Cold_Bob

Seriously, if 5000 people nominate their own arcs for these awards, how many of them are going to be looked at closely?

If even 500 people nominate their own arcs...

Why do I get the feeling that this is the type of contest where the eventual winner is already on the short-list somewhere?

Too little, too late, IMHO

I second that motion...

NO AE IN PRAETORIA!

Please, dear developers, please...

That was me, bringing a level 17 blaster to Venture's level 20-29 arc, and not being able to complete the five-parter because of the Elite Boss in the last room. My first tell was to express my frustration at not being able to complete the story arc, not even after Hulking out with 15 purples. My second tell was to apologize for losing my mind (after getting two-shotted approximately 10 times in a row) and otherwise commend Venture on his story, promising to give "Two Households Alike" another run, with a more level-appropriate character.

So...I ran "Two Households Alike" with a level 23 blaster, and got through the last mission with only one death. (I had to use approximately 30 inspirations, and duck out the door once to load up on a second round of 30 inspirations, but the mission WAS completable, solo, despite my previous experience.)(Therefore: NOT "broken", unlike the Ouroboros TFs...)

I really enjoyed the storyarc, and rated it five stars. Best storytelling I have encountered in the whole Mission Architect; that souvenir is a killer twist! (Glad I finally earned it!)

Venture, please don't tell me to restrict my posting to the storyarc's official thread, I don't have anything else to say about "Two Households Alike" other than, I too wish there was a way to gate arcs by level -- it would have saved me a lot of frustration, bringing a level 17 blaster to a level 20 party! Now I know better!

OK, I thought I had some ideas that were both creative and clever (Johnny Sonata as Longbow Agent "Lemon"; "ten new powersets and two new EATs"; my empathy defender Auntie Biotic in civilian clothes as Longbow Agent "Pistachio"; "Area 51"; the mechanic of using the Malta Prisoners to take down an Elite Boss for you) but now I see the problems with all of these ideas (using Johnny Sonata breaks canon; the Malta Prisoners are just a special effect, not story; Auntie Biotic is a distraction, not a buff, and worse yet, an ego-driven insert; "Area 51" is not particularly clever, and grossly canon defiling; and, having everybody fight everybody else on the last mission is just spectacle, not story, serving no larger purpose.)

One star rating it is, I can accept that.

I'm gonna have to check out some of those storyarcs you rated 5-star, and see what I've been missing. They must be quite something.

At 11:42 PST, it was Wednesday on the east coast, June 30th on the west coast.

Well, I gotta admit, I took this review like a punch to the gut. Here, in the interest of friendly discussion, are a few points I'd like to get on the record. Respectfully:

[ QUOTE ]
Arc #158678 “The Secret of Area 51”
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GM, Wall Banger

Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 41-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue

“Lemon”, the station chief for Longbow intelligence in St. Martial, wants you to look into Malta activity in the Rogue Isles. "Lemon", it should be noted, is Johnny Sonata, presumably on assignment "deep undercover" in St. Martial. Try to imagine Frank Sinatra being revealed today as actually an FBI Agent in the 1960s, reporting directly to J. Edgar Hoover while palling around with the mob -- wouldn't that have made him the greatest "double agent" in all of history? That's my idea for Johnny Sonata. Your tasks are to shut down Malta's security fence, download any computer files you find and avoid the Malta Prisoners. Lemon warns you that if Malta even suspected you were poking around their operations you'd never be safe again. Dude, it is way too late for that.... Act I takes place on one of the instanced St. Martial maps. Hence the call from "Lemon"/Johnny Sonata for help ie. his specific connection to St. Martial as the outdoor map in the Rogue Isles I wanted to use for this story. The first “Malta Prisoner” I found was “Sunshadow”, whose info claims to be a third species of Kheldian...right. There are multiple instances of similar named characters, probably due to the Malta Prisoners custom faction containing nothing but, all of which say in their info they have “impossible” power combinations. Due to file size limitations, I was able to pack only 12 characters into my custom-made group "Malta Prisoners". But, oh what characters they are: "Sunshadow" a Nictus Melee/Nictus Aura Warbringer..."Kid Chernobyl" a Radiation Debuff/Radiation Emission Tank..."Atlantic Bob" a Water Blast/Water Manipulation Blaster...etc, etc...all in all, the "ten new powersets and two new EATs" promised on my Mission Profile page, ALL "impossible" new power combinations -- the idea being, there are dangerous new power combinations emerging in both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles...and the Malta Group has taken it upon themselves to police their emergence... I ended up having to take down a spawn of these guys due to their proximity to one of the fence controls. There are five of these, all destroyable objects guarded by Malta troops. This makes the mission very annoying as you have a map full of Bosses to contend with (I used stealth and flight to avoid almost all of them.) Needless to say there is no failure condition for not avoiding the prisoners, since there can't be (at least not yet). I meant this mission to be largely a smash-the-five-computer-terminals-and-then-get-out stealth operation. The Mission Info even says "Avoid the Malta Prisoners." Should I have highlighted "Avoid the Malta Prisoners."? I thought the fact that they spawn as Lts./Bosses would be enough of a deterrant from engaging them in combat... If there was any kind of computer glowie I never found it. An exit pop-up did say I downloaded 2.7 gigs of data. A meta reference to the 2.7 gigabytes which operate "City of Heroes" -- "Is this the information by which the Malta Group controls the world around them?" I meant as a subtle joke about our beloved Developers.

For your next mission, Lemon asks you to rescue operative Pistachio from a Malta safehouse in the Hive. Malta built a safehouse in a region filled with 50 foot tall monsters and a world-devouring ooze? Sure! When's the last time you saw a group of heroes in the Hive? That's where I'd go to hide out if I was involved with a top secret conspiracy -- in one of the most dangerous places in the world! OK.... Oh, and you get a whole ten minutes to do this in, which the briefing doesn't tell you. I stealthed through the map to find Pistachio, a Radiation Blast/Empathy Boss whose info tells you she's an insert (Auntie Biotic on Infinity), and then had to take out a Master Gunslinger to complete. I figured, defeating "Delta 4-51" in less than ten minutes could be tough, I better give you a Empathy Defender as an ally...so why not make her Auntie Biotic, MY Empathy Defender (yeah, an insert) but expand the game canon a little further by saying she's "Pistachio" (heals = green in-game), supposedly another "deep undercover" Longbow Intelligence Agent stationed in the Rikti War Zone, where from, coincidentally, the Malta Group has been "kidnapping both heroes and villains"...Again, a direct quote from my Mission Profile page in the Mission Architect.

Pistachio's intel says Malta is kidnapping supers from the RWZ and shipping them to “Bradbury Island”, 400 miles offshore from Paragon City, codenamed “Area 51” because no one's ever heard of that before. Most people think "Area 51" has something to do with aliens. The Secret of "Area 51"? "Area 51" actually has nothing to do with aliens, but as a prison site, has something to do with all of us being unable to attain that last single XP point we need to hit "Level 51" in-game...thank goodness for that! Malta has been flying people out daily for the last six months, Lemon says, which makes me feel real confident about air security around Paragon City.... Fair enough. But...Malta IS a top secret quasi-governmental security organization with "unlimited resources". Like, the CIA hasn't been flying terrorist suspects out of commercial airports for the past 30 years, albeit on their own airplanes? Today's flight has crashed into the cemetary in Dark Astoria and Synapse is already on the scene. You're sent in to rendezvous with him. You're warned that everyone is pretty much fighting everyone. He isn't kidding as not only are all the mobs fighting, but Synapse is hostile and has to be defeated. Which is why I very deliberately included potentially 60 allies (20 separate spawns of at least three "Malta Prisoners" defeating Malta Group hostiles on an outdoor map) to help take down Synapse...and, if you gotta pull a member of the Freedom Phalanx into a friendly mob for help, wouldn't it be best to pull superspeedster Synapse after you, rather than Statesman or Manticore or somebody else who just jogs along after you? He claims he's the hero of this story and you're the villain. He triggers one ambush of Malta as his health declines (didn't make it to me) and says Statesman and Manticore are on the way when he falls. If they spawned I never saw them. The exit popup says “ You tell yourself, it was either defeat Synapse, or join the Malta Prisoners in "Area 51". What were you supposed to do? Surrender to Malta?” Like, what? The theme I was trying to develop with this story is, Things are often not what they seem when you scratch beneath the surface of any given situation, you may think you're the good guy, but maybe you're actually the bad guy when two worldviews come into conflict... OK: I was going for the twist ending!

In the final debriefing, Lemon tells you that Synapse and the Phalanx were out there to support Malta, not oppose them, because Area 51 is actually a prison for superheroes that reach security level 51. At this point they are reclassified as Threat Level 51 and imprisoned to keep the world safe from them. He says “Venture, I advise you to forget what you learned today. Stay out of the Rikti War Zone. Stay away from Bradbury Island. Don't think about Area 51. Don't challenge authority. Trust the Freedom Phalanx to both know, and do, what's right for the rest of us...” What "Lemon" actually says is, "I have often wondered why there are so few Level 51 heroes in Paragon City. Other than the Freedom Phalanx, who else out there is ABOVE Level 50? So let me ask you, when you arrived on the scene, was Synapse fighting the Malta Group, or the Malta Prisoners rioting AGAINST the Malta Group?...Ah, that's what I thought. "Area 51": it is a prison for superheroes..." -- THEN, on a rather downbeat note, "Lemon" concludes, "Venture, I advise you to forget what you learned today, etc..." which the player can take any way they want, but which I HOPE they recognize as food for thought, sort of an ironic send-off from any "authority figure" such as a Longbow Intelligence chief.

That THUD! you heard was the sound of this arc hitting the wall. Fair enough comment. But at least I TRIED to put out a fairly serious story, not just another farm mission. And the gold standard for reviewing ANY artistic endeavour is: What were they trying to do? How well did they do it? And, was it worth doing in the first place? How would you score me on those points, then? Still 1-star? I do have to say this arc is a first: it is the only one I've seen so far that would be improved if it were revealed all the main NPCs were Nemesis Automatons. Truly? Oh boy...

[/ QUOTE ]

In closing, thanks to Venture for taking the time and trouble to review my arc. I am pretty sure it will be the only story I ever publish utilizing the Mission Architect system, and while it may not be for everyone (in fact, no one, from the less than five comments I have received in-game) I am happy with it, and quite enjoy playing it myself. (Man, nothing beats Synapse getting dog-piled by the Malta Prisoners! When the Malta Prisoners riot against the Malta Group, almost 120 extremely dangerous NPCs going crazy, battling each other on the Moth Cemetery outdoor map, it's like...World War Five! In the fog! With your very survival as a free man at stake! Hell yeah! It doesn't get much better than that! Not for me...)

Very sincerely,

COLD BOB
Level 50 Ice/Ice Blaster
Infinity Server

Same issue here, Windows XP Home...

My gobblygook number is "0x7470b44d" as in "The instruction at "0x7470b44d" referenced memory at "0x7470b44d". The memory could not be "read"."

-------------------------------------

Play my storyarc -- The Secret of "Area 51" -- #158678 -- the one with ten new powersets, and two new EATs!

All three are great, and all three should be made available from the PlayNC store.

I would buy #2 times 2, the red, white and blue really pop!

-------------------------------------------

Play my story arc -- The Secret of "Area 51" -- #158678 -- the one with ten new powersets, and two new EATs!

I thought Virtual Victor was still in?

OK, I would say I am a Leveller (40%)/Badger (25%)/Forumite (5%)/World Explorer (2%)/Seeker of the Obscure (2%)/Socializer (25%)/Architect Writer (1%)

I like creating characters, levelling them up, and using them to explore the world around me, particularly unlocking badges and unlocking new zones. I tend to solo because it isn't always easy to find a team, and I don't like to stand around waiting for new teammates between missions. I like knowing things about the game (contacts; maps; how powersets work together) that maybe other people don't know yet, but that's just "the pleasure of finding things out" stretched out over the last four and a half years. To me, it is significant that if Paragon City was in the real world, it would be the same size as Manhattan...and I have cleared the "Fog of War" from almost every zone, both hero-side and villain-side, even the Shadow Shard.

Everything else (the Market, Base Building, PvP, Role Playing, Min/Maxing, Content Mongering) doesn't interest me in the slightest, but I do enjoy the Social aspect of this game, and part of that includes the Forums!!!

To the OP:

I would like to see a blue-coloured Electrical Control/Electrical Blast Controller combo (with the Gremlins from Cap au Diable as the pet) for a new powerset -- but can't imagine this powerset being put into the game without being "gimped" to prevent a whole new class of farmers springing up overnight...

DIGRESSION:

For me, the best part of writing my first MA storyarc was creating 10 new powersets and 2 new epic archetypes for my custom villain group, the Malta Prisoners...

Recycling existing powersets recombined in ways currently unavailable to the players, I "created" what I call...

a Psionic Defense/Energy Blast Defender...
a Time Control/Time Manipulation Controller...
an Ice Melee/Ice Armour Brute...
a Storm Summoning/Electrical Blast Dominator...
a Radiation Debuff/Radiation Emission Tanker...
a Thorny Assault/Memory Manipulation Stalker...
a Psionic Assault/Mental Manipulation Corrupter...
a Dual Pistols/Martial Arts Scrapper... (!)
a Clones/Misanthropy Mastermind...
a Water Blast/Water Manipulation Blaster...
a Longbow Training/Longbow Tactics Longbow Ballista HEAT...
and, a Nictus Melee/Nictus Aura Warbringer!

OK, this was all enabled by "poetic license", but still, my long-held desire to create a "Warbringer" VEAT was finally fulfilled by combining Dark Melee (Nictus Melee) with Pain Domination (Nictus Aura) and adding the tendrils aura to the toon's fists and head!

Please go check out my experiments with powerset proliferation in The Secret of "Area 51" , arc ID #130941!

COLD BOB
Level 50 Ice/Ice Blaster
Infinity Server
644 Badges

Welcome Bruce!

My only questions are, will YOU be involved with deciding which player-made missions get upgraded to "Developer's Choice"? And if so, how will you balance "playability" with "non-exploitability" with "originality" as the main criterion for upgrading missions to "Developer's Choice", assuming that's the three main criterion that will be used to separate the garbage from the gold?

(Also: can we PLEASE have some new Giant Monsters, Zone Events, and History Plaques?)

Aside from the two glaring errors (1- CoV launched with issue #6 not issue #12, and let's face it, 99% of the fanbase has had both games, so the ability to create cross faction characters is not exactly a new thing and, 2- if this is the last issue for the year, then we're not getting THREE issues this year) in this article, the article really doesn't say anything.

Kinda reminds me of that guy, "Hollywood From the Outside" who does the movie coverage for "The Onion"...not very credible, even if he DOES have new information.

I think it is safe to say that no recent announcement regarding “City of Heroes/City of Villains” has provoked greater interest than Positron’s 4th Anniversary State of the Game comments on mission customization. User-generated content for the CoX franchise would provide a wealth of new experiences to explore in-game. That being said, what are the practical limits of dropping a “mission editor” feature into the game? As I’m sure Positron already has a fairly comprehensive design document in his hands for this feature, I ask the following questions to provide both the developers and the CoX community with a platform to clarify the many issues involved with allowing “custom-made” missions into the game.

1) Will the mission editor feature be a paid expansion similar to the Spring Fling Wedding Pack? (If not, will it be the major feature of a future expansion issue? If so, possibly Issue 13? Or more likely Issue 14? Issue 15?)

2) How will the mission editor for “custom-made” missions be accessed? (Through a new contact at the university? Through (the currently under-utilized) supergroup base computers? Through the arena kiosks (if “custom-made” missions are going to be promoted as being akin to “training exercises”)? Through some new dynamic yet to be introduced into the game, a la Newspaper/Police Scanner missions?)

3) Will “custom-made” missions be treated as part of CoX lore? (Obviously not core canon, but at least as “real” stories, as opposed to “Danger Room” simulations?)

4) Will “custom-made” missions be for XP? (If, as widely expected, “custom-made” missions WON’T be for XP or influence/infamy (to prevent farming) what incentives will players have to team for story arcs where only the mission-holder can speak to the contact? Will “custom-made” missions be farmable for badge requirements?)

5) How will “custom-made” missions be shared among the community? (Will they be downloaded to a single server (similar to the mechanic behind Wentworths and the Black Market) and then broadly accessed cross-server? Or will access within the game be limited to something as narrow as even a per account holder basis?)

6) How will “custom-made” missions shared amongst the community be policed for content/quality? (Assuming mission customization will involve more than just the choose villain group/choose tile set/choose map/choose mission objective template, how will “custom-made” missions be censored for objectionable content? Overall, what safeguards will be put into place to prevent the CoX servers from becoming cluttered with randomly-named junk missions, or worse, junk storyarcs?)

7) Within the choose villain group/choose tile set/choose map/choose mission objective template, will there be a good variety of villain groups, minions, lieutenants, bosses, elite bosses, and even arch-villains to load into “custom-made” missions? (Will there be any villain groups (especially arch-villain NPCs) automatically excluded from “custom-made” missions? Will there be any new villain groups (perhaps exclusive content) dropped into the mission editor feature? Will there be any new tile sets? Will mission customization allow mixing-and-matching villain groups with tile sets and maps where they wouldn’t normally appear, such as Clockwork on Rikti maps, or Trolls on Roman maps? What about loading villains into unique maps, such as the outdoor maps used for Safeguard/Mayhem Missions, or Board Train missions? Will the potential exist for “naming” generic NPCs within the confines of “custom-made” missions, such as hostages and/or bosses? Will the potential exist for even “creating” NPCs within the confines of “custom-made” missions, a la the costume editor interface at Icon and the Facemaker?)

Within two days of Positron’s comments on mission customization being made back in April, there was a thread with 36 pages of speculation regarding the vast potential of “custom-made” missions to expand the CoX game experience. It is obvious to me that we will never see “custom-made” missions that allow things like outdoor ambush spawns, but other than that, what ARE the practical limits of introducing a “mission editor” feature into this game we all love?

BEST ISSUE EVAH!

I mean, it's got a WORLD EVENT, it's got a NEW ZONE (well, a significant revamp of an old zone nobody visited anyway, which in my book is even BETTER than a new zone...), that new zone happens to be CO-OP, with a CO-OP TASKFORCE, it's got NEW COSTUME PIECES and NEW GEAR, and it ADVANCES THE STORY! (Do not discount the importance of advancing the story, new power sets are great, but for the CoX universe to really continue to "breathe", the story has to be gradually moving forward...)

Short of 10 NEW POWER SETS or VILLAIN EPIC ARCHETYPES, that's pretty much my 2007 wishlist...and we have one more issue to go before the end of the year, yeah?