MrCaptainMan

[ QUOTE ]
If the writer really could force it so that I cannot use a villain to play a hero arc and vice versa then I would just skip their missions. I'll play whatever character I want to use, thank you very much.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be happy with this. Though I think what would probably happen is you'd play the arcs that happened to tally with whatever faction you were playing with at the time.

To possibly get even more radical, LOL, I'd actually not mind the system allowing authors to lock an arc to a specific AT, even. Knowing that, say, only Blasters would be playing an arc would IMO provide more options to tailor arcs to that AT without having to worry that 'hm, defenders won't be able to beat this AV, I'd better scale him down' etc.

Eco

[ QUOTE ]
If you don't want a destructible object, but do have an indoor map and a "back" objective, you can set a standard patrol of the level range you want set to "front" that appears when your real objective has been found and dealt with.

A patrol will invoke the level limit on the mission. But since a patrol cannot be set as an objective, and this one will appear well out of sight once the real objective has been dealt with, it serves the same purpose as invisible mobs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooh, I like that! Nice one.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
Enjoy the 600/700 club while it lasts... we are losing ALOT of MA badges. 89 badges to be exact.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not a problem. That just means I get to go 'Yay! 600 badges! Yay!' all over again! its like when I was a kid, and since my parents were divorced, I'd get to wake up to a load of presents on christmas day at my mums house, and then on boxing day i'd go to my dads, and on the 27th I'd have another christmas morning all over again!

The glass is half full!

Eco.

SIGNED IN TRIPLICATE

Eco.

Hi,

i don't know if this is repeating sth already well-known, but here's sth I only learned myself today. I havent tried it with a large team, but it seems to work every time solo.

I had a mission in my new arc The Audition (arc id 182289 ) with a custom group and no normal mobs, so the lvl range was 1-54. I had some destructable objects in it that were rikti portal things (i cant remember the last part of their name lol). They were lvl 35+ objects. However, as the Players lvl is not affected by objects for the auto-exemp, a lvl 28 player testing my arc was out of luck.

The solution, I found, was this.

I also had another destructable object in the mission, a lvl 1-54 one. I created a custom group comprised solely of storm elemental minions, and set that group as guards for the destructable object. Then I set the difficulty of its guard group to single. What happens is that in game, no guards of that object spawn at all, but the player is still auto-exemped to lvl 41 (the level minimum of the 'invisible' storm elementals.

I don't even think i need have made it a custom group even, but I was worried about it appearing so I had to name it sth which fit the mission in case it did spawn.

Point of this is:

If you need to force an auto-exemp to a minimum level and you don't want obvious mobs being met by the player AND you have a destructable object in the mission, use the 'invisible guard' method to do it like this.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why did they let Villains play Heroic arcs, and vice vesra?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because as there are coop scenarios, MA should reflect that circumstance. I think there'd be outrage from the writer's guild if they couldn't write their "end of the world, heroes and villains unite" arcs.

[/ QUOTE ]

They could, they'd just have it be Neutral.

[ QUOTE ]


On that note: It'd be nice to have a popup for a player come up that, when you play an arc of an opposing ethic, it states, "You realize, you're evil, but this is set to heroic, are you sure you want to soil your wicked fingers?" Just so they realize it when they play.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol yes, this would make me laugh like a drain.

Eco.

Sb in a channel asked if anyone needed the Baphomet badge (Demon Slayer, it turned out to be) and i wasn't sure about it but it didn't ring a bell, so I figured i'd do it anyway. Got Demon Slayer and the gladiator, went to info to see what it looked like, and there I am at 601 badges! Fantastic!

Another milestone along the road to 1k!

Eco.

Qr LOL I still can't get over how good that title is. I've been telling my friends 'hey, film hour title - Kiss Hello Goodbye, isn't that great?' and they're going 'ok, whatever' and I'm like 'what? Am I the only one who sees it's awesome genius?'

I'm going to play it tonight.

Eco

Typically, the one destructable object in the entire list thats perfect for my arc is the only one that isn't lvl 1-54. So i have a decision. Go with a different object, which isnt quite the same (and the rikti portal wosname is also much easier to see, which is also a factor), or shoe-horn in a lvl 35+ mob to force the auto-exemp.

Rubbish.

Eco.

QR - I agree, in a perfect world, it wouldn't matter, because every single player would read the descriptions carefully and not play thru a 'I'm saving the world!' arc with Baron Nihilist the Life-Hater, ignoring the plot or worse, disagreeing with the actions the author's 'forcing' him to do. Sadly we don't live in a perfect world, so I personally would prefer that Nuetral be reserved for free-for-alls. You could still create 'heroic' arcs for villains to play through then. The way it is now, there is LESS choice for authors, as we cannot create arcs specifically for one side and remain confident that they will be played as intended. The players have a lot of choice, its true, but under a system like the one I'm in favour of, arcs could be set to Nuetral as default and nothing would change. Adding a faction restricting flag would only affect the story-writers mainly, i would think. Challenge-match authors are unlikely to want to restrict.

But we work with what we have, and it's only a very minor quibble.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In my second arc, The Audition (Arc ID 182289, currently at FIVE stars!*), I have a musical mission. Yes, that's right, its a musical. All the narrative is delivered via the mobs singing at you.

...It took me ages .

[/ QUOTE ]
I used one of those for an alternate world mission I did for one of my SGs. It took me ages too :P

(Had Family, Warriors and Freakshow. The Family sang Sinatra, the Freakshow, The Clash and The Warriors, Queen)



[/ QUOTE ]

Lol cool.

I wrote all the lyrics for mine myself, and it took so long because the MA doesnt make sequential and consistent narrative delivery easy at all. It's a nice mission, I think.

Eco.

QR - After reading the responses here. I agree that its not the fault of the MA that people are often total idiots.

I dont mean any of you guys, i mean the folks that dont read "HEROIC ARC!" in the descr lol.

Eco.

Why did they let Villains play Heroic arcs, and vice vesra?

It would surely be more appropriate, and be better for immersion, storyline, ratings even ("Why'd you make my Brute save all those grannies? Fail! 1 star, dude!') to make Heroic-named arcs only playable by heroes, Villainous only playable by Villains, and Neutral cross-faction.

Eco.

QR - 'Kiss Hello Goodbye' is an awesome noir title. I wish i'd thought of that.

That's really good lol.

Eco.

In my second arc, The Audition (Arc ID 182289, currently at FIVE stars!*), I have a musical mission. Yes, that's right, its a musical. All the narrative is delivered via the mobs singing at you.

...It took me ages .

Anyway, now that my plug's over with , I was wondering if anyone else had thought of using less than immediately obvious genres with the MA.

Sit-Coms, Documentaries, love stories...er, a lecture on the mating habits of wildebeestes, maybe? I know Paula's made an actual tutorial for the MA with the MA (arc 28470), and I played a great little mission that was a delivery system for the poem The Jabberwocky (and also great fun to play to boot, its arc 1573 if you're interested), but are there any other oddities out there I could have a go at in terms of structure, delivery or genre?

Eco.

*and 1 play.

I edited Mission 1. The difficult to find collection has been replaced with a much easier to find objective.

Eco.

I think The Acappellaclypse is my favourite mission in the arc. Its method of narrative delivery is...unusual.



Eco

QR - I have to point out that Mission 1 contains a potentially annoying first objective, a collection. Its an outdoor map, and the collection is sometimes maddeningly hard to locate. Persevere, i implore you. I of course believe the rest of the arc is well worth it.

Eco.

At last! The long-awaited (by my mom) second arc from the author of the critically acclaimed (by my mom) The Echo (Arc ID 1688).

The Audition. Do you want to join the Freedom Phalanx? Great, cos they've had their eye on you for some time! they think you've got the right stuff! You're a shoe-in, as long as you can prove yourself successful in The Five Heroic Tasks.

Do you have what it takes? Find out by taking The Audition!

Humorous, Story-focused, Heroic, somewhat challenging (at least, for my 50 en/en blaster) arc intended for SOLO-ONLY play featuring 4 new custom groups, exactly 100.00k worth of wit, drama, challenge and victory, and the now-told previously-untold story of How the Acappellaclypse was averted (as mentioned in The Echo, Arc ID 1688, available at all good AE buildings).

The Audition!

SEE! Nuns robbing banks!

HEAR! A supervillain sing!

TASTE! The sweet air of a world saved from certain doom!

The Audition. Arc ID 182289.

It's here.

Eco.

this is one of the reasons I'm glad my arc hasn't been reviewed, and why I've stopped reading the review threads. If there was a reviewer who avoided spoilers as a matter of course, I'd subscribe, both ways.

Eco

Anyone have any experience with this? Can I spawn an escort in the back of the arachnos sub base map?

Qr - if I couldntbtrust someone with my coh password, I'm not sure I'd be happy trusting them with my actual life.

Eco

Qr - there must be other players like me who see a post-complete ambush (or even an ambush chain) as an honor-complete objective? If I get ambushes after the find objective I always stay to fight them off before I exit.

Eco

Qr. Join the MA Arc Finder channel. Lots of story-focused MAurthors on there.

Eco

Ironically, the feedback I sent turg ravinging about how awesome his arc was had to be resent as a forum message, cos he's got me on ignore ingame (quite reasonably, I hasten to add - my level of volubility in chat channels isn't to everyones taste )

Eco