gang. Or maybe they captured someone from a rival gang and are holding them – you don’t often get to team with a villain, so it adds some diversity.

- Non-Combatant “Evil” Civilian
Not all bad guys fight. Maybe the villains lawyer is at the base, or the boss’ secretary, or the computer repair guy, or a girlfriend. They may threaten you with a lawsuit or call you names, but they won’t fight. A few civilians interacting with the gang can add a lot of flavor.

- Gambling
A defeat boss objective. The boss is animated as Three Card Monty – moving cups on table – have spawn do greedy (hunched forward rubbing hands in greedy fashion)

dang it, can't remember the name. There was a japanese arc set in the Edo period. Costumes were great.

it isn't just Mary Sue-ism when using your character

it is making in-jokes that no-one gets.
it is assuming we know or care about them because you do.

As noted above - every custom character is your character. But to the player it is just another character. It is when the author thinks that there character is important, special, or known that the problems start.

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People still read quite a lot of Jules Verne. Different versions of his books often make the same bestseller's lists -- for instance, there are two printings of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the Top 100 SF list on Amazon's sales chart.

Same with Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, HG Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc.

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*Cough*

I can tell you that I re-read 20,000 leagues at least once a year. It's my favourite book, and I have a good collection in print of Jules Verne's books. I have a pretty lengthy collection of e-books from Gutenberg that I read too. And a sizeable amount of books from the 16th-17th Century authors from Spain's "Golden Century" ("Siglo de Oro"), seeing as Spanish is my native tongue.

Also, it may be worth noting that I can read those books while still being subscribed to the game. Never thought I was breaking the law by doing both o.O

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I give up.

You are correct. 19th century literature is the ultimate form of entertainment. That is why everywhere you go you see people reading it.

Those passing fads television, the internet, electronic games just couldn't compete.

The 6.1 million people who watched the premiere of an animated show about penguins (Penguins of Madagascar) are nothing compared to the uncounted millions who spent that half hour curled up reading 19th century novels.

And yes - I stated "it is against the law to read 19th century literature and play CoX".

snow

there are no errors in the mission?

are you getting the error when you try to save it , or when you try to test it?

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I am not sure how the thread turned into a debate about the quality of author skills instead of mission arcs. But since Arcanaville says it did, I will accept that - she is certainly much less biased about it than I am.

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It is always interesting to me when someone decides not just to argue against someone else's words, but to invalidate their own as meaningless or irrelevant. I'm never certain how to interpret that form of forensic suicide.

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I have no idea what any of your post meant.

or defendable - that makes the enemy rush reinforcements (and the firebase will destroy those)

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Excellent examples. All authors that are admired and left unread by the general public. It's great to name names. But they are not books that the modern public reads and enjoys. There are certainly a minority that do enjoy them.

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But not because of the skill of the author, which was the original point.


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odd that you say that - because I wrote the OP.

[Second, no one said a good story is timeless; refer to your own post: the phrase was good storytelling is timeless]

I am not sure how the thread turned into a debate about the quality of author skills instead of mission arcs. But since Arcanaville says it did, I will accept that - she is certainly much less biased about it than I am.

So let me start over with my OP: How good are our arcs today vs in 6 months?

Not "how good are our author skills today vs in 6 months?"

My whole question is specifically - is a good arc timeless. Or at least will it hold up for 6 months?

http://www.masearch.somee.com/

http://cohmissionreview.com/