Zubenelgenubi

[ QUOTE ]
That aside, I loved your Moonbase arc! Great work!!

[/ QUOTE ]

So did I... But my Million Dollars has FADED AWAY!! The souvenir is GONE!!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ye Gads! Why do I keep reading these whiney "my sooper arc can't get an award cause of all u meanies!" threads.... I see em, I know what they are, and I just read em anyway! Stupid stupid.

[/ QUOTE ]

To repeat for the third freaking time -- I am not whining.

[/ QUOTE ]

Word.

Twoflower has an arc in Dev's Choice (and it's a truly great arc). If anything, he among all of us has the best chance at HoF status eventually. But there are some people on the boards who view every mention of a problem as "whining." Ah well. Nature of the intrawebs, I guess.

But my understanding of HoF is this: You get it after a certain number of ratings that are 4 or 5 stars. It's not an average. I remember reading this somewhare, but my search-fu is weak and pathetic. It would be nice (hint hint) for a dev to clarify this for us.

Arc Name: The Running of the Bulls
Arc ID: 29973
Faction: Custom
Creator Global/Forum Name: Zubenelgenubi
Difficulty Level:46-52
Synopsis: Murder, Mayhem, and Mad Cows! Dr. Julius Auckermann has really stepped in it this time! Not for the feint of heart or the lactose intolerant (NOTE: In spite of what you may think, this is not a farm mission.) (Solo-friendly but challenging. Bring insps to the boss fights. No AV’s)
Estimated Time to Play: 1 hour
Link to More Details or Feedback: Moo.


This is a comedy arc, essentially. It has a coherent story, but mostly it's a vehicle for as many Gawd-awful cow puns as I could possibly cram into it. (Which turns out to be quite a few, as a matter of fact.) Nonetheless, I worked quite hard on the critter design and story details.

It's soloable by a squishy, if you're careful. Bring insps for the bosses and make good use of your allies. DO NOT FRET when you see... the "thing"... at the end of the 3rd mission. It's not as bad as it looks at first glance.

[ QUOTE ]
Im just saying anytime its happened in past mmo's it ended badly, with players lining up on both sides of the issue and firing shots.

Why do you think they took away stars for forum posters.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh. You're totally right about the stars.

I think 90% of the problem you're touching on is because we don't have the option to turn off certain powers from our custom critters. I may want a specific difficulty level, but that just means the villains chain-blind you forever and ever, for example. I'd like the fire/fire tank in my arc to be as tough as possible, but dear doG don't let him rez! As it is now, that's not possible.

I'll give poor ratings for crummy story telling. But for selecting powers that I don't like, most I'll do is quit and not rate the arc. Malta has some awefully annoying powers, but their arcs are the best in the game. Because of the story.

[ QUOTE ]
Players should NOT, should NEVER have the ability to affect the gameplay experiance of other players like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well then, good luck on developing your own MMO.

[ QUOTE ]
And whatever my rating criteria are. it doesnt matter, its my rating criteria. As long as I dont 1 star or 5 star everyone which the devs have said is a no no, anyhting I want to do is my choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. You're correct there.

Just like it's my choice to have a low opinion of people who think that story designers should be able to read their minds. Or who have knee-jerk reactions to particular power use without consideration of story, concept, or intent.

Now having said that, I am going to offer an apology to you today. My initial post in this thread responding to you was rather rude. I stand by the point I was making, but the way in which I made it was uncool.

[ QUOTE ]
Some AVs don't become EBs even when solo. I learnt that the hard way.

An example will be Viridian and Shadow Spider from Arachnos. They appear as AVs even if you are on Heroic and solo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good to know. Thanks.

As for ThePatriot, I must beg to differ here. With a few well-used inspirations, especially BF's and purples, any Elite Boss will go down. You may empty your tray out, but the inspiration vendor is right there in the building, yes? And one would hope that your base has inspiration storage bins for all the tier III goodness you might need.

I had this question last night. And obviously any question that Zube may have cannot, by definition, be "stupid."

Open the MA ststem interface.
In the upper left corner it says "Browse and Play."
Right below this it says "Search Options." Click this.
A space appears in which you can type keywords or arc numbers. Put the number here and click "search."

[ QUOTE ]
I think perhaps I will give a middle rating to these, with the comment that they should indicate in the description that there is an EB/AV and that if they fix that aspect I will go back in and re-rate it higher.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you play on Heroic then the AV will spawn as a boss.

Also, Consider this: I just published my arc last night, ran it with a team of friends, and they all said the Elite Bosses were too easy for a team and should be made into AV's. Now the only way for the mission to have an AV at the end is to create it as such in the critter creator.

But a solo player gets around having to fight an AV by setting his difficulty lower. Problem solved.

So, no disrespect here, but I don't see this as a problem for the mission creator, but the player. MA missions are different from what the devs have given us before. The normal difficulty settings that you got used to using may need re-thinking. This isn't the mission designer's fault.


MA mission designers really have their hands tied in a number of ways. I know with my arc I had to do the best I could with a system that is, shall we say, "particular." I wanted to place encounters in specific spots. I wanted to make spawn sizes larger. I would like to specify that an AV be made into a boss for a team of 1 or 2 players. None of these things I can do. Giving a "meh" rating to a story because you like to play with your difficulty higher than it really should be for MA arcs is rather unfair, IMHO.

[ QUOTE ]
You do realize that everyone has their own personal tastes, bad tastes and whims.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do realize this.

Just as I realize that there are people in this world who will capriciously punish those who have different tastes and whims. As you stated that you do.

Which was my point.

[ QUOTE ]
I know I have a list of powers that gets an automatic 1 star from me.

Any summoned pets, glue arrow, caltrops, confuse, basicly powers that really slow you the heck down really tick me off.

So no matter how good a story is any of those powers show up and its a 1.

[/ QUOTE ]

This.

This right here is the fundamental problem with the rating system. Some dumb-[censored] with a particular fetish for hating specific things who thinks everyone else needs to cater to his whims. Oh, and read his tiny little mind too, of course.

All,

Few questions as I try to fine-tune my Magnum Opus, “The Running of the Bulls.”

There is a custom group, Battle Cattle. The group contains 4 minions, 1 Lieutenant, 1 Boss, and 4 Elite Bosses. I also use a Devouring Earth Elite Boss and rename it (the one I use is Devoured Pyriss, only one in the level range).


We ran the mission with 6-7 of us on the team. In the first mission, the Boss I’d created was turned into a Leut and was walking around with the wandering patrols. He appeared in each mission thereafter as well, mixed in with the spawns.

So why did this happen? Was it because the gave engine really wanted a second Leut to add to the spawns, and couldn’t find one, so it used the next best thing available? If I promote one of the minions to a Leut, will this not happen again?



On the last mission, there were 4 Bosses spawned (ones that I’d made myself). This surprised me, as I’d created them as Elite Bosses. When I tested the mission solo, they were Elite Bosses. But with a team of 7, they were just Bosses.

Furthermore, the Elite Boss I used in the mission (and re-named) also spawned as a boss. Just a boss.

Any ideas?


Also,

I want to edit the costume of a particular character in my custom group. Do I need to edit the custom group then re-publish the arc?

[ QUOTE ]
A single mission MA mission that i created was banned. With ZERO explanation of why.

I really would like to know why this was banned. I have read the EULA and as the end user do not see how anything that was in the mission that i created and submitted to be published would violate the agreement.

There were no emails (in game), not private messages, simply a message at the mission architect control board stating that my mission had been banned by a GM. No explanation was given for why it was banned. This is all that I want. Why? Did i cross some mission architect lines? What parameters were breached that resulted in the conclusion that my mission shall be banned?

I enjoy the fact that I can create my own story arcs that other player characters can utilize. I am truely puzzled at this time.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about you provide us with some details? You're complaining about "zero explanation" here, and yet you're not explaining what your arc was.

I'll bet a halfway complete description will reveal the problem.

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like the publish point is somewhere in the 99.2% range.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now you see, this demonstrates what I just said about getting more datapoints. For me, the limit is around 98.6%.

[ QUOTE ]
I think we've determined that the problem is size, yes? I'm not sure what this would prove.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we're in the process of determining that. One or two data points is generally not considered sufficient "proof." A few more would help.

[ QUOTE ]
This was an arc that was publishable on Test, it is on Test still. This file I tried to take over to live is the backup I saved on Wednesday morning and yet it got saved in a way that made it unpublishable on Live.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is its size above 98%? If so, try slashing it like I had to. See if that does it.

This isn't to say that such a thing is acceptable, of course. But it will tell us more about what the problem is.

[ QUOTE ]
I have to kill MORE of my arc?????

[censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored].

[/ QUOTE ]

I have it below 98.5%, and NOW I can test and publish.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My arc grew also.

I never published it on test. But I tested it on the test server. It's fine there. On live, nope.

[/ QUOTE ]

UPDATE:

After slashing and burning to get the arc below the limit, I STILL cannot publish it. Or test it. There are no errors showing. It's under the size limit. Can't play it at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I got the file just below 100%, I could test from within the MA interface but not publish; by deleting more stuff (as a test only, as the story doesn't make sense without those details) to get it down around 99%, it became publishable. So I think it's a matter of the limits not being set consistently between the edit-validator and the publish-validator.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to kill MORE of my arc?????

[censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], [censored].

[ QUOTE ]
My arc grew also.

I never published it on test. But I tested it on the test server. It's fine there. On live, nope.

[/ QUOTE ]

UPDATE:

After slashing and burning to get the arc below the limit, I STILL cannot publish it. Or test it. There are no errors showing. It's under the size limit. Can't play it at all.

[ QUOTE ]
I have this problem as well HOWEVER, I can publish my arc. Maybe you guys can too.

Instead of trying to Save and Publish from within the MA edit interface I saved my file locally even though it was a hair to large. The I went to my local stories and noticed publish was lit up like I could use it and it worked!

On test Arc is 15171
On Live Arc is 6768

[/ QUOTE ]

I just checked this out. Nope. Won't work for me. My arc grew also.

I never published it on test. But I tested it on the test server. It's fine there. On live, nope.

All,

Couple of days ago I finished my opus. It was reallly tight. I had to cut a lot of stuff I wanted in and trim all the dialog as much as possible. But it was OK. Came in at 98.6% I saved it on a flash drive.

Brought the files home and transferred them to my hard drive.

Now MA shows it at 102.5%

Why did this file grow? Is it a bug like the one in beta where &amp was added to a lot of the text? How can I get this back down without cutting more story? It's really tough as it was to cut what I did.

Suggestions? Hints?

All,

I'm getting zero architect tickets when I run the Dev's Choice arcs. Is this a bug or working as intended? I don't remember this from test.

I think this is an awesome idea.

Yes, some servers might not hold regular TT's, but all servers hold some sort of event. It may help inspire other long-running player sponsored events on other servers. And if the devs wanted to honor Liberty Server's (hypothetical) "Monthly Monster Mash" with a plaque somewhere that also appears on the Champion landscape, that would be very cool too.

The only small tweak I'd suggest to the idea is a statue of Dinah standing there as well.

/signed

All,

Let's start a thread to help each other find maps. You know, that one perfect map that you simply must have in order to make your story jussst riiight. We can all post our requests and responses and in time this thread may become a useful resource.

I'll start.

I'm looking for two maps:

(1) The tech lab that looks old and unused for a long time. Not one of the Faultline story ruined maps, but larger, multi-floor tech lab maps. (I've seen this one used in a villanous arc where you teleport to a moonbase and fight cryogenically frozen 5th column soldiers.)

(2) The outdoor Salamanca town map that is used in the Ourobrous arc where Manticore is your ally. (I know where to find the smaller Salamanca map with the henge that is used in the mission where the redcaps are swarming you. That one is a bit too small.)

[ QUOTE ]
Crap is banned on the radio, according to the fcc. Same with any word that emulates it. Kinda super weak, but there you go. Blame the fcc.

The irony is that the term comparing usually a female person with a female dog is perfectly ok for radio.

[/ QUOTE ]

When "crap" is outlawed, only outlaws will say "crap."

[ QUOTE ]
Section Seven: Stuff You Can't Do

At the moment, you cannot:

* Set descriptive text for your contact, beyond mission dialog
* Set dialog that the regular spawns speak (you can do this for patrols)
* Change the powers of existing critters
* Use the powers of existing critters in custom critters
* Customize the appearance of powers (except to the degree currently possible on live, which basically means custom weapons only)
* Make cutscenes
* Populate a mission with (panicked) civilians
* Lead an ally to anywhere but the door
* Trigger a collection to appear after another objective is completed
* Customize maps, alter spawn points, or make your own mission maps
* Specify a single entity spawn as an ambush, such as a single named boss

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably the most useful part of the FAQ. Ty, Ty.