james_joyce

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The appeal to authority isn't necessary, though. I think his point makes sense.

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I have to disagree. While I follow all the logic in the article, most of the language used is inflammatory, and there's a glaring lack of data or hard evidence. Overall, I think the article is poorly researched, and the quotations by this particular authority are used in a crass attempt to disguise the lack of effort. So the credentials of said authority become important, because if you remove them, the article basically consists of an overly-dramatic cocktail of forum posts.

And saying there's drama on the forums is sort of like saying there's water in the ocean.

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I have to agree. The author took the lazy man's method of research in order to prove his argument, one point based off of a poor reference. Although I could easily see a blogger who's worked on three or even two published MMOs as credible, this one doesn't fit the bill of expert testimony. Although I see merits in the article itself, trying to pass off Eric's blog as credible adversely erodes credibility.

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Not defending the author's tone or his data sources. As far as I know, legitimate studies on this type of thing as pertains to video games is lacking. So all we can go on is what we thinks makes sense. So I'm saying I think his point sounds reasonable, regardless of if he sounded like a jerk or pretended like he "knows."

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It's not always beneficial to us in the real world either unfortunately. It is inherent to nature, human or otherwise. That does not mean that it is always a good thing. Too rich of a reward for too little effort leads to corruption and corrosion.

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what do you mean by "corrosion?"

in any case, it seems to me that the times where it's a bad thing are the rare exception rather than the rule. I don't have any data on that - it just seems logical, but correct me if I'm wrong.

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This guy again? The guy works on one published MMO (AC2) and suddenly he's an industry expert because he writes one blog? Perfect example of one internet journalist using material from another from a half-credible source (this comes to mind). He's not even working on Star Trek Online, because Perpetual lost out to Cryptic, so even his credentials are mis-cited in the article. Heck, his current project is a puzzle game

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The appeal to authority isn't necessary, though. I think his point makes sense.

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Free to play the game as they like, players frequently make choices that ruin the fun. It’s an irony that can prove death to game publishers: Far from loving their liberty, players seem to quickly bore of the “ideal” games they’ve created for themselves and quit early.

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That's literally the bottom line right there.

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Not to derail the topic, but it occurred to me reading that article that the drive that tends to improve quality of real life is the same drive that causes this to happen. We seek the most rewards for the least effort seemingly by instinct. That's beneficial to us in the real world, but makes for a poor game.

Just something that hadn't occurred to me before.

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Although, your option would work pretty well too but I'd like to add one option:
The ability to take an existing room or map and choose a texture to apply on the floor and walls.

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Great idea.

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I apologize if this question has been asked and answered, or if there is a guide that pertains to this (haven't found one) but is there a way to get anyone other than bosses to say random things? I'd love to use the minions to drop clues and hints about the overall story arc.

If not, must you use bosses for this? It appears you can have multiple "bosses", but do they all have to have "boss"-like difficult?

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The best way to do this, IMO, is to either use patrols or destructible objects. Placing some destructible object like a garbage can that isn't required for completion makes it essentially decorative. However, I know that several detail types have a bug where the "unaware" dialog triggers at the same time as the "aware" dialog, when the player attacks the spawn. I don't know if destructible objects are among those.

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Officially announced April 24 2004.

Went live October 31 2005.

I looked it up previously and can't be bothered re-linking.

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Hopefully either:
1) it doesn't take that long this time
2) we get issues released between I15 and Going Rogue

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A smaller version of this map would be less frustrating to those that do not like the fog, but give people like me the option of making a small mission where the biggest challenge is finding your way!

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I would love smaller versions of a lot of existing maps. Mayhem's hospital, DE office, and Atta's cave are a few that come to mind. And yeah, a mini-Ruladak cave would be awesome.

Also, a version without the fog.

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What I would love would be the ability to use something similar to the base designer to let us design our own maps.

I guess it would be quite consuming in term of memory space required...

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We'll probably never get anything as flexible as the base designer, 'cause it's just asking for trouble, but what I hope we do see is some combination of the following:

- a map designer that lets us pick rooms of existing maps and connect them together how we'd like (would probably require creating some transition rooms that don't exist today).

- allow us to place a certain number of decorative objects on existing maps, pulled from the same pool of decorative objects as bases.

- allow us to change the lighting color and brightness per room

- allow us to choose ambient sound effects and music

- allow for certain ambient effects to be set, like fog, fire, ice patches, etc, per room.

- instead of allowing us to place spawn points themselves (highly exploitable), allow us to have fine control over the existing spawn points. E.g. I want this boss to spawn on Atta's throne, or this destructible object to spawn in the middle of the CoT altar room, etc.

I think that would give us sufficient control to let us do the functional equivalent of map design. Of course, I'm betting some if not all of those are pretty complicated to implement.

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I like the addition of ranged for melee.

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now can I have the same range on my ranged attacks?

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Yeah, I think a reasonable person can see why they added ranged attacks to custom toons... it's just that those ranged attacks seem a bit excessive. It seems they do more damage than other ranged attacks of the same type, and have a longer range. Of course, I don't really know that - but it certainly seems that way. If it was just on the order of a Freak Slicer or BP Zombie, I don't there would be nearly as much complaining about it.

But then I'm guessing someone will produce the actual numbers that show that they are on the same level as those attacks and I'll be embarrassed by my own positive selection bias.

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Honestly, I'd just be happy with some of the Lost and Rikti armor being proliferated to normal hero characters instead

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You don't even know how badly I want that television helmet and the stop sign chest plate. Man, seriously.

First, I love the idea of a video review.

Here's my feedback:

I would seriously consider editing down the video after you're done to remove the filler. You happened to quit on the first mission here, but think about how long this would have been if you'd played all the missions in a 5 mission arc. A review, I feel, should give a short summary of how you feel about a piece. 6 - 7 minutes tops. You wouldn't call MST3K a movie review show, right?

Another thing I'd do, is once you read through the mission text (and no, I don't think you should read the mission text out loud - just edit out the part where you're reading it to yourself) you should give a specific summary of your opinion, more specific than just, "OOOOOK, whatever," or, "huh, cool." Something like, "the plot here doesn't make much sense," or, "that was really well written dialog." Things like that.

The last thing I noticed is a bit of a nit: it's a review of the arc, not your character. There were a few times where you commented on how much you liked your character, or a specific power, or whatever. But the people watching the review want to know if the arc is worthwhile, not whether your powerset is (although that could be a valid topic for a separate video). But having said that I don't think it's a big deal if you throw in a few, "Heh, I love doing that"s, or that type of thing.

I do think it's a great idea. I just think you have to play around with the format until you get it right. I say keep at it and try to improve it with each review. Keep in mind no one's done this before, exactly.

Did this thing disappear again? Wanted to show it to someone on a trial account and I could only find part 2.

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Alright, I didn't see that part. Though there still isn't word on a new city, but I hope we'll get one.

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While not explicitly mentioning a new city, you should check out this interview, notably:

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MMORPG.com: Will Going Rogue introduce new missions to the game, or simply allow hero characters to experience villain content and vice-versa?

Matt Miller: Lots of new missions. Lots. It's not just "make your Mastermind into a Hero" and call it a day. What is the path your Mastermind takes? What is the trigger that got them to consider a line between good and evil? What made them cross that line?

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Tyrant's Throne Room map, with the lava pools, and (please please please please) the ability to put a captive/ally in the same place Statesman is in the real mission.

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This map was in the BETA so I don't know why its not there on LIVE.

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It was removed because collection details were spawning in the lava, making them impossible to click.

It'll be back, I guess, once they move those detail spawn points.

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So until everyone has gone through the questline you are pretty much playing a single player game?

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No - it's only that one area, and you have everyone with you who also completed that quest line.

I think the suggestion is along the lines of, imagine if a contact gave you a mission to defeat boss x in non-instanced zone y. Using something like phasing, you could avoid the "wait in line" problem by phasing in that boss for only that player and his team. That would essentially be an instanced mission without the load screen.

Seems like a great idea, actually.

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More costumes villan crime in the open world!

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word.

although they should avoid a contact sending you to stop a costumed villain, since you then get the "wait in line" problem.

But ambient costumed villains? Thumbs up.

yeah, basically what I did was to just play through arcs and buy unlockable content until I had it all unlocked before I started on my own arcs. That way, I didn't have to worry about it.

yeah, the trouble with the unlockable maps is that they aren't marked as maps that you unlocked. So you have to remember what you unlocked and look for it specifically. I personally lose track of which were there before vs which ones are new.

What did you buy that you can't find?

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But nothing Positron's post said should inspire such fear in those players. Nothing at all.

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Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.

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Players who knowingly use an exploit when creating an arc, run the risk of having access to MA suspended, or worse- depending on the severity of the action, their account banned.

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Q) “Are you going to give us an absolute definition of what abuse is?”
A) I know a lot of you want to know an exact definition to see if you were actually abusing the system,

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You forgot one

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Q) “If I powerlevelled a character, am I going to lose them?”
A) Probably not. Only the worst of the worst, exploitive, powerlevelled characters will be removed from the game. We don’t take retroactive punishments lightly, but some offenses are so egregious that no one would question their intent and those ill-gotten gains should be dealt with. I just want to emphasize that no one is looking to ‘punish’ anyone here, but rather remove the rewards of exploitive behavior.

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But nothing Positron's post said should inspire such fear in those players. Nothing at all.

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Agreed, but I think it warrants a second clarification nonetheless. It is what it is.

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General feeling I'm getting is that people are still scared. o.o! A third of my people won't go near the sewers with their new characters like we used to, for fear it would be considered an exploit! x_X They don't wanta do more then one MA mission arc in a day due to possibly being flagged.

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If that misconception is as widespread as you imply, Posi definitely needs to make another clarification.

I have no way of knowing if it is or not, but I'm guessing the devs can track MA usage.

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R-Type is a hard core shooter.

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Base on that page, R-Type might be their in-joke synonym for "hardcore," meaning they're hiring some hardcore programmers, which would make sense if they're in charge of doing a graphical overhaul.

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Bah, where is that listed? I thought Dev's choice was the safst place to find missions where I wouldn't have to worry about the recent crackdown and find dev approved material. Bummer.

Thanks much for the info!!

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hrm...

You really don't have to worry about the recent crackdown if all your doing is running missions with a team. If you were happy to run dev's choice missions, you're probably not looking to farm an exploit, which is the only way you can get in trouble.

Posi really needs to add a third clarification.

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I just want some spawn points added to the Midnight Club map. The front area where you enter the club.

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Hell yes. That would make it perfect for my Jorge Luis Borges level.