Mind Forever Burning

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A person with a brain and time travel will win. Period.

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People keep saying this, but I'm not sure I believe it. Are you including omniscience with time travel? Immortality? With omniscience, immortality and time travel, yes, I believe you can win... but without those two other ingredients, it sure seems possible to muck things up or lose for good.

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Man, that is so weird. I've been furiously working on my arcs to get them up before my wife gave birth to our second child. Her due date? June 6.

As it happened though, our son came 2 weeks early. Surprisingly, I will probably still be able to get them done.

Back on the OP: My guess is you're going to have to offer a lot more than 10M inf. From what I can tell, most people doing poster/movie work are asking real-life dollars, and at current conversion rates, the inf equivalent is in the billions. But good luck - doesn't hurt to try

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There are a lot of things in the CoX-verse that completely and utterly violates the law of physics.

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I started another thread here to keep this one on track...

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The worst faux pas is the Nemesis automatons, which should be easy for anyone to spot if they're really done with steampunk technology.

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I've been looking through the canon descriptions of Nemesis technology, and found some interesting things to note. I said before that the office worker automatons were something of a joke (i.e. office work is something robots can do and doesn't require any human qualities). That leans towards the idea that the automatons aren't all that sophisticated.

That doesn't hold up in the RWZ arcs though. The Nemesis automatons that fooled the Rikti would have to pass muster against an advanced technology (including mind readers... though I thought the Rikti magi were Lost converts who had Mu blood in them, meaning they shouldn't have existed on the Rikti homeworld?)

Anyway, I did find this interesting tidbit in the RWZ arc clues:

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These are the remains of the Nemesis-built Manticore Imposter Automaton. It shows signs of wear, but is still a convincing copy. This would have fooled the Rikti easily, convincing them that they were under attack by aliens from another world. An attack so severe that they'd have to retaliate with overwhelming force. Though parts of its memory core are missing, deep inside are the details of its attacks, physical evidence that Nemesis started the Rikti war as part of his mad schemes.

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Emphasis mine... the phrasing "memory core" implies that the Nemesis automaton has elements of technology much more advanced than steampunk. I find it believable that Nemesis' technology has advanced with time, and that he keeps things like the Jaegers around because they're just easy to manufacture and do what they do reasonably well.

I'm starting this thread to siphon discussion off of Venture's 2nd review thread, so it can go back to focusing on reviews.

Some points made so far (paraphrasing):

Venture: Nemesis technology being steam-powered is too ridiculous to swallow. The devs should have made it steam-powered in appearance only and given it some other actual basis for operations. The worst faux pas is the Nemesis automatons, which should be easy for anyone to spot if they're really done with steampunk technology.

Time travel is never a good plot device because it should be an I Win button for anyone who can use it. Plots that attempt to use it end up falling victim to Timey Wimey Ball, Idiot Ball, or Fridge Logic problems.

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Adding to the threadjack: I believe that the senior story writers on the CoX team have been working on Going Rogue since NCSoft bought the IP from Cryptic in late '07. I believe this because the content released in i12 and i13 were, frankly, appallingly bad for the most part - a few of the Midnighter related arcs are OK and the ITF is pretty good, but the VEAT arc is laughable, and the later Cimerora arcs (at least villainside) were so full of wallbangers I'm surprised I still have a keyboard.

So I'm not surprised the i15 TFs are as bad as they are. I think they were written by junior storywriters who Didn't Do The Research.

That said, I also believe that i15 went into open beta at the same quality level other issues went into closed beta, which means there's more leeway for change than players might be expecting if the issue were locked down enough to be in a regular open beta. Make your case and hopefully the devs will realize they're about to put their foot in it.

It's too bad Posi made that crack about the issue being about the 5th anniversary; if not for that remark there wouldn't really be much pressure to release the issue before it was ready, as far as I can tell. I would much rather they fix all these problems than release this issue buggy; there isn't anything in it that we can't wait a little while to get.

Test is kinda... uh... well, let's just say there are a lot of problems with every published feature I've examined.

Is this arc already published?

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Two questions.

1) At the end of Janet Kellum's arc "The Evil Countess Crey" (40-44), Countess Crey has been arrested and is in custody. But 45+ villain arcs (e.g. Viridian's) show the Countess at liberty. What happened to her in between? Was she cleared of charges (perhaps through underhanded legal maneuverings), or did she escape? This is an important distinction because it affects her legal standing in Paragon City (if not the Isles).

2) Dr. Aeon's bio on the City of Heroes web site implies he was originally known as "Carl Egon", who reportedly possessed the ability to summon aid through trans-dimensional portals (presumably said aid being other dimensions' versions of himself). However, when heroes encounter him in the STF, his summons battle-cry implies that he is summoning versions of himself across time instead (a view of his powers supported by his own name, and also by his relationship to Professor Echo). What's the real story?

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QR - right, something is definitely screwy with my arcs. My first arc, The Echo, was at 92% or so, never had any problems with it at all. I just thought to check that out. First I tried tom play it. No problem. The i tried to edit it. 102%. error, your arc is too long. If i exit and abandon changes, its still fine, playable.

Something happens when i go into edit mode that either bumps up the filesize or reports its too large in error.

Eco.

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This can happen if there were changes to any custom groups made outside the context of editing the mission. The story arc file keeps a reference of the filename for the group in use, and if there were changes, absorbs them on next edit. So if you, say, added a custom critter to a group that's shared between Mission A and Mission B, then edited A, A's story arc file would grow to include the new member.

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Subversion? What is that and how does it affect custom groups/enemies?

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See: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...umber=13298829

It's a source control system. Basically, it lets you audit any changes made to your arc by the system itself (exposing bugs, etc.)

The devs decided not to make required ambushes possible because apparently there are bugs with pathing that can make them wander off the map or otherwise become un-locatable.

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One of the changes since two days ago is a mysterious reductiuon in the filesize from 100.00% to 87%. I cant find anything missing, either.

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My guess is that a group got changed from "custom" to "standard" and the related critters were dropped from the file - the drop looks just about exactly like 2 custom critters' worth.

This is why I have Subversion installed on my arc directory, and I tell everyone who will listen to do the same.

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But what I really want is the burning forest map back.

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I'm pretty pissed off about this, actually.

The AE mission tagging is just a suggestion; there's nothing stopping heroes from playing "villainous" missions and vice versa. I don't see GR affecting it one way or the other.

Heh. I'm in the same boat.

Actually, the hardest part of the story I'm currently plotting out is trimming it down so that (a) the plot isn't so complex that it overwhelms the bounds of MA arcs, and (b) it doesn't end up being "just a bunch of stuff that happens". Without going into details, the thing that's giving me conniptions is the fact that MA arcs have no effect on other parts of the game, so I have to make the interactions with signature characters believable against the existing backdrop of canon arcs.

It's my bed and I'm lying in it, so this isn't a complaint, just (over)sharing.

This is sounding dangerously close to an exploit anyway. You're trying to create a mission with explicit potential for AFK farming, which is bad.

Seems reasonable. It's also reasonable to give a small amount of intro text prior to the contact's initial dialog (in a different color, or otherwise marked as "not speech") - I've seen that used effectively.

There's a certain amount of general acceptance when approaching an MA mission that you have to "roll with it" just to get started. I wouldn't sweat it too much unless you end up placing the player in very specific emotional circumstances.

You do of course need to have some kind of "hook" for the arc so that the player is actually interested in running it - if you meet that criteria, the player will surely mentally justify that their character is also interested.

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I'm not sure if this makes sense for things other than "Top X" lists because below a certain level it tends to wash out votes altogether, unless the tuning parameter is so small that it becomes somewhat valueless.

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Well, that's what I'm suggesting though - that this formula be used to do the initial sorting that produces the "front page" of results when opening the MA. That sorting is essentially a "Top X" list (where X depends on how many DC/HoF arcs there are), and currently it consists almost entirely of arcs with a small number of perfect ratings.

It means 1 spawn location labeled "front" that can hold rescues. You're overflowing that, so presumably the map will spawn them "middle" instead. That's the only overflow I see.

Note that overflowing doesn't cause missions to fail validation, they just get bumped "somewhere else" according to rules not specified anywhere that I've seen.

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On the subject of ratings: my opinion is still the same as my opinion in beta: while I think the rating system is problematic in a few areas, ultimately I think players should be allowed to rate by their own internal rating system, whatever that may be.

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There are two ratings systems in the wider world that I think the devs could learn from: the one at Amazon, which shows the distribution of star ratings (already suggested in this thread), and the one at IMDB, which uses a different formula to calculate absolute ranking than a simple norm. As I understand it, the IMDB formula weights scores by the number of votes accumulated, making it harder for a small (and potentially biased) group of voters to push an otherwise-unknown movie to the top of the lists.

I bring that up here because I wonder what your opinion is on the IMDB formula. In case you haven't seen it, here's the copy-and-pasted text from the IMDB site:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:

weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C

where:
R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 1300)
C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.8)
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Specifically I'm wondering whether using this formula might dampen the effect of having things pop to the front page when they've accumulated a small number of perfect ratings, only to disappear forever when dissenting opinions (griefs or not) are given.

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Nice job breaking it, hero.

I read the entire thread just to post that.

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You win the internets, sir. Nicely done.

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Regarding the whole meltdown between Geek and HA:

While, after reading HA's review and processing it internally, I have a hard time turning that critique into a 1-star rating, I have to defend HA's right to give that rating. The critique was pretty specific in its complaints. And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).

One of the things about popping to the front page is that you're suddenly exposed to a whole bunch of different types of players. Those people who played an arc when it was on page 415 probably had some interest in the topic or predisposition to enjoy the content presented. When it's on page 1, some people will run it just because it's a mouse click away, and they may be much less inclined to enjoy it.

I'm by no means saying there are no ratings griefers; I believe there are. I just don't think HA is one of them. He clearly played the arc. There's no point in trying to argue him into enjoying it; the best you can do is thank him and move on.

Apologies for necro-ing the threadjack, but I felt it needed to be said. Mutual respect is the only way the process will work.

Yeah, these are the issues that have been driving me nuts. The worst part about the whole meow farming fiasco IMHO is that it took the devs' attention away from problems like this.

So, has anyone noticed arcs no longer working after this morning's maintenance?