Chad Gulzow-Man

When making changes to a published arc, I tend to make very small changes and save (republish) after each one in quick succession. I'm not saying I save after I type every word... but if were adding in a series of new bosses, I'd republish after adding each one's text and dialog info. I also temporarily put "(CURRENTLY EDITING)" in the description if anybody happens to come along with the intent to play it while I'm working.

If you're doing something like adding entirely new missions... well, seriously man, you ought to do all that and do some test runs BEFORE you publish it.

As for your question about adding color, you can do it manually if you're familiar with HTML. However, it's a lot simpler to just highlight the text you want to recolor, right-click on it, and choose an option from the color menu there. Right-clicking also helps you to see which fields will and will not allow for changing colors.

A lot of defense sets offer perception bonuses in one of the toggles.

But yes, I've noticed that custom NPCs are more likely to pick up my scent whether they've got a defense set or not.

A slight work-around for a lazy melee NPC AI is to have the player jump over the target so the NPC follows you and gets closer.

But that's entirely based on the player's gaming style, not anything you can do as a mission author.

You get credit towards "virtual" ticket badges while doing test runs, but you are not supposed to get actual tickets.

Nope, everyone has to enter a mission from the same zone it was started.

To each their own. I actually enjoyed "The Perfect Brew" and the challenge it brought. And, I don't drink, so the fact that it was about helping a dwarf chug alcohol had nothing to do with why I liked it.

The Blue Mito went down like a chump once I figured out to use the Nemesis Staff on it. The only really impossible challenge was the end AV with a million ambush spawns, but even that was overcome by Elude and a couple Shivans.

I stand by my 5 star review, mostly for the writing, but I can see why other people would dislike it.

-QR-

Excellent write-up, Arcanaville! That answered a lot of the questions and the lingering confusion I had after toying with the MA last night.

[ QUOTE ]
Tuesday the 24th.

I15 early in June.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds reasonable, though I bet I15 will be late June. It's supposed to be mostly story-driven update, but it'll probably add features to the Mission Architect and other things here and there.

(And hopefully, for the love of God and everything holy, Energy Melee proliferated to Scrappers!)

Anyone know a good Issue 15 conjecture thread out there? I'd like to conject.

[ QUOTE ]
There are some MA badges that are account wide, usually ones that are tied to publishing arcs and the arcs themselves (such as getting an Arc to be Dev Choiced, that badge is granted to all your characters).

[/ QUOTE ]
That takes a lot of the stress I was feeling about Issue 14 away right there.

[ QUOTE ]
not reading the whole post to search for this.... but i think i remember mention that 60 months would be the last Vet Reward?

[/ QUOTE ]
It's never been officially said that 60 months would be the last reward. This has been inferred from Pigg divers noting that they have no badge art as of yet for any rewards past 60 months. No red name has ever come out and confirmed (or denied) the conjecture.

Though honestly, I'm a 56.75 month vet right now, and wouldn't terribly mind if it stopped at 60 months. Let's face it, the reward IS fantastic but game-changing... and anything they could do to top it would start to border on game-breaking.

The first thing I learned is that Stalkers are awesome.

The second thing I learned is that Stalkers are fantastic for solo play.

The third thing I learned is that Stalkers are even more awesome when teamed with more Stalkers.

The fourth thing I learned is that soloing with a Stalker and teaming with a Stalker require different strategies. As the OP mentioned, most people don't want to sneak through an entire mission just for the glowie and/or boss fight. If there isn't a better meat shield available, you will be expected to hold aggro from time to time--and with a decent buffer or debuffer on your team, you shouldn't have too much trouble doing so. Long story short: If you try to play on a team the same way you solo, then people won't want to team with you.

The fifth thing that I learned is that you should save AS for the big guys, unless there's a REALLY annoying minion or Lt. running around (Malta Sappers, Tsoo Sorcerers, or Cimeroran Surgeons, to name a few).

The sixth thing I learned, and perhaps most important, is do NOT placate a big baddie when you're on a team with no other melee characters. Unless you're about to die. Then let the big baddie eat the other squishies, because hey, screw those guys anyway--you're evil.

<QR>

You know they're just going to say, "XP/Inf is its own reward and has nothing to do with the Merit system."

[ QUOTE ]
You could even make it Limit 1 only per 24 hours for a GM/HERO/AV, but if you did that, I'd make it 3 separate timers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Unless it's changed and I missed the patch notes, GMs already give 2 Merits each.

[ QUOTE ]
But respectfully, you didn't answer the questions. Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game?

[/ QUOTE ]
Respectfully as well (and I mean it, I have nothing but respect for you Geko ), they don't need to answer that question. It's a very "Catch-22," "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of question. You KNOW they're not going to say, "Pfft, no, we hate you marketeer jerks!" But there's also no real need for them to say, "We love all our individual players equally." Accept that whatever answer they could give to this question, no matter how well-phrased, is going to insult somebody (likely an inferred insult, not direct).

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have a plan if you're wrong and the Pool C market dries up?

[/ QUOTE ]
Though it would've been nice if they'd answered that one. My guess is currently, no they do not, but they'd be more than willing to find a solution should the need arise.

SecuROM shouldn't affect an MMO that can be accessed from any PC (and now apparently, Mac! ) in the world just by downloading the client. I'm wondering if that article wasn't just jumping to conclusions based on previous releases using Cider.

Posi has already stated that you need only download the client to your Mac system and you can continue to use the account you're paying for now. No DRM should be involved.

[ QUOTE ]
Some of the dev posts even hinted that down the road there may be a "secret identity" feature. That would be fantastic!

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. It would be fantastic. Especially if it involved actually playing the game.

I'm impressed with what I read; the missions actually sound like they're of higher quality than I was expecting. (That wasn't meant to be an insult, I had fairly high expectations to begin with.)

I just hope those aren't ALL the new missions going in to Issue 13. 2 new story arcs per faction, even with me taking the time to go through them and read all the dialog and descriptions, still won't take me more than a few hours.

I'm still hoping for some "surprise" missions. Nothing big like a new zone or anything, just a few more story arcs to leisurely enjoy.

Well written. I'm still looking to grab this badge with my Stalker.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Search your feelings. You know it to be true.


[/ QUOTE ]

My feelings tell me I have a million dollars in the bank. I don't think it'd be good to act on those Also, some of us have a DOOOOOOOOM streak a mile long.

[/ QUOTE ]
In that case, search MY feelings. Or anybody's feelings besides your own. They know it to be true.

[ QUOTE ]
For instance, if I told you that logging out in the easter egg room enabled the Big Red Ball Temp, would you not want some sort of evidence of that other than that we would *want* it to be true?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I would say:

"That's stupid.

...
...
...

... there a badge for that?"

[ QUOTE ]
Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source for that? I've tried several nicely worded PM's asking for confirmation, and so far haven't gotten a response back. (I chalked it up to hero con though.)

As far as I've seen, there hasn't been anything officially posted confirming which way it works.

[/ QUOTE ]
Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Also, PaRappa the Rapper says: "U copy postin': AWFUL. "

It's per character logged out.

Also, supposedly, it was said at Hero Con that the timers are already counting to give credit for Day Job badges. I'm assuming that this started with the patch that added the Cyborg Superbooster costume pack (but I have no proof of this).

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, I missed that. It could go in the Bio tab...

[/ QUOTE ]
Or a new tab entirely... "Secret Identity" (or just "Identity" for short), perhaps?

That'd also give them somewhere to put the eventual in-game secret identity stuff they'd like to add way down the road... (Provided they ever figure out how to make it work the way they want, of course.)

Okay, that got me laughing. Good job.

The idea is sound, N.Evil, and I think that most of us that are left in this thread would prefer that solution. New things to do and play with are always welcome in this game.

But, unfortunately, they've already decided on the implementation. They want to create a system of offline rewards to compete with those being offered by other games (which is still an all-around monumentally bad idea in my opinion... rewards for NOT playing!?! ), and to help keep the casual players who might be on the fence about quitting to fall back in with the subscribers.

[ QUOTE ]
You forgot base builders being ticked off for the (a) removal of base salvage and (b) having to sell off everything and repurchase to get the prestige difference.

[/ QUOTE ]
Man, every time I post a list, I forget something. Thanks, I'll go back and edit that in. (We don't necessarily know about part B yet, and I still want to give the devs the benefit of the doubt on that one...)

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, thinking about it, make the day jobs exactly like the Super Group badges (separate window via a button in the badge window), not counting towards the badge totals, not displayed in your info window, etc with one exception: you could use it as a selectable title.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is, as forumites like to say, "full of win."