MrCaptainMan

Qr

One more thing, about the mother mayhem/neuron meeting. That was a bug. MM should have been immobilized like the others, as should neuron. They all initially treat you as an ally because they mistake you forvypur evil double. As do 'your' minions. That's the gag that this mission is based on. Maybe I need to put more pointers to this, but I thought the photo of 'you' at tyrants barbecue would be enough. I'll have a think.

Eco

Qr

Thanks v much for playing my arc and for the feedback. The 5 stars in response to my one-starring wasn't necessary, but it's appreciated anyway.

Some resonses to your comments.

Mission 1. I think your lag was a big factor here. Structurally , the player only had to find one glowie (a stasis tube, so it's quite big) and then destroy 4 objects (that are also large, and glow and make a noise too). During testing, I can do that mission in about 10 mind tops (admittedly I know what to look for). I will however look at the possibility of unchaining the nodes - maybe then it'll seem less back and forth.

2. Synapse. He's out of character for sure. This is a comedy arc, and I'm aware he comes over as an exasperated buffoon somewhat. Some testers told me they wanted to slap him-at least they cared LOL. I'd rather that than 'meh'

3. Mission 2. I advised you to clear on your way and I know that the lastcroom can be a bit manic. With lag it must have been grim. I'm sorry about that and thanks v much for persevering. The 'lured' critter us the operator of the object and gas dialogue to mark him out. I find the last room can be an exciting kill fest. Also, the story works better if LR accompanies you. The end clue explains why.

4. Mission 3. I wanted to get the story over through the dialogue as much as possible. That said, if you read everything (including the clue that neuron drops) then all the plot elements do have an explanation. I've noted yr points about the immobilizer ray needing a system message though and I'll put them in. Nice catch, thanks.

All the protoclones should spawn in the last room btw. If you had to go back to other floors then it's bugged.

Thanks v much for playing despite the problems you encountered. I hope you enjoy Part Two if you decide to continue.

Eco

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Again, the writing can be used to workaround the limits of the MA. You seem to think I'm criticising purely the glowie choice, when the fact is he's done what we all do - chosen a glowie AND written some plot to refer to it. The glowies are limitied. The writing is only limited by the writers imagination and skill (and somehwat by the profanity filter lol). I'm supposed to accept that in this frantic shootout I'm too busy to read one email even though I'm stealthed, yet the very people who are doing the frantic shooting can find the time to put the dead into bodybags 9including the dead of their enemies!). The glowie isn't to blame for my incredulity; the writing is.

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I respectfully disagree, especially in instances with dead bodies. There's only so much that a writer can do to convince someone that they're actually looking at a corpse -- when the object absolutely cannot be an actual visible corpse.

I've run into this myself. I have one mission that takes place during an invasion of the city. Players need to rescue several innocent citizens, but at least two civilians weren't so lucky. Now, I'm fully aware that two-thousand-year-old magical automatons wouldn't stop to lay out a body bag properly, but I felt I needed that particular plot element to help the mood. I hope that -- as I myself do with other arcs -- players will suspend a little disbelief and ease up on the Fridge Logic.

It's been a while since I've played Venture's arc, so I can't remember the specific plot points of the mission in question. But it seems to me that a few casualties would be necessary in an indoor firefight, if only to add a little instance of flavor.

As far as the email bit, it strikes me as an attempt to create some kind of immediacy in the scene. Why should I stop what I'm doing and read through some random emails, especially in the middle of a deadly shootout in the midst of a covert militant group?

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Because of consistency. The other clues that drop don't make out u don't gave time for them. Plus as i mentioned, I'm stealthing.

Here's how I treat clues. If a clue drops, I read it as soon as I'm able to, and I assume that the writer means for my character to know the info there and then. If I get an info dump in the mission complete clue that tells me I actually got sth earlier but I didn't gave time, I look back at what I was doing whenbi was supposed to gave got it. Brutes may well be rushingvthrough smashing everything with no time to stop, but not everyone plays a brute. In my case I was casually strolling around all but invisible to the mobs.

Immediacy? The intro describes a frantic shootiut but there wasn't one going on while I was there. Either let me read the clue in the mission (which would mean editing it into two or more drops) or make the mission more frantic.

Eco

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Well I was reading this post and had to comment on a couple of points MrCaptainMan makes:

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he ‘equipment to confiscate’ turns out to be those huge science probe things. Not sure how I’m going to take those away, tbh., they won’t fit in my pockets, that’s for sure...

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Well what small piece of tech equipment available in the MA do you suggest? They all seem rather large don't they? There is NOTHING small from what I remember so how could he pick something that doesn't exist?


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He doesn't have to find another gloiwe to use. The glowies are simply Mcguffins to get a plot point across. He could have simply said 'examine and disable'. As it stands, the player is being asked to remove 4 pieces of machinery that each stand over a mans height. Which is silly.

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Finding the last silent kneeling citizen on an outdoor map is horrible. We have big shiny glowy captured animations for a reason.

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What reason would the captive have to be glowing?



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Rikti isolation fields? The writer can use the writing to lessen any tedious nonfun stuff for the player. This plotpoint was to find hostages. it wasn't necessary that I fly around an outdoor map for ages because the elements Im looking for are difficult to find.

In one of my arcs, I had a pile of bones as a glowie to find on the Eden map. it was horrible, and testers rightfully complained. I changed the pile of bones to something really large, and altered the writing slightly to compensate. The writer has the final word on what goes into his arc. The players are free after the fact to give their opinion.

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Mission 3. Briefing. Another mangled idiom. “wrap up some loose ends.” – I checked that ‘tie up loose ends’ was the correct form of the idiom as I thought, and found a possible source for Venture’s problem; one of the tvtropes.com contributors also makes the same mistake.

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Wrap & Tie have the same meaning, there is NOTHING wrong with him saying that. If he wants to use one word in place of another that's his perogative. And what he wrote makes perfect sense.



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Wrap and Tie don't have the same meaning (try to wrap your shoelaces), but what you mean is that they act in the same way in this fixed phrase. Getting an idiom or a fixed phrase wrong is akin to making a spelling error IMO. You are free to disagree.

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The hostage dialogue is identical for all. I think Venture’s made one objective and set the number to 5. It doesnt make for believable characters when they all spout the exact same dialogue.

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I would agree that everyone having their own unique dialogue would be wonderful. Guess what? To do that he would need create 5 separate instances of "Release Captive" to achieve that. Did it ever occur to you that each instance uses about 0.5% of the available mission space, without any text added. Using 1 instance with multiple spawns uses NO MORE SPACE! Maybe he was running out of space?

Maybe he was, although from my experience of arc-writing, I'd be surprised. There were no customs that I could see, and his text amounts didn't seem vary large. I may be wrong, however, and i did point to memory issues as being a possible factor too, if you look again at what I wrote.


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My first body gleans this system message: ‘This is the body of a Malta operative, gunned down by other Malta operatives.’ So does the second. And the third… Why anyone bothered to put them in bodybags in the midst of a shootout isn’t explained. The fourth does drop a clue, however, and some of the others do also. Not all of them. Some must be there for flavour, but they just seem a timesink to me.

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Again... what other graphic could he have used to convey a dead body? Please let me know. A real body? Not an option that I see in the MA. Bones? Well how did the flesh get stripped off the bones? Coffin? Well if you have an issue with a compact storage device like a body bag, I'd hate to see your issue with a large coffin!



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Again, the writing can be used to workaround the limits of the MA. You seem to think I'm criticising purely the glowie choice, when the fact is he's done what we all do - chosen a glowie AND written some plot to refer to it. The glowies are limitied. The writing is only limited by the writers imagination and skill (and somehwat by the profanity filter lol). I'm supposed to accept that in this frantic shootout I'm too busy to read one email even though I'm stealthed, yet the very people who are doing the frantic shooting can find the time to put the dead into bodybags (including the dead of their enemies!). The glowie isn't to blame for my incredulity; the writing is. [ QUOTE ]


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I finally find a handbags-out email exchange between two malta operatives being catty with one another. I don’t have time to read the final one till after I exit the mission apparently, despite having time to access a computer, open 10 body bags and grab a note from a desk whilst ‘the shooting’ is going on. By the way, I’m stealthed the whole time. I have actually found ample time to have a poo during this mission, afking in a room with 6 malta operatives in it. Reading one email wouldn’t be beyond me, I’m sure. The ‘you discover the whole truth AFTER you finish!’ ploy is a side effect of the mission complete clue field being larger than the in-mission ones. One of my arcs uses the mission complete clue to deliver a pretty hefty chunk of exposition, but at least in my defense whats discovered is actually said at the same time the missions does complete. Venture’s just been unable or unwilling to find a way to get the info across in a less lazy way. It’s not as bad as writing a ‘So THIS is what really happened!’ Souvenir, but to me it smacks of the easy way out, and I’m not the only player who’s going to be stealthing.

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So you have an issue with him not being able to fit something in a text field that's too small for him to fit it in? Seriously? What did you want him to do? Hack the game and recode the text field sizes?



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No, I want him to take more care when writing the arc. This will save me from 'no time to read? wtf?' moments, and him from lower ratings than he might get otherwise.
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Respectfully,

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All that said, There WAS some positive in my critique of Blowback (I forgot to mention that I'm not sure why it's called Blowback either, but it's a nice snappy title), and see my sig. It's not my arc, it's his. Everything I have said is opinion. It's his arc, after all.

Eco

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Mission 1. briefing ‘snip it in the bud’, says Crimson. AFAIK its ‘ nip it in the bud'

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Just a quickie comment. I know why he had to use 'snip'. I tried using 'nip it in the bud' in one of my arcs and got the lovely pop-up message that I couldn't use that 'naughty word', 'nip'. I posted about that in the thread about 'naughty words' that are banned in MA, that was posted in one of the forums a while back. It sucks that we have to change the wording of common 'old sayings' because one of the words might have another meaning than the one that we intend.

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Lol. 'nip' is a profanity? Dear dear. Well that explains it. I'd have avoided the idiom, personally, or picked another one, but this is a good example of how the profanity filter needs to be considerably less conservative.

Eco

QR - I'm always looking for short arcs to fill an idle hour. I've added these to my list and I'll get them all played in the next day or two.

Eco

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For those of you that may have some criticism of Venture, voicing it either through posts or by rating this thread with fewer than five stars, I strongly suggest you run his arc, "Blowback," before you do. Regardless of whether you're a fan of the Malta Group, the Rikti, Crimson or the other players in his arc, what should strike you is the fact that it is obvious that he is familiar with everything that goes into creating a good story arc. From the use of the various maps and tools available through the creator, to the ability to craft a well-written, engaging story, to a sound grasp of grammar, spelling, and syntax, "Blowback" is a fine example of what people should strive for -- myself included.

There may be some reviewers out there that really have no right to critique others' work. Venture is not one of those.

Oh, and for the record, I don't know Venture from Adam. He has yet to review my arc, and I trust that, when he does, it will not be influenced by these comments. I simply thought it might help everyone trust his judgment a little more to hear from someone outside the box.

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I'm probably taking my life in my hands here, lol, but after reading this i realised that I hadn't played any of Venture's arcs yet, so i figured i'd start with Blowback.

Here follows a stream of consciousness 'review', typed as I played it, ending with my conclusions overall and the rating i ended giving it.

I should start by saying I have no huge beef with venture particularly. I don't read this thread very often not because I think he's too harsh or what have you; I just think he isn't very polite to people. I do check out his reviews of people I know ingame, however.

Also, I loathe Malta. Can't stand them, I think they're boring, story-wise, dull in looks (although the gunslingers are a wicked cool idea) and annoying as hell to fight. I am currently dropping a mission every three days in the World Wide Red arc. After about 5 missions i realised that I was actually hating playing CoH, and since I decided not to bother with it I've been much happier.

The plot of the arc involves Crimson asking you to investigate and act in what appears to be an internal power struggle between two Malta operatives. There's a 'rescuing' of a Malta agent involved and other stuff that happens along the way. I didn't feel very engaged at all for most of it I'm afraid.

My specific, as-I-go-along comments on Blowback, Arc ID 4643, by @Venture, then, tidied up a little for posting here, are:

Mission 1. briefing ‘snip it in the bud’, says Crimson. AFAIK its ‘ nip it in the bud'

Nav instruction says ‘4 equipment to confiscate’ – equipment is an uncountable noun, so the nav should read ‘4 pieces of equipment to confiscate’ - Some of these might seem a bit nitpicky, but if Venture's going to be lauded for a 'sound grasp of grammar, spelling, and syntax', then...

The good: Good, linear map, patrols wandering around give a good atmosphere.

The ‘equipment to confiscate’ turns out to be those huge science probe things. Not sure how I’m going to take those away, tbh., they won’t fit in my pockets, that’s for sure... Three of them are unnamed with no clues. One has a clue written for it. My overall impression is that the other three are pointless.

Mission 2. Nav ‘5 endangered citizens’…to what? Minor nitpick here, but I like verbs in my nav instructions. The Nav’s telling me to ‘defeat Blue Avenger’, so why not ‘5 endangered citizens to save’? Minor, I said.

The citizens seemed tacked on, tbh. I had no real reason to care about any of them that was communicated to me by the contact.

Finding the last silent kneeling citizen on an outdoor map is horrible. We have big shiny glowy captured animations for a reason.

Debrief contains this sentence: "One was an environmental watchdog non-profit.” That noun phrase has no base noun. An environmental watchdog non-profit what? I’m guessing it’s ‘organisation’, maybe? It’s possible that watchdog and non-profit have been accidentally transposed.

The debrief ends with this “Just when I think Malta can't get any lower, they stand up real tall and walk under a snake”. Having the ability to walk under a snake collocates better with ‘tiny’ rather than ‘low, IMO. It’s a clumsy sentence.

Mission 3. Briefing. Another mangled idiom. “wrap up some loose ends.” – I checked that ‘tie up loose ends’ was the correct form of the idiom as I thought, and found a possible source for Venture’s problem; one of the tvtropes.com contributors also makes the same mistake.

Venture also leaves out the preposition ‘by’ in the phrase ‘by any means necessary’. I wonder if perhaps memory is an issue for his arc.

Crimsons dialogue sounds a jarring note here as he says “It'd be nice if us spy agencies worked together…” – I think Crimson in-game comes across as more exact in his use of English – “...if we spy agencies…” would be right. It’s ironic since Venture places so much store on canon characters being consistent in their voice when featuring in MA arcs.

Inside the mission, we have ‘5 citizens to rescue’ – excellent (the verb, I mean, the count’em hostage rescue itself isn’t very interesting). It’s a pity venture isn’t internally consistent with his nav instruction formatting.

The hostage dialogue is identical for all. I think Venture’s made one objective and set the number to 5. It doesnt make for believable characters when they all spout the exact same dialogue.

The good: really nice map. I hadn’t seen it before.

Mission 4. The Mission subheading is ‘Fall Out’. This phrasal verb means to have an argument with someone, or to to leave one’s place in the ranks if one is a soldier. I’m not sure what Venture means using it here, especially as the noun version would be ‘A Falling Out’. Possibly he meant to use the hyphenated noun ‘Fall-out’ (Also sometimes seen without the hyphen). That might make more sense. The mission is about an argument.

Inside, the nav is clear but not consistent with either if the previous ones. ‘2 pieces of evidence left’ is what we have. And 10 bodies to search…ok, maybe they won’t just be timesinks. There are patrols, with identical dialogue.

My first body gleans this system message: ‘This is the body of a Malta operative, gunned down by other Malta operatives.’ So does the second. And the third… Why anyone bothered to put them in bodybags in the midst of a shootout isn’t explained. The fourth does drop a clue, however, and some of the others do also. Not all of them. Some must be there for flavour, but they just seem a timesink to me.

The Good: One of the Big Bads looks awesome standing on a platform in one of the final rooms, and the fights with the titans are very enjoyable. Maybe the canon Malta stuff just has too many damn sappers and gunslingers. This arcs combat isn't bad at all.

I finally find a handbags-out email exchange between two malta operatives being catty with one another. I don’t have time to read the final one till after I exit the mission apparently, despite having time to access a computer, open 10 body bags and grab a note from a desk whilst ‘the shooting’ is going on. By the way, I’m stealthed the whole time. I have actually found ample time to have a poo during this mission, afking in a room with 6 malta operatives in it. Reading one email wouldn’t be beyond me, I’m sure. The ‘you discover the whole truth AFTER you finish!’ ploy is a side effect of the mission complete clue field being larger than the in-mission ones. One of my arcs uses the mission complete clue to deliver a pretty hefty chunk of exposition, but at least in my defense whats discovered is actually said at the same time the missions does complete. Venture’s just been unable or unwilling to find a way to get the info across in a less lazy way. It’s not as bad as writing a ‘So THIS is what really happened!’ Souvenir, but to me it smacks of the easy way out, and I’m not the only player who’s going to be stealthing.

Debrief. Crimson now seems worried that one of the Malta operatives is going to off the other one. I’m thinking ‘which would be bad…why?’

Anyway, after either a steal from or a nod to Carpenters They Live (either seems out of character for Crimson I feel, but it is a great line, even the softened version Venture uses because the A-word falls foul of the profanity filter), Crimson sends me out to ‘take on all comers’. The reasons are hand-waved.

Mission 5. The entry popup is great (altought the reason for there being an arachnos flier next to your entrance is a little grasping). I have to beat some guys up and also destroy some doohickeys for no easily explained reason.

I hadn’t seen this map before, and it’s awesome. Really cool. I beat up one guy, I’m enjoying the mission no end…and then I meet a &*@&^ing mastermind…
So after an annoying fight I die, tool up with a trayfull of inspirs and come back and he goes down.

And then I find another doohockey and destroy it and the mission ends. I feel strangely cheated somehow. Where was my climax?

The debriefing from crimson is more blah blah. Nothing wrong with it, it just suffers from the same problem most of the arc has: it’s dull. Someone made a point earlier about it being much the same quality as a lot of canon work. I wouldn't disagree with that, apart from the typos etc, but the problem there is that the MA is capable of making much better stuff than the canon work. Multiple hostages or glowies or patrols with identical dialogue is par for the course with canon arcs. With the MA we can give every patrol individual dialogue if we want (I'm not saying each patrol should be approached by the MAuthor with 'whats his motivation?', but that we can do more.Wwe should be striving for better than canon.

Bizarrely and happily, this was actyually more fun for me that any canon Malta arc i've played. I stealthed through it as much as I could, and it being only 5 missions long meant it didn't annoy me. The Bosses were mostly spot on in terms of challenge for my particular tastes - ie pretty easy lol. The Mastermind was a bit of a shame, but the other EB was a great fight. I have no quibbles at all with the map choice.

Even with my antipathy towards malta, this would have been a 4-starrer but for the lack of polish in some of the language, the mastermind, and the pointless timesink objectives like the extra bodybags and the unbelievable giant 'equipments to confiscate'. I give 4 stars to arcs that show no faults even if i think they're dull; other players patently love Malta, so for them this might be a diamond.

tl;dr - 3 stars. offences: Timewasting, That One Boss, Inconsistencies.

Eco.

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Whoever gave you that 1-star apparently has beef with you. This thread got a 1-star as well, even though it's no different than most other arc promos.

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really? ah lol.

Yiou know, I don't know how to rate a thread. What effect does it have on anything?

Eco.

Someone 1-starred it, but didnt leave any feedback. Negative feedback is possibly worth more to me than positive lol, so if anyone doesn't like it, please tell me why - I don't practice revenge downrating.

EDIT: Someone also 4-starred it lol. I guess i might as well mention that too.

Eco.

My emp defender is really good fun to play.

That's enough for me.

Eco

Played this on my 50 en/en blaster.

Firstly, I LOATHE Malta, and I am currently in the slow process of dropping a World Wide Red mission every three days. So I didn't have high hopes for this.

However, it was happily, well, not exactly a breeze, but difficulty wise seemed just right for my toon. I like to stealth as much as possible, and the first maps and objectives were set up for this just fine.

The last map is a bit big, but nothing rage-inducing, and there are a few allies to pick up on the way to the Big Bad fight at the end. The malta I did meet weren't the usual teeth0grinding, hair-pulling annoyances I usually encounter, and the custom bosses were all handled without much difficulty. I don't like babysittiing allies too much, unless the writing really makes me want to have them around, and the allies here unfortunately didnt really make me fall in love with them. There;s nothing wrong with them in terms of their look or their powersets, its just my personal taste here i think. As it was, I encountered the EBs at the end with just one ally, and he was enough help.

Overall, the story kept me interested, it being a mystery of sorts dealing with the aftermath of World Wide Red. My lack of knowledge of what happens in WWR didn't seem to make it hard for me to work out what was going on.

My main criticism of the arc is that at times i felt a little sidelined, with the battle between the Big Bad and the contact seemingly being the focus rather than my toon. Sometimes the dialogue didnt help, espweciualkly when a mob was talking to the ally who was supposed to be with me but who I'd left behind a floor earlier.

With some polishing to avoid mechanistic oddness like that creeping in, this would be much better.

As it stands, however, I'd recommend it as a simple solid arc that's got no glaring wall-bangers or huge flaws, and certainly a load better than a lot of the crud thats out there. The story is intriguing, the dialogue and other text is free from spelling errors and obviously thought out, and the maps and objectives fit together well.

Eco.

I've never encountered anyone using mob to refer to anything but a single enemy, and whenever I use it that's what I mean. Saying that, perhaps I have, but just didn't notice? It's possible that sb might have been referring to a group of mobs round the corner, and I just took it to mean they were referring to one of them. Either way, play wasn't affected. mobs usually come in groups. That's what i call a group of mobs - a group.

I don't know exactly what Moblie Object means, but maybe its everything that moves? including cars and civilians? If so, Ive never met anyone call a civilian a mob. they're calls civvilians. And cars are cars.

Also, 'critter' takes longer to type.

How about

mob = 1 enemy
group= more than one mob

Eco.

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I still think it's a dick move, personally.

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I have a mission called 'The Surprise Immediate Ambush Attack of the Ghost Widow Clone Army' on local, which i only made for laughs. As soon as I entered it, three ambushes of GW appeared. And killed me lol. I half considered publishing it - with that title, surely no-one could complain?

Eco.

Hiya WN!

I have now published The Auditionirectors Cut!

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

I'm playing your Blappy arc again as I type. Ill send you some ingame feedback when i've finished it.

Eco.

My arc The Audition jumped mysteriously in filesize and became unplayable, so I took it down. Rather than make even more cuts to it, I decided to in fact expand it to 6 missions and then publish it in two 3-mission arcs. I've now finished it, and its up.

The Audition is a humorous arc designed for solo high level heroes. In it, Synapse contacts you with the news that the Freedom Phalanx have had their eye on you for some time with the intent of offering you a position in their team. All you have to do is succeed in the Six Heroic Tasks. I had in mind here something akin to the Three Piratey Trials in the classic point n Click adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island.

I also wanted the arc to not be seen as a simulation, so Synapse explains that he's tapped into the hologram projector just to communicate with the Player, and has adjusted the AE Array to act as a teleporter.

Each mission in The Audition has the Player attempting to succeed in one of the Tasks as instructed by Synapse. For one of the missions, for example, Synapse informs the player he will be teleported to Sirens Call to assist Statesman and Citadel in a fight against the Jade Spider. Things don't go exactly as planned, however (No doubt there will be some raised eyebrows at the suggestion that the Jade Spider is a critter you can use in the MA ).

I found that splitting it into 2 3-mission arcs allowed me a much freer rein with the memory. It was refreshing to not have to agonize over every letter. With less limits on memory, I could give a little love to things like the system messages and re-write standard bosses bios. Players who like to read everything won't be wasting their time.

The arc description includes 'VERY CHALLENGING', and I found it to be so. The last missions in each part are supposed to provide a finale to their respective sections, and contain EBs. I was unable to complete some missions in one go, since I found I needed a full tray of inspirs at some stages.

There are no random maps. All maps were carefully chosen to fit the theme and the mechanics of each mission. The mechanics themselves vary from mission to mission. I like to use objective chains and triggers to let the story progress during the mission rather than having everything set out in the Nav when you enter. Additionally, I think I found some neat tricks to use objectives in ways that differ from their normal use. Writing this arc taught me a lot, and i enjoyed creating it immensely.

There is one defeat all, but its on a tiny map (small bank map)and fits thematically.

One of the missions is a musical. By that I mean that all the story is sung at you by the mobs you encounter. If you faceplant because you're too busy singing along instead of fighting, you won't be the first.

I playtested it on a 50 en/en blaster, and in a duo with an Ill/Kin controller, also 50. I think she could solo it too. I advise taking a full tray of inspirs into the third mission in each part.

It is designed to be soloed, and some of the dialogues will look odd if the arc is played in a team.

There is one Known Issue with it: A certain animation sometimes doesn't happen on one of the entities encountered. I have no control over this, I am afraid. It has no effect on the mechanics or the difficulty of the arc.

The Audition Part One has the Arc ID 221240.

I hope you enjoy it. Feedback is welcomed.

Eco.

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The Troy Hickman arc

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Where the animals marched up the gangplank two by two...and I had the biggest barbecue in history...

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Lol. I summoned The Hickman! Don't I get a badge, or something, for that?

Eco

QR - Lovely idea. Yes please

Eco.

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You do know that the MA was conceived as a tool for creating canon content by the dev team, right?


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Really? IT WAS?!?!?!? Is it totally canon? OMG, I can't wait for them to ACTUALLY add the stories to COH LORE. :O [/end sarcasm]

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I don't think sarcasm means what you think it means.

But I digress.

I meant that some 'content', as you put it, that is released by the devs in future, is quite likely to have been created using the MA. it is possible that the only difference between your 'content and fanfic' will be that one was produced by someone who happens to work for NCSoft.

In terms of storylines, we already have what you could call dev-sanctioned in-canon fanfic. The Troy Hickman arc wasn't written by an NCSoft employee, and that piece of fiction even produced an actual ingame architectural change (as well as the arc itself).

Basically, what I'm saying is:

Your ridiculous impliance of:

Player created content=bad

is, well, ridiculous.

If you don't like to (or don't have the ability to) read, just say so. Don't hide behind a ludicrous blanket dismissal of the creative quality of a lot of players. Be proud of your preferences. Say "I don't like narrative. Reading's for sissies and stories are for children. I like to hit stuff and see numbers go up".

Eco.

Hiya WN.

I'm almost ready to publish The Auditionirector's Cut!

This thread will be perfect for it!

As soon as it's published i'll give you the head's up - It'll be in two separate 3-mission arcs, expanded somewhat since its first outing as a single 5-mission job.

I've played all your arcs, but quite a long time ago, and I think you've done some polishing on them since, so i'll play em all again anyway.

Good idea to do a thread focussing on the funnies out there!

Eco.

If the ingame Igbore function also blocked viewing of arcs made by the person ignored, farmers would be easier to avoid.

Eco

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I said content, not fanfic.

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You do know that the MA was conceived as a tool for creating canon content by the dev team, right?

It's nice that you consider the dev team to be such incredible paragons of creativity compared to the playerbase in its entirety, but your blanket thrrrppp at said playerbases creative quality is laughable.

Of course, the reality is that you aren't in the game for the narrative content at all, no matter who makes it. You're simply a Dirty farmer


Eco.

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If you discovered something that gave awesome reward for very little effort, something you could also tell the Devs were likely to call an exploit once they found out about it, what would you do? Would you leave it alone or would you build MArch missions designed to get as much out of it as you could before they "fixed" it?


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I'd probably take the middle road, like i did with meow. I didn't build any missions that used comm officers, but I would play on other people's if thats what the team I was on was doing. I wouldn't take a character to 50 on it, but getting to stamina or a primary tier 9 in a few missions was too good to pass up, especially when I've been through all the content i don't know how many times.

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Wow, you've played ALL the MA story arcs? Impressive. What are you, a clone army with a hive mind?

Eco.

Its a real shame, my mission would've been much better with more stuff in it. I can whittle it down I guess, but, well, i'll know for next time I guess

Eco.

Lol I just got a rude 'Thrrrppp!' from the MA. Im about two thirds of the way through my epic finale big final mission in my arc, and I adda nother objective and get ' Too many details, the maximum amount of details per mission is 25.' as an error message.

lmao /facepalm.

Whay can't we have more? I've got plenty of memory left, and spawn points are under control too.

Eco.

It's possible I met myself this morning and tried to give myself the blueprints to my time machine, but I declined and so prevented myself from being able to cone back in time and give myself the blueprints. I don't remember meeting myself this morning, so that's a paradox averted!

Eco