mogura

Thanks for this.

There are a bunch of costume parts (apparently too numerous for Support tabulate) which are purchased content (either from a booster pack or from the store, and apparently in some cases from buying "Going Rogue") which all appear as viable options in the Mission Architect character creator. The options display correctly on the MA mob preview, and can even be loaded to a new Player Character. However, custom mobs generated with any of these myriad borked pieces fail to save. This all but grinds the process of creating a whole custom Villain Group to a halt, as the only real alternative right now is to create generic looking mobs with no premium costume content whatsoever and then edit the costumes later "when this is fixed."

Nothing in the "Live" Known Issues documentation describes this problem in any detail. Beyond that, Support has proven utterly clueless when it comes to this bug, despite their (apparently somewhat disingenuous) claim that it is a "Known Issue."

The problem for me, then, is that not only is costume creation/editing borked in the normal tailor, it's also borked in the MA in such a way as to severely limit its functionality. The particular costume pieces that are borked all appear to originate from VIP or at least for-pay content. The MA itself is VIP content. We VIP's are supposed to get "priority service" but a bug that hampers two for-pay aspects of the game has gone utterly undocumented. It's gone so undocumented that even Support has no idea what is wrong here.

If fixing it is impossible or improbable, at least it could be documented. Until it is properly documented, there's no satisfactorily functional workaround. Support will continue to be baffled by the report(s). And that means, from my point of view, I'm getting less functionality from the game than I was a few months ago.

From what I can tell so far it's certain pieces of the Clockwork and IDF sets, and possibly some of the Cyborg pieces too.

Even support cannot give a definitive list, which is a bummer, since they should be the ones with the types of brute-force diagnostic tools to identify each and every culprit. The number and identity of culprit pieces is unknown, and the process for isolating them with standard techniques available to players is, honestly, pretty tedious.

That's the thing here - do these characters failing to save even generate a log for Paragon Studios to view? Is there any indication at all that this is being given VIP-level consideration? It's not even in the documentation for the game we're playing.

Regardless of what the folks making excuses for Paragon Studios say, since this is being billed as "VIP Content" and we're supposed to get "Priority Service" and such, the least they could do is identify the problem pieces and post the data clearly on the Live Known Issues page. After all, this is a known issue. Not stating so seems deliberately misleading to me.

Look, I'm not asking them to fix the whole issue. Just remove the options in MA that break MA. Remove, don't fix. Either way, document it.

They know this bug is live, however it's not documented in any substantial way and I can tell you as a matter of fact that the GM's have no idea what's what in regard to the bug.

That's not premium service on any level.

Again, I'm not asking them to build anything. All they need to do is disable the options that break AE. As for #1, no problem. I was happy to elucidate my exact meaning. How my post read is subjective, though. It sucked to have words put into my mouth...both by you and by Chris_Zuecher. All I'm saying is - well - what I'm saying. This is all broke, and they're billing it in promotional media as premium content.

That may not be wise.

1) No, I assume that the people who've been debugging the code for the past six updates to I21 (check patch notes) have the ability to debug the code. Hear that debugger? Debug.

2) We also had six patches so far, at least one of which basically did nothing. See above.

3) We agree on this point. Put the known issues on the Live Known Issues page. All of them. If they can't anticipate all the complexities of sophisticated code, they could at least document all the problems they know about instead of only a select few.

This is where everybody so far seems to miss the point:

These are BRAND NEW mobs I'm building for Mission Architect. I tried to select the pieces from the menus available to me. Nothing delineated them as invalid - in fact they showed up on the preview perfectly and even worked on a standard player model I created for testing. Saving the mob failed every time due to an invalid costume. I picked all the pieces from available choices. What could have moved?

If it's not a valid choice, it shouldn't be in the list. That's pretty simple.

No, I'm saying that we have a lesser game than we had in July 2011. See also: Help channel on all non-VIP servers.

But if they were to fix this, or at least document it, I'd be forced to re-evaluate my position. In the meanwhile, I'll watch what they do, not what they say.

Thanks for the information. This should be on the "Live" known issues page, not buried in a forum. Shame on the devs. It is always bad programming to allow options your software knows to be invalid. Those options should have been removed on the very first update to I21. It's even worse that the supposed "documentation" for the flaw is hidden.

C'mon devs, this is supposed to be "premium content." Not just the costume pieces themselves, but also access to the MA. When both are borked, your premium players are more likely to be disincented to continue their subscriptions.

Here's hoping it gets fixed before my sub runs out.

To paraphrase the CEO of another MMO company:

Watch what we do, not what we say.

[Edit: UPDATE!

Customer support linked me to this thread for help...

Talk about a disconnect.]

So far I'm getting mixed signals and lack of comprehension from support. I suspect the issue is in unlockable content as well, but I seem to be able to use some pieces without issue. It really appears to be very hit and miss, though IDF pieces may also factor in (I know for sure they were on at least some of the variants I've tried).

The relevant pieces should not be available for selection if the MA knows they're invalid selections. It's really that simple. Anything less is just plain shoddy.

Did not try this, it's not a bad idea either.

Today, the first pass I made at this seemed to work. There was no patch, right?

Intermittence sucks when it comes to trouble shooting...

[Edit 1: UPDATE!

The issue with characters being deemed invalid and therefore not saving doesn't appear to be limited to weapons. It appears to be related to mixing Clockwork and Cyborg parts in the costumes (which is a bummer since I'm trying to design radically modified cybernetic vampires...)

Also editing to confirm the same said costume can be loaded onto a new character and the character enters Atlas Park just fine.]

[Edit 2: UPDATE!

I filed a petition under Technical Issues from a character created using one of the exact costumes that continually fails in the MA character creator. I explained that my character, TestGammaBlasterCos, is wearing the exact costume loaded from a file, which is deemed invalid in MA.

We'll see what comes of this. Many such combinations of clockwork and cyborg costume pieces seem to trigger costume failure in the MA...]

None of that really pertained to either the broken rotation/slider field nor my astonishing lack of ability to save even one single finished weapons-based character.

But then I noticed the following, also in the Known Issues (but under the Tailor section):

Does this include the tailor in MA? If so, that would explain why, when trying to create weapons-based villains for a weapons-based story, my failure was so complete.

I've got to admit I almost hit the "unsub" button last night, never to look back. Bad software and bad documentation don't leave a particularly pleasant taste or texture in my mouth, especially when I could play the game for free if I wanted to avoid the aforementioned badness. But instead, I decided to try the forum, in the hopes that this is the best-kept worst secret in CoX history. Can anybody confirm whether or not MA is utterly borked right now, and if so, is there any information about potential fixes in the pipe?

Thanks in advance for any helpful information.

Oh, to acknowledge some anticipated FAQ's:

1) Yes, I owned all the costume pieces in each costume.

2) No, none of the costumes were in any way exploits nor TM or (C) imitations.

3) Yes, I have plenty of experience in the MA and have designed numerous custom characters successfully in the past.

4) No, this is not a troll.

Good info is good. Thanks.

Weird. I always assumed their hosts were alien humanoids, you know, due to the strange morphology of the skin and the pronounced visibility of the surface-level cardiovascular system.

Thanks for the info. It would be nice to see the devs (finally) clarify this, though, too.

She's right. You can earn all the badges and powers, too.

Actually, it's like a point outside the line, disconnected from it in every way except that it is a conditiion (among others) required for Incarnate content.

It doesn't lie on the line, it lies outside it. They are not one, man...

Just because you want to say that they are one and the same does not change, like, reality, man...

If it is not a lack of understanding, then what is it?

How can you disagree that Incarnates were released with I19 as part of the greater City of * franchise, and that they tied the system to a substantive monetary purchase which was, hitherto, entirely unrelated to the content released with I19? That is exactly what they did.

And now, instead of tying the content to that purchase, it's been redeployed to part of the VIP package.

It. Was. Never. Part. Of. GR.

Because it wasn't. It was released with I19.

Which was free. In order to access Incarnates prior to Freedumb, you had to pay for GR.

Now that access to the game is free, you have to pay a sub to get Incarnates.

They were never "part" of Going Rogue.

P.S.
It stopped looking like "semantics" two pages ago.

And it was answered a page back.

I needed to buy the game. I needed to pay for time to level my characters to 50.

I actually had to attain level 50, too, besides paying for the time.

The prerequisites were myriad. GR was one.

I had to buy the game originally and I had to buy the time required to get my Hero or Villain to level 50. It's that simple.

It was one prerequisite among several.

And the Incarnate content released with I19 with all of those prerequisites in place.

I'm not sure how I could answer your question any more clearly.

My point is that you are failing to make the distinction between Incarnates being [edit: a prerequisite] of Going Rogue rather than a part of it. It was a single prerequisite among others.

The point you're trying to make is essentially the same as saying that access to the forums was included with access to the game.

It's the exact same argument. I'm trying to get you to see that you're misplacing GR with I19 and that a similar argument would be to say that forum access was part of access to the game. Or live support.

Just because it seems reasonable doesn't make it true.

Strawman. Please refute the points I made, not the opinion I stated.

We are fortunate to have basked in your gleeful dissection of semantics.

Which brings me to my closing statement about your peculiar semantical tirade/inquisition.

Posting on the forums is only available for paying subscribers. Always has been, always will be. Within the forum's rules, we're allowed to discuss whatever we want, but there is a prerequisite. We had to be paying subscribers.

You could say that posting on the boards was "part of" having continuous uninterrupted access to City of *. After all, prior to Freedumb, if you could play the game you could post on the forums. Pay attention, this is where the semantics happen.

Now, legions of Freemium and Freedumb players have continual uninterrupted access to City of *. However, these legions of free players do not get access to things we considered "part of" City of * before - including both the forum and even live support.

Clearly, forum access is not a part of continual access to City of *. In truth, paying the bill is a prerequisite to forum access (and support).

Aren't semantics neat?

Here's how it ties into the Incarnate situation. There were more than one prerequisite for accessing Incarnate content, as Arcanaville has previously suggested.

One of the prerequisites was being level 50. No matter how much you wanted to experience Incarnate content, buying the GR box alone was not enough. You had to be level 50, as well. Further, you had to pay your monthly subscription after your 30 days were up. So it couldn't be said that Incarnates were "included" in the box. You couldn't roll a level one Incarnate. So it was not "included", it was a prerequisite.

Analogies are not always false. If the logic behind them is sound, they can be a very powerful tool. Semantics alone do not convey to one the gift of flawless logic.

Sorry if this sounds mean, but I think you were just being nitpicky to rile people up on a forum.

From the dictionary:

So what that means to me is that Incarnate content is not part of the Going Rogue package, but that the Going Rogue package is prerequisite to Incarnate content.

Much like French 201 is a prerequisite to French 351 (Francophone Society), but French 351 is decidedly not a part of French 201.

Pretty simple, huh?

[Edit: Telling people to not use analogies? Really? How about not using logic, reason, analytical thinking, or even pattern recognition in crafting a response? I mean really, the less we think about this, the easier it is to expect to get stuff for free that we've always had to pay for prior to the Free Trial being extended from 14 days to infinity. Think less, qq more! YEAH!!!1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but after your free month, procured with Going Rogue, you still had to pay the freaking monthly fee to access Incarnate content.

What the whine community seems to share in common is a sense of being butthurt over the fact that they can play an incredibly pared down trial version of the game for free but they can't access the most desirable premium content without paying what they used to pay to access the whole stinky mess.

Look, in Issue 1 we got access to Broadcast when we paid for CoH. I don't see anybody qq'ing that they don't get access to Broadcast for free. Why? Because you always have had to pay a monthly sub in order to Broadcast. How are Incarnates any different?

QFT.

Farming in PI: You needed to know how to use the tram.
Farming in AE: You don't need to know how to use the tram.

Farming in PI: You need to know what a contact is.
Farming in AE: You don't really need to know what a contact is.

Farming in PI: You are farming dev content designed to be "balanced."
Farming in AE: You are farming player content designed to be l33ts4uc3.

Farming in PI: You had to get to PI before you heard the PL Broadcasts.
Farming in AE: Welcome to Paragon City, would you like some RMT with your farm?

[Edited for typo's and to emphasize that the last one is the big problem. With a bunch of Real Money Transfer sweatshop farmers as the greeting crew for almost everybody in the game, Paragon Studios aren't exactly putting their best foot forward for new customers. I have heard it referred to as "Double Spam Weekend" and I'd say that's accurate.

So, yeah, there is a difference. Now, nobody (including RMT'ers) has to leave Atlas Park, ever...]