Cavatina

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its all about getting tickets in this issue.

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Only to "Achiever" types. For many of us, it's about creativity and new missions.

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I doubt trying to reason with the types who only want mass tickets is going to work. They see everything else as pointless. >>

Thanks for the advice! Made the alterations you suggested, and glad you enjoyed the arc.

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Didnt I tell ya this would happen? hehe

Here it goes, round and round, where it stops...it wont till it gets locked like 95% of the other threads that have to do with farming.


I warned ya

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah but I have some time to kill, I will drop it after a few pages.
Fundamentally not a single person has ever given me a good reason why it is OK for a few players to dictate to other players how they should and should not play.

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Phrase that as the Devs and the GMs.
They are the ones who wrote the release notes, and they are the ones pulling arcs.

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Once again, if a dev told me it was wrong I would be fine with that (it's there game after all), but I am not OK with being punished for something when there is no rule in existence that says I should be punished. I prefer that they allow farming. But I am OK with it if they don't. I just want them to say something official to put an end to all this.
See my problem?

Note: GMs are not even close to Devs, they often make mistakes and do things counter to the existing rules. Or take it upon themselves to make a ruling. IMO what they do does not indicate what is a rule and what is not. Even if it was though, simply banning my AE mission without telling me specifically why, doesn't exactly tell me what is and is not legal does it?

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Er..the point here is that its specifically stated in the rules for the AE server that farms will be deleted if found. >>

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And trust me. Not all farmers are arrogant about it, but at least some farmers seem to think its some sort of insult to their playstyle if you dare consider completing the save television arc instead of farming fake nems. Not all. But a few. and they're infinitely louder than the rest.

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Yes, and they have a right to be Irate when this occurs. Most folks announce to the Team that they are Farming a Mission, they do not want completed. They explain in detail what not to do.

When a Jerk decides to go out of his way to complete the mission anyways, it is done on purpose.

Once the Mission Completes, it is gone.

In this case, I have invited said offenders to be Global Friends, so that I will know their Alts. I then circulate it out to all the other Farmers I know, and the are "Black Flagged" as a Farm Crasher.

They deserve it.

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I dont mean that way.

I agree thats just low.

I mean how I pretty much avoid ever teaming when doing those mish chains like that or the council empire stuff on my characters in groups because I just know someones going to gripe at me for not farming it when I personally want my Couch potato badge. :P

If you wanna farm it? great. But I hate when people get angry at me for having the "gall" to finish those mishes rather than keeping them so other people can farm my mish.

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because generally, a filler or anchor is there simply to pad your mission and then drop team. it slows down my looking for a real team and I get no benefit out of it. You having more spawns to kill does not give me a thing.

. Why should I be any less selfish than you who wants a team of 8-man spawns, and want a team where I get exp instead of being there just so only you benefit?

And trust me. Not all farmers are arrogant about it, but at least some farmers seem to think its some sort of insult to their playstyle if you dare consider completing the save television arc instead of farming fake nems. Not all. But a few. and they're infinitely louder than the rest.

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Fine but we are clear about what we want, you don't have to help us by filling you can choose not to. It does not slow you down any more than someone asking you to join a TF when you don't want to.

And again, people are rude in every aspect of the game, you can't use that as an excuse to bann one aspect without banning them all.

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I'm not saying to ban farmers anyway. Just voicing my gripes with some farmers who make the rest look bad. The majority of farmers I've met are polite people who generally understand that not evryone likes farming and that its okay for them not to.


Its the vocal and annoying minority that gets me mad sometimes when they do things like exploit bugs and then scream when the devs nerf it back in line or who treat me as stupid for liking roleplay and soloing and running the ITF without speedrunning it.

After all, without farmers how would I make a fortune off playing the market?

well he did ask why people have it out for farmers. so I asnwered. :P

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If they make a set rule that pleases one group, the other most likely will not be happy.

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I agree but.....(and I know I am preaching to the quire here)

Farmers are not telling non-farmers how to play, they want to live and let live. Where as non-famers are saying do it our way or else. That doesn't seem right to me.

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..Uh.

Right. You go on believeing that.

Its not like almost every non-farmer has ever gotten the following tell or something similar

"U want to farm?"

"No thanks, I don't like farming"

"Lol y? dont u like having fun? stupid n00b"

[/ QUOTE ]I think you exaggerate
Yes we ask if you'd like to join us but I have never ever met a farmer who ridiculed others for it. It simply would not be beneficial to our cause, we want to encourage others to be willing to help fill out our missions, treating them poorly just wouldn't be practical. We are polite in order to breed good will.

I would also like to point out that asking for a filler is no different than asking for a team, so I don not see how it can be seen as harmful to your game play

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because generally, a filler or anchor is there simply to pad your mission and then drop team. it slows down my looking for a real team and I get no benefit out of it. You having more spawns to kill does not give me a thing.

. Why should I be any less selfish than you who wants a team of 8-man spawns, and want a team where I get exp instead of being there just so only you benefit?

And trust me. Not all farmers are arrogant about it, but at least some farmers seem to think its some sort of insult to their playstyle if you dare consider completing the save television arc instead of farming fake nems. Not all. But a few. and they're infinitely louder than the rest.

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Okay...

I would bet I can go to any "Story" Arc out there and find something in it I find offensive. (Either through language used, morallity, Ethically, or from a standpoint of Religion).

People have come on this Forum targeting Farms, and bragging that they are going to report them, and get them Banned.

I'll target your "Story" Arcs, if I condsider the least little thing offensive in the least way, you will be Reported for Content.

I'm just a casual Farmer who hasn't created a Farm Mission in AE. But I'm sick of these people trying to tell other people how they should play the game they pay their own hard earned money for.

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I have nothing against farmers. heck. I've farmed my new widow to 30 this week just to experiment with her build.

I have something against farmers who either

1: pretend as though I'm a complete moron for not levelling my characters to 50 at warp speed and then doing moar farms and nothing else.

2: are invasive about it by sending me tells when I have "not interested in farming" or similar things in my search comment begging me to join their team, or who otherwise seem to think me being on a lvl 2 with my looking for team flag up means I want to anchor for them.

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If they make a set rule that pleases one group, the other most likely will not be happy.

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I agree but.....(and I know I am preaching to the quire here)

Farmers are not telling non-farmers how to play, they want to live and let live. Where as non-famers are saying do it our way or else. That doesn't seem right to me.

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..Uh.

Right. You go on believeing that.

Its not like almost every non-farmer has ever gotten the following tell or something similar

"U want to farm?"

"No thanks, I don't like farming"

"Lol y? dont u like having fun? stupid n00b"

same. 90% of the 90 something votes my FTF has gained has been thanks to the forums and global channels or global friends.

actually, was wanting to see if I could change which one of mine you're reviewing to my latest work, 58563, The Fusionette Task Force. Not to say I dislike the other ones..but I think I might as well put what i consider my best foot forward.

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I've got one for levels 1-10 - but I unpublished it to make some structural changes.

Plus it got 1-starred w/no feedback.

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Happens to everyone. For every 9-10 3-5 stars I get with either constructive feedback or praise I get at least 1 1star with no feedback.

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Arc 58363
Author @Cavatina
Arcname: Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force
Level range 1-14

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3 out of 5 stars

Ok, so the much hated Fusionette has noticed that some of her fellow Nuclear 90 have gone missing and, because of her Vanguard duties, asks you to go look for them for her. I'm sent to the warehouse they've all vanished from and am warned about the Hellions being there.

You go in and find Molecular Mandy (whose name reminds me of the "Moleculo" skit from SNL that Conan O'Brien did many years ago, but I digress). She's a Rad/Rad boss who wasn't too tough more my exemped down BS/SR scrapped, but might prove challenging to a natural 14 because of the debuffs. She's one of the Nuclear 90 but is working with the Hellions for some reason.

One of her lines in the middle of fighting you seems to indicate something is up with her, as she cuts off a comment to suddenly make a stereotypical villain taunt. Her last line implies she teleported away when you beat her.

You go back to Fusionette, who is very confused. What's more, another of the Nuclear 90, Neutrino Nick, has been spotted robbing a MAGI vault. You're sent to stop him and are given a device that'll reroute their Medicom teleporter to the Vanguard base.

You go in, fine more Hellions, and fight Neutrino Nick, who ends up being a Fire melee/Fire Armor boss. I have to say, the name doesn't really fit (why not Fission Frank? Or something else nucleary that might have something to do with heat, as opposed to neutrinos). Anyway, you beat him and an amulet falls off him. He tells you that the amulet was controlling his mind, making him do evil.

Third mission briefing, and we have the intrusive *emote* in the middle of Fusionette's speech to tell us she has to look down at a paper to see what Lady Grey said the amulets were. You are given a divining rod to track down the other Nuclear 90 who were wearing the amulets and save them.

I go in and get three objectives: Save Jim Temblor, Radioactive Reimi, and Electron Elly. I'm already sick of the alliterative names on the Nuclear 90. Anyway, you save old Faultline from some Hellions, then "save" Reimi (Energy/FF) and Elly (Elec blast/something else) by beating them up.

Anyway, you learn from them that a Hellion named Immolation Ken (really? That's his name? It's... pretty awful. It's not a pun or reference that I can see, and WHY does everyone have their real first name as part of their hero/villain name?) is behind everything.

You go to take down Ken and save Mandy. You're told that Ken is an EB and that you might need a Break Free to fight him. This is obviously OOC stuff, as it's separated from the narrative, but it's not in a different color or anything and could be worked into the narrative easily enough.

Anyway, you go in, beat up Mandy, and fight Ken, a Fire Blast/Fire Control EB (I fought him as a Boss on Heroic because exemped down I had only two attacks) who provided a decent challenge. He has a rather uninspired costume of jeans and a shirt with a logo on it. You beat him and then he says he'll "get me" for this.

And then you go back to Fusionette for the wrap up... which is about two sentences and says virtually nothing about what just happened and offers no sense of conclusion to anything. It's pretty much the equivalent of "Thank you" at the end of some particularly old video games.

In all, I was again fairly disappointed by this. The idea is good enough, that someone is kidnapping the Nuclear 90 and it's up to you to find out why and put a stop to it. The execution is just lacking.

A big problem is the Fusionette character. I can't remember too well how she acts in canon missions, but here she's presented as an airhead teenager who just talks about the mall and things like that. She's annoying and totally fails to create any tension with the missions, because she's constantly using the modern-day equivalent of valley girl talk and acting like a spoiled teenager rather than a hero whose friends are being kidnapped and turned evil.

Secondly, there is a very large lack of closure to any of the missions. You beat someone and then never hear what happens to them, you're just thanked by Fusionette and sent on to the next task. It sucks the emotional investment out of it.

Add on the utterly uninspired names for the characters involved and as a whole, the story tends to fall a little flat. It gets 3 stars more for the good idea than anything else, because it could clearly be built on with a decent reworking.

And finally, there are a lot of punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors in the text. I don't think I went more than two or three sentences without coming across a missing apostrophe, a misplaced comma or period, or a Word that was randomly capitalized in the middle of a sentence. It needs a good proofreading to fix all that stuff.

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Thanks for the advice. sorry i didnt respond sooner. Yeah. I fixed a good deal of those typos, and I do agree with the criticism about the not explaining why they were being fought part..so I fixed that. As for Fusionette..well, i wasnt exactly going for a very serious tone, but I fully understand that writing her the way i did won't please everyone. Glad for the honest review and the helpful error pointing out though/

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But, OMG, someone might say something mean!

The whole thing baffles me.

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To me it is more the case of you trying to be constructive and the risk of them searching out all of your arcs and rating them 1 star out of spite.

From what I can tell so far, the second you fall below 5 stars, people stop playing your arc. On my Chillion mission I was getting a couple of nice comments, 10 ratings, and about 30 people playing without rating from watching my badge count. Around that 9th or 10th rating I fell to 4 stars and haven't had a nibble since in 2 days.

Not that I think that simple little mission deserves more, but for future reference, I could see just 1 bad rating wiping you off the majority of the population's play lists. Or I could just be making false assumptions at this point, who knows...

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actually. my newest arc fell to 4 stars after a few downratings on page one today. but from the look of it the fact I at least had some advertisement for the arc has generated enough word of mouth that the ratings are still slowly piling up. and with 40 ratings, I'm vaguely sure it'll start snowballing itself pretty soon. Its less about being 4 star and more about making sure people know your arc exists to try it.

I made one specifically for level one and up myself.

Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force.

it seems to be getting good reviews so far.
arcID 58363, Hellion filled goodness all the way through with a few customs as lieutenant or boss level bosses.

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90% of all statistics are made up.

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This is true. However, Its hard not to think something is odd when your arc gets nothing but 4 and 5 star ratings all the way to the front page.

and then the next 3 ratings are 3's and a 0-2

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I keep running into those stupid farm missions. No plot, little if any dialogue, just go kill. I finally hit one that was designed in such a way as to constitute an exploit. (And no, I am not telling anybody what it was, not until it's addressed. Yes, I reported it).

I'm tired of the farm missions any way. I want real content. If this finally forces the Dev's to come up with some way to stop these farm missions (mostly because they will all eventually be designed like the one I encountered) all the better.

[/ QUOTE ]While I respect your opinion about farms, I'm curious about what constitutes a farm in the MArch? The only thing it could be considered to produce is tickets, and they drop like rain in all MArch missions and arcs.

And how sure are you that the missions you're objecting to weren't just set up as a combat challenge? How do you define the difference.

In the interest of full disclosure, I personally have no real objection to "farms", just some of the players running them. Nor am I saying you should just ignore them. You're entitled to your stand, and many people agree with you. I'm just curious how you identify a mission/arc as an actual farm?

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lol

I went from lvl 44 to lvl 45 on a MA Farm Mish just last night. 1 run of the mish. If tickets are all you can get, how'd that happen? And what about the load of Inf I got in the process? Even Prestige.

I had just hit 44, was one bar into that lvl when I was invited to the team. They were already in the mish, and had done part of it. Just what I was around to help complete got me one bar into 45.

Farming:

If advertised as a Farm, I would say yank it.

If cleverly desguised, I would say leave the folks alone and let them do their thing.

The Author of the Mish I was on last night just happened to be leading the Team. I have teamed with him occasionally, so I kinda know the guy.

What bothered me most was that he told us all to Rate him 5 Stars.

I told him point blank that I ain't rating any Farm 5 Stars.

I farm occasionally, in game, using the G'ville TV missions, for the Rare Recipe Drops you can get.

Other than that, I prefer to lvl my toons the old fashion way, by playing the game.

The MA system allows much more than just Ticket Farming though.

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a friend of mine ended up on one of those farms today. he started at aropund lvl 18 scrapper. after 4 runs he was 28.

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The differences between the votes you get when you're on the first page, and the votes you get when you drop to four stars and disappear to the back of the database are night and day. If you are on the first page you receive an inordinate amount of sub-3 votes; far, far more than you get when your arc dips to four stars and disappears in to the murky depths of the database. My arc bounces constantly from 4 stars to 5 stars and back again, and it's for precisely this reason.

Most of the people I talk to about this report exactly the same thing, and these include people with extremely good and serious arcs (mine is basically constant bathos and meta-humour garbage, and I can at least see why someone might vote it a 1 or 2 if it really rubbed them the wrong way, but arcs like @jjac's Tangle In Time do not deserve a single vote below 3, at all, ever, and the fact that his arc is now languishing on four stars because of the one-votes it received while on the first page is really tragic.)

I don't think the staying power of a Hall of Fame entry will be dictated by the virtue of the arc in question so much as the spitefulness of whoever happens to be browsing at any given moment, honestly. This is more a failing of the rating system as a whole, though, than with the Hall of Fame specifically. Hall of Fame simply increases visibility, and I suppose the point I'm making is that increased visibility can actually be quite the detriment to your rating, which is the real problem, and I presume is why people want Hall of Fame to be an immutable title.

I'd personally just like to have the fourth publishing slot without worrying I'm going to lose it again before I finish writing the arc.

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come to think of it. thats exactly what happened to my first arc. it was doing mostly good, had a 5 star rating..hit page 1 on day one of the MA on live..and then has languished at 4 star since about an hour after that.

Arc 58363
Author @Cavatina
Arcname: Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force
Level range 1-14

Description: Fusionette's fellow members of the Nuclear 90 go mysteriously missing while investigating Hellion raids on warehouses in Atlas, she needs you to help her find them!

Well..Given your criteria my first two sound decidedly unsafe..so I'm humbly submit my third arc.

Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force
arcID 58363

The mysterious disappearance of multiple members of the nuclear 90 propels Fusionette into sending some new heroes out to investigate a string of Hellion linked crimes

lvl 1-14, should be pretty easy to solo .

I love getting comments, or criticism.

and I always respond with a polite thank you because I enjoy that they either liked my arc, or had an issue with it and took the time to tell me what they thought was wrong.

besides, a simple "I liked your arc" does WONDERS for my self confidence and so i like to thank people for it.

In Sig.

They're both about my fictional family of superscientists and their exploits in fighting off a crazed mad scientist intent on world domination.

I'll bite as well.

I have two arcs, wouldn't mind a review on either. especially the second since the first I have quite a bit of feedback on already. Plus this gives me a good excuse to try some hopefully good content.

Agnes Marksovich , Scientist Extraordinaire and the Lost Staff of Kimbotoo
ArcID 1324
Heroic Aligntment
Very Long


Melissa Marksovich, Hero of the Rogue Isles, and the Return of Dr Widget
ArcID 20319
Heroic
Very Long

theyre sequentially in the same storyline, both dealing with the family of mutant superscientists that my lvl 50 corrupter belongs to, and their steampunk-themed adventures against a mad scientist and his robotic army, both contain custom mobs and a custom AV, as well as special guest appearances in arc 2 by the Axis Americans.

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when you test a mission you get no xp or tickets.
but if you publish it and run it you get both.

So unless you already have 3 arcs published, there is no benefit to you to run a mission in test mode instead of publishing and then playing.

if you don't want xp - turn off xp. But why would you not want the tickets at least?

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But then you don't get any of the delicious, delicious badges that come with testing.

As for putting unfinished stuff up for the public to view, I find that no one ever plays my arcs anyway unless I ask them.

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advertising helps.

After I advertised my arcs a bit to friends and people in my global channel hangouts I started to get a slow stream of people I didnt even know trying my stuff, and the comments have helped tremendously

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If i have to go through the damn portal corp map one more time to find one glowie and a boss right at the end, im going to scream.

There are smaller maps to choose from! Save the big ones for missions that have lots of objectives!

Sheesh.

Eco.

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I'm admittedly guilty of this..but only in my final mishes and only because I feel the final base of my AV should be well..large. >>