Zamuel
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Posts
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Joined
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Curious about something: For the people with bad experiences with zone PvP, which zone are you in (or which zone were you in at the point this experience happened)?
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Quote:I think the problem is that there has been a number of requests for visual items that already exist in the game that players would like despite not being made from scratch. I think a separate topic could be made concerning that but I thank Fire Away for getting the info and I thank Sunstorm for stopping by the thread.Originally Posted by Fire_Away
Base Decorative Items - Praetoria (new Going Rouge Zone) is totally new. Every tree, every streetlight, every newspaper box is new art. The CoH art department has a lot on their plate right now and Sunstorm was certain a request for base decorative items for art near term would not compete against near term GR art needs (I saw a small glimpse of Praetoria and I see what he means).
Base Functional Items - The devs seemed very receptive to new functional items for bases (such as market, AE, etc. interface) with one exception (recipe storage in bases... Positron feels STRONGLY hoarding recipes will send market prices skyrocketing... no matter that there are already workarounds using alts, player transfers, etc.... in base recipe storage isn't going to happen). The rub with immediate new functional items, again, seems to be artwork. The devs want this stuff to look new and cool when it does go in. And, of course, the art department, once again, has their hands full with GR. (personal observation: the devs didn't seem enthused about the idea of using development "workarounds"... for art or anything else. They had a "If we put it in the game, we want it to look cool and work right" philosophy throughout the Con... not just bases). -
Due to the current state of PvP, I don't think there needs to be a full PvP zone in Praetoria. It would unfortunately take away from the current zones and there's canon reasons for not having open conflict in Emperor Cole's "utopia". However, there does need to be at least one Arena in Praetoria and some sort of attention needs to be given to PvP mechanics in themselves.
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Quote:Congratulations on the hire. Also, cool costume for the con.Originally Posted by Pirate Cashoo
In other awesome news, I'm getting hired to be a colorist for a comic! Finally living a part of one of my dreams!
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Quote:Depends on the writer...Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
P.S. Aquaman is lame!
However, I more than understand your stance. At the same time, is there any possibility of maps with windows/portholes that make the rooms look like they are underwater without having to put up with the shenanigans of coding attacks for a submerged area? -
While flawed, I'm wondering if the idea would have more merit if the recipe costs were higher and there was a bigger benefit to winning as opposed to losing or just sitting around. Make being defeated or the thirty minute timer a chance to gain merits, not guaranteed. It can be 50/50 but that alone should help reward actual kills and encourage activity. Remove purples from the roll selection and fuse PvP recipes and standard TF recipes into the same pool (rather than having multiple pools) and raise the price to 500 PvP merits. This gives less guarantee to the rolls instantly being the best thing ever since you could possibly get a "poor" roll. Finally, make the merits drain like rep--not engaging in PvP means that you lose merits over time.
As a whole, this can still be farmed but it isn't as easy and the numbers don't seem too high for those who are actively engaged in pvp. One that might help though is if the devs made some pvp recipes that were in yellow/orange strength that dropped easily as opposed to having all pvp recipes being purple strength. -
About those timed missions... http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=196741
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Quote:Originally Posted by Niviene
Mission Architect
- Fixed a bug that could cause freeing captives in timed architect missions to cause the mission to immediately fail.
Yes! -
Quote:He presents good information. Take what you feel you need (you may not need all of his suggestions). Concerning EBs, you SHOULD give an in-character warning. However, your arc was published before the system automatically presented that warning in search. Surprised more people haven't decided to check out your arc. Have a bad feeling they saw KoA and Malta and chickened out.Originally Posted by PennyPA
Disclaimer: Not "tooting my horn" as the saying goes. Just FYI.
Anyhow, Dr. Aeon did a review of my arc here. Very helpful for me.
I wanted to share for anyone else working on arcs and helping improve.
Thanks.
Map choices were good for a smooth progression. With a +perception buff, tons of /ninjitsu enemies was not that bad. However, I agree that giving a few a different secondary (Devices or a generic melee defense set) will help mix things up a bit. I found the fact that your final could fly sort of annoying since I lacked -fly and thus she was able to withstand knockdowns if not grounded. Your choice on whether or not to keep it.
Typos/grammar
Mission 1
Burning Bright is an up and coming Vanguard recruit that has shown dazzling displays of battle prowness against the Rikti. For her first assignment, she has been appointed Commander of a small station in the Rikti War Zone.
should be
Burning Bright is an up and coming Vanguard recruit that has shown dazzling displays of battle prowess against the Rikti. For her first assignment, she has been appointed Commander of a small station in the Rikti War Zone. <- typo
Mission outro popup
"You have escaped with the prisoner." is rather dry and self explanatory. Most of the other outro popups are like this. Embellishing these a bit will help, even if they technically wind up saying the same thing. Like... "Triumphantly you escape from the Vanguard base as you take your unwilling back to Arachnos" ...or something. Also, double check to make sure your clues aren't repeating each other.
Mission 2
Malta Network Computer - More detail for objective title like "Hack the Malta Network Computer"
outro
The Malta information was worthless in this affair. But those Talsorian weapons of the Knives you defeated revealed much. The Knives as we know do not use these type of blades. It appears we have a splinter group forming after the other cell was crushed, so called Chosen of Artemis. I will investigate this further and get back to you.
should probably be
The Malta information was worthless in this affair. But those Talsorian weapons of the Knives you defeated revealed much. The Knives as we know do not use these type of blades. It appears we have a splinter group forming after the other cell was crushed, a so called Chosen of Artemis. I will investigate this further and get back to you. <- possible typo, sounded weird
Mission 3
The Noggle: Our young Sisters were careless in going to the Malta. They should have come back here after seeing the bases was attacked. Let this be a lesson for you all.
should be
The Noggle: Our young Sisters were careless in going to the Malta. They should have come back here after seeing the base was attacked. Let this be a lesson for you all. <- typo
A communique from the Exile. - clue
Going through the Noggles possessions, you notice a communique from some named the Exile. It indicates map coordinates to staging area for the Chosen.
should be
Going through the Noggles possessions, you notice a communique from someone named the Exile. It indicates map coordinates to staging area for the Chosen.
Mission 4
Defeat Exile of Artemis - Exile of Artemis...redundant for mission title and objective to be so similar.
"The Knives will remain unbroken." Um, shouldn't that be "The Knives will remain broken"? Not sure, that's why I'm asking -
If you're hungry, there's always Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue #163967
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As I brought up after Escalation, every once in a while we should run arcs in Test mode so things can be debugged a bit as far as team size difficulties and other shenanigans.
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Quote:Thing is, how are newer players supposed to know all the little loopholes? The problem with constantly sticking things on the back burner is that if left unchecked, you run the risk of burning your house down.Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
While I agree that much of the old hero content sends you on needless jaunts over great distances, we have been given ways to get around that.
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If there were no alternative to those dreadful run-around missions that Sam is talking about, I would agree that something has to be done right away. But since we do have alternatives, I would rather have brand new content and simply keep this on the back burner of quality-of-life-things-that-should-be-changed-at-some-point-when-there-is-time.
I agree that a gradual change is probably much better than trying to revamp everything at once. Also, rather than getting rid of contacts, repurpose them. Let contact A who had the Vahzilok Plague keep the arc. Let contact B who had the arc get some "hunts with a twist" and a few radio style missions so people who want a different style of play can have that option. -
BTW, what all is planned for our base?
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I had hoped to make a fancy invitation letter for this but never got a chance. Still, I hope you enjoy...
Arc Name: An Arachnos Slumber Party
Arc ID: 335317
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global: @Zamuel
Synopsis: You're invited to the first ever Arachnos Slumber Party! Get ready for a fun filled night of snacks, entertaining activities, and conversations about destruction and mayhem. Don't be late. -
Quote:Hammer, meet nail. As much of a goody two shoes as I am in real life, I have difficulty playing blueside due to the way the content is done. As a newer player than most, I can't tell what's supposedly old content (actually I can due to style difference in mission structure but that took a bit). It's a shame since there is fun stuff there. It took a bit bit to find the Vahzilok Plague arc but I enjoyed it. The fact that they KEEP telling me about Hollows and Faultline can be annoying but I greatly enjoyed both zones.Originally Posted by Demobot
My biggest worry with Going Rogue is that it will merely highlight just how poor the original hero content is.
If a new player starts out in Praetoria and decides to be a hero, the 1-20 trip will be filled with missions designed with all the mission design experience the developers have garnered from Issue 1 to the present and likely include branching dialog, cutscenes and the like. Then once they've arrived in Paragon City they're given missions with none of that.
They're given contacts like Wilson Eziquerra, a contact who, up until five minutes ago, I never knew existed.
This is the other major problem with the original City of Heroes content: the contacts are, for the most part, mission dispensers with no character at all.
This needs to change.
First: replace the original contact models with models created with the costume creator. Most modern contacts use the player model and player-available costume parts, with some having unique parts. This may seem like an odd suggestion, but the old models are really ugly and could use a major facelift.
Second: get rid of duplicate contacts. There are a number of contacts that share the same arcs. Double the contacts does not mean double the content.
Third: make the contact MATTER. Your contact should have a personal involvement in the story, either by showing interest and concern through dialog or by showing up in the missions themselves. They don't have to be the star, but the contact should be meaningful to the story in some way. Most original contacts don't figure into the story at all and are utterly forgettable and completely interchangeable.
Fourth: cut the fat. Rewrite the longer arcs and remove the pointless fluff missions that don't advance the plot. We don't need to clear out 5 different warehouses when we'll get the point after clearing out just one. Scrap the boring arcs or rewrite them to be at least somewhat interesting. And cut out the non-arc missions. Most of them, anyway.
Doing these things not only removes a lot of the disparity between the old and new content but it also encourages longtime players to level characters through content rather than powerlevel past it. One of the attractions of powerleveling is being able to skip the boring crap.
Mix and matching portions of the above points (not all contacts need all parts) will go a long way towards helping blueside. I've been contemplating a suggestion about contacts and it's good to see I have a similar train of thought to some here. -
Quote:I wish it was the Skyraider base. While out of place, it would have been really cool. Alas, generic tech maps ahoy.Originally Posted by BackFire
Not sure if it's due to an unavailable map, but one mission says you're going into caves and instead you go into a skyraider base! And a HUGE one at that. Author really should look into that.
And I still have not seen WaterWorld yet... -
Quote:This. The outdoor nature makes properly done hunt missions fun and it allows you to use some things with your travel powers and the terrain. Also counters some of the "where is everyone?" aspect of an instanced game.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't mind the concept of a hunt mission. I could do hunts all day, if it weren't for the key, niggling problems with them. Really, the problem - singular. That is, finding the right things to kill. Area-sepcific hunts are the worst. You have to find the exact kind of enemy in the exact small area in the exact zone that is an exact, small band of levels where it's both not impossible to kill and not so grey that it's all work and no play. Finding things to kill sucks, and that's why missions are so good - you always have something to kill exactly how you want it. No running around and looking.
Hunts where enemies are easy to find are a lot of fun. Go around the street and smite things as you run across them. Hunts with enemies you can't find (Carnies in Peregrine Island) are the devil in software form.
WSPDR is officially allowed by Arachnos to be "free press" and Recluse has actually stated that Amanda Vines is not to be harmed since allowing one person to talk trash about the organization openly helps dampen some of the accusations of it being a dictatorship. -
I'd like to add any hunt missions with Council to this list. While I don't mind hunts, the 5th resurgence has made them harder to find and half the time they get killed before you get there.
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Quote:Thanks for the reveiw and I'm glad you enjoyed it.Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
Tonight's episode we revew Culex's Being Devoured, PW's Papers and Paychecks, Dazz Marvelous' Invasion of the Baby Snatchers, and Zamuel's Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue.
Don't forget to send in those reviews! We're only up to two in the queue, so it's a good chance to get yours picked. -
An Arachnos Slumber Party #335317 @Zamuel
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Quote:Likeohmygodyouresototallymean!Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Becky does need a hug. However, under no circumstances should you hug Becky.
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Is there any point in the game where we see the Paragon Protectors in a positive light? I ask because it seems like within the game, we discover that Crey is crooked far sooner than we are shown any positive deeds to make their wrongdoings actually come as some sort of shock. Perhaps I'm too new and am missing something?
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I actually like the Fir Bolg mission though I see where it could be VERY frustrating to most. I'd suggest making the number needed to escape a liding value so that larger teams have a bit more room for error.
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See in a lot of ways I'm the reverse. I see global threats as meh due to impervious heroes with the power of 10 suns blowing up an alien armada merely by shrugging their shoulders while street level stories have heroes that actually have to put something on the line to pull off a win. The stories seem more personal. Inadvertantly, some of these invincible heroes simply wind up seeming like pricks.
I agree with you on CoV in that the types of villainy are limited. However, I wonder how much of that is an oversight and how much of it is deliberate due to MMO design and the overarching story for the game. -
Quote:I think it's entirely based upon perception. As street level heroes ranging from Luke Cage to Batman have commented to their more super powered comrades, while the evil demigod needs to be punched in the mouth, just outright ignoring street level crime causes you to save a world where the normal people more or less have to live their lives suffering. Of course there's also the issue of storytelling since you can have an exciting story about (super powered) street level crime and a boring story about saving the world.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's the sort of response I envision street level crime eliciting in someone who just beat up the strongest villain in an entire alternate dimension and saved the strongest hero of ours: meh.