Slashman

Ok...first, I don't dislike MA because people farm in it. I've got friends who farm in this game. It's simply not an activity that I like or want to take part in. I have two fifties and countless alts. I'm in no hurry to level and I'm not particularly hurting for cash so I can buy IOs if and when I want for my toons.

My dislike of MA has nothing to do with farmers...and I don't think I have stated otherwise in this post. My dislike of MA is the fact that the available content isn't all that great and the in-mission gameplay is still the same old that we've had for 5 years. MA isn't going away and at this point I don't care.

What I want to see from the developers is deeper gameplay and content built around it. You can continue to farm or treasure hunt for decent stories on MA all you want. The changes in issue 16 should take care of most of the annoying tells etc. centered around MA activities.

You keep seeing what you want to see, Nethergoat. I can understand if the current content in the game is just your thing. Great for you. I, on the other hand, think this game could be a lot better if the devs concentrated on adding some new game systems and mechanics that made basic missions more immersive and less repetitive. This was never about bashing MA farming. The devs know what they want and do not want in the MA and are taking appropriate steps.

You seem to be the one ready to jump up and take up arms in defense of something I really couldn't care less about. I want the game to live up to its potential, and I don't think a giant farm-sim is what the devs have in mind. You can take it up with them though.

There are several differences between MA and PI.

The most obvious being convenience. For a level 1 toon to get to PI takes a bit of effort if that person is a brand new player. And a brand new player would not ordinarily even attempt to get to PI without participating in at least a bit of the game beforehand because most of em don't know about PI powerleveling.

Now that is not to say that newbs don't ask to get powerleveled or don't attempt to find ways to level fast. However, MA has made it so much more convenient that its not even funny. This is all a moot point come issue 16 anyway.

But to address your point. There is no level 50 content in this game. There is content that you can do at level 50 that you can also do at level 45(SFs TFs). There is content that you can do at 50 that you didn't get to do in the earlier levels. But really...there was never any endgame content targeted at max level players only.

People who wanted to farm would look for 'farmable' missions and do that. Like Dreck before he got a timer nerf etc.

I'm not sure what else you're trying to say.

This I will agree is true. It wasn't there before and its there now.

MA is something that has been rarely done in MMOs. It's not the first MMO to do it. Saga of Ryzom has/had the Ryzom Ring which let players create content(and I think it actually had a much wider range of options and scope than MA). It just wasn't a big name MMO.

Is it Innovative? I guess the work that went into it and the ease of use of the interface may qualify...so Ok. There is a some innovation in its design.

It's not content in and of itself. Its tools that let players design their own content with strict limitations that do not allow anything other than what we have been getting in missions for the past 5 years. Thus the developers have not delivered the new content. They gave us a tool for generating it. A LIMITED tool. Which prevents innovation in our content and allows us to differentiate our arcs with nothing else besides story.

You can shut your eyes and scream innovation all you want. But in terms of adding innovative elements to gameplay. We got zip! Nada! Nothing!

The last innovative elements to gameplay that this game really got were Mayhem missions. No matter how intricately I weave my story. Whether I'm a Terry Goodkind, Stephen King or Robert Jordan...there is NOTHING I can do with MA besides make missions that are kill alls, kidnaps, escorts or glowie clicks. If something else has been added to MA that exceeds the mission options that we've had for the last 5 years(which haven't changed in any way), then please enlighten and educate me.

You can shut your eyes and pretend that you don't see what I'm saying and talk about bias as much as you like. My point remains that MA is a weak and limiting SDK...because that's all it CAN be. This is an MMO and we can't be allowed to use our own art assets, makes our own powers up or change the terrain and make our own maps. But even all that is besides my point. The devs have not delivered any huge pieces of story content and missions to this game since the second Rikti Invasion. Even the Midnighter stuff was relatively small.

That doesn't mean I'm saying they did nothing. They have done a lot of great work on this game. But they obviously have been holding stuff back with GR cooking in development. At least that's my bet. YMMV.

Sure it isn't...if you're willing to skew reality into something else.

Which, unless you weren't reading my post completely is a big part of my problem with MA.

Ah...the Revolution. Let's put an SDK in the hands of players which limits them to doing the same things we have been doing for the past 5 years with the game in terms of gameplay. But they can fill in all their wonderful stories!!

We probably have a few decent story spinners in our community. Probably a few that are more than decent that use the MA. How many people have been using the MA for the great stories that are available? And how is having more story content addressing my previous point about innovative new forms of gameplay?

You're mixing 2 separate points and attempting to make it look like I said something I didn't. I never said the devs were playing tiddlywinks or not doing anything. I did say that the things they did do were very much focused on QoL and other improvements of the like. Day Jobs anyone? That turned my play experience inside out for sure.

Also, if MA was really this huge genre innovation(and we're not the first MMO to do player made content), where is the huge splash in the MMO world that it supposedly made? For that matter, how did it change the entire CoX gameworld for the better? How do other people see MA?

On several of the gaming sites I visit, whenever there's a news post or blurb about MA, most of the comments are about farming and PLing. Regardless of the accuracy of those comments, that's mostly how people from the outside are seeing MA in CoX.

And so for me, it didn't offer this huge revolution in gameplay. My powers still work the same, enemies still act the same, the environments are still as static as before and no new gameplay elements have been added to the basic mission structure. But we have a long list of stories of questionable quality to wade through and maybe find some decent ones. So yes...perhaps my bias is showing.

Shame on me for wanting cooler things to do in missions.

You know what just occurred to me? On the matter of exploration badges being hard to find because they are in out of the way places.

Why didn't we get some kind of indicator that flashes as we get close to an area with a badge that we don't have? I was playing Far Cry 2 just now and the green light that flashes on your GPS when you get near a diamond cache is just the sort of thing that might encourage people to wander around the city and find interesting places with exploration badges.

It would mostly negate people having to use external websites to find a badge spot that you've been passing by for ages while never knowing something interesting was close by. It would make badge hunting a bit more fun as the indicator flashes more strongly when you get closer to the area of interest. Might encourage people to zip around the city with a bit less disregard of where and what they are passing by. Who knows?

Or perhaps Power-Leveler 1.1

Seriously. I know you think that MA is some kind of radical gameplay advancement, Nethergoat. Unfortunately for me...I still see the same tired old mission formulas and objectives that have been here since issue 1. We just have lots of stories(many of questionable quality) to go with them.

Gameplay advancement, for me, is something that changes the way we execute missions. Gives us more and different things to do in them, makes environments matter, allows us different ways to defeat(or maybe otherwise neutralize) our enemies.

I'd like some things that resemble the detective work and snooping that goes with heroes in most comics. Some choices to make that affect what happens next instead of a straight ride on a roller coaster with rails. Things like that would represent an advancement in basic gameplay.

I suppose MA is great if you're into farming/PLing...or if you really like seeing what stories people can come up with(at your own risk of sanity and/or bad grammar overload). I gave it the old college try as I've done everything that the devs have added to the game and even have an arc somewhere that I think is still working.

Still I think there are people who are tired of the same old mission formulas and want some new things done to enhance the way we approach our crime fighting or acts of villainy.

Meh...maybe I'm in the minority.

There's a combination of things at work. The fact that the game hasn't changed in any significant way in terms of gameplay. There are no new mechanics or environmental challenges. No puzzles etc. But we got more...stuff.

Now the lack of gameplay advancement may well have been due to it being held back for GR. But GR isn't here yet. So people who are coming into the game are basically getting the same fundamental game, but there's these easy rewards dangling right in front of them.

Something we forget. All these QoL improvements and power tweaks. The real numbers and stats. And even the Inventions. None of that stuff is going to seem as wonderful to a new player because they have never had the game without them. So all that aside...what is there that we have gotten that's new in terms of content and content execution that is different in the past 6 issues? Not a whole lot.

Again, all that MAY be fixed with GR...but we don't have GR now.

I think you're deluding yourself on the equal movement thing. For one thing, more people play blueside now. And there are quite a few of the redsiders who want to play villain toons on blue. Then there are the staunch bluesiders who just want to play villain ATs but don't want to touch redside. Those are the one's who will make a villain and simply move it to blue as soon as they can. They don't want to experience the redside content.

And that's what my point was. The devs never fixed the unappealing parts of redside. And I have no idea if they ever plan to. While it won't stop me from playing redside...I certainly see it stopping other people.

Yeah...Flurry is a bit slow and clumsy looking.

Hate to further disappoint you, but Dual Pistols and Demon summoning are powersets...not new ATs. So one will be for masterminds and the other will got to blasters, corruptors, defenders is what I'm thinking.

One additional thing to note is that Champions is live now...so they have no real reason to keep holding back info on the expansion. It really is past time to let people get a better feel for what's coming. These snippets that don't tell us anything new aren't really helping much on the publicity front. And if this game needs one thing, its more exposure. It's terribly under advertised.

Actually heroes would not have to get a version of villainous things which make villain players stand out as villains.

The entire bulk of the game is setup for heroes to save the day and be counted as stalwarts of freedom and justice. There is nothing in the game that gives the equivalent(or acceptable alternative) for villains. That's the fundamental problem with being one. Apart from the powersets(and proliferation is dissolving that barrier), there is no inherent differentiating feature that measures, enhances or highlights your choice to oppose the forces of good.

That is probably what contributes to people not liking redside. Not only do they get the unheroic feeling of being second-class villains...but they can't truly revel in their evil choices. And by that I don't mean ultra-sadistic graphic evil. But having one side offer you something that the other doesn't is very important if you're going to have two opposing factions and one is the late-comer.

With GR, do you think people are more likely to want to move red to blue, or blue to red? My money is on a mass exodus of red to blue, because red side receives so little attention and content upgrades, that its become somewhat self-defeating.

If GR doesn't do something to enhance the redside play, then I suspect that only us true stalwart red players will remain. And redside truly WILL become a ghost town.

I'll end my rant here.

On the point of redside missions. I agree that there are too many of them that force your character into a 'mercenary/do odd-jobs for some cash' role. That's not to say that the missions themselves are bad...but when you do a redside mission, if someone was standing over your shoulder and watching the actual mission...they would be hard pressed to tell if it was blue or red. There aren't any villain game mechanics in redside content with the exception of mayhem missions.

There are not missions/story arcs that even give the illusion of being proactive as a force of chaos/evil. You just do what you're told. One of the things that villains needed badly was some kind of metric to measure their villainy that translated into the game. Whether that was some kind of map overlay that showed your evil grip on a zone growing as you do your dirty deeds and eventually lead to you establishing some kind of personal stronghold(NOT a VG base). Or even if contacts grew increasingly afraid of you as you gained levels and power and allowed you to make choices as to how you deal with the situations they presented(do you truly work to help them or help yourself at their expense?).

Those types of things(off the top of my head), are what would make villains stand apart from heroes. I hope GR will address some of that.

My biggest concern now is that with GR being a huge heap of content, we are unlikely to see new story content added to the game in any great quantity until its launch...which will certainly make me unhappy if its launch is a significant period of time away still.

Uwe Boll actually went to the Blizzard offices and OFFERED to make a Warcraft movie. They kicked him out...

True story.

Proving that Azuria really IS good for nothing.

MUAHAHAHA!!! In MY hands it will be broken beyond belief.