Evangel

spent a week creating an arc and published it. silence.. ok, I admit I was disappointed, I sort of hoped for *some* feedback.

Logged in the other day , no messages waiting for me for feedback

checked the MA to work on a second story and I notice that the arc has been played, and rated as a 1 star.

no feedback. I have no idea if someone really hated it or if its just a troll (or a farmer who found out that it isnt actually a farm arc )

thing is: to me the rating system is:
1 star: zero effort, no dialogue, almost zero story
2 star: looks like a random enemy group on a random map with a flimsy premise
3 star: average. basic intro, basic story, basic mobs
4 star: good idea. some effort but needs a few tweaks (difficulty, storyline etc)
5 star: nail on the head. its ready to play, its fun, its well put together. good pacing, good text and the player is kept informed.

so its a bit demoralising to receive 1 star and not have any idea what (if anything - and I'm not egotistical enough to believe that there is nothing) was wrong...

If this is a whole US feedback not being received in EU, they really need to fix it. make the comments attach to the mission and not sent to the player. Put a button in "my published arcs" to "view comments", or better yet, put a button in the main search link to view comments so you can decide to play it or not (a 5 star rating with comments of "k3wl" "1-50 in 1 mish. I 4r 1337"! would show me that even though its got 5 starsr, its not my type of mission).

true. english native speakers are generally quite lazy... not intentionally though. I went out with a portuguese girl that had perfect english. all the songs she liked growign up, all the tv shows (they subtitle, not dub) were in english so its easier to learn ebcause they have more exposure. English speakers have to go out of their way to find media in foreign languages and most of us (unfortunately) cant be bothered.....

hmmm,

first it was complaints about there being nothing, then there was somethign nad the compalints changed to it not being enough of something and almost equivalent to nothing now its a complaint that the announcement was made US side and not EU at the same time.....

the lesson i'd take from that is, why bother.

way I see it: I'm playing the game I sub to. now i'm getting some free stuff happening on the 28th of april.

even it they didnt announce it at all, its still cool.

as to the fact that the announcements arent made at the same time: meh. when its made EU side, its made Eu side. I'm happy enough to wait until then.

I suppose it depends on what you are trying to do:

tell the story of your character's journey through the missions - then yes, IC comments are a great way to help explain your character's view of the events etc. But if this is the case, avoid the impartial technical stuff.

or

Give an impartial review: in this case, the IC comments are superfluous and only serve to give the reader a sense of bias that more than likely isnt actually there.

I do like the IC comments but I dont feel that they have a place in an impartial review.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/new..._annivers.html

[ QUOTE ]

Five years ago a trumpet call rung out for heroes...

From around the globe that call was answered and the streets, rooftops, and skies of Paragon City™ were filled with the widest variety of costumed crusaders ever seen. These stalwart players brought with them the courage, fellowship, and dedication that made Paragon once again a true City of Heroes®!

Since that fateful day much has changed. Enemies have fallen and new ones have risen in their place, proving that evil never sleeps. Threats came from alternate dimensions, mystical realms, other times, and even from our own world itself. Lord Recluse™ loosed an army of villains into the world, turning the Rogue Isles™ into the largest den of villainy in recorded history. His destined ones showed remarkable will, cunning, and determination in this City of Villains®. Heroes and villains came into direct conflict with PvP battles, uncovered new powers, found new worlds to explore...or conquer, broke through with new inventions, and flashed back through time. The most recent development has provided the tools for players to architect all new adventures and help take us into the future.

Now it is a time to celebrate all the triumphs of the last five years and so Paragon Studios™ has cooked up some special gifts for all our loyal fans.

Please join us for a month of celebration starting on our birthday, April 28th and continuing on throughout the month of May!

In-Game Events

We're not going to ruin the surprise...but suffice it to say that all CHAOS is going to break loose in-game on our anniversary date and you're not going to want to miss it! From 11am EST on April 28th to 12am EST, get ready to re-experience some of the things that have made City of Heroes® the great game that it is over the past five years! The festivities will be more fun than you can shake a stick at, and will include plenty of opportunities to earn merits, badges and XP.

But that's not all...

Some familiar faces will be hanging out on the Training Room Test Server throughout the day--ready to wish you a happy anniversary. They could be anywhere, but you're definitely going to want to check out Pocket D! So copy a character over and pay them a visit!

Don't know how to get on the Training Room? Learn here.

Global Anniversary Address From Positron™

Also on our anniversary day, be watching around 8pm EST in-game (and shortly thereafter on the website), for a special Anniversary Address from everyone's favorite Lead Designer, Positron. He will certainly have some fun information to share!

Anniversary Contests!

For your participating pleasure, we've got two fun contests with cool prizes that will be launching on April 28th and continuing throughout the month of May!

Details will magically appear on the website on our anniversary day, but until then, just start thinking about what masterpieces you might create for the following competitions:

5 Year Anniversary T-Shirt Logo Contest - where the winning entry *may* very well get turned into actual shirts produced for a limited run!

City of Heroes® Video Homage Contest--That's right. We're going to challenge you to be as creative as possible and video tape yourself (alone or with friends and loved ones), paying homage to City of Heroes (in whatever way strikes your fancy), in two minutes or less! Then, you'll postal mail your video to us on CD or DVD and viola-- you'll be entered. Will you write an original song about the game and perform it for us? Perhaps you'll execute an interpretative dance in costume? The sky is the limit so get those creative juices flowing and watch for the specifics coming soon!

It's A Re-activation Week!

We want everyone to benefit from our anniversary, so from April 28th until 11:59pm EST on Sunday, May 3rd, all expired retail and trial accounts that are in good standing will be able to access the live servers. Now is the time to encourage everyone you know to patch up and jump into the game so that they can experience with you our anniversary events, the new Mission Architect system and more!

5 Year Anniversary Badge

Now then...it just wouldn't be a City of Heroes® milestone event without a commemorative badge, would it?

Beginning at 11am EST on Wednesday, April 29th and continuing until 11:59pm EST on Sunday, May 31st, we will be issuing each individual character you log into the game with, the following 5 Year Anniversary badge:




Just a reminder - this badge will be awarded per character, not per account!


All the fun all begins on the 28th and we can't wait for you to join us!

Thanks to you all for making City of Heroes® the success that it is.

Happy Anniversary!



[/ QUOTE ]

Seeing as you are up to the 20+ range, I'll blatantly shill my own arc ehre

see arcID in my sig.

level range: 20+ (though 45 - 50 might get weird spawns in the final mission)

no AVs
one tough melee Boss at the start and a imho very tough EB fight later on (if you are soloing).

[ QUOTE ]
Error! on CoG

Just out of interest what is the message?

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry to OP for going off topic..

error:
Line 275
char 1
Error: object expected
code 0
Url http://www.cityofguides.com/user/index.php

happens when I click "missions" after I log in. looks like it hasnt associated my Arc with my account and wont let me edit it (wont list my arc either).

My suggestions:

1.
To help stop farms from affecting the general populace:
make the salvage received from ticket redemption account storage-able BUT make it so it cannot be placed on the market.

2.
Reduce Inf rewards. its a virutal system so how are we gaining fame or notoreity from training in it ?

3.
Make mission tilesets for the different settings and then make levels editable in the same way as the base editor. Lifts can be marked "up" or "down" and open into a new floor. - would be nice if each floor was seperate so we could change tilesets.... office > lift down to basement tileset > stairs down to sewer set > ramp down to caves.

4.
allow us to set spawn locations on the map, at least for non-stock mobs. bosses/captives/glowies etc

5.
Ghost/god mode for mission testing along with in-mission editing tools.

6.
Re-vamp custom mob creation. Use a point buy system, if you go above a certain level they are lieutenants, boss, eb, av etc. choose base attributes: Health , accuracy , damage multiplier. Choose power sets, choose powers from htat powerset. all components have a point cost. That way we can guage a missions toughness by the minion point cost and work out if it is solo-able (seriously, i'm tired of bot/dark MMs backed up by a fire/ice control and a SS/WP melee. )

I'll throw my arc into the ring as well

(see sig)

Title: AE Combat Evaluator
ID: 101282
Range: 20+

Cog entry: http://www.cityofguides.com/ma/view-mission.php?id=100

(yes, the arc IDs dont match because I cant seem to edit my mission description in CoG.. some error on page message).

It is solo-able but the boss on mission 1 may give you some bother.

had to republish my arc so its new ID is 101282 (see sig).

reason for re-publish: blowies on final map were too hard to see so I went for one with a flashing red light to make it easier

[ QUOTE ]
'wuv each other to bits'?

[/ QUOTE ]

sounds like the tagline from the first Lego pr0n movie....

yep it was the apocalypse zombies I was looking for ( i mentioned halloween because that was when they first turned up as far as I can remember... or was it valentines?).

anyway, thanks for that here's hoping they introduce them as lvl 1-54 mobs in the near future.

anyone know if the Halloween event mobs are available in the MA ? Do they need to be unlocked ? do they pop up out of the ground ?

I'll throw mine in for critique:

its a first publish so please be brutal its the only way to learn!

Arc ID: 98613
Morality: Neutral
Name: AE combat evaluator
brief description: a simulator to see just how good your toon really is. just a combat simulation (or is it? insert dun dun duuuun music here)

Missions: 5 (two very short, 1 very easy)

level 20+

No AVs (didnt see the need. custom mobs (some) , no defeat all missions.

Could do with any pointers on tying the last two missions into the rest of the arc. I've manage dit but it feels a little... clunky...

havent played the arc (sorry) but sort of got sucked into this thread.... please ignore if I'm breaking some rule (i'll get round to playing through the arc tonight) but...

doesnt it seem a bit curious that an orb that can propel everyone within ten feet forward in time 10,000 years is found beside 10,000 year old bones ?

possibility 1:
the guests were enemies of the owner of the bones. killed it before it could use the orb and then used the orb themselves to travel to the future

possibility 2:
use oroboros to travel 10,000 years back to meet mr.ms boney and bring an orb with you in case you cant use the oro portal to come back yourself

sorry to interject, I'll give the arc a play and see if I can think of anything else

In the Beta forum I (and a few others) had the idea of making an editro to write missions outside of CoX.

well, I got as far as making a usable, if somewhat cumbersome, javascript based web form and planned on using a hidden div to generate output (then I got distracted by something shiney)

Not sure if this has been posted here already but in case it hasnt here's one if found on the US forums. havent tesetd it fully but from what I have tried it looks to be what I would LIKE to have created but fell waaay short in the talent department:

http://www.missionplanner.com.ar/

its completely offline, a self contained exe. great for those of us with a laptop and a long commute to and from work

the link was taken from this thread:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13301704

[ QUOTE ]
I look through the list before logging on, and make a note of the ID number of anything I want to try on a piece of paper (along with which character I intend to play it with).

[/ QUOTE ]

what is this "paper" you speak of.....

a good idea but too complex.

instead of AV0 for no av, try just leaving AV out completely. same for all other parameter codes that have a zero value.

I would disagree with your classifications as well. Story driven, humour driven, challenge ? My idea of a challenge might be completely different from yours, my idea of humour might be compeltely different. your terms are too subjective imho.

*IF* people decide to start using a code system it should be limited to non-subjective quantifiable objects:

M# number of missions
AV if av is present
MV if multiple AVs
EB / MB single / multi EBs
CM (custom mobs)

its up to a player if he thinks he can take multiple EBs or AVs solo or needs a team.

I played a very nice low level arc last night (single mission, Crey teaser). it was humorous, has custom mobs, no EB or AV (i played at level 3 heroic), had a storyline. it was second on the search results after a quick and basic search.

using the scaled down version of your system it would be:
M1CM

from that you know that there are no AVs, you know its custom mobs (so level 1-54 range unless others are listed in the arc description), no EBs. the description let me knwo it was humorous and the intro let me know it had a story. really enjoyed that arc.. if I can find the ID I'll post it up.

in short: I like your idea but from my experience so far i dont feel that its necessary. However, if it does become necessary, the code should not mention anything the arc DOESNT contain to reduce its complexity.

as for farms copping on to a code system.. why bother. if they put a good story in and write a good misison they get a good rating and have told the truth. if they have a farm you quit and rate it as 1/2 with a comment to the author not to farm and post a review of it somewhere, tell your friends. Most farms are extremely spottable, if not from the mission description then certianly by the time you talk to the contact.

MA has its own set of badges associated with it. People will play MA arcs to get those badges.

If they want the other badges they have to play the canon CoX stories.

making all badges available within MA would kill teaming completely outside of the AE buildings.

anyone notice that the AE buildings have a PPD detective (blueside) poking the bushes near the back door ? I've seen it in four zones so far... something fishy i tells ye..

anyway, sorry but has to be an /unsigned from me.

didnt realise there was a US and a european version.. that explains the problem I had with it only applying to my old US account

feck. my bad, time to pony up for the EU version.

groooooaaaaaan...

you are the sole poster responsible for such corniness in these threads. For God's sock! no more! toes jokes are terrible....

[ QUOTE ]
Your premise is fundamentally flawed on a number of counts... and the first one is that Galaxy is underpopulated by heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

true , I dont have any hard numbers to support this but there have been posts in the past complaining that GC was deserted and also posts saying that the GC/AP split blueside was a mistake and that single start redside was the way it should be.

[ QUOTE ]

In any large populated area if the superhero population outstrips the criminal activities they cease - which in this game would mean "The End!"


[/ QUOTE ]

but, with the *optional* pvp criminals (npcs) could be replaced by villains (players) (borrowing terminology here for clarity).

I do agree that if one side dominates the other or if one side disappears completely then the whole *optional* pvp storyline would be null and void. that is a problem. however its already a problem in CoX so its not exactly making anything worse.

[ QUOTE ]

I also don't believe that villains need any more "starting points" than they have already, especially now that the MA is up and running. There's plenty to do. Villains already get more opportunities to savour the delights of Paragon via Newspaper missions than Heroes do the Isles.


[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe you dont feel they need more starting points, but others might and I think i would like the option , if only for my altitis

In any case, the heroes wouldnt be losing anything, there would still be hero only arcs and hero only storylines in GC (assuming thats where it is) just there would also be villain only story lines and villain only arcs as well as hero vs villain story/arcs.

more choice is rarely a bad thing (to me its never a bad thing but others may differ), so you add two more choices for start up without taking anything away from anyone.

[ QUOTE ]

I'm also quite opposed to the "going rogue" concept and the MA is already a step in the wrong direction for me I feel.


[/ QUOTE ]

I never mentioned going rogue. I mentioned villains doing small scale villainous stuff while heroes do heroic stuff. No going rogue involved or any form of moral compass. I however, do like the idea of going rogue but I dont like the potntial for misuse. it has to be a balanced approach that stops players taking advantage... different conversation though.

[ QUOTE ]

And yes, your suggestion does break game law in so far that your initial encounter as a villain is that Arachnos and Kalinda seem to think you've got what it takes to be one of the Chosen Ones. If you get stomped on by Longbow from day 1 that's no way to prove anything to anyone. (Not often I agree with the Phantoms but I do on this.)


[/ QUOTE ]

I dont believe every villain should be "one of the chosen" tbh. Anyway, you can still be one of th echosen, you just do it at level 10 (or earlier and not at level 2). You just get to play the bit leading up to breakout. - ps, I quite like the inhibitor idea above - exemplar to level 1.

[ QUOTE ]

Also it's impossible to have Heroes & Villains in a zone without it being either a) non-combat (a la Pocket D) b)Co-op (RWZ & Cim) or c) PVP. Turn Galaxy into a PVP zone would ruin the game for so many people it wouldn't even be funny and the other two options are just not feasible.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree to a certain extent.
a: non-combat : optional. you go about your business in missions that only appear to interact with villains (you recover an artifact stolen from jeweller john while villains are hired by Hellion Hugh to steal an artifact from Jeweller John's shop.) at no point do the heroes actually fight or confront the player villains

b: co-op : agree that it shouldnt be co-op. it should be good vs evil. there is no over-riding threat to bring both sides together.

c: PvP: make it optional. yes you run the risk of taunting etc but that possibility is already there with PvP zones and also with arenas (i have had a kiddy follow me around blueside challenging me to a duel in the arena) but thats happened me ONCE in over three years of playing. I dont think it would be as bad as some people think.

hopefully this goes some way to alleviate your dislike of the idea. if not, fair enough I'm not sayingthat this has to be done, I'm not saying this will be done , I dont have the authority to do that. I'm just a player making a suggestion about something he'd like to see.

strange, I used the option to quit arc from the architect options button and it just dropped me back into the AE building with the default contact showing. no mission fail or option to rate etc.

probably just my connection acting up

thanks

I was playing two arcs the other day. cant remember the names butthe first was to go up against mother nature and defeat all DE on a large graveyard map.

now, I enjoyed it but felt that the defeat all was a bit unnecessary as you have to scout around before you find mother nature (or she finds you as in my case). I had to run away a few times to recuperate but eventually took her down and finished off all the minions. left my feedback and gave a rating.

Then I played a second map. Nazis making a cyborg out of Hitler's brain. almost no intro text, very little by way of flavour. you fight 5th column in an attempt to destroy hitler's brain... ok. Unfortunately the final fight was (for me) extremely difficult to solo. between bots and an invisible EB that constantly replenished every bot I killed i eventually (after over 20 minutes fighting) gave up and exited.

now, the problem is. I'd love to let teh author of the arc know my experiences, maybe he/she didnt realise that some players would find it tough. I would also like to have rated the arc (when I played it it was rated quite high) to reflect that while I liked it, I found the EB a bit on teh hard side for solo, there should have been a team warning and the lack of intro etc really doesnt help. But, because I quit the arc before finishing, I couldnt leave any feedback or rate it.

so what happens if there is an arc that is so bad that you really really dont want to finish it? Or one that is extremely offensive ? Do you have to slog through to the end or fail in the objective?

(on a side note: should we be reporting farms or does MA allow them? not related to the arcs I'm mentioning above).

there you go again GR, spoiling perfectly good speculation of Dooooooooooooooooooooom (tm) with pesky facts.