Judgement_Dave

So about 30 minutes ago I advertised on the Union badging/event channels and Steel broadcast that I was about to run the midnighter club access mission - so shout up if you wanted in. I did the mission with a full team (though granted 3 of them were me!).

What struck me as odd was that one of the team members seemed surprised that I offered the badge mission for free...

This made me think - in the good old days (ok - 2 to 3 years ago) I remember seeing several badge runsbeing offered. None of them ever charged - though often people running the low level badges would be very grateful for a couple of thousand INF towards their enhancements. I know this partly as I've never asked for payment, but did accept small tokens of gratitude from lvl 50s wanting their spelunker.

These days I don't notice the calls on badging channels for spelunker or other lowbie badges (aside from mayhem/safeguard which need a low character to get the mission). This is a shame - back 2 years ago it was possible to get the Atlas medallion at lvl 20-25 with only a little trouble, even if you missed the spelunker mission yourself. Now it seems expected that you wait until you're high level and bother Ouroboros'ing back to the "Save the Mystic" mission.

And the surprise of some of tonights team at not being charged makes me wonder if it's usual for people to demand an entrance fee to badge missions...

So: have the existence of flashback and the need for INF for the market made us more selfish?
Or: have I only just noticed my rose-tinted spectacles make even 2-3 years ago seem a happier place to be?

I just wondered.

Shades going!!!

Admittedly I've not been online at the same dead-of-night times that I used to see you at, but hope thats all well. It was a pleasure knowing you, sir. And it'd be a great pleasure to have you back at some point in the future.

All the best, 'til our paths cross again.

And the extra xp is +50% and, iirc, patrol xp is built up at 1 bar per 24hrs logged off the character.

A couple of binds resources that have been in my favourites for a couple of years (and still work today):

Advanced bind guide v1.1 (on US CoX forums)

Online Game Commands

Luckily MA allows you to test your missions before publishing... Or you could consider them as similar to minions/lts/bosses etc already in the game.

No recent spam noticed yet.
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In three years I've never seen it used for anything else. SG's tend to use web based calendars for organising events, in my experience.

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I've had 3 or so non-spam emails in nearly 3 years, the first being very valuable at the time. They were:

* A quick guide to useful keybinds for kheldians, including references to web pages;
* A letter from the person who'd inherited SG leadership asking for member feedback;
* A note from a friend who was on a villain pointing out that my hero must have villain chat disabled!

Unless they've changed it in the past couple of issues, biggest problems with email is that it's only to a character (not a global) and it's so clunky to use compared to real email (addressing was a swine iirc).

With badly implemented UI/fuinctionality it's no wonder that it's mainly used by people trying to RL profit - it's just too nasty to use without a real incentive (e.g. money).

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But if the character name database is linked into the Player Character name database, we could have an issue. Hopefully, it isn't and they've thought of this.

Would you be disappointed if you couldn't add your existing characters into arcs, names and all?


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Wonder how they'll cope with character defamation too? You could pick someone whiter than white that you know in game and build an arc around how evil they are.


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Doubt it's linked to any player name database.

One of the ideas that people immediately leapt on was to create their own character TFs/arcs. Given this it should have been spotted PDQ if you couldn't create named bosses with the same name as player characters.

Also consider that the missions can be accessed on any CoX server... so it wouldn't be a case of finding names that don't clash with your home server, but of finding ones that don't exist on any server.

As to defamation - not an issue.
1. How do you defame a fictional character?
2. How do you defame a character identified purely by name when the name could easily be used by multiple entities each with their own character traits/flaws/etc?

That is to say that each server could have it's own character called The Hypothetical... On Union the Hypothetical is a whiter than white hero. On Defiant the Hypothetical is a blacker than black villain. On Freedom the Hypothetical is an ambiguous anti-hero somewhere between gray and grey.

Write any arc featuring the Hypothetical as a named custom boss and some players of Hypothetical characters will be upset you've used their name. Some of them will love the fact you used the name. Some will object to the representation of their character. Some won't give a monkeys.

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You are still failing to grasp that they could print as many nice shiny boxes as they want but there is nothing they can do to make retailers put them on the shelves.

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Surely the developers with a bias towards CoV could come up with some ways involving blackmail and physical violence?

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lol 10k

I dont get out of bed (PI) for less than 1 mil.

:P

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Though if you have the slots spare it does give you the response to anti-farming posters that you are actually helping the market by bringing set recipes to the consignment house. Is the satisfaction of being able to demonstrate that farming is good for the market worth 1 million INF?

Heck - most set recipes I don't need I'll stick on at 1INF and if it's not sold when I later need the slot then I'll grab it back and sell at the shops. Costs me very little to do that, but could easily help some poor devil who's been trying to get the recipe for ages.

Some people forget that there are badges attached to the respec trials - not much to many, but it can help get peopl eto attend if they collect badges!

The channels I'd try for the English speaking servers are:
Union:
sals badgehunters
Union Badgehunters
Union Taskforce

Defiant:
Defiant Events
DefiantBadgers

Of these the sals and Defiant Events seem the two busiest.

If you know when you fancy trying it, it could also be worth posting a thread on the relevant server board (e.g. Union Heroes). And don't forget to mention it in SG/Coalition channels and, if you're short, to ask anyone joining the team if they know anyone on SG/coal/friends who'd be interested.

BTW - the first respec trial is often better done with at least a few people at maximum level and who don't really need a respec... it'll be quite tough if you're all low level and have builds in desperate need of a rework!

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And to drag this topic screaming back onto topic here's a US post on how to get 5 stars

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Curse you Carni! I'd been keeping that thread back as my private help towards becoming a half-decent mission writer - now any old fool can have the same help thanks to you!



Or alternatively - yup, I agree. Decent thread with some decent tips for those wanting to write arcs in MA.

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Kill All missions are sometimes needed for story reasons, but it should be avoided when the plot doesn't require it. Not only because it can be teadious sometimes, but also because it tends to dilute other, more complex and interesting objectives.

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Oh I agree that they aren't neccesarily needed and can be tedious, but I was coming from the jumping off point of Calamity stating Any arc that has 5 kill-all's in a row will get blasted by me! which seemed a little too harsh.

I don't plan on making arcs with 5 kill alls, but, at the same time, if there's an otherwise good arc with some sort of plot rationale for the missions all being kill alls then I don't think the arc should really be marked down. Heck maybe coming up with a good plot reason for the kill alls should get extra credit!

OTOH doing kill alls from laziness shouldn't really cut it - but at the same time if laziness is the driving force then I'd guess that other aspects of the arc would suffer as well.

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I dislike kill-alls because the game STILL allows mobs to spawn or get knocked into impossible to reach places and they don't always manage to extricate themselves. You then can't complete the mission.

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But surely an arc shouldn't really be marked down due to what's effectively a bug in the game?

Possibly lose some style marks for odd clipping issues that can be seen at test time (and characters redesigned to avoid) but the stuck mob bug may not even be encountered during testing...



On a seperate note - yup: it's about time the devs do something about the stuck mob in kill alls. Heaven knows that there's been enough suggestions for possible solutions.

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This Parrot Is Dead!

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It's not dead - it's merely pining for the mods.

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I've just read that post you linked to, Sapphic posted at the same time as you, so wouldn't have seen your post.

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Oy Pretty Polly - I made that point a whole minute before you. Wasn't my reply good enough?

To be fair, in that thread, the 2nd reply was posted at the same time as yours.

I've noticed a few like this recently where there's been 2 or 3 answers within a few minutes - and that's perfectly understandable. Heck I think I had one where I replied pretty verbosely in a reply that took about 10 min to compose only to find someone had given a 5 word answer that fitted 90% of the time.

But it also happens with any thread over about 4 posts long as many are too lazy to read a thread when their input is obviously required - much easier/lazier to read the first couple of posts and maybe the last couple of posts and then reply (regardless of whether the rest of the thread has given a full discussion of the points to be made).

What can you expect in an age when people use txt speak all the time, everyone is told that their views are important and even the BBC seems to believe that the news should be delivered in 60 second chunks?

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Any arc that has 5 kill-all's in a row will get blasted by me!
I also hope that we don't get successive missions in opposite corners of the world.

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A bit off blasting any arc that has 5 kill alls... what if the story is well written and they're 5 kill alls on small maps?

And the doors won't be in opposite corners of the world - missions are, AFAIK, entered inside the AE building.

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lol hero one honoree (never saw that thanks for point that out (its still bastardisation though union flag and no "u" thats bad :P (yes im being just as pedantic as you)


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Alongside the comic cover of a riktified Hero One, the anagram was the big clue to the big bads identity. Hard to believe you didn't know about it!

BTW - Lose a couple of points for your lack of capitalisation and misuse of parentheses (3 opening but only a single closing bracket)

But also gain a ten point bonus for using Union Flag rather than Union Jack.

The designer screens we've seen showed something like morality or inclination (e.g. Heroic) but that was just descriptive - either side can do any mission.

Theoretically they can pick any - practically I bet if MA is a success that after the 1st coupl eof months they'll use HoF (or at least a high mean average rating) to help them decide which to look at with their limited time.

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Can we use villain maps on blueside and vice versa? THat could help add even more variety.

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I get the impression that the mission designer is effectively faction-neutral - anything can be created for either side. So maps, enemies etc that only appear in the dev-designed game for one faction are available to both.

Good memory!
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Nerva has one map where you fight the Back Alley Brawler its kind of in a square area - cant remember the name.


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This reminded me that there's at least one in the north of Nerva (Primeva or similar) where you have to defeat a longbow hero stood on some stone structure/monument after going through the water.

I think that you are misreading it.

Instead of designing a small pack of extras to go with the new box they're effectively doing a voucher that allows the purchaser to choose one of the existing booster packs for free.

So both boosters will be available to buy individually by any subscriber, but people buying the MA edition box get one of them for free.

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why would we all stop and turn into full time designers????

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In a word: "Badges".


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And a lot of people don't give a monkeys about badges. So, again: why would we all stop and turn into full time designers????

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The only quote I've seen said they would be rounding up, which would suggest any score averaging >4 would be rounded to 5. A little more forgiving, but probably still not resulting in vast numbers of HoF arcs.

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BTW - Yesterday morning I gave an example or two of votes here in the Mission Architect Academy thread.

The 2nd example hit's a mean average of exactly 4.0, so still wouldn't be enough to get into the HoF:
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2000 people voted as follows:
100 1 star
200 2 stars
300 3 stars
400 4 stars
1000 5 stars

So getting an average rounded up of 5 could be pretty darn hard... OK - it ain't meant to be easy, but not even making it in the above example (where 50% of the votes were for 5 stars, and only 15% were below 3) just seems ridiculously hard...


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