3dent

Red, 5-20 "The Outcast Outcasts" (id 2050) by @Xaphan

Haven't completed, due to my dislike of redside in general (which means arc is truly RED, and conveys that excellently.) Well-written text, interesting premise, 3rd mission is mechanically unusual (at first I thought bugged, but it seems to work OK. )

You do realize that this is practically Farmers Manifesto? I wholly agree with the map editor, mind you, and that talk scripts should be much more flexible, but the rest would pretty much break it. Not just because of farming but because people expect certain behaviors from the game, mobs, etc. Yes, that's the limit, but that's also why I think MA-like games would be better than, say, fanfics. You have builtin quality control in the game mechanics like what exactly glowie does.

Yawns.
Canon or no, MA is fun, both design-time and play-time. If your opinion differs, well, you're entitled to it. But please don't tell me how I should feel about MA.

This is THE thing I waited since the UO to appear, this is why there still are NWN servers, this is what I hoped The Movies would evolve into, this is how MMO were in the MUD days and how they should be. Slaying foozles and even PvP are interesting only so far, creativity is something that could be truly unlimited.

As it happens, both me and Aardwark work/have worked with similar systems. Double charges should never ever happen, no matter what, why, and even if the whole darn country rushes to the store. Every bank I know goes extra mile and then some to prevent it, even disallowing otherwise perfectly legit transactions that MIGHT be doubles. (like any transaction with the same payer, receiver and sum on the same business day. Although the exact rule is different in different places.)

Bugs happen, alright, but this one is a major screwup, I mean someone-might-get-themselves-fired-on-the-same-day major not just "a problem."

Goldbricked! republished with ID 83859.

Change log:
Mission 1: changed an objective from defendable to glowie to avoid dupli-spawn, changed the map to a larger one to help with spawn reliability, reduced number of decoy glowies.
Mission 2: Completely redone, although basic premise is the same.
Mission 3: reduced number of patrols
Mission 5: smaller map, it appears you can't reliably spawn something near the entrance in warehouses Correspondingly reduced the number of battles.

Lots of typo fixes. Thanks to everybody who helped wwith test and feedback!

Both. Tried the editor, it is of great help with the text, but mobs and maps are sometimes messed up.

Thanks for sharing.

Goldbricked! taken down until further notice due to a major bug. Thanks to @Thyristor for help with the test.

Well, maybe. On the other hand, duplicate spawns happen too often and I haven't seen any triples (although they're much much less likely anyway, maybe I just didn't play it enough times) in your arc, which suggests that's not the whole story...

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Aren't we all glad they limited the number of arcs an individual can publish now

I wonder how many people are complaining not because they cant find a decent arc to play, but because people aren't playing their arcs, blaming the sea of badly thought out arcs. Needle in a haystack and all that.

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Well, I personally had no illusions about THAT. In fact, for someone who isn't widely renown, has no time or inclination for aggressive promotion, isn't native English-speaker and wasn't in beta I'm doing just fine. But, I really-really want to play more high-quality arcs from other players, to learn how to improve my ones, if nothing else.

Since that's important thing to know/disscuss, but patently off-topic here, I created a new thread to discuss the issue: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showfl...e=0#Post1345065

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That's b/c of those dupli-cars? You reproduced them? I hoped it was just me

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Yup. Reproduced reliably. Multiple Defendable objects spawning on top of each other.

I din't have time to investigate if it was a problem with the map, defendable objects generally, or just defendable cars. That's tonights job.

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Now, when I think about it, there is something similar in my own arc (Goldbricked!) : in 90% of cases a captive is spawned right on top of the defendable object. Since that captive doesn't trigger an ambush this is less of a problem there... Although I reduced object's auto-ambush size now, to be extra-sure that it won't create the same overwhelming effect.

This needs further research though to say definitely one way or the other.

What I liked:
1) MA building itself. Exquisite design!
2) Functionality that is available. Not that I don't want more, but what is already there is amazing.
3) Ticket system.

What I didn't
1) Text widget. please, please, please, oh please fix that darn text widget. And please, make it understand "left-handed" shortcuts (Ctrl-insert, Shift-Delete, Shift-insert) Delete key, pretty please add undo/redo functionnality, Also widget should clearly indicate whether <br>, other tags and $ubstitutions are supported for this field. In other words, make it at least as good as Notepad.

2) UI in general. Scroll wheels that don't scroll, listboxes poping up when you did not click on them, when it does scroll it does so slowwly, etc. Didn't check if UI is skinnable if it is, other major complaint, - that text is white-on-black instead of the other way around is moot.

2) Search system. It's horrtible.

3) Ticket/badging system. IIRC, there was an interview where it was stated that new player should not see "10 badges in 5 minutes" type missions on the front page, or preferably anywhere. Yet it's almost exactly what we have now. I'm not anti-farming as such, but this cluttter of farming mishes plus horrid search make MA much less than it could be.

Ok, those are the major praises/complaints.

P.S. I'd like to have dependable way to get more slots as much as the next person, but I understand why it isn't here.

(getting multiple accounts is not really the same it complicates management and costs a tad too much if you don't use 2nd account for something else besides MA)

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Just a note, The Steel and Gold affair has been taken down because of a map bug. Thanks to 3dent for helping me find it. Shame I can't fix it .

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That's b/c of those dupli-cars? You reproduced them? I hoped it was just me



Anyway, here's an arc what I found:

"QUICK-START TUTORIAL - Knowledge is power: Architect Entertainment & You! (Arc 28470 by @Paula) Meant for any level, but "natural" ones are 5-14. 3 short missions.

Review: Very nicely done alternate MA tutorial arc. Explains MA badging, MA autoSKing/exemping and mission editing basics+some tricks. Helion boss in one of the mishes may be too tough for characters below 5.

Well, for a "natural lowbie" tester this is a great help and won't matter much for a high-level player anyway...

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I want it at my fingertips in the MA search function.

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Me too.But since I doubt we'll have it anytime soon, and since I'm not ready to abandon MA completely, well, external sites are the only way.

Although GG's method is an interesying idea too.

City of Guides list, forum threads, word of mouth... City Of Guides doesn't have star ratings, only comments, which, IMO is wrong. When there would be more comments, features like "most useful positive and negative reviews" from Amazon would be very helpful.

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I've taken to playing the 3+ star arcs - I find a lot of them better than those that I've played that are rated higher.

Go figure.

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Quite possible.
Arc in "my farming mish" league is easily 5-starrable, (all you need is to make it indeed farmable.)

"Artistic" arc is usually judged by completely different standards though. 4 stars is something as good as average canon arc, and 5 stars is a masterpiece.

"Marmite effect" may play a role too, - something with 10 5-stars and 10 1-stars is controversal for some reason, but you may well happen to be on the 5-star side of the controversy. Yet it would be just a 3-stars arc.

or, shorter thread: As many were afraid, star ratings are useless. We need full-fledged public review infrastructure. Look at Amazon. Look at any book on mildly controversal topic. What you would believe most? Overall star rating, or breakdown, or reviews?

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Ruined Atlas!
...
...
...
*Shifty Eyes*

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Ok, I'ts hard to get irony in a foreign language while being sick (just a common cold)... What do you mean?

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I just wish everyone would stop using the bloody ships.

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Guilty as charged, although just one of my arcs (and just one mission in there) has a ship in it, and only because I like warehouses even less. (I needed a place where lots of stuff could have been plausibly stored.)

Frankly speaking, with MA as it is now, with "text lag" bug, missing alternate keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-V works, Shift-Ins doesn't, backspace works, delete doesn't. WHY?) clicks popping up the wrong menus, text lag, scroll wheel not scrollling if mouse is over certain controls, general slowness, lack of spell check, text lag, lack of WYSIWYG (please, make at least the edit-time font configurable, thiis one burns my eyes,) newline delete bug, and did I mention text lag? I'd better be using Excel.

The idea to integrate MA into the game was fine, but the idea that it would work like cossie creator was... Misguided. You don't need to input loads and loads of perfectly-spelled text into cossie designer.

As a result of that misguided analogy we have this atrocious set of next-to unusable text widgets. "Hey, That's like cossie creator, it ought to be simple, not like MS Word! And those bugs? Who cares? No one would input lots of text anyway! Right?"

I'm usually on the devs side IRT these things, but those widgets are inexcusable.

As I understood, they're fair game as far as manual editing and creation are concerned?

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Alternate Costumes for Allies/Bosses/Escorts/Contacts

Originally posted by Damz... whichever Damz it was at the time - think it was Noobbuster!

When your selecting a SINGLE npc, there are sometimes multiple outfits that character has.

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Also it works with some destructible objects and glowies, e.g. cars and trucks.

By the way I've found one more in Council/5th sets: Corrected list: Small, - 3,7,10,15,18, Medium, - 2,5,8,12,18, Large,- 3,7,11,15,19

Longbow jails seem to be a special case. There are MAPS with jails, (#21-25 in all three size categories) but you aren't actually jailed if defeated on those maps. Don't know if this is a bug or WAI


And 5th jails are the same as for the Council and they do work.

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So these are the maps to avoid if you want a high rating?

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Mostly. Although jails do have their uses.Unlike that "cake cave", which is single most... thing in the game.