Doctor_Gemini

It sounds like ratings need to be weighted somehow, so that a single 1 or 0 star does not require five 5-star ratings to negate. I'm sure that was argued in test, though.

If you drag the book icon at the top of the MA screen over the book icon for the 1st mission, the two will swap places. Then when you start your arc the mission you want to test will be the first up.

This is the last of the "lost" arcs I could find from the last couple days

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Arc Name: The Clockwork Crusade
Arc ID: 126073
Faction: Arachnos, Vahzilok, Council, Clockwork
Creator Global/Forum Name: @YanYan
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate, designed to be solo able by any AT
Mission Levels: 1-20
Synopsis: Hero Corps has asked you for some unique help. Seems the Clockwork are making some strange attacks against other villains. They've asked you to 'assist' them under cover.
Estimated Time to Play: 30 Minutes to an Hour.


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Rating: 5 stars
Played through with: Dr. James Druid, L11 Storm/Ice Defender

Overall I liked the whole story. I don't think the Clockwork bribing a hero to help them really fits in with canon, but, no reason it has to. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mission 1: uh oh....a defeat all. There is just never a good reason for a defeat all mission. Luckily, it's mitigated by using an arachnos base with no real hiding places. Enjoyed it. The one Con on that mission is the clue at the end. I wouldn't put words in the character's mouth, but phrase the clue more generically.

For example. "Working with criminals, like the Clockwork, isn't normally your style." I would change that to read something more like "may not be your style".

Mission 2: I like having clickies in a mission that are not required objectives. However, if you're going to have more than one I would give them separate clues. Otherwise it just seems like why bother clicking any after the first.

On the return success dialog the following seems to be a typo...
"This shouldn't really be suprising since Clockwork can make robots out of scrap and an apparent disregard for physics."

suprising = surprising, which I didn't even notice until I pasted the sentence into here and the spell checker flagged it...lol. I'm not sure what that sentence is supposed to be saying. Is it "with an apparent disregard"?

Mission 3: ack! Defeat all!! In an office map! Nooooooooo!
More non-required, clue giving clickies. Good idea but, IMO, needs better execution. Same advice as in Mission 1, though. I think there were 4 or 5 of them in this mission and again, after the 1st, there was no point.

Mission 4: Good job on the custom bosses. I thought they fit in with the clockwork well. I did not get the mission intro dialogue, though. I thought the contact was breaking down or being assaulted, but, didn't see why that would be from the mission.

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My arc was made for my own enjoyment. If someone wants to review it go right ahead, I wouldn't give criticism if I couldn't take it in return

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Arc Name: Welcome to M.A.G.I.
Arc ID: 120957
Faction: Hellions, Circle of Thorns, Hydra, Coralax
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Doctor Gemini
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate, designed for beginning characters as an alternative to the first M.A.G.I. missions. The final mission does contain an Boss (or EB if you have your difficulty up), which is the most difficult part of the mission.
Mission Levels: 1-10
Synopsis: At Hero Registration, you heard the jokes about Azuria losing artifact after artifact. You go to get your first mission only to find out she's lost the whole vault! Is their a traitor in M.A.G.I? Low-level and solo friendly. SFMA.
Estimated Time to Play: 1 to 2 hours.


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This one from Hercules also got lost. I can't review it myself as rampant alt-itis has kept me from having a level 50.

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I made a major change to chapter 4 of my arc and unpublished/republished, if someone could critique, I'd appreciate it:

131430 The Starfare Chronicles: First Contact
Factions: Custom, Rikti
Difficulty: Medium to Difficult depending on build ( Recommend bringing plenty of inspirations if soloing ). Designed for level 50. Has an EB/AV at the end.
Length: 5 chapters
Synopsis:
The League of Starfaring Races ( or Starfare for short ) normally doesn't contact backwater worlds such as ours. That is about to change, as their unrelenting enemy, the Zrak 'Tah, have shown an unusual interest in Earth. Starfare has sent a Special Ops force to investigate the matter....

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Yes, and it also tends to result in people who follow the rules being skipped, or at least it does for me.

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I went back over the last few days postings and pulled out arcs that were missed (unless, of course, I missed someone's review of said arc) or that got a one-line review (which, no offense intended to those who did it, not a proper review).

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Arc Name: Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Arc ID: 130809
Faction: Heroic (or, perhaps, anti-fascist villains in 1941.)
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Difficulty Level: Medium. Not intended to be super-difficult, but be warned, there is an Elite Boss at the end.
Tags: [SFMA][HRMA][MWMA]
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the classic 1938 film Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War (see also: Ashley Porter Diamond Anniversary Special.)

Ashley Porter, the famed Western heroine, has stabled her trusty black mare, Shadow, for the duration of the war, as she leads an all-girl aviation commando team, the Blackhorse Squadron. And "Lady Blackhorse" needs your help, because the Uzbek Lowland Gorillas are revolting!

(No, no, not like the fellas in the Spanish Civil War. The big primates.)

All-out military action in the classic Ashley Porter style, featuring the Blackhorse Squadron, the sinister Germans of Abwehr Section 2, the Red Army, and Uzbek Gorilla Partisans!

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I tried to play this arc. I ended up quitting without rating it when mission 4 told me I might need a team. Up to that point it had been, quite frankly, a grind for me. Good story, but I did not like the missions. Someone else needs to review this. I will post some observations I made, though.

I liked the story, and the npc dialogues were well done. This one in the first mission confused me a little though:

Monique Dutourd: Que vous êtes tres courageux, to fact the finest swordswoman in all France!

I'm assuming that's supposed to be "to face"? Given her scripting and description, I did get a hilarious screenshot after she was defeated, though. Ragdoll physics is so much fun.

In mission 2 the second paragraph of the opening dialogue talks about the "normally peaceful lowland guerrillas", I'm sure that one was supposed to say "gorillas".

Another problem was the lack of description text on all but the Boss NPCs. To me, a 5-star arc should have all the details filled in.

I did not much care for the initiation test that was the basis of mission 1. To me, that would have been better suited to a small, linear map rather than an outdoor map. It gave me the feel of a "run around and kill things for no real reason" mission.

Mission 2 was another outdoor map, but I loved the large number of patrols running around. Since I actually hate those outdoor maps, I ended up turning on stealth and flying, and I really enjoyed watching the three factions running into each other and getting into fights all the time. You do have to fly around to appreciate that though.

Mission 3 was, for me, terrible. Your choice of using only the 5th column lt's ended up making every spawn a knockback fest - Get shot, get knocked back, grenade throw follow-up, get knocked back, run up and kick me, get knocked down - and when three of them are doing it to you at the same time you're watching most of the fight from the ground.

Yes, I could and did beat them, but, to me, it was more of a grind than fun.

Since I didn't finish it, I won't rate it, but maybe something of the above will be of use to the author.

Story. Although I do have to say that, so far, I've enjoyed stories that have been set within CoH lore more than those that pretty much ignore it. I'm not sure if that's just bias on my part or if the story itself was at fault.

It's the weekend. We should have a pool about how many farming threads there will be by the time Mod8 gets back to lock them all.

I'm taking 513.

I work on the weekends -Mod08

QR

I'm concerned that the market is making money come too easy now. Used to be, when I had a toon hit 10th to 12th level, I'd spend 15 minutes or so to raise a couple hundred thousand so I could buy whatever low-level sets I wanted for him.

And I'm not a marketeer, spending that much time is often a chore for me, spending more is impossible.

Since AE came out, the markets have made all those lowbies I've run through AE missions (and I don't farm, I look for story-based missions) into millionaires without spending any more time in the market than it takes to post my crafted bronze roll recipe.

So, obviously, our concerns cancel each other out and you may as well erase it from your list.

It sounds like you haven't unlocked the valkyrie set in the MA. You might want to check which unlockables are still available for you to buy from the ticket vendor.

QR

This is not a list of concerns, it's a list of pet peeves and fallacious observations.

Yeah, this list would grow all right, because everyone has issues. Content wise, I'm concerned that the look of the MA buildings clashes with the style of several of the zones. Which is just as valid of point as claiming the markets are worthless (which I find an hilarious statement) or that much of the game content requires teaming to be successful.

No matter how you try to disguise it, there are more than enough anti-farming threads already in existence. The "I must make a new thread instead of just posting in an existing one" attitude is a worse problem than the meow crap now, in my opinion.

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And I hear there are children starving and the environment is going to heck and Johnny can't read, half the children that take the SAT do below average.

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And it's all CoH's fault.

I think the only answer to "why only three?" is "Because!"

I suspect that they will add slots occasionally, like they have added character slots, and they'll probably do a pay option as Catwhoorg mentioned.

I think the only warning should be in the arc description. That way, as someone who usually ends up soloing more often than not, if I don't feel like taking on an EB right now I can pass the arc by. Once I accept the arc, telling me what is in every mission should not be necessary.

Of course, you won't be able to please everyone.

The fact is, magically remove all farming from the game and the chance of any individual arc being played is slim. There are just too many arcs. The only arcs that will get a great deal of play are those made by people who are capable of promoting them and who have a support system in game that will promote them for them. Farming won't affect those arcs.

In reality, the MA is for the author and his/her friends. Getting more recognition than that is akin to winning the lottery.

As for salvage at Wentworth's, it's really not an issue, in my experience. Play one AE arc. Spend a minor amount of tickets for random commons on anything too expensive to buy. I always end up not only with what I want in a few rolls, but also tend to have a couple pieces I can sell at those inflated rates.

Even uncommons are cheap at the rate tickets fall from the story based missions I play, and AE seems to have dropped the bottom out of the rare salvage market. So, salvage is really dirt cheap now it seems to me.

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On the flip side, despite the essential limits on mish objectives, there needs to be challenge enough that folks enjoy it--cakewalks don't work.
I think the coveted DC badge needs a good mix of both; or in other words, 'Moby Dick' didn't need just the whale, it needed Ahab's personal issues (a story!) to fly.

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I tend to agree with you for a Hall of Fame arc. You're going to have to appeal to both the people who like a good story, and the people who just click the text and never read the clues, but want to have fun killing things. DC, though, is a different animal. For now, anyway, I'd have to disagree with you for getting a DC badge.

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so you have that misconception. That's the point.

People will discover this is not the case - and hopefully the devs will improve the tools to make it even better.

Prevent 30 firbolgs from escaping, defend the reactor from waves of foes, these are very different missions from the normal move through a map and defeat each spawn in sequence.

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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Ok, that's what I meant by "if you're talking about the mission not advancing the story". I don't agree with you on that as a blanket statement, however. Some of that is greatly a matter of taste.

For example, while I do like having patrols, especially to have people moving about in the mission and speaking. I loathe defendable objects. Ambushes are good, but not if overused, especially having multiple ambushes from the same objective.

I'm sure there are things others who like story focused arcs really hate that I like, and neither of us can claim that our tastes fit what most people want.

(ok, I take that back....either of us can claim it...just doesn;t make it so )

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[I prefer Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle myself.]

[Edit: Forgot Jules Verne.]

Excellent examples. All authors that are admired and left unread by the general public. It's great to name names. But they are not books that the modern public reads and enjoys. There are certainly a minority that do enjoy them.

[Ok, imagine World Wide Red told in five missions, using only the maps that arc uses. (And without the giant robots, because NOOOO, they can't just limit them to outdoor maps, we can't have them at all.)

Now image the RWZ storyline told in five missions, with all those "cool new maps" it has. (Which we've all seen a zillion times unlocking the Midnight Club.)

Which is the better story?]

You have 2 problems here.

One, you are comparing a bad story to a good story. Bad
stories are bad stories - I've already said that.

Two, you are fixated on stories. I have a bookshelf full of stories. If you want to read a good story - find a book. A major failing of current arcs is the story fixation. Plots are clever, contacts are nice, text is great - and the missions are boring. Because the author thinks that this is Mission Texpad not Mission Architect.

As soon as you all cancel your CoX accounts and spend your days reading Dickens, Twain, and Jules Verne - then I will believe you that a good story is timeless and all that truly matters.

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The reason those authors are not widely enjoyed now is because tastes change over the course of a century, not because they were not good storytellers.

It's unlikely that tastes will change in 6 months, we'll just have more tools to create the adversaries with.

Speaking of tastes, YOUR tastes do not equal what everyone wants from MA missions. I really can't even see how you can have a good story and boring missions. Missions are pretty much the same. There are certainly ways you can make a mission a grind, but about all you can do to spruce it up from a normal CoH mission is to add the novelty of custom foes.

Now, if you're talking about none of the story being advanced in the missions, so that all of the story takes place in the contact text, then I can see your point. Missions should not just be something to get through in order to read the next chapter.

You might also have him not be present in every mission. Something along the line of saying in the mission start dialog:

"Eager Boy ran of to take on Enemy X but got soundly trounced. He's in the hospital recovering now, so maybe you'll go finish the job"

Maybe even put in a clicky or two in the front part of the mission that give you notes left behind by the kid in order to keep his personality in the story.

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Yes, but, I think the point trying to be made is that very few MA authors (at least that I've seen to date) have figured out that difference. And of those who have, a large number of them haven't figured out that most people don't care about your character's story if the arc doesn't make their character feel like an active participant in it.

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Oh, understood, but that's a flaw in execution, not in concept. Nothing wrong with telling one of your characters' stories in and of itself. In fact, done right, you won't even know it's one of of the author's player characters, just one created for the MA.

It's like when my college writing professor told the class to not use the word "hopefully" at all, because so many people don't know how to use it. I deliberately used it in my next paper...correctly, of course.

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Oh, I agree with you. I don't automatically assume that an arc about the author's character is going to marginalize my own, I just more often than not end up disappointed.

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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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Very cute, but there's a huge difference between using one's characters' stories for an arc and Mary Suing them.

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Yes, but, I think the point trying to be made is that very few MA authors (at least that I've seen to date) have figured out that difference. And of those who have, a large number of them haven't figured out that most people don't care about your character's story if the arc doesn't make their character feel like an active participant in it.

Dug, if you select the text you want colored and right click, it will bring up a list of colors and insert the HTML tags for you.

If I remember correctly, if you select a word in the middle of a bunch of text the tags will appear at the end, so you'll have to cut and paste them where you want them to be.

On the subject of the thread, though, I hate colored text for anything other than warnings about the mission. I find highlighted text to jar me out of story immersion and to be a distraction.

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Perception debuffs suppress when the player is hit.

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Nope....or at least not those that come from custom critters in MA. I fought an annoying EB the other day who kept blinding me. Once my purples wore off and he started hitting me while I was blind I ended up having to run away since blind never broke.

At this point, I'm far more interested in a means to limit farming threads. Maybe they need to install a limit on the boards on the number of time the word "farm" can be used in a 24 hour period. After that time limit, any post containing the word (including its title) is automatically deleted.

And god help you if you post a thread using that word after the "Farm Cap" is reached....

You could always add your history lesson through clues. If the enemy group is a mystery to your contact, gaining clues that tell about them makes sense from a story point of view. Add a couple of clickies here and there that give the character (and thereby the player as well) some of that info.