Ledain

Virtue MA Arc Testing

The intended purpose for this channel is to seek other players/authors willing to help in the testing of missions pre-publication. Not everyone wants their missions published without thorough testing, but not everyone is part of a large social circle. This channel aims to help those people get the testing they need done, hassle-free!

Virtue MA Arc Testing

This is a channel for authors, players, and badge-hunters on the Virtue server find players to participate in Test-mode teaming. This should help both in the thorough testing of arcs before publication, and in getting those harder-to-reach Test-mode only badges.

Hoping to see sister channels on the other servers in the near future.

So I'm spreading the word. I've created a channel for Virtue dedicated to finding teams to help authors with testing their mission arcs in Test mode. Many of us take too much pride in our work to publish a half-baked story arc, but work outside larger social circles and have difficulty finding anyone willing to help with our work.

I'm hoping this channel will hope to change that. Authors looking for teams to help with the testing process, willing testing participants, and those interested in the Test-mode badges are all encouraged to join this channel: "Virtue MA Arc Testing"

Currently, this channel's Virtue-only. I highly encourage players of the other servers interested in this to create sister channels for the same purpose. Will make finding appropriate teams much easier this way, than relying on a single cross-server channel.

I've decided to take a shot at creating a public channel: "Virtue MA Arc Testing"

The intent is, of course, to help authors find fellows willing to assist with arc testing. I invite any willing posters here on this thread to join the channel. Hopefully this can help anyone having a problem finding willing "guinea pigs" for the sake of arc testing.

Of course, it's brand new, so there might not be a lot of people right now. When I get the chance, I'll advertise the channel a bit in the other forums as well. Hopefully, this'll give us something reliable to work with, without having to post times here on the forum all the time, and without the fear of adding anyone's global just for arc testing.

Also, if any channel pros have any advice for me, I could likely use it. My channel experiences in the past have not been productive...

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beta 6 seems to be causing custom bosses on boss events and ally events of mine to remove the custom boss/critter from being selected, thus making the arc invalid and having to go in and edit it resulting in re-bloating of arc size, an infinite loop of not-working-ness <_<

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Is this happening when you actually test the mission? Or is it only when you're looking at it in the editor? The events and what have you should still happen in the actual mission itself. However, the mission editor won't be able to read custom critters correctly from the IGOR-crunched files.

I'm unavailable most days between 10pm and 8am central. If you can plan a day/time with others here with more reliable availability, I'll do what I can to accomodate and be there.

I can totally sympathize, as in one of my future missions I will require a few custom AV-level allies who really should be labelled heroes. However, since AV and Hero are on the exact same level, it's just a matter of semantics.

I wonder how many people have sent in a bug report about having to "Save the infamous Archvillain, Statesman, from the evil Tyrant!" It's been that way since issue 1, and still hasn't been changed?

I think you meant to post this here.

Does the mission have to complete? You can always make it a timed mission that's nearly impossible to complete in time.

In my current work-in-progress? The title of every mission is also the name of an Iced Earth song.

Character, before and after for convenience, sent via PM. Wouldn't go about sending my arcs themselves though, unless I already had them published. You seem to understand this, though.

Hope it helps. Just looking at the before and after files, there really IS a lot of fat that can be trimmed back.

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A smart villain always has a plan B. And sometimes a plan C and plan D.

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And the smartest villains always succeed, with failure being part of their plan all along.

Oringinally there were two Valkyrja in Challenge from the Norse Gods. They were homage to two main characters from a certain RPG series I have loved since its creation.

One of the last bosses in the same mission uses Energy Blast -- A similar homage to the same game.

Odin mentions "The War." He's still alive, so he can't be talking about Ragnarok. Maybe he's talking about the Aesir-Vanir War?

Tyr has a mechanical arm.

Balder's appearance doesn't fit with the rest of the bosses. It's a parody of the idea that he's beloved by everyone, and at the same time a "momma's boy."

The contact "gives" you the weapon you need to take Balder down.

I'm sure there's more, but there's a few from me. :P

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Oh, good grief.

http://dictionary.reference.com/brow...naut?qsrc=2889

That was the perfect word for my huge Clockwork abomination. The Clockwork Juggernaut. Anybody have any other suggestions?

EDIT: Never mind - for some reason Colossus is allowed

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That's because Colossus ain't the Jugganaut, [censored!]

Tried tinkering with this a bit. It took my current project, 110k file size and 99.77% of the max size as read in game, down to 57k file size and 68.19% as read by the client.

While I don't yet notice any detrimental effects to my precious text, I did notice the changes it made to my custom NPCs. My Emp Defender donning a full white suit of Justice gear with the Vet reward angel wings, now has grey hair, no wings, and a black suit of Justice gear. This was observed during a Test run.

If this process really can be perfected though, then I can't wait to see what the finished product can do.

Well said.

Is the boss itself a custom, or a pre-existing enemy? If it's pre-existing, and its level limit is only a portion compared to the level limit of the entire mission, he won't spawn if the mission is being played outside the boss's level limitation.

In other words, he'll only appear if your level is within the level range designated when you assign the boss in the objectives section.

All I do is on Virtue, but I'm quite willing to help with testing. Could use some help with some of my own, as well. Global is @Ledain, naturally.

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I just think a nice idea for the general populace has morphed into something for "us". And that concerns me.

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I can see what you're saying. The difference is, the "us" is meant to be the "general populace." I don't believe anyone's intending to use it to label themselves as a member of the "elite," or anything.

Until an official system is implemented by the devs, this is really the only thing we have to work with. Until that time comes, we just have to keep trying to refine it, and spread the word so that more of "us" know what's going on.

The alternative is to not do anything... Which people are perfectly welcome to do. It's not an enforced system. It's just something a few members of the community are trying to develop as an alternative.

I started thinking that at first too, Dec. But after seeing how many folks here on the forums jumped on the bandwagon, it started to sound more reliable.

In the least, the people here on the forum and on the wiki now have a tool to work with, to help them find arcs they may be more interested in, or even that suit their level range. Yeah, most of the in-game community may not even find out what they are, but even so. So long as the authors using them don't get carried away, and still add a convincing enough description, I don't think it's going to hurt how many people play the arc. By that logic, there's no reason not to have the tags.

Also, with how popular the idea's become, and even changed, it's highly likely the Devs have already taken notice. Should they ever need ideas on the tags people want to see, they have all the information up in two convenient locations.

I've got three tags stuck to the end of the description for my current work-in-progress. Still trying to think what tags would work well with my current arc.

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There should be a middle-ground tag for this. Canonicity isn't binary; it's a matter of degree.

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I don't see how. I mean, if it involves anything in an alternate reality that isn't already involved in the Dev-created content of the game (ie. Praetorians, Axis America...) then I'd consider it non-canon.

If not, then there's really no need for an elseworld's tag. I'd say the matter of degree depends on whether the author feels placing such a tag in the description would be worth it or not.

As far as the tag length, etc.'s effect on the story description? I'd think a good guideline to recommend would be for authors to pick the three tags that would best describe their arcs, and stick with those. It'd help to avoid the Alphagetti mess.

Even though, Alphagetti is awesome.

You won't be able to change the name of one custom group to the same name as another custom group. If you wanted to change XXX_minion to YYY, that would be doable. However, if you want their group to be XXX within the mission, you will have to use them from the XXX group.

I think only a few select maps (Atlas Park) actually contain rampant civilians.

Well, crud. I guess their latest patch to fix the incorrect error messages didn't fix everybody's problem.

Aside from remaking the mission from scratch, removing the mission files and replacing them after restarting the client, or possibly editing the misison files with notepad, I'm completely out of ideas on this one. And most likely none of those would work, anyways.

From all I've heard, no one's been able to use contacts for rescues/escorts within missions. Your best bet is to either find another character to represent it, or add a custom "Person" critter.