Sente_

In total I guess somewhere between 35 and 40 characters, most on my main server Defiant.

Got 16 of them at 50, most of them alpha slot unlocked but only a few with some IO sets and two so far with any incarnate unlocked and slotted beyond alpha.

Of those that are at 50, 8 of them are dominators, which have been my long term favourite archetype. More recently though most of my time has gone into my Kheldians - they are right at the top with dominators at the moment as archetypes I enjoy playing.

At any given time I probably rotate between 3-6 characters, but which characters that may be varies over time.

Cool, I missed the ones in the headstart and now it will be on my main server also on Wednesday.

A somewhat educated guess is that that they have licensed to use the database used in TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System) (see http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp).

What they may not have done here is to apply enough filtering to sort out those that are not active/live and actually used commercially and used in the same line of business etc.

That being said, a search for a name like Dracula provide multiple hits for entries that are live and in commercial use, for both computer software and comics (the latter Marvel Characters, Inc.).

A custom villain of mine named Vego was caught in the filter - the only record for the name Vego that was live (but not in commercial use) was a submitted request from an Israelic company to use for packaged fresh cut vegetables.

There were however two live other live entries that were in commercial use that a search showed - but in those cases the trademarked name was not Vego (names were Optima and RFMIMO), but the company that had registered these names is Vego Technologies in Taiwan...

And to take another example fom previous comments, the word "Accessed" gives one hit for live records to "SEAS Secured Employees Accessed Safely".

Part of the problem here is that some missions may have corrupt data - at least some entries seem to have corrupted data in the error display and then any name is considered invalid, even hitting the keyboard at random.

Cannot remove the culprit characters and cannot change their names...

Amazing job, congratulations!

I do not visit the forums so often, but since I am on vacation I have a bit more time and read through the posts in this thread.

I definitely agree with the notion that "everyone should be an author" is wrong or counter-productive for MA and that there has been a lack of focus to make it attractive for players to play the content.

Unfortunately I do not think many of the good suggestions here matters particularly much - in the end any improvements will be judged against other items on the to-do list in terms of what commercial benefit they can bring.

Unless Paragon Studios run out of ideas for other content updates, or they get some "proof" that user content creation in MMOs can be commercially successful I doubt they will put much effort into it, if any.

If Cryptic's efforts with The Foundry in Star Trek Online works out well I guess they maybe would look at it again. I think Foundry is better in a couple of ways than MA, but may still run into similar problems that MA has.

* Accessibility is definitely better; as easy as regular missions and same interface
* A review stage - a mission needs to be _completed_ by reviewers N number of times before being publically available
* Similar rating system to MA (1-5 stars), but with a bit more details on the ratings - e.g. it will show that a mission may have 10 4-star, 1 5-star and 2 1-star ratings out of a total of 13.
* Cryptic is planning to have different missions with regular rewards whose tasks may include to complete a certain number of Foundry missions.
* Search functionality which is somewhat similar to what MA has.

I do not think the interface will be enough if the number of missions grow considerably and something similar to the YouTube approach may still be needed. But the review stage may at least partially control the flow of new missions.

The tools themselves looks promising - they give a lot of control to the author with some basic building blocks. The toolset is essentially an early version that they will be using for their Neverwinter Nights game.

For the sake of MA I hope that Foundry will work out in STO - if there is a positive working and commercially successful example out there perhaps Paragon Studios will make a good effort to revamp MA.

pre-I18 (I16, I17ish) I did not get the betrayal to work at all for escort, while it did work for ally. After I18 the escort did work, but the dialog was still largely left out.

Unlocked the alpha slot on 5 characters so far, one for each archetype I have at 50. The remaining 6 (all dominators) may get the slot unlocked at some point and future 50s will probably get it unlocked.

As to have many will actually have something slotted there, that remains to be seen - I am not grinding/farming any shards. But if I end up playing a character, I might has well have it there in case a few shards and components would end up in the inventory.

One of the great things with City of Heroes is that it makes teaming up with others a quite painless effort - it is easy to start a team and do some missions. Quick travel times, everyone get something out of the missions even if it is not their own, generally no need for specific roles to be filled or a certain amount of team members.

A hurdle with AE is that teaming is a bit more cumbersome than normal missions since they derive from the task/strike force mechanic, but there is not really a compelling reason from a user perspective that it should be that way.

If AE mission handlign were a bit more like regular missions it would be easier for teams to mix AE and non-AE missions, perhaps switch between different missions etc. Even allow people to jump in through any AE to a team mission.

Make it more convenient and easier to play and mix with other play activities and I think more people will be inclined to play AE missions.

Thanks for the review, GaziusF!

Morality was neutral because actions and motivations would not be villainous, even though it is a red-side contact. Rogue could be an option to choose, was not available when the arc was created.

You are quite right in that English is not my native language and I do struggle with finer points of writing artistry in English. It is good to get that pointed out and I will look for ways to improve it.

The custom boss sidekick in the end fight actually appears in the first mission also, but is not a mission objective and would not always be seen, depending on where things spawn.

Mission #4 is unfortunately a hit or miss with regards to running around, depending on where things spawn. I have tried a couple of different maps that also work with the first part of the mission (Bocor) but have not been able to avoid it entirely.

Good points in review and I will look at doing some improvements.

I already have 7 doms at 50, but I doubt I will make anyone of them a hero, rather rogue or vigilante if I switch.

For new characters in general I will probably start on the "opposite" side with any of them and after that will see what happens. It will be at least one new dom for elec control.