MrCaptainMan

Qr LOL I just noticed the 'feel the knees' in my OP. My iPhone comes up with some corkers sometimes.



Eco

Qr - it IS possible to trigger multiple objectives off the same Collection objective see my arc The Audition, for example I have 16 objectives all triggered off one 'wallsafe' glowie. These are a mixture of Destructable Object, Ally and Defeat Boss objectives.

Eco

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't know as I always 1 star Defeat All containing arcs. That's a hint.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your doctor should be able to prescribe you something for that jerky knee.

Eco

[ QUOTE ]
I think you might be better served by just asking, in general, if people intend to buy slots and, if so, on what basis. I think you're continuing to draw lines through the playerbase that aren't entirely valid.

As for me, I will probably end up buying slots, but only when I fill my existing ones with arcs I want to keep available. As the majority of my MA work has been, to date, SG-focused and temporary, that might take a while... but I assume it'll happen eventually.

When it does, I'll likely buy the whole 5 at once, just 'cuz it's the better deal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I put farmer in the title because I'm interested in the hardcore 'if I want a story I'll read a book' crowd, not so much the I've got 2 story arcs and 1 for farming' people. I take it as read that for those that like to make sfma arcs, cost is probably the main reason why they might not get more arcs.

Eco

Lol Amended the difficulty of the critters in questiona gain, and made the font size of the warning before Mission 3 the biggest it'll go. I was STILL getting people playing it at difficulty lvl 4 and then complaining about it being too hard.

Eco.

Try a radical approach: Get a THIRD account!



I guess you'll be giving yourself all your stuff?

Eco.

LOL can you imagine the army of customs you could make with half a gig? You could probably literally male an army of individual custom critters!

Eco

Someone said on another forum that the way the extra buyable slots had been implemented would mean an increase in story arcs, changing the ratio if story arcs to farm arcs in the MA.

I'd like to ask any farm map creators out there if they'd be likely to buy any more slots. Would a farm arc creator feel the knees to make more than 3 different farm arcs?

Eco

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[ QUOTE ]
QR - Re the '$5 for 100kb' viewpoint, I'd say it wasnt merely memory we're buying at all.

Our sub buys us the following (in terms of the MA):

The MA itself, and 3 slots to publish our arcs in.

The extra buys us:

The option to publish more arcs - and incidentally, as part of this process we 'gain' 100kb worth of space per slot to put our arcs in.

[/ QUOTE ]You gain the ability to publish more arcs specifically because they give you 100kb of data. Not in addition to.[ QUOTE ]
There's a piece of plastic in front of me, smallish, circular, probably worth a few cents if that. It's the DVD of Once Upon A Time In The West. Just a piece of plastic, is it? or maybe it's just 4.6gig of memory, nothing more. I've also got Armageddon on DVD, also 4.6gig. They're the same,are they?

[/ QUOTE ]When you buy the DVD, you're largely paying for the data encoded onto the DVD. which is why a DVD of Armageddon costs more than a blank DVD. The 100kb you're buying for $6 is just that -- 100kb of data storage. Technically, it's even more limited than that since you couldn't save a Word file on it or anything but there's no reason to complicate things.[ QUOTE ]
My arc The Echo is not 'just' 100kb. All the arcs out there crafted with care by all of us, they are not just worth the memory they occupy.

[/ QUOTE ]You're not buying an arc. You're buying 100kb of storage upon which you may put an arc.

A blank CD could potentially hold the same music as your favorite $18 album. Would you buy a blank CD for $18? I assume not. Why? Because it's not your favorite album, it's empty potential data storage. So why would you compare a blank 100kb slot on a server to a loaded DVD or CD or book or anything else?[ QUOTE ]
And right here is where you start paying ... in sweat.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, sweat and $6 for 100kb

Edit: I'm going to let it drop with that. Like I've said, those who are happy with the terms, I'm happy for ya. Even an option that *I* don't think is worth it is still an option and obviously some folks are happy with it so it's better that Paragon offers that than to have them offer nothing. I just think that it's overpriced and was giving my opinion why I thought so.

[/ QUOTE ]

We are obviously looking at utterly different things here.

I see your view like i would someone who buys a guitar and then looks at it and throws his hands up and says 'Pff, what a waste of money! Where's my awesome choons?'

And I don't mean that someone else should be providing the music. That person shouldn't indeed buy a guitar. To him it's just an expensive ornament. To someone who wants to learn to play, the investment is not for the piece of wood and string, its for the pleasure gained out of the use of that instrument.

Which is why I tell you I am NOT paying for 100kb. Trying to say that I am is ludicrous. If I was just paying for memory, then i could go here or here for a much better deal than 100kb for $5. The reason I don't is because I am not interested in buying memory form anyone. if the MA had been implemeted without any mention of actual memory, but instead had just referred to 'slotspace' (they could even have invented some game jargon connected to the AE mechanisms) and percentages, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. The kb are completely incidental. Following your point leads to them offering us the market rate for the memory we use. For $5 I can buy a 1GB memory stick here in Poland. I'd follow any suggestion thread you make on upping our slot size to 1gig with interest!

Eco.

I'd love The Audition to be featured. i'll leave the witty horoscope line to you.

This is an excellent way to get lots of arcs noticed in little space. Good thinking.

Eco.

Since i got my iPhone, I've been posting to the forums from it a lot whilst im on breaks in work etc.

yesterday, Safari sort of froze, so I cleared the history, cache etc.

Now I login to the forums as i used to and after entering my username and password and even accepting 'remember me each visit', when I hit 'login' it take me to my home page but still says 'you are not logged in' at the top. If i go to any page on the forums it's the same - I'm not logged in.

Before yesterday, I'd stay logged in forever. I never had to re-enter my password unless I actively logged out first for some reason.

Obviously, this is pissing me off no end.

Anyone have any ideas?

Eco.

QR - Re the '$5 for 100kb' viewpoint, I'd say it wasnt merely memory we're buying at all.

Our sub buys us the following (in terms of the MA):

The MA itself, and 3 slots to publish our arcs in.

The extra buys us:

The option to publish more arcs - and incidentally, as part of this process we 'gain' 100kb worth of space per slot to put our arcs in.

If they were just selling us 100kb of PC memory for $5, then they could give us that in any form. I'm not sure what a stick of Ram that onyl measured 100kb would look like, but that could be it. Or they could give us 100k on some server not connected to the game in any way.

I think looking at it just in terms of the 100kb is pedantic and missing the point, wilfully, even.

There's a piece of plastic in front of me, smallish, circular, probably worth a few cents if that. It's the DVD of Once Upon A Time In The West. Just a piece of plastic, is it? or maybe it's just 4.6gig of memory, nothing more. I've also got Armageddon on DVD, also 4.6gig. They're the same,are they?

Is the 80meg of your most hated bands music ever, worth the same as your favourite album?

My arc The Echo is not 'just' 100kb. All the arcs out there crafted with care by all of us, they are not just worth the memory they occupy.

I and the people who are happy to pay this for more slots are not buying memory. We are buying a dream. We've all got big dreams. We want fame. You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying ... in sweat.



Eco.

Qr - I used a combination of onbjectives, dialogue and animations to create sth I think is quite a neat trick in my latest arc The Audition.

The player finds a collection first - the clue explains he or she has found a device. Later, the instructions are to defeat some bad guys. The player encounters them, but no combat takes place.

I set the bad guy as an ally objective set to Do Nothing and Non Combat. This makes the mob stay where he is after being 'rescued'. Ally tecognises player dialogue should be sth like "aha, $name, i shall let my minions have a crack at you first!" becayse of course he or she won't attack . Ally stranded and Ally re-found animations are both set to Captured-energy field. The Ally Rescued dialogue says "no! Not the Entrapmentizer!" or sth. The system message for completing the objective says sth like "you use the device on Giant Head Man." or similar.

The result is that it seems that the plAyer has met the enemy and beaten him or Her without a fight. The mob stays where they are, stuck in an energy field. I have found sometimes that the anim doesn't work perfectly all the time but, well You can see it working in mission 3 of The Audition.

I've changed some details to avoid spoilers, but the mechanics are basically that.

I love playing with objectives and I think that mixing it up a little can produce some really interesting effects.


Eco

[ QUOTE ]
I guess we can look at it like this:
They have to be able to pay for server space somehow, for one.
It could have been more than what they're asking, for two.
Twenty bucks for five slots? Well, let's see. . . . I got the CoH DVD for $10 and got a $15 month free. I got GvE for $10 and got a $15 month free. $20 Architect got me a $15 month and a $10 booster. So, doing the math? Saved 5 already from the DVD, 5 from GvE, and 5 from the Architect. Add on $5, for a total of the $20 that can be put toward 5 slots, and NC Soft breaks even from me.

I think I can do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like your arc titles. I'll play them this evening.

Eco

QR - I've amended the difficulty of the Protoclones at the end of Part 1, mission 3. they were originally Hard/Hard Bosses, but feedback suggested they were too difficult for some. I'm not sure if those who complained were running it at a higher difficulty setting than its intended level 1, but I've made them lieuts now anyway. I hope they're still challenge enough for the finale.

Eco.

Got my first review, and I'm going to quote it here. It's from Wrong Number's Ha Ha Hut humor arc review thread, which is very worth reading for a heads up for the funnies in therMA. here's the review:

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its 6 missions long, published in two 3-mission arcs:

Title: The Audition
Arc ID: Part One is 221240 - Part Two's arc ID is given at the end of Part One
Creator’s Global Name: MrCaptainMan
Mission Count: Part One - 3 missions. Part Two - 3 missions
Notes – Intended audience is HIGH LEVEL, SOLO and HEROIC. It's VERY CHALLENGING so take lots of inspirs. Lots of text and clues. Players who like to read EVERYTHING won't be disappointed. Oh, and its quite funny imo

[/ QUOTE ]


Lowdown – Take the warning to play this arc at diff. 1 because I made the mistake of doing the first half at a higher diff and it crimped the fun for me (totally my fault). I did go back and replay it and the 2nd part at diff 1 and it was great! LOADED and I mean LOADED with humor. It was a good decision to split this into 2 3 parters because it allowed for a lot more customs, story and fun to be packed in.

Funny Level – Very Humorous to I have to change my panties again!

Fun Level - Varies from mish to mish, but fun through out. Personal fav was mish 4 (Part 2, 1). Mish 6 is is also a killer.

Let’s up it to 11! – I think a few of the maps could stand to be smaller. The last custom group has dark and rad minions which was a bit much.

Overall Rating – A must play for anyone that likes humor arcs and easily one of the best humor arcs I have reviewed so far.


WN

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't trying g to flaun t my largesse LOL. I was just giving my outlier of what I would be prepared to pay. I approve of the price they've decided on. Someones always going to have more money than you or me, EVA, and someones always going to have less than you or me.

At least this puts extra slots fir me on me rathercthsn on the whims of others.

Eco

Th hating on this thread is ridiculous. He's asking for another chest symbol, for more costume options, and being polite and slightly humorous about it.

In the spirit of the OP, I'd personally like Jay to do whatever it takes so that the actual image used (with the thumbs up hand and all)can be added to my toons chest.

Say Yes to Yes to No!

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
You get 3 arc slots for free (well, for your subscription cost).

I have a real job, so I have no problem paying $20 for 5 more arc slots.

I realize a bunch of people are going to complain about the cost, because it's "just storage space" (not considering the cost it took for the devs to actually create Mission Architect), but consider that you pay more than that for:
* Dinner in a restaurant. And that's just, you know, ingredients that probably cost almost nothing.
* An oil change. That's just some cheap chemicals, after all! Why should it be so expensive?
* A hardcover book. It's made of paper for chrissake! You can get blank paper for way cheaper, what's with the huge markup?
* A ticket to a concert or sporting event. That's not even something material! It's just rental of a seat for a couple hours! Why should it cost money at all?

In summary, everything is a rip off! But CoH is less of a ripoff than most.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol well put.

I've got no problem with the price either. I do feel sympathy for those who aren't as rolling in filthy lucre as me, but if the West hadn't won the Cold War, well our Mission Arkitekt Slotz would be free of course, paid for by the State, but we'd all be wearing identical dungarees and going schitzo trying to deal with wonderful idealism vs the corruption of human greed while we toiled in the fields.

Consider the $20 as a retroactive War Bond payment in the fight against Communism.

Eco.

O.o

YAY!!!

Wow, now that's what I call listening to your customer base!

Or a huge coincidence.

Eco

YAY!!!

Qr - you know, now I see that 'group recommended' and realize I must have just blanked it out the first time lol. That's a solo mentality for you!

/sheepish grin

Tell you what, when I get MCM all purpled out I'll tale some more shivajs and some nukes in

Eco

QR - I also recommend Policewoman's arc Celebrity Kidnapping. It also has a Zig breakout mission, and IMO it's perfectly designed. Check out the great atmosphere of riot as you go in, and the pacing of the ambushes after springing the rescuee, who is also pitched perfectly in terms of powerset choice as support for the Player.

Eco.

Oh dear.

Im terribly sorry, but I havent enjoyed myself as much as I'd hoped with your arc.

I just played through it for about an hour, writing a quite detailed review as i went, got to the last mission, used a Shivan on Barker, did 2 of the machines, and then I suffered a Mapserver disconnect and my computer crashed and I lost the review. None of that's the fault of the arc, of course, but let me explain in brief what I thought of it up till then.

Basically it started great and gradually got worse, for me. I played it on my 50 en/en/fire blaster. thank God for Rise of the Phoenix.

Your clowns look fantastic and I love their rhyming bios. but I hate their powersets. The three of them together were horrible. Too hard.

I think generally that's my biggest beef with the arc. I played at diff lvl 1 and i found the mobs irritatingly difficult. Webs, devices - can they see through stealth? By the end mission i hated them.

But I still kept on, because i liked the premise and there were often parts of the writing that made me laugh. I loved the idea of the Egg Registry - nice to see someone doing research for an arc - and was Olivia any relation to Francois?

But the damn difficulty is awful. Heaven knows what sort of hardcore uber player you're used to. At diff 1 I shouldn't be getting 2 shotted by orange bosses, which is what happened when i met Hobo Joe.

After the DC, I went back in, determined to finish and give you a fair rating - but then I met the player-killer that is Who's There. Maybe I'm a wimp, but it's impossible for me to beat him. I have to quit.

Others may differ, and that's fine, but in my opinion, a 50 en/en blaster should be able to solo any non-challenge match labelled story arc in the MA. I'd be very interested in knowing what you tested it with.

I'm gutted, because your customs look really nice, and if they were a little less hard, they'd be spot on (for my level, remember). The story is fine, too, although I sometimes felt that you added a bit too much stuff to the missions - The decoy books were unnecessary i thought, and the captives in the cave mission didnt add anything. There's a lot of objectives in the last mission too, that arent exactly connected. That said, Clowns vs Carnie is a no-brainer, really, and you delivered all that I could expect. Oh, I really liked the mission where you have to rescue the carnie illusionist. That was great.

So, to sum up: Customs look wonderful, they're a bit too hard, story fine to great, maybe needs a polish, bosses a brick wall for this player.

I'll still have a go at your next arc, even with my unfortunate experience here. Clowns rock.

Eco.

PS I didnt notice any caltrops lol

QR - I just finished Astoria in D Minor, and I'm in two minds about it.

Technically it was great, i didn't see any typos or spawn/trigger problems, it worked very well.

When i got to Moth Cemetary, with the 'Find haley!' instruction, I flew round for a while trying to locate her, and when i couldn't, i thought that maybe the Ritual Leaders were involved and if i defeated them all she'd spawn somewhere. So I defeated them all. Nope. Then I did all the Dig Leaders too. Still no Haley. I sent you a PM hoping you were on so you could give me some advice, but you weren't.

So i started to Clear All.

I HATE Clearing all, especially on outdoor maps.

That illustrates how much extra leeway I was prepared to give your arc because I was enjoying it.

After a while I found Haley.

Mission 4...I normally hate this map, and i absolutely WILL ragequit if anyone puts me in it after auto-exemping me down to where my stealth is not available.

I was auto-exemped down, no stealth, and I stayed the course till the awesome end room. it's the 'Silent hill'-ness of THAT object that does it. Wonderful.

So far, so great. The reason I'm in two minds is Mission 5 and the Souvenir. For mission 5, I wasnt bothered by the lightning or the events, but i wanted more of your excellent creepy n loony writing. Mission 5 doesnt feel climactic enough to me, especially since i avoided fighting the civvies cos I thought they were mistaking me for a bad guy, so I completed it very quickly. I was expecting something uber, tbh, because the previous made me have high expectations.

And finally, the souvenir, I'm sorry, for me, broke the immersion. I'd have much preferred a simple short paragraph describing what it was. The souvenir as it stands seems to say 'meh, the arcs just blather, tbh', and I think that's selling yourself short.

Top stuff overall, though. Thanks for a very enjoyable arc.

Eco.

EDIT: Rereading what ive written, it doesnt come across how much i enjoyed the first 4 missions. I REALLY hate Clearing all, and I REALLY hate that map lol. I cant remember the last time i decided to clear all on an outdoor map in the MA. If you can get that sort of reaction, you're definitely doing something right dude.