American_Angel

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30 Days seems like it's far too much. Keep in mind we're bringing in a lot of lowbies that play for a day, then never play again.

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Like I said. Stop focusing on bringing in as many people you can, and focus on making things fun for the people who are there, so they stay.

You're the victim of your own procedures right now. You have to recruit and kick so many people because there seems to be very little reason for them to stay.

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I took your advice for a day...decided NOT to recruit in Atlas and on Saturday, completed 3 4 hour task forces, mostly with SGers.

Each one though had 2-3 non-SGers too, and nearly all of them wanted to join up.

Of course, we're full, so I had to remove people that were inactive 14 days or had no Prestige after being in hte sg for 7 days or more.

Unsigned.

Being unkillable would make it difficult to guage the toughness of a mission while testing. I realize it would be toggled....but you would have a slew of creators making impossible missions as a result.

(like we do now but more so)

Well don't I feel stupid.

For what it's worth, the Rikti just hit Atlas.

"Invalid Target" on half the Rikti I target

Post deleted by American_Angel

I didn't even know you could chain routers together. Live and learn.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but it looks like this game is heading toward another lawsuit.

Marvel Comics has the name Tyrant registered as a trasemark and copyright (which amzes me since CoH claims to hold the TM; which is impossible since Marvel has had Tyrant for years).

Before they even consider the release of this game update, they better strongly consider changing some things...because Marvel doesn't even care if they win a lawsuit...they'll sue just to do damage...and in this case they could possibly win.
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Tyrant

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Relax your time active requirement first off. I could get sick and miss a week and a half without blinking. Not to mention if I simply decide to make a round of my alts and burn patrol xp. Take a look at the number of people you have, the number of people you recruit, and the number of people you've booted for inactivity. If those numbers aren't pretty much in order from highest to lowest, you're suffering from Churn, which is not a good way to maintain.

Don't expect too many people to make your SG their main one, and allow for work/school/life. 30 days would be more realistic.

Apart from that, set up a Teaming Day. Also consider a team of specialty characters, or a Level Pacted Team (8+ players, 8+ offline alts). Use the powers of an organized team to speed up/smooth out leveling, and give people a definite advantage in that they're getting 2 characters at once.

In other words, give something people to do, instead of making rules that basically just say "stay and play or get booted"

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30 Days seems like it's far too much. Keep in mind we're bringing in a lot of lowbies that play for a day, then never play again.

What is a "Teaming Day?"

I have a supergroup on the Freedom Server, and I want it to become more active.

I know there are groups that have 20-40 people on at any given time. Can some of you give me pointers on how to achieve this?

Right now, we have a 10 day active requirement and I'm always recruiting, there are times when we have 10-20 people on, but these times are uncommon.

How can I make it better?

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Not only do I click on all custom mobs to see if the author took the time, trouble and attention to detail to make the best possible arc ... I also have created a Tab for NPC dialogue that I use for MA missions so that I don't miss a beat the author wanted me to see.

This added tab makes the BEST arcs (imho) EVEN MORE enjoyable because I get to enjoy each nuance of the story ... helps add to the fun of just basic GOOD arcs, where the dialogue etc helps with the ambiance but doesn't actually advance the story ... and clues me into POOR arcs (again, imho) that don't use anything but the contact information to set the tone, background and thrust of their story.

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I have also created a tab for NPC text. I like to see if arcs have "personality."

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Except, maybe, people who aren't using the MA for "fat lutz".

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QFT.

1500 tickets possible per mission is still a lot, and as a time investment if you're 'not-farming' you can still rake in a lot of recipes and salvage (which you get to choose) purchases, more than you would be able to get through normal missions. The only thing you won't be getting are purple recipes.

If it's a challenge map, make the map any size but large, IE: not a farm.

As far as I can tell, the only ones screaming are the farmers. Anyone who is whining about this change and says "I'm not a farmer" is lying as far as I'm concerned.

Edit/PS: I'm not anti-farming, but the Devs have made their stance on this clear. Take the farming back to Taskforces, PI and Grandville.

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FYI...it's not 1500 per mission, it's 1500 per arc.

And THAT IS low.

It doesn't actually matter to me. MA was never supposed to replace all the other content, which is mostly what it's been doing.

MA is meant to be a stroy-telling tool in the true vision of it.

And frankly, after unlocking all the content, the tickets mean nothing to me. The recipes are random and not worth the number of tickets they cost anyway. It's easier to get mission merits or get random drops on TFs.

Another FYI...supposedly people have been "farming tickets" in order to get recipes...and this is wrong why? Some claim it messes with the economy...wrong. I certainly haven't felt it.

I hadn't worked Wentworths in a while, but am pretty skilled at it. This past week I took 2 days to work it to see how MA was effecting it. In those 2 days, I made close to 800 million influence.

The market is still there, and still going strong.

And just to drive the point home...I'm not one of these MA farmers...in fact, I've only cashed in tickets for a recipe once, and it ended up being junk, so I figure to save them in case unlockable content is added again.

Yeah I got an email saying they are teting a fix for it.

Count me on in this one...sent in a petition too.

Legendary Superheroes of Paragon
Freedom Server

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Where do I begin? Well at the beginning. I love it. Architect is incredible for what it is. And yes, I have some awesome ideas for it. I'm still geeking out about it! (to quote Syndrome) And some of the arcs are downright impressive! I like that you can comment to the writer, which I actually do regularly on every arc I play. Even if it's terrible, Especially if it's terrible.

Now, Good stuff aside. Things I'd like to see:
1. Improved sorting. Frankly, being able to filter out features you don't want from the mission list would be nice. (I've done so many elite fights that I get sick of them, and frankly would rather fight a boss)
2. Something to think about: Using Base Builder to allow a player to build an utterly custom map. (and while we're at it, beefing up base builder so that there's more your poor, neglected, lonely base builders can do with it. :P) Rather, once they get the bugs out of Base Builder. Heck even a version that lets you drop 'pregenned rooms' in place would be awesome. (ie the generic office stuff to build your own functioning maps) In short, do for maps what you've done for NPCs.
3. I'd like to have specific placement as an option. Sometimes you know RIGHT where you'd like something, or have reasons why you want it in a specific place.
4. Anyways, here's hoping bases get fixed soon, as I know most base builders are loving architect, but dream of more base options.

In conclusion, Awesome Job! and can't wait to see what's next!

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love these ideas...especially specific placement and custom maps.

Custome spawn points for ambushes would be the bomb...since half of them spawn on hte wrong floor now.

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My one beef I have is that there is too much farming going on with just 1 mission arcs. If the MA could be changed to have at least 2 missions on the arc before you can publish it that would cut down on it alot. It seems to me that too many people are farming and not running regular arcs. I actually had to pay 3 lowbies today just to run my arc and even after that they still did not give any stars but told me that the arc was great. I even paid them about 4 mil each for running my arc.

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The only problem with forcing multiple missions is that the farmers just duplicate their farm missions 5 times over. IT would accomplish nothing.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of quality single missions out there too.

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The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

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... some, yes. All... not so much. Why would, for instance, a basic street gang (Skulls) be level 54?

Besides, right now it allows us to know something's going to be a lowbie arc.

[/ QUOTE ]Plus, simply making a custom group is the easiest way to make the arc 1-54.

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And eat up space.

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The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

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... some, yes. All... not so much. Why would, for instance, a basic street gang (Skulls) be level 54?

Besides, right now it allows us to know something's going to be a lowbie arc.

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If they are all set 1-54, then the mission will spawn according to the highest player on the team, right?

SIGNED!!!!

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I don't know what you do, but 10pm isn't prime time in my or most of my friends' worlds...we're getting ready to kick off for the night, work or school or other obligations going in the morning and all. Prime time is 5pm-9 or 10pm, not much later than that.

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You live in a limited world then. The real Prime Time is 8 pm to 11 pm. That's why they call it Prime Time TV, friend.

So 10 pm IS prime time everywhere in the world.

That said, if you are a student, I can see why you and your friends are winding down around that time.

The rude responses to the OP earlier in this thread need to check themselves.

Saying "I don't mean to be rude but..." does not make it alright to actually BE RUDE!

The OP brings up a valid issue...one that should be addressed by the game.

There is no reason the maintenance times cannot be handled by their respective time zones and coastal regions.

East Coast servers can go down at different times than West Coast servers.

European servers SHOULD go down at different times than the US servers certainly.

To say the devs don't care about the Autrailian players is crap...and so close to racism you could spit on it.

If they did not care, they would not have added european servers at all, chump.

I frankly think maintenance should happen from 4am to 6am in their time zone. That would seem to make hte most sense.

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Please use this thread to discuss the Issue 14 Follow-Up letter from Positron

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...and 794 arcs that have the 5th Column in them...

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To Positron -
Issue 14 is indeed revolutionary, but I would like to address this comment in your letter, and point out the reason for it.

The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

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Thanks for the kind words. I know it's a short arc, but it's really my first experiment with the MA system. To be honest I really like creating custom enemies. I have a couple others "Defeat the Sinister Syndicate" and "Defeat the Justice Patrol" that are just me indulging in character creation.
Incidentally, the movies mentioned in the character info are all fakes, since I wanted to avoid actually calling any published work by name. I've been trying to create a mummy character, but I'm having trouble getting a good costume together. I'd consider doing The Creature as well. What powers would I give them? Thanks for your review, and check out the arc in a week or two, I'll probably expand it.

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You got me toying around...closest I could get to the Mummy was bio...with white and gray...and some flys tossed in. It's a little shiny...but is the best I could come up with.

As far as his powers, I would give dark melee and dark armor under scrapper. The visuals might tone down the shine...maybe.

On the creature...hmmn. I;d bet the costume would be fairly easy, except for webbed feet and fingers...but powers?

Maybe Superstrength and...Super Reflexes? But set his strength to a lower setting than Frankenstein.

Incidently...you could also add the Bride of Frankenstein...

Horror movie themes are king of tempting...Jason vs Freddy for example. Aliens. Barney.

All of those can be pretty scary.

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There is a link in my signature page to a quick-and-dirty web page on my arcs. Feel free to take revenge and review them (one person already has in this thread). My global is @Venture (@DFH on Test).

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Actually not thinking revenge...you haven't even reviewed my stuff. I was just noticing that you are well versed in the CoX history, and game developement, and I am interested in seeing how you apply it.

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(QR) If anyone would like to try my arc "The Monster Mash" 42928, I'd love to hear some feedback.

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Okay, I just played this arc.

The character designs were great...actually inspiring. I do have ideas for improvement, but edit the published one and click republish so you don't lose the votes you have:

1) More details. They say the devil is in the details.
In this case, I think you went really light on them. It is the kind of mission that makes you want more details too...it's got that much potential. I'll explain below:

Character Desciptions: You mention the movies they appeared in...and that's it. While amazed that anyone would know this info, I would have liked to see more info...like maybe the actor that played the role, how the movie did at the time...and maybe even a brief desciption of the characters personality...heck, maybe you could make the description a mock Movie Review of the movie they appeared in...that would be really cool.

Dialog: I watched the NPC dialog...it seemed out of character to me...maybe you could have them speak like the characters in the movies? That might be hard with the Wolfman...or maybe not. Growls would be fitting for him.

The Ally: Too tough. He was taking out enemies almost faster than I could get screenshots (and I like the looks so much I DID get screenshots).

The Mission Complete Window: It came up blank. Was weird seeing a black, empty window pop up upon exit.

The only other thing I found disappointing was the length. One mission was too short...mainly because the concept is so good, I wanted to see how it could have been taken to the next step.

My suggestion is you find a way to make it into 5 missions...longer ones, add in a couple more monsters (the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon?)

And PM me the new id # so I can play it, because I'd REALLY like to do so.

I gave it 5 stars...even though it needs work, I felt it was a great concept...and I want to encourage you in making it bigger and better.

As a side note, you have no idea how tempted I am to make an Abott and Castello Meets Dracula arc now, lol.

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(QR) If anyone would like to try my arc "The Monster Mash" 42928, I'd love to hear some feedback.

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Gonna play it right now