City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Idea for my third publish slot: MArc TV

Clave_Dark_5

By Clave_Dark_5,
Posted on: 2009-04-30 13:09 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

Okay, so I've got one slot left, and roughly 372 (Blatant and SHAMELESS Hyperbole) stories that I want to make, so I had this idea. I would go ahead and make the stories - including any custom critters - and publish the first of them. Then, after a period of time (say, a month) I would edit the published arc and change it completely so that everything but the title (something like MArc TV) would be different from month to month. The description would make it clear that it would change, and the star ratings would be more like a ratings system.

If the rating goes down, that month's story's not so popular. Don't worry,though- a new story would be up in a few weeks, so if you didn't like this month's episode, you can "toon" (like my pun?) back in next month for something completely different.

Some might be comedic, some might be drama, some might focus just on gameplay - whatever I'm in the mood to write. The contact would serve as the host.

Granted, I could just unpublish the arc and publish a different one, but the idea is that the arc ID and ratings would remain. It wouldn't screw with Hall of Fame or Dev's Choice, because I'd be editing periodically. (Not that anything like this would ever stand a chance of being either of those)

So what do you good folks think? Doable? Fair? Would that be taking unfair advantage of the system? Against the Eula or Dev intent? If so, then I'm of course open to the slightly less appealing unpublish/publish option.

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies

 

Posted

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Okay, so I've got one slot left, and roughly 372 (Blatant and SHAMELESS Hyperbole) stories that I want to make...

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Woah... that's a lot!

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...I had this idea. I would go ahead and make the stories - including any custom critters - and publish the first of them. Then, after a period of time (say, a month) I would edit the published arc and change it completely so that everything but the title (something like MArc TV) would be different from month to month. The description would make it clear that it would change, and the star ratings would be more like a ratings system.

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I think you'd find the effort of editing the story-arc without the support of external tools like spell-checkers and a content version control system would be too much to suffer through, especially if you truly have a large number of stories to tell.

I've already resigned myself to losing the rating of the less popular stories I would publish, only to work and polish them then republish. That way, I would have a stable of stories that will eventually evolve 3 clear winners that would stay up there until one (or perhaps all, a guy can hope.. right?) win DC/HoF status.

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Granted, I could just unpublish the arc and publish a different one, but the idea is that the arc ID and ratings would remain. It wouldn't screw with Hall of Fame or Dev's Choice, because I'd be editing periodically. (Not that anything like this would ever stand a chance of being either of those)

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I think you'd find it will be worse in the long run because people may want to experience an Arc that you have replaced and be disappointed on the spot when they'd find a new Arc instead.

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So what do you good folks think? Doable? Fair? Would that be taking unfair advantage of the system? Against the Eula or Dev intent? If so, then I'm of course open to the slightly less appealing unpublish/publish option.

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I think it's too much effort for not enough gain in the long run, especially when you factor in that had the Devs wanted to encourage this option, the SAVE-ARC options for a published Arc wouldn't switch the Editor to editing your off-line saved version of the Arc!

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

 

Posted

Oh sure. Here you come with your good points and your realistic suggestions to ruin my perfectly good nutty idea! HOW DARE YOU BE REASONABLE!!1!



Seriously, though. Good points all. My initial thought with editing live was to be able to copy/paste dialogue and clues, and the characters would be done ahead of time, but your last point about the Devs is the most salient. If they had intended it to be used this way, they would have let us republish to a static arc number.

And really, I suppose it is a lot of trouble to go through if all I'm worried about is the arc id staying the same. I'm just trying to think of ways to get people interested in a series of stories, vise one static one. A static name works, too, but it's not quite as elegant as maintaining ratings and id.

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies

 

Posted

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Oh sure. Here you come with your good points and your realistic suggestions to ruin my perfectly good nutty idea! HOW DARE YOU BE REASONABLE!!1!

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Sorry... sorry... you're absolutely right! Sometimes I'm so logical I have to ignore myself when I interrupt my own sense of whimsy and suspension of disbelief (which is why my 2nd Arc hasn't been completed yet, I keep finding faults with it day and night! )

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Seriously, though. Good points all. My initial thought with editing live was to be able to copy/paste dialogue and clues, and the characters would be done ahead of time, but your last point about the Devs is the most salient. If they had intended it to be used this way, they would have let us republish to a static arc number.

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Indeed... but just to drive the point home, lets just say that the text editing code in CoH across the board, isn't something I'd trust for more than very minute changes, and even then, I use Subversion to monitor the file-changes like a hawk!

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And really, I suppose it is a lot of trouble to go through if all I'm worried about is the arc id staying the same. I'm just trying to think of ways to get people interested in a series of stories, vise one static one. A static name works, too, but it's not quite as elegant as maintaining ratings and id.

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Very true.

An idea I recently got is to try and tell the same general story, but from the opposite point of view. If your first Arc is Heroic, try and tell the same events from a Villainous point of view. This way, you're getting two story arcs that tell the same story in essence, but appeal to different groups of players, and best yet, both Arcs on their own may generate traffic, if you're lucky, for the opposite Arc from the same player. I'm seriously contemplating doing this with Childhood Horrors for example.

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

 

Posted

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My initial thought with editing live was to be able to copy/paste dialogue and clues...

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My experience with cut and paste has been less than stellar. Frequently the editor seems to scramble letters together on paste. Very frustrating.

And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

I like the general idea Joe. Some other authors are doing something similar. I say go for it, then again im a user story arc nut and just love playing other peoples stuff since their ideas are always different from mine and for the most part very entertaining. Go for it!

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

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"Five hundred channels and nothing on but farms." *click*

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That was uncalled for and off topic.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

It's a variation on a rather famous saying about/criticism of television (small T) and mass media. [Censored] with mass appeal tends to drive out quality and niche content. Consider the channel that the thread title evokes, which actually used to show videos. We are, sadly, seeing the same process at work here.

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

Posted

I think you are just going out of your way to make a farming remark because of the other threads. It is a rude thing to do that here where this mate is just trying to get comments related to his series of story arcs. The threadjack is just not needed here.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

*takes the thread down off its jacks*

Sounds like more trouble than it's worth, at least to me. I have one slot free at the moment, and I'm somewhat inclined to put arcs up in it in rotation, and to heck with ratings - it's been shown in practice that they're practically meaningless, due to rounding and people gaming the system. Anything other than a brand-new arc that's lucky enough to get five stars for its first few plays (and not immediately get 0-starred out of spite) is not going to be found by anyone except by specific search, word of mouth, or intrepid explorers diving down to page 146.

What I'm much more likely to do, however, is to continue working on the arc ideas I have and wait for the Devs to announce some alternate means for people who want/need more slots to get them. Because they've got to, I mean, come on. ("Soon" would be nice.)

I have to believe that this is a short-term limitation; otherwise, the MA system is doomed to failure. (Yes, I used the D word.) Imagine if we had only been allowed to create three characters at launch, total, across all servers. This game wouldn't be having a fifth anniversary now.

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

Posted

The only obstacle to this seems to be the fact that you can't re-read a local file on a published arc without unpublishing it; you must edit in situ.

Otherwise, you could publish this month's episode, then compose next month's and test it locally. Then, when the time came, rename the new episode to use the same filename as the published one, and re-upload it. But, alas... there's that "can't re-read local files" hurdle. Cut and Paste field by field is your only option.

Now... if you were willing to lose the ratings? It'd be easy-peasy. Just use the same contact and the same 'general' title in every arc, unpub and repub as needed.


"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."

 

Posted

I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle. It's tough for ME, but that's because I have a weak machine that locks up about every fourth or fifth time I cut and paste (so I save in between each one). But if you have a decent machine that can handle going back and forth, it's a tad more time consuming, but not prohibitively so. At least I don't think so.

Also, what is a "content version control system"?

Dec out.

 

Posted

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I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle.

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I can't describe it well, but it tends to drop itself not exactly where I had the cursor, but say five spaces over in the middle of a word. It also sometimes comes up with some gobbledygook that looks like html formatting tags that did not exist in the original text.

I love using cut and paste, being as lazy as I am, and still make use of it, but like one out of three times I end up having to edit and correct the resulting errors by hand.

 

Posted

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I would go ahead and make the stories - including any custom critters - and publish the first of them. Then, after a period of time (say, a month) I would edit the published arc and change it completely so that everything but the title (something like MArc TV) would be different from month to month. The description would make it clear that it would change, and the star ratings would be more like a ratings system.

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I like this.

Being a progressing story, I would put in some mention of how long this episode is up and put in a mention of when the next episode is.

 

Posted

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I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle. It's tough for ME, but that's because I have a weak machine that locks up about every fourth or fifth time I cut and paste (so I save in between each one). But if you have a decent machine that can handle going back and forth, it's a tad more time consuming, but not prohibitively so. At least I don't think so.

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The text-editing tools in CoH were never up to par with what's excepted in applications that are geared towards editing text. Entering your character's biography has always made me want to throw my keyboard through the screen directly at the programmers/designers who decided it was ok to release a text-editing system where the cursor doesn't even behave according to widely accepted concepts. On top of that system, putting another system which completely relies on us being able to edit our text... that's very frustrating. For crying out loud, last night I saw some custom critters with   in their names!!!

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Also, what is a "content version control system"?

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Subversion is an example for a version control system made for managing Software, but also natural text files. The widely accepted term for this is CVS or Concurrent Versions System.

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

 

Posted

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The text-editing tools in CoH were never up to par with what's excepted in applications that are geared towards editing text. Entering your character's biography has always made me want to throw my keyboard through the screen directly at the programmers/designers who decided it was ok to release a text-editing system where the cursor doesn't even behave according to widely accepted concepts. On top of that system, putting another system which completely relies on us being able to edit our text... that's very frustrating. For crying out loud, last night I saw some custom critters with   in their names!!!

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I...guess. I've never had the least bit of cursor trouble in the MA. I DID find it helps if I delete first instead of pasting over, but that's just learning how this software works. The few   kind of things I run into, I've already edited in the local file first.

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Also, what is a "content version control system"?

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Subversion is an example for a version control system made for managing Software, but also natural text files. The widely accepted term for this is CVS or Concurrent Versions System.

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Eh. I suppose. Myself, I see no use for that for me. Looks more like over-complicating a system for my uses. I'm a pretty K.I.S.S. principle guy. I won't even use web site building software. I just write my own code.

But your complaint was not being able to use that or spell-check, but, if you build it in the MA local, there's nothing stopping you from using them, as far as I can see.

Everyone has their own glitch responses, I suppose.

Dec out.

 

Posted

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I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle.

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I can't describe it well, but it tends to drop itself not exactly where I had the cursor, but say five spaces over in the middle of a word. It also sometimes comes up with some gobbledygook that looks like html formatting tags that did not exist in the original text.

I love using cut and paste, being as lazy as I am, and still make use of it, but like one out of three times I end up having to edit and correct the resulting errors by hand.

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Thing is, in this case, you wouldn't even be dropping something "in" somewhere. You're just pasting it into a blank field.

Dec out.

 

Posted

Wow! Thanks for the responses! It's really generated a lot of thought on my end.

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Now... if you were willing to lose the ratings? It'd be easy-peasy. Just use the same contact and the same 'general' title in every arc, unpub and repub as needed.

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Actually I've been leaning this way quite a bit. I don't know - I was originally really tied to the idea of keeping the arc ID and rating, but mainly only to maintain an artificial construct of a television ratings system. Thought it would be fun. Plus, there's something I just find appealing about editing on the fly.

I had several ideas along this vein:

My initial thought was to make it a one mission arc. I recently played someone's arc that was a single large map with enough chainable objectives to make it feel like a multi-mission arc. Really creative.

Then I had a different thought: There was a short-lived sketch comedy show that I really enjoyed a couple years back that treated each sketch as a running serial. Viewers would vote on their favorite show, and the top two or three would continue to the next week with new skits. Don't remember the name, but my favorite "show" they did was "Homeless James Bond."

Anyway, my thought was three missions, each mission a separate show. People who ran the arc would be encouraged to send feedback and vote on their favorite, and the winner would get a new episode with the same characters, while the other two would be "cancelled."

Another thought along those lines would be a rotating schedule of single mission "shows" - there would be four mission/shows, and each week I'd change the order of the missions, making the first one last and bumping the other three up. That way if someone wanted to play one mission and quit the arc prematurely after one mission/show then they could, and have the option to tune back in in a week for a different show. The shows would be pulpy and comic-booky, so very easy to write and fun to play.

Then at the end of the month I would either unpublish and put up four more with a new arc id and the same title, or if I'm feeling enterprising I could live-edit the "bumped" mission once a week, leaving the other three alone.

I use the wonderful AE Offline Mission Editor someone made, and my laptop has more than enough to facilitate switching back and forth. Plus, the only hangup is creating plots - events and objectives are easy if you've got a basic outline and the plot written. (Plus if you haven't already noticed spewing a bunch of paragraphs on the fly is something I'm rather good at anyway)

So my only hangup is on the legality of the concept. If keeping an arc ID and live editing is considered ethical and not exploiting the system then I'm fine. I wouldn't care about Dev's Choice or Hall of Fame for this, and constantly editing or republishing would make that a non-issue anyway. Lord Xenite made a very good point that if the dev's had intended it, it would have been easy to implement, but I wonder: had they even considered it?

Ultimately, I'd love to see a bunch of running serial arcs out there that I could revisit, myself. I love recurring characters, and see this notion as a potential sub-genre of MArc missions, should others enjoy doing it (whether live editing or republishing) I even have a tag figured out: AETV.

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies

 

Posted

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I...guess. I've never had the least bit of cursor trouble in the MA. I DID find it helps if I delete first instead of pasting over, but that's just learning how this software works. The few   kind of things I run into, I've already edited in the local file first.

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If you delete the whole field contents and paste stuff into an empty field, that will work, but more often than not, I find that it still doesn't satisfy all my text-editing needs.

About those non-breakable spaces (&nbsp, I think that the MA probably puts them into your story-arc when you edit, save and/or publish, which means that even if you cut and paste things, you still run the risk of having those pesky tokens inserted into your text.

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Eh. I suppose. Myself, I see no use for that for me. Looks more like over-complicating a system for my uses. I'm a pretty K.I.S.S. principle guy. I won't even use web site building software. I just write my own code.

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The thing is, sometimes I make pretty big changes in one session and in the end of a session, I may find I simply want to rollback all the changes I've made. With the CVS I've put in place, all I need is to simply right-click the .storyarc file and select "Revert Modifications". Another feature that the CVS allows for, is line-by-line comparison between versions of the file. Not many will need that, but as a Software Developer myself, I've grown used to it.

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Everyone has their own glitch responses, I suppose.

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Most definitely.

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

 

Posted

I think a lot of the "legality" would come down to "intent". As far as I can see, I personally don't think you're so much subverting the system as getting creative with it. I would hazard a guess that the authorities wouldn't have a problem with it.

And I personally think the idea is really cool. Like you say, just a lot of work coming up with good stories.

Dec out.

 

Posted

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The thing is, sometimes I make pretty big changes in one session and in the end of a session, I may find I simply want to rollback all the changes I've made. With the CVS I've put in place, all I need is to simply right-click the .storyarc file and select "Revert Modifications". Another feature that the CVS allows for, is line-by-line comparison between versions of the file. Not many will need that, but as a Software Developer myself, I've grown used to it.

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Cain't walk wit'out yer crutch, eh?

I'm just kidding! Put down the whacking stick!

Dec out.

 

Posted

Any of these ideas would be wonderful. It's just that to keep the same Arc ID, you have to pay the price of restricting your editing/testing experience. If you really wanted to preserve a sense of continuity between chapters, I think that you need not look further than establishing the Title of a series, and then each chapter could just be published as "Title:Y Part-X". Your audience would then be able to browse your offerings by simply entering "@Simling_Joe Title:Y" (for example).

By the way, it'd be nice if the MA Browser would let us save our favorite search-filters!!

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

 

Posted

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Cain't walk wit'out yer crutch, eh?
*
I'm just kidding! Put down the whacking stick!

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You know... I used to be exactly like that when I wrote machine code for my MC6809E. That was more than 20 years ago. I used to say... "who needs tools anyway?"

I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati