Dark_Aspect

Heh.. well.. For the story I was telling there is really only once choice right now for cave maps... the CoT maps. Most of the other cave maps are either horribly small... or even more annoying than than the ones I picked. They also fit the feel I was trying to get and the CoT tie in at the beginning.

You wouldn't believe how many different maps I tested the arc with. I drove my SG nuts with test runs on different maps.

As to the information on the portal... remember you are getting a partial translation.. as far as Cameron knows at that point there is only one way to open the portal but he can't be sure.

The portal opens above an altar... and I know I checked that as soon as I15 was released... so something happened somewhere and I'm thinking the republish didn't go through because there WAS an error with the object for that mission.

I'll go back in and check those the errors you caught and fix that destructable object.

Thanks for the review, I appreciate it and I can sympathize with your feeling on the map set lol.

Edit: I was right. Unfortunately the republish didn't go through or didn't take.. whatever. You just had all the luck to play the one that wasn't fixed for I15. This, however, is now corrected.

I'm not a farmer.. I don't like farming personally... but you know what? I don't care if people do it, on accounts THEY pay for, or not.

What is with people trying to decide how other people should be allowed to play their characters? They pay for the account, they put in the time... they don't impact you other than some broadcast spam.

They aren't harrassing you, they aren't, really, doing anything with their play time that impacts anyone but themselves in any significant way. You most likely will never play with these people. You will most likely never talk to these people. You will most likely never even encounter these people outside of a broadcast.

So why is this an issue for people?

Terrors of old has been updated for I15. Had some really odd errors when I checked it last night but is up and running now.

Let me know what you think of the Arc in my Sig. Haven't gotten many to play it since I did the rewrite.

Thanks

Ahh, those unplanned breaks always take longer than you would think. Good to see you are back in the game. You'll find my arc listed in my Sig. Haven't done any others yet as I'm waiting on I15.

I would caution you on using those maps though... I used one for a mission in my arc and people hated it even though it fit the story perfectly.

I ended up dropping the prison map for something a little less annoying.

For Darkfire I'd suggest the Arc in my sig. It is a very dark arc with a solid story. Should be a good challenge.

That is why I limited it to 0 and 1 star ratings. Let's be realistic here.. the only person likely to 0 star an arc is going to be a griefer. I'd really like to see them fix it but in the absence of that I'll take a required comment. Might, at least, slow down the griefers a bit.

I really find that most people don't leave feedback at all. I think, out of the 40 or so that have played my arc, only a fraction have rated it and only 3 or 4 have left feedback in game with a couple others doing reviews on cohmissionreview.com .

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QR, and didn't read the whole thread yet...

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Some people finish an arc and don't want to rate it. Maybe they're just "playing through" or what have you. I'm one of those. I didn't realize until later that whenever I completed an arc and failed to rate it, the individual was getting a 0 star rating.

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Now that I know this, I will always rate an arc that I play... though I am of the opinion that one must/should finish an arc before giving it a rating.

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Not sure about this.. I think it would be better to require a comment for 0 and 1 star ratings. It is really annoying to log in and see the number of ratings on your arc increase, no ticket message, and your rating drop significantly.

Happened recently to me.. my arc was holding a 4.5 average with 8 people having played and then the next day it goes to 10 rated and a 3 star. No feedback, no tickets (so at least 2 stars) but it had to be 0 or 1 to drop it to a 3 star rating on 2 votes.

Another idea to help people decide if an Arc might be worth playing is if they have a context window over the ratings that breaks down how people rated it. Like:

3 five star
4 four star
1 three star
1 one star
1 zero star

And that would be fine if they gave a context window when you mouse over the arcs rating that broke out the overall number of different ratings.:

5 Star: 5
4 Star: 3
3 Star: 4
2 Star: 1
1 Star: 1

As it stands right now though, an Arc that was maintaning a 4 star rating gets hit with a 0 or a 1 and suddenly it is down to a 3 star rating with no way for people to see how many rated it which way. It is just a 3 star to them.

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stuff


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This isn't about my arc really. It was just a handy example of what I was talking about.

You keep insisting that people who put Arcs up should be able to take criticism. Most have no problems taking criticism if it is offered. Giving a 0 or 1 star rating, however, isn't criticism it is just a "Meh. Can't be bothered."

I submit to you that if you can't be bothered to leave feedback then don't be bothered to rate. If you don't like the material well and good. Gracefully go on your way.

Here is an example for you:

A book title catches your eye and you pick it up to see if it is a work of fiction that you want to read. Once you pick it up you discover it is a romance and not a western or war story or whatever type of fiction you prefer.

Do you go ahead and buy the book knowing it isn't what you like and then give it a 0 or 1 star rating and throw it away?

Or.. do you put it back with a shrug and go on to find something that is the type of fiction you enjoy reading?

My point here is that if you can't be bothered to give some kind of feedback or review then why bother rating it at all?

Despite what you might think there are people out there that just give grief ratings. They enjoy giving some Arc a crap rating because they get off on it or it isn't a farming arc or a comedy arc or whatever.

As to you saying you've gotten hostile tells from Arc authors.. that is what /ignore is for.

Frankly, I don't care how upset someone is that they couldn't finish an arc. A 2 star or below should REQUIRE a comment, any comment. I tend to follow up with people when they leave me feedback to let them know I've listend to that feedback and appreciate it. I simply can't stand it when someone comes along and 0 or 1 stars my arc for no particular reason and i HAVE to assume it is for no particular reason if they don't leave that comment.

For instance: I've had a lot of people play my Arc and not all of them have rated it but most at least leave feedback and I tweak accordingly if it is warranted. Leaving feedback without rating the Arc is fine. It gives people a way to provide constructive feedback without them worrying about "payback". I've only had a couple people rate the arc and not leave feedback.. which is troubling but meh... This weekend, however, I got my first 0 star rating on it with no comment and it took it from a 4.5 rating to a friggin 3 star. If my rating has to suffer from someone lowball rating it I want the chance to be able to engage that person in discussion and find out why they didn't leave feedback and what, if any, their concerns or problems were with the Arc.

Note: I said the chance to engage them in discussion. They could very well choose to ignore that attempt to communicate. That is their right.. but it should be the Author's right to be able to keep track of people who do lowball rate just to do so.

I'm going to nominate:

Superhero Downtime
Story Arc ID: 135096
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Saunik
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
Alignment: Heroic

Story Description: All you wanted was a little quiet time to catch up on your favorite TV show… Is a little relaxation too much to ask?


This Arc rocks.. Really really really fun story line with just enough humor to it.

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Yep. I have some in my Arc. They seem to work just fine. I haven't seen any glitchy bahavior from them at any rate.

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Out of curiousity, which flight power are you using (the normal one or the forcefield) and what regular powers do they have? Also, indoor or outdoor?

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I use both types.
Just indoors for now.
They have varied power sets.. I'd have to look at the specific creatures to tell you as I don't have my arc in front of me at the moment.

We know.. that is why we're complaining lol.

There is no, good, reason that I know of for Rescues to require different spawn points from destructables/bosses. My real problem with the current system is that they rarely put rescue spawn points at the beginning of maps. Especially 99 percent of the cave maps available.

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Flying Custom Mobs are immune to immobilizing effects which is a real treat for players with lots of knockdown attacks.


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Are you sure about that? My flying Energy/Rad defender regularly knocks flying customs out of the air.

Yep. I have some in my Arc. They seem to work just fine. I haven't seen any glitchy bahavior from them at any rate.

I just posted something similar in another thread. The easy solution would be to make all "Floor" spawn points generic so that anything could be placed on them.

Whether they will do that I don't know but it seems it would a very simple change... relatively speaking.

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I just want some spawn points added to the Midnight Club map. The front area where you enter the club.

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That and make all floor spawn points generic so that anything can be placed there. I'm tired of maps that have no or very few front rescue spawn points. Annoying as heck when you are trying to give the player clues through a mission and not have them retrace areas they have been over before.

The Arc in my Sig qualifies... think of a Lovecraft horror film and you'll get the idea.

The arc has also undergone a significant re-write with some new maps in response to feedback I've gotten. I'm not sure about the second map but there doesn't seem to be one with the spawn points I wanted.

Unfortunately I can't really finish the re-write.. at least not the way I want it for the last two missions since I'm at 99.78 percent.

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Re: 200+ years - I don't play every arc. Many arcs don't have a good description in the search window, which is my second criteria to see if I want to play it. First criteria being the title of course.


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Any plan to increase the size of the description? Even 500 characters instead of 300 would make a huge difference. Or maybe some additional settings to describe difficulty? I'm having a hard time writing an interesting description of the story of the mission, while also providing information about what they can expect from the gameplay/difficulty.

I suppose I could stop trying so hard to use complete sentences.

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I gotta put in a vote for this. Not only this but.. if you approach the 300 word limite the description gets cut off in the arc browser.

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A really cool review of my arc.


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Wow...

Thank you for that glowing review.

Let me touch on a couple things you mentioned:

I listed it as neutral because the arc is the beginning of the story. This is, in my vision, a possible world crisis story line. The glimpse you get at the end of the arc is a hint to the scope of the threat. I'm currently working on the next installment of the story which I hope to have published in the next week or so.

I also checked the version you ran and found that, for some reason, it dropped the souvenir clue. I've fixed that and republished the story so hopefully it doesn't get dropped again.

I've added your arc to my list of arcs to run and review. Thanks again for playing my arc and the great review. I'm really happy you had fun during it.

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Ambushes, patrols, defendable objects change the dynamics of a mission.

enemies that talk, npc's that interact - these change the feel of being in a mission.

A mission should not be 19 standard spawns standing their silently pounding their fists, then 1 boss spawn who talks. When people realize that and what they can really do with a mission - then we will start seeing much better missions.

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People are doing that now. The tools are available, if someone chooses not to use them it's not the limitations of the architect that are to blame.

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Well there is a limitation though. That being the fact of a 100k file size. Sure, you can use common enemies and tell a story and add a lot of dialogue to them to make that story more alive.

However, if you want to tell a unique story that needs to have custom characters in it you are forced to give up a lot of text you could be adding based on how many different custom characters you create.

There are limitations on defendable, destructable, collectable items so far as the selection available goes. Sometimes you can't find exactly what you need to use for the story and have to save custom text to work around these limited item sets. For example, I have a magical portal that needs to be destroyed in my arc.. however there is no portal destructable object. I ended up writing around it that the altar forms the portal above it and using custom text to describe that happening.

I would have rather had that text be used to flesh out the custom characters in the arc but with the arc at 97% there isn't to much more I could do.

Now six months from now we might have a max file size that is double what we have now. We will almost certainly have more variety in objects that can be used for the various objectives. We might have the ability to specifically place certain objects/encounters on a map to make the story flow better rather than letting the MA select from possible spawn points. We might actually have tile sets to create our own custom maps that will work far better for our stories than the map choices we have to work around now. Who knows...

Hey guys and gals. I've updated and tweaked my arc based on some of the feedback I'd gotten.

Name: Terrors of Old
Arc ID: 124746

I'd appreciate it if some of you could give the Arc a try and tell me what you think. Unfortunately a lot of the previous updates got reverted to an older copy somehow but I've verified this one So let me know what you think.

Thanks in advance!

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Simple trick to making a player feel his character is truly part of the Arc. First mission don't mention the character by name at all, other than maybe letting the contact use it.

Second mission have patrols uset the $name in their dialogue.. have the lt's start using the $name in attack dialogue.. etc etc..

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It's a good idea, but currently, if you use $name in patrol dialogue they say $name, not the character's name.

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YEah, I realized that when I was doing some testing on my arc after a feedback inspired republish. You should only use that for attack dialogue currently.

Perhaps, in the future, they will capture hero names when they enter the instance so that it would work properly in unaware dialogue.