ICF_Zombra

And on the subject of Arachnos, I really hope that Soldiers and Widows aren't allowed to just walk straight over with no changes.

I understand that a case can be made even for "good" Necromancy Masterminds and whatever, but wearing the full uniform and using the standard issue weaponry of a foreign and hostile military power is a little too much to swallow. Remember, in Paragon City, Arachnos are shot on sight by the good guys.

Sure, you can just say, oh, we stole the equipment and are using it against them, but wouldn't it be much more interesting for former Arachnos soldiers to use their military training and discipline in a similar environment blueside? Maybe they could keep their "Training" powers (such as the Leadership-type buffs everyone wants them for), but receive new government equipment based on the branch of service they entered. Perhaps instead of Crab Spiders and Bane Spiders, we could have Longbow Wardens and Wyvern Sting Agents.

Just a thought.

QR - would also like to speak out against the idea of the "Spy AT". A spy is not embodied by a certain set of super powers -in a nutshell, a spy is someone who acts like they belong somewhere they don't. Brutes, Masterminds, Blasters, and Scrappers can all be "spies" if they go pretend to be team players for one side while secretly working for the opposition.

The idea of a Spy AT with "double cross" powers implies that there will be specific, betrayal-oriented content that only Spies can do. No thanks.

Now, I have no problem with some sort of Super Agent AT, maybe something like the Arachnos Soldiers, only not limited to working for that specific group ... but to make an AT predicated on the idea of concealing their true goals implies that no other AT is capable of doing that - and that would suck.

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Oh and changing will not be permanent, as they said, there is an EVER CHANGING moral compass. You don't just "re-pick" hero or villain.

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And the more I think about the compass system, the more I like it. I'm not totally crazy about a KOTOR-style, 1-dimensional spectrum, where you kill two kittens and give candy to three babies and end up "neutral", but it's a huge, huge improvement over what was talked about back in Issue 6 - some kind of Task Force or Trial type thing where at the end your villain would give candy to a baby and be redeemed, or your hero would kill a kitten and fall from grace. Every character has a different style, and having essentially ONE crime for your hero to commit or ONE nice thing for your villain to do (one TF for each side, right?) in order to switch would have been hideously limiting. A whole city (dimension?) full of naughty and nice things to do will let roleplayers choose how their hero will fall, or villain will be redeemed. That's very exciting to me.

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Also, can I go on record as the first person to be amazed by the total lack of "expanshalone" jokes?

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GR isn't an expanshalone, though, you need to have CoH in order to play.

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So do you think that's because the business model was rejected, or because they couldn't think of a word that wouldn't look stupid?

Also, can I go on record as the first person to be amazed by the total lack of "expanshalone" jokes?

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There's no way they'll make Praetoria an Open PvP area.

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Especially since with the moral shades of grey in Rogue, there would be no "teams". It would have to be free-for-all open PvP, like Warburg. I can already hear the PvP crowd screaming that they HAVE to do this for the expansion or the game will DIE FOR SURE THIS TIME, but somehow I don't see it.

Hooray! More monster arcs - many of these look perfect from what's described. Thanks everyone! (And keep them coming! )

By the way, one of the first things I do on every new character is move NPC text to the normal chat window. I want to make sure I see it all.

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I understand your point; however, when I've got three custom minions and a pair of LTs in a group, finding five different ways of saying that they're all guns for hire can get monotonous, both for the writer and the reader.

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Hey, who ever said they all need to have different descriptions? Not me! Agreed 100%, that would be stupid if they really are all pretty much the same.

I have zero problem with five different mob types that all say, "These guys are hard-bitten guns for hire, recruited from the back alleys and dark places of Paragon City," if that describes them all equally well. That's still a thousand times better than "Minions are weak and a hero can take on three of them no problem."

I do prefer a bit of specific info about each type, but it's not necessary for a good story.

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Then I used these two keybinds:
/bind u "window_color 88 0 80 255$$window_show chat2"
/bind i "window_color 88 0 80 128$$window_hide chat2"

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I love you.

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And specifically regarding custom and boss descriptions: absolutely. That text is the window into that character's reason for being. Whether he's a fanatical cultist, a paid mercenary, or a terrified slave who's more scared of his master than he is of me, I need to know why I'm fighting these guys, and why they're fighting back. "Because he's standing between you and Point B" is not acceptable for any arc pretending to have a story.

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That does, however, provide spoilers if the author is trying to use the story to develop the character, perhaps through multiple mission arcs. In some respects, it's almost like reading the back of the book first -- depending entirely on the type of story being told.

... If you want the character to be mysterious and want to develop the character through storytelling, including that information in the bio would defeat the purpose.

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Completely agreed. Bios shouldn't contain story spoilers any more than clues should ("This is the key to the warehouse where you're going to get a surprise ambush!" - not the best clue!). You shouldn't describe an ally who later betrays you as someone with an evil heart and a penchant for double-crossing. In a case like that you should have a more superficial description, or even outright lies based on what the character is pretending to be like

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However, all the trooper, thug, minion types I don't necessarily give color text to. Why? How many ways can you say "this is a minion" and make it sound interesting? Some I do, because there's something in their purpose that is beyond simple "minionosity" (perhaps advanced tech to be explained), but in other cases it would be just another way of saying "this is an expendable helping the main baddies do their thing."

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Eh, I'm sorry, but that's pretty weak. Every minion has a reason to be there - otherwise, your arc is not a story but a shooting gallery. Your minion text doesn't have to be Hemingway, but there should be something to say about every mob in the game. Whether they're just amoral roughnecks recruited off the street and hoping to make a quick buck, soulless corpses animated by a necromancer to inconvenience his enemies, ex-military traitors, normal citizens driven insane by some weird space ray, whatever. If you don't identify why they're there, you're just saying, "These are video game characters who popped into existence for no reason at all other than to absorb the bullets of the good guys." Which may be true but it's terrible storytelling.

It doesn't HAVE to be "interesting". But your audience is going to be fighting dozens of these guys. A basic grasp of what they're doing there is the backdrop for your whole arc.

Good question CrazyCorsaire, and good answer Doc_Wormwood. I definitely don't see mob info as "in-character" knowledge, but it can be extremely beneficial to the story. Most comics, movies, and books give the audience a look at the villains when the protagonists aren't around. As the reader of a comic, I want to have a reason to respond emotionally to the villain, even if he doesn't take the time to explain himself to the hero. Imagine all the cool Darth Vader scenes that'd have to be cut out of the original Star Wars movies just because Luke wasn't there to see them. Lame!

That said, I can appreciate a strictly immersive approach to the game as well ... that's just not as rich for me.

And you'd better only play in first person! Your character has no idea what his butt looks like!

EDIT: Also, I love BOTH of your descriptions of the Yuki Swordsmen, CC. Seeing either one in game would completely satisfy me ... for totally different reasons, of course!

Let's see some generic enemy types for use in MA!

Street Thug
Robot
Agent
Swordsman
Ninja

and so forth. Add your suggestions to the thread.

If we can customize their appearance and/or rename them for our particular custom group, so much the better.

Alternate: new power sets corresponding to the above for use with custom critters. I want a street thug with a saturday night special and a switchblade without having to make him a Hellion or a Skull. (The Street Thug attack set!) I want a robot without having to make him a Clockwork or a Mek Man (or an overpowered custom hero). And so forth.

The only way I know of to make a specific member of a group appear is to set a "defeat a boss" spawn. Then of course you have the problem of deciding what supporting mobs to surround it with!

The multiple groups system should work fine, and won't eat up your %. The only hangup there is that you can't have two custom groups with the same name.

And specifically regarding custom and boss descriptions: absolutely. That text is the window into that character's reason for being. Whether he's a fanatical cultist, a paid mercenary, or a terrified slave who's more scared of his master than he is of me, I need to know why I'm fighting these guys, and why they're fighting back. "Because he's standing between you and Point B" is not acceptable for any arc pretending to have a story.

Boss dialogue can definitely illustrate this too, and is equally important, but I still feel a boss is hollow and two-dimensional without at least a cursory narrative description.

Best of all is when a certain character recurs throughout the arc, and the description changes based on intervening events.

To actually answer the OP:
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How important is all the "wordy" stuff to you?

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Very important.

Actually I'm not a big fan of overly verbose arcs. A line or two is plenty per clue, per mob description, per boss battle. But it's important for those lines to be there.

Come to think of it, I'm the same way with comics. Substantial blocks of text derail my interest, but if there's little to no text at all I flip through the pages and forget about it.

I do like to see a decent amount of contact text, though. I rely on the contact to put the pieces together from the previous mission and motivate me to proceed to the next one. When the contact says, "Yo, go beat up some Hydra," I'm like, eh. Let's pretend we're having an actual conversation.

Can I just mention the Nazis real quick and get the thread over with?

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While there's technical info going on. . . Is there a way to set the screen settings (in particular opacity) for individual windows vs. universally? Or even get info to output to a channel vs. the popup.

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Not that I am aware of, but my knowledge is hardly comprehensive.

What I'd really love is a way to change the contact dialogue window opacity - syncing it to chat window opacity would be ideal for me. Having to find a dark, blank wall every time I want to read contact chat got old 3 years ago.

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Enemy descriptions are difficult to read -- you have to target them, open a menu, and specifically pick 'description'.

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/bind [key] "info"

Target mob, hit [key], done.

I'm not commenting on whether mob descriptions are an important part of the game - just letting you know that it is incredibly easy to read them whenever you want.

Maybe I should also point out that the character fits best in serious stories But I'll check all these out. Thanks guys! And keep 'em coming, forums!

I have a Scrapper, who I mostly play solo, who is a "monster hunter". He doesn't care about fighting 'crime' or even really saving the innocent. He just wants to kill vampires. (Or werewolves, or mummies, or cthuloid squid men, or even mindless mutants, etc.) Basically, if a horror movie could be made about it in the 1930s, he will want to go after it.

I am looking for good arcs for him to solo. Please, don't be shy, sell your arc

One caveat: I'm not too interested in arcs that have you working for monsters against other monsters. I've seen a few, for example, that have some vampire calling you to go kill some other vampire clan. I only want to play these arcs if I can go back and kill the first vampire at the end Though the character may occasionally accept supernatural help if it gets the job done.

Note also that right now the character is only level 15, so if you have an arc designed for low levels, bonus points.

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This is the part that the farming reporters don't get. There are at least half a dozen other mobs/mob types that work just as well as Rikti Comms did (maybe 15% less xp) and the resilient have already switched to those mobs. Heck, two people I know PLANNED this and set their missions last night. The difference is, these folks have learned not to open their pieholes and keep this stuff to themselves.

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And the beauty of it is: the anti-farmers will be perfectly happy to let the invisible farmers continue to exist and do whatever they want to do, once the obnoxious, loud farmers are rooted out. As long as the impact of farm culture on their game is minimized, there's no problem. I for one look forward to it.

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Ya, funny how those who petition MA arcs for being a farm, have no problems hopping on a sewer team for XP's and faster leveing. Or, they do speed TF's. Aren't both of these technically called farming?

Hypocrites abound in this game for sure..

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Really? You really think that the people protesting MA farms are TF farmers and sewer farmers? People who used to farm Dreck? Used to run speed katies? That these are the people who are doing their best to crack down on MA farm culture now?

Really?

The Myriad Problems of the MA System ...

... are not what I'm going to talk about in this thread. I just wanted to get something off my chest concerning a very specific forum behavior that relates, tangentially, to the MA's problems.

I see a lot of complaints, rants, legitimate arguments, and even constructive suggestions on how the MA systems could be improved. Taken by themselves, they are what they are, and I'm cool with them.

What drives me batty is seeing, usually near the end of many of these posts, something similar to: "and no one is playing my arcs!!"

Please, please, please, if you have criticism for the system, criticize the system. That's fine, and I support you completely in airing your grievances. If you're having a problem finding an audience, save that complaint for a separate thread (or, better yet, take constructive action instead). It's really a separate issue.

First: the system does not exist to make sure that YOU have a huge audience. No system can, unless it, for example, forced everyone to play all the way through five unpopular arcs (good or bad) before they could publish a single one. I don't want to see a system like that. Drawing people to your arc is YOUR responsibility, not the system's. There are a lot of suggestions around here for positive ways to promote your stuff. Find them and use them.

Second: making a negative post and then appending a whiny demand (direct or indirect) for an audience is not going to get you positive attention. If anything, it's going to get you negative attention, the same way that a child screaming and breaking things to get attention from its parents will cause the parents to yell back and send the kid to bed without dinner. It just makes me want to punish you - not by one-starring your arc, but by avoiding it completely.

Third: no matter how well-reasoned or accurate your complaints about the system are, when I see that you're trying (consciously or not) to get attention for your work in the same post, your arguments lose a lot of credibility. They start to look less like legitimate arguments and more like rationalizations for your disappointment.

Summary: if you want to draw flies to your arc, try using honey instead of vinegar.

Thanks for reading and good luck. Z