Although assigning doors in the outside world would be a bit concept breaking for what AE is meant to be, I thoroughly support this idea. I regularly create AE arcs for my supergroup and after a while, it get boring seeing the inside of the AE building all of the time. I want to be able to put mission doors in zones that barely see any action just to get people visiting them.
Maybe if there was some way of making the travelling part of the virtual world that AE is meant to be, that would work. A bit like going out of the window in Zarniwoop's office in Hitchhikers.
Still, tricky to implement with AE being what it is, I definitely would like to see this. We've got a great city/isles, I'd love to see more of them when sending people to missions.
(Although anyone who sends me to the backside of Independence Port or Nerva would get bad marks from me. 
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@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
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Hey, there's plenty of good reasons to go to the back of Nerva storywise, even if mechanically it's a pain. All the major CoT missions take place there.
This idea as a whole seems pretty solid, but crazy to implement. It destroys the flavor of AE as AE but encourages it more as a make your own story-arc, which is really what I think people are using it for.
The big issue, I think, is that you'd have to have contacts locked into missions of their level, which would require heavy planning during arc creation. I've got an arc that uses Mu'Drakhan as a contact, but it's above his level range (179395 if you feel the desire to poke it). I could edit it down to 41, if i wanted (one mission is locked at 52 because it gives Mu'Drakhan as an ally, but that's fixable), but not down to the 39 because Malta just doesn't go that low.
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I wasn't really wild about AE being this virtual reality entertainment experience in the first place, but I understand that they felt they had to somehow differentiate what the players were creating from the dev created content.| This idea as a whole seems pretty solid, but crazy to implement. It destroys the flavor of AE as AE but encourages it more as a make your own story-arc, which is really what I think people are using it for. |
I'm not sure if that was strictly necessary or not, but they did it so it's water under the bridge.
I guess the question really is whether they ever want to make the leap from dev choice to canon at some point. As soon as you allow the first player created mission to take place out in the real world, you take a step that can never be taken back. Our devs might be more open to that than devs of other games, but I am not sure if they ever really want to reach the point where player content is viewed on the same level that dev content is.
Edit: So even if they did, this would also immediately create legal issues for them. At very least, the player would have to sign a waiver releasing all rights for anything that he/she has created and passing them to NCSoft. At the worst, that could lead to accusations that they are abusing people, especially if they did not pay the writer of the arc for the arc and it becomes an official part of the game.
I am not saying that something like this could never occur. And honestly I believe it's a good thing for players to feel that they have some degree of ownership of the game they play. But the method and conditions under which this sort of thing could occur need to be spelled out very clearly and explicitly before they ever do it the first time or they could get into the sort of trouble that other creative companies have faced in the past.
It would certainly be easier for them to simply declare it will never occur from the very beginning, but if they do, they need to have all of their ducks in a row first.
I gotta say I like this idea alot and I think it would be on the devs favour to do something like this *if* they could. It's one thing to make content but then to be able to make a system that makes it relativly easy for the average gamer to make content is no easy feat and anyone that can do such a thing should be proud. So if they can take it to the next level I hope they do but wont be overly dissapointed if they don't.
Of course if the devs did start turning some of these arcs into the real game world it should be reserved for Devs choice and Guest Arthors.
what about just having the option of assigning your mission to a random door in a zone of your choice. the door would be based on the map used. then you could also have the option of making the contact spawn as a single person just oustide the building. It would make everything seem more real. even if in-game it isn't.
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You could make an explanation that you're still in AE - after entering the Matrix, it proceeds to simulate not only the mission, but the actual world outside.
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Originally Posted by Dante
Although assigning doors in the outside world would be a bit concept breaking for what AE is meant to be, I thoroughly support this idea.
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I really like this idea, especially if we're allowed choose the zones the doors are in.
I like this idea. But it should be a limited number of doors in each zone, or we have retarded door placement like some of the "hidden" doors in Brickstown.
If you've run into them, you know which ones I mean. They are the door locations that make me want to slap the person that programmed their location. ditto on the perez park door locations. It's fun the first time. Not after the 5th or 6th alt.
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It would be nice if some AE missions (not all, but at least say the Devs Choice or Dr. Aeon's contest winners) could be accessible through the open world contacts, with the individual missions assigned to actual doors in the world. Perhaps by adding an extra option so you'd have...
Ask about available missions
Ask about the store
Ask about this contact
Ask about AE missions
At least those that have been written for existing contacts, obviously.
I very very rarely play AE missions. I'll admit that's partly due to the horrible reputation its gathered for being a PLer's/Farmer's paradise, but partly because the missions themselves don't feel real. Just having to travel to the apropriate area would help counter that, and make them feel more like part of my character's story and less like I'm just mucking about in a holodeck.