Bovine_Avenger

According to my search via the Mission Architect, there aren't any Hall of Fame recipients at all yet; I'd debate whether Footsteps would deserve it if it had been awarded (but that's not really productive on the boards) yet I'm wondering where these rumours of this or that arc keep coming from? I hear every day someone claim a new mission as HoF, often from rather trustable sources, and hoping to be able to work a few new badges, I do a search and... nothing. Do you all know something I don't?

Except copying and pasting can also carry hidden tags that the originating program uses into the MA text as well, thus breaking it completely. I've noticed this problem when using Open Office to write the arcs, so I've taken to just opening the .storyarc file in Notepad and editing it there directly...

Just a quick point, but yes you can edit a published arc... however you can also upload an arc with over 100% of content (Apocalypse Cow is 101.5% in size) if you save it and exit, and the Publish icon is still available. But once such an arc is up, the changes won't stick to the published file unless you edit it back down below 100% again... so rather than miss out a little content, I dropped a few ratings instead and did a clean publish overnight. I don't know where the upload cut off point is, but it's under 105% somewhere...

There's defiantly griefing going on; How do I know? I've just briefly logged in to collect tickets/put auctions up etc, and I checked on the most recent version of my arc, Apocalypse Cow to see how it was doing. I didn't have any tickets to collect, which means no on one has completed even 1 mission of it from 2am this morning (when I was shamefully last on) but there's a single 1 star rating for it now.

If there was feedback, as others have mentioned, it wouldn't really matter; something like "this isn't really my style of humour" can't be debated, but you'd at least know how popular in general your work was going to be. "Spelling mistakes aplenty" I could explain by pointing out the wiki on cow breeds; I don't believe there's anything but intentional puns, but I could be wrong, and could correct them if there were... but sad to see, it's probably just asshattery, or someone as also mentioned, removing competition for their own arcs

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Anyone having problems with transferred arcs gaining memory?

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Yup, mentioned it above and already submitted a tech thread. May bug report it too, as it's enormously frustrating

Is it possibly you have content you need to unlock in yours?

Also, check the Size Matters thread, I got that when I manually edited the text in the past...

So I worked and worked on an arc on test, which finally came in at 99.98% size, with most of the text and the plot immaculately set out; I've just transferred it to Live, and it's now 107.75% in size... and deleting a patrol and all it's text only removes .50% of the size. Words can't express how disappointed and downhearted I am now, because I'm going to have to butcher it to get it under the right size again... does anyone know what the cause for the bloat is? I'm hoping it's something simple that can be fixed in the background, because right now I don't have the heart to try and bring a shockingly watered down facsimile of my vision out at all...

Servers up... and the mission arc sizes built on Test have been recalculated, unfortunately recalculated upwards by quite a considerable margin

Ok, I can confirm what JD is saying;

Namely that one of the reasons mission arcs keep slightly expanding is because it's replacing a space with   which is stealing some of your file size.

You can replace this with a space again, (open Notepad, click Edit > Replace > Replace All, then save) and put "" around the text parts to keep the size (so far) down.

EXCEPT! Be aware that the text also uses a second set of tags, <&.....&.> around any text of your own that used "..." inside it. And inside these,   can turn back up again. DON'T change these to "..." in turn though, as this permanently breaks your mission too.

You can get around this by swapping double to single quotation marks around your speech; I gather double is the norm in the US, but in Europe it can be either...

Question for you JD; I've opened up the mission file with Notepad looking for hidden HTML codes, and I notice that in a lot of places there's the following instead of a plain space:

 

As this is considerably longer, removing it would most likely save more space, however running a universal replacement of " " with " " seems to break the arc entirely. Any thoughts?

However opening it up under Notepad does make it easier to spot double spacing problems etc, so I'm working through it in game now, with a back up file itself open

Yes, that's what had been catching me for a long time; I couldn't test a lot of the replacement groups I wanted to try due to the Level Range problem. In the end it was entering the full standard Wyvern group as a battle participant that let me through. I settled in the end on using the Security Guards to allow a 25-40 level range, and thus let lowbies run the mission whilst creating the correct D.E. variation.

*sighs*

After MUCH fiddling again, I've come to the conclusion that the level-forcing Mob HAS to be (or include) a different faction to the one you are using. Because no matter what single or grouped D.E. I use, it doesn't force down the normal D.E. faction; but if I use anything else, it does. Can anyone confirm I'm not imagining that though?

Edit: It also doesn't force down if you use an edited Crey group (I could have got away with scientists for roleplay reasons, as they appear in the next mission) so the only way I can manage it is the suggested battle route, and hope the odd spawn is walloped before you see him.

Thanks still to Justice for finding all the bugs and tricks so far, I'd have never got this far without his fine work!

You sir are a star... I award you your very own bug hunter!

Or at least I would, if image linked didn't seem to be disabled!

I was hoping to keep the spawn choice varied to increase replay value, but alas it's not to be; the rock type D.E. and the Devoured seem to be ok repeating your tests, despite also using re-hues so I'll just make a few patrols of Devoured to lock down the levels. Thanks!

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Do you have "random minion" in your custom DE group?


An easier way to set the level range might be to find a single mob with the correct range, from anywhere, and spawn them as a boss fight or ally.

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I've just tried adding and then removing again the Random creatures to the mix, but it still lists the spawn as Level 54 maximum. I also tried creating an entirely new mission, in case of hidden file corruption but that didn't make any difference either.

Admittedly I didn't try the spawn in game yet...but what does the (Random) creatures do exactly?

I'll also try making an even smaller sub set of devouring earth for patrols after I've done some food shopping and see if that helps, but so far I can't seem to do anything which caps off the upper levels... if I find a solution I'll post it here for others though.

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Example 1:
Let's say that you want to lockdown a mission to level 20-31 but can't find a mob/group that has that range.
Creating a Pick'n'Mix custom group that includes the following could be useful:
Arachnos - Nocturne - AV - lvl 20-27
Arachnos - Barracuda - AV - lvl 25-31

This Pick'n'Mix group will now have a level range of 20-31 (i.e. the union of 20-27 and 25-31).

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Ugh... I've spent ages trying to work out where my problem is, still to no avail;

The Devouring Earth, main group can go from Level 25 to 54

My custom group of DE, "Enraged Devouring Earth" is Level 25 to 46.

So although there's an overlap, the mission doesn't get scaled to 25-46, but instead 25-54.

I've deleted everything except the custom group, which in the group editing page doesn't show the bar going up to 54, and I can't see a mob that has L54 availability; but when added to a blank mission as a defeat all, with no other spawns, it's STILL showing as L54.

Here's the custom group file; can someone check it for me and check if it's a problem with the actual custom group please?


I solved the other problem, on not being able to start; it was a battle in Mission 2 (that I wasn't looking at) that broke the level range, which when deleted ceased to cause trouble. I'll return to that problem when I've got my first level working as I want it!

No you aren't being dim old chap... I've just tried to implement the above, and been able to force the missions level down to 25-46, where the main bulk of the Earth's units are and where I'd like the early missions to be (It'll run to two separate highlights where you can go to maximum level) but now I'm getting a "Level Range Invalid" warning. It doesn't appear as an error in the mission editor, so I'm wondering how to get around it. It may be because there's a Civilian to be rescued on the map, with a class of 1-51, not sure yet...

Also wanted to add my thanks to you for this post; I too have been having trouble with forcing spawn levels, as when I was testing my map with the Devouring Earth, who can go up to level 50 I was only getting one or two units and didn't understand why... but it doesn't scale all of them up to 50, only the ones already flagged as being able to be that level.
So now I'm going to create a second Custom group out of Devouring Earth, called "Enraged Devouring Earth", only of a few individuals who'll set the upper and lower ranges and force the main D.E. to appear. And I'll put them as the patrols, as it'll fit the story line I have in mind

I demand... The Hamidon! Just think of having friends over, and then trying to explain what it is; especially if you hide him in the fridge, behind the lettuce...

I'm not so sure on which specific maps I would like (partly because I don't know yet which maps will be missing, and there's a tonne of content already to search through for inspiration when it goes live) but it would be nice if we could edit slightly the blue walls on outdoor instances, so we could tweak them to particular tastes; Obviously you can only make them smaller, but forcing players to enter the next part of the map through a plot specific door or graveyard etc by making subsections would open up a fair few new ideas...

I was "Titler" in the chat (My WH: DoW name too)... and yes, it was alas anti-climactic. Apart from the trying to herd cats element (people raced immediately to Earth the moment they realized it was open, when it would obviously end there anyway), we lost one or two zones before enough people clicked we needed to hold them, but then held the remainder, so a probable majority of the planets' zones... We also, as far as I know, beat the Neph on every Earth Instance but Earth 2 (out of 5), as people largely gave up in the last few minutes and said their goodbyes at the end... and then just before midnight there was this announcement:

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5944/00000055.jpg

And that was it. Um... whut?

Still, I had fun whilst I could, and I feel a little sad I wasn't there from the beginning, there seemed to be a fair amount of depth to the game I never got to see.

Entire custom villain contents? Black Moosa is GO!

As someone who has been active in a few other modding communities, I think those of you being so blasé about the Mission Architect are underestimating the creativity that is unleashed when people are freed from having to design to market expectations and corporate guidelines. Oh, you'll no doubt get some truly infantile drek as well, but I expect to be pleasantly surprised by a good number... in particular, that screen shot at the wiki reveals an intriguing "Placement" option. If that does what I think/hope it does, sets the placement of spawns and ambushes etc on maps, I can already envision the following at least;

* Running to a supermarket (Radio mission map) and then holding off huge hordes of the Undead a-la Night Of The Living Dead with a temporary shotgun power

* Missions to find "Transformers", Malta robots triggered from under cars on the landscape?

* Mass NPC v NPC battles (they can already fight), which you can affect by fighting alongside them at certain locations to kill opposing generals; victory or defeat conditions set by losing too many leaders amongst the mobs

* Trials of Strength; each room having a progressively harder amount of spawn.

* "Amusing" jokes... An arc devoted purely to all those great CoH times past; on one map, all the spawn is already inside the skips, just for you tankers! And everything in the inevitable cave map is either clipped into the walls, or hiding in the roof of That Damned Multilevel Bit.

And that's just off the top of my head... So yeah, wait and see guys, I have rather more faith in the dedicated fans than perhaps you do. And unlike in some games, you'll be able to easily integrate and access this content to your own experiences too.

Also... you have NO IDEA how many cow-related puns I'm planning for my moo-gnum opus.... muahaha!

Aye, alas we only got a few people come along; then the PvPers wandered by and proceeded to steal killing blows from those engaged with each other... We teamed up for a while, and fought them instead, until they appeared to give up; we then moved away to near the hero base to try and make progress again. Later on though the PvPers came back with more villains, all of them max/min'd stalkers needless to say, and again tried to one-shot the squishies or those otherwise distracted... all the time lecturing us on how "PvP rep is something you have to earn" and lack of skill yadda yadda. We again teamed up, but after a futile hour or so of watching where their ripples were in the water, and not making any progress again, we moved out and changed zone... at first swapping to an arena to get a few people the badge for the monkey cage, and then back into a PvP zone, but by which time there was only 5 of us left, and it wasn't worth keeping going.

And of course, in the time since Sunday, all the progress we did make on reputation will have decayed back to zero. So to be honest, unless someone can come up with a cast iron way to make genuine progress, I'm not all that interested in spending the little free time I have wrestling with the problems involved; I suspect that plenty of people would like the badges, but trying to get them all involved, and productively, is something beyond my tolerances these days. Anyone else want to take over then?

Here's a rough plan then:

SUNDAYS, UNION, 6PM (UK Time)

Head to WARBURG for mass PvP rumbles. Try and fight around the "Warburg" marker, in the centre, where the globe with the rotating rocket is.

Try and find a partner to team up with. It doesn't matter who. If there are only a few of us there, try and bring in alt characters, or work out an efficient way of swapping kills to progress everyone along. Later on if plenty appear this will probably be impractical, but always aim to kill someone NOT on your timer. It also doesn't matter who; if PvPers turn up, just fight them as normal, as that is what we are all here for... however if potential griefing occurs, you should all attempt to work together to resolve it.

Try and keep Broadcast and local chat free of trash talk, as if people get frustrated or angry the whole thing might collapse. Likewise, don't bear grudges; wailing on the same person won't help your badge progress and will tend to break down the dynamic we need to maintain... kill, find someone new, kill... and if you are killed, well done you've just helped someone else, that's all

Ok chaps, I'm going to provisionally scratch in a time for a first attempt to get people into Warburg, and we'll see what develops from there. I'm thinking either Saturdays or Sundays in the evening, around 6pm GMT? And from there leave it rolling until everyone gets bored and goes to do taskforces or something...?