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I'd like this as well, coupled with the ability to use them in the Mission Architect.

In most cases it seems like the videos have been sampled down so far that viewers aren't downloading anything close to 100 megs. My Youtube video was 420 megs going up, but obviously people don't have to wait half an hour to see it, even on dialup. Hence the muddiness...I think I may experiment a bit and try to find the optimum upload quality.

I've seen a map in the MA that runs the other way (office to sewer/cave)...

Thanks for the advice, M/S/D_R (big fan, by the way)...I'll check out wegame.com. I've looked at quite a few of the sites in the Demo Guides and Tools thread, but a 100 MB limit seems to be en vogue at many of them. I'll also explore the higher quality options at Youtube.

Hello all,

Just posted a video trailer for MA Arc 55669, Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal. Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

On a related note, what is the (free) video hosting of choice these days? Obviously, Youtube is the 800-pound gorilla, but it seems like whatever I upload comes out muddy and significantly lower in quality. Is there a better alternative? Or will I lose less if I upload a lower-quality video (selectively degrading it myself, as it were)?

How important? Depends on the audience. Personally, I can't stand errors in game text (and am still reporting some of the same ones, time after time, after five years) because they yank me out of the story. There are other people who won't be reading "all that text" no matter how carefully edited it is.

In my opinion, if you think you have a story worth telling, take the extra time to tell it well. You might try typing the text in a word processor first, checking for spelling and grammar, and then cutting and pasting into the Mission Architect.

If you unpublish, yes. If you REpublish, no.

There are ways around it, to be sure. But once you've seen those workarounds five hundred times...

Seems more like lampshading to me.

This, and the fact that no one says "Oh. My. Deity." when they witness the super-horrific/phantasmagorical/super sex-zay.

Being able to read comments might help prospective players weed out ratings that they may not want to pay attention to. For instance, when I buy a computer part on Newegg, I can see how people rated the part, but also why... if some doofus rates a part one egg (Newegg's version of stars) and his comment says he rated it so low because the part he ordered is incompatible with his system or because his brother put it in the microwave and it doesn't work any more, I can disregard that low review as irrelevant.

Similarly, I could disregard the opinions of people who rated arcs poorly because of "too much story" or "not a farm, lol" when deciding which arcs to play.

I agree.

Make him a captive, set the surrounding enemy group to Single, and he will spawn already free and waiting for the player to come by. You'll have to experiment a bit to find a spawn point close to the entrance since you can't set where they spawn. Give them some appropriate dialog and you're good to go.

You can check out my arc "Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal" for an example of this technique, with the over-eager ally captive in the first instance, and then always just waiting for you near the door in further missions.

There are probably a couple of different dynamics in play:
<ul type="square">[*]Vanity bosses - The boss is one of the player's characters, and wants you to truly understand how awesome they are.[*]Player-killer GMs - Everyone who's ever played a pen-and-paper RPG has run into one of these. They still suck in a virtual environment.[*]Poor/incomplete testing - The author may not realize that their boss is especially lethal if they've only fought against it with one or two ATs or powersets.[*]Personal investment - The author cares about their bosses and doesn't want you to kill them. See also Vanity, Player-Killer, e-peen.[*]E-peen measuring - The author can kill your character, so they must be way more awesome-er than you are, lol, lrn2play nub.[/list]A Boss of Death in a thoughtful, creative arc gets a pass from me as long as it fits in the story. A Boss of Death in a content-free arc gets a poor rating and a punch-out.

I tried to use "Thing" as an object name, and it was locked out for similar reasons. I can't understand it:

"This orange, rocky thing gained its incredible strength and invulnerability through exposure to cosmic radiation during a space flight with its good friend Reed Richards, Reed's girlfriend Sue Storm, and Sue's cocky and annoying brother Johnny."

What?

This is a good idea. While the backlog of existing powers aren't wired this way, there's no reason not to apply it to new powers as they are created. And if the code mechanism is portable enough, maybe the devs could eventually clear the backlog.

I'm guessing you love it when people use Group Fly on you and that you leave your teammate Teleport prompt disabled.

I'm also guessing most players hate it when you take away control of their characters.

&lt;QR&gt;

The addition of more play data might be helpful to some, but analyzing rating vs. the attempts to completion ratio as a way to divinate arc quality would probably be more arcane and subjective than most of the playerbase has any use for. We can't even reach consensus on what the 1-to-5 star ratings mean; this would just produce another metric of dubious use, ignored by many, obsessed over by some.

We need some kind of anti-griefing fix, but IMO having to complete an arc in order to rate it isn't the one. I walked into a random AE mission the other day in which every enemy was an EB running Ninjitsu; I was power-ganked by three of them in the foyer. There was no disclaimer on the mish ("This is asinine") or any other indication that it was just a player-killer. I one-starred it and left. Although I hadn't finished the arc, in just a few seconds I felt had a handle on what the author was about, and rated the mission accordingly. As-is, my rating might help warn off other players who don't want their play time wasted by content-free garbage like this. As a tiny blip in the number of people who left without finishing? Not likely.

Nice! Thanks much.

A lot of people gravitate towards the most powerful/challenging/sexy enemies, and MA naturally serves as a wellspring of L50 content, so overall arcs are going to be top-heavy, at least at first. I think it's important to tell worthwhile stories at all levels and not focus solely on the save-the-universe level stuff.

I'd like a slash command that tells me the name of the map that I'm currently on. That way, if I'm playing a map I'd like to use in one of my own missions, I can find it immediately instead of paging through countless menus in the MA interface, choosing one, testing it, finding it's the wrong map, going back to the countless menus, etc.

Personally I like the new buildings...they lend to the feeling that the city is constantly growing and changing.

As for lowbie arcs, Bill, let me shamelessly plug my arc 55669, "Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal", designed for levels 1-5. Doesn't get much lower than that. I have a few more specifically low-level arcs in the works, hero and villain, which I'll rotate out until I can free up the MA slots.

While I was working on a demo recently, I tried changing the model used on a (stationary) ragdolled NPC, but I ended up with garbage.

Has anyone figured out the ragdoll parameters and how they work?

First off, this is a great update to a great guide (long time listener, first time caller ).

And now, a question: with PFF up, my teammates get no benefit from my Dispersion Bubble and Leadership toggles, but do I? I would assume so, but I thought I'd consult with the guru.

I never said I didn't want more content red-side. I'm just not dimwitted enough to believe that the lack of it indicates some kind of secret agenda on the part of the devs. I know it's hard for emo types to understand, but sometimes it really isn't about you.

[ QUOTE ]
The only idiot here has a smiley face for an avatar.

[/ QUOTE ]

What an elegant, thoughtful rejoinder! As for the smiley face, I judge you for not recognizing it.

[ QUOTE ]
It's easy for him to make his comments because where he's standing the water is fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

News flash: I PLAY VILLAINS TOO. There is no "us vs. them", just "smart vs. stupid", and you've clearly demonstrated which side of that conflict you're on.