scholarman

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I think one main area you would want to avoid is too much text. If your descriptions and story is too lengthy that may cause a player to exit immediately. I know I will be trying to streamline my story...it will be difficult to find that balance of just enough story and fun missions...

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This is a difficult balance. There needs to be enough story to draw the reader in, but not so much as to push them back out again.

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I plan on doing a reasonable amount of this through clues and in-mission dialogue, since those can be shorter bite sized chunks. If you learn bits of information from computers or bulletin boards as you go along, it spares you from having to have a six paragraph mission complete clue.

The other side of this, of course, is simplicity of premise. If your basic mission arc needs more than one sentence to explain what it's about, at least "OOC" to another player, then it's probably going to be too text rich.

Finally, if you have to go heavy text, I'd think doing it in mission 3 or 4 would make more sense than 1 or 2. Get people into your arc and "plot-committed" before trying to make them care about your breathless prose. The player will only get invested in the arc if he feels like he's actually doing and learning these things. Letting your contact figure everything out and spout out long swatches of backstory is another way of saying "you're just here to watch my cutscenes, boyo." If your arc isn't 1-2 missions long, your first mission's intro isn't likely to be very involved.

As an example, in the notes I've written for one of my more involved Redside arcs -- one with twists and turns and some nice crunchy story and pseudocanon -- my first mission comes down to "hey, I've got a line on a nice bank heist. You in?" Nice, simple, normal enough... it's what happens during the heist that makes the difference.

You're thinking of the War Witch.

Okay, point.

Oh, one other question I don't remember being answered....

...what's the Day Job for logging out in Architect Entertainment?

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The problem is that sometimes it really is clear the mission is an absolute turd from minute one.

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And you should be able to one-star it and drop the arc.

The thing is, if it really is that bad? Most of the ratings will be from people who saw the first bit, didn't like it, one-starred it and dropped the arc. And that means that even if they only counted 1/4 to 1/5 (say) what a person who played the whole arc counted as, the volume would more than make up for it.

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On the topic of rating without completing, would it be possible for said ratings to have less weight than ratings upon completion? Perhaps contributing only 1/4 as much as a completion rating. That way if there are only noncompletion ratings, they will have full force, but noncompletion ratings won't affect as much an arc which is being rated by players completing it.

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Or perhaps a rating counts more for the more missions started. If someone has published a 5 mission arc, someone who drops the first mission and rates the arc gets 1/5th the vote of someone who at least starts the fifth mission. That way, someone can drop out immediately if it's a stinker, but someone who really plays the arc can judge it as a whole and have it count more.

This means, of course, that someone who quits an 'arc' with only one mission would get to rate it fully, but that's appropriate. They've given 'the whole thing' a chance, after all. Someone who makes it to mission 2 of a 4 mission arc would have a 50% 'vote.' And so on.

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My friend and I have been slowly ironing out a storyline, and I've been busy creating units for an enemy gang that's going to be included. We're trying to make it as believable as part of the CoH universe as possible. Needless to say, some of the new units have some unique and interesting powerset combinations.

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Veeeeeery cool.

The 'integrate well into CoH' has been a priority for me, too. While I'm not counting on Dev's Choice (there's going to be a billion good arcs out there), I figure you design as if the Devs will fall in love with your arc and want to make it Canon, and then publish expecting 2-3 stars on your average rating and then take it down after a month. Shoot for the moon, but bank on missing.

Sort of like sending short stories to magazines, really.

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I've only done one costume per minion type, but since my factions have "uniforms" that fits conceptually. If we can have multiple models per minion type, then I may go back and indivualize faces, add LT and Boss versions, etc.

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I've been working under the multiple model assumption, so I'm generally going for diversity -- race, sex, face, hair color, in some cases body shape/physique. But it's worth noting I haven't done a group with covered face/hair as yet, so....

So, apropos of nothing... who else has spent the weekend making costumes and saving them against Closed Beta Acceptance/Open Beta/Launch?

I've got a nice 'central cast' of heroes and villains going, plus three enemy groups from multiple minions (since the implication is you can have more than one costume/model for a given 'minion,' a la the Skulls or Longbow) through Elite Bosses. I'm canting more towards City of Villains content right now -- I'm looking forward to giving Supervillains some good old fashioned comic book evil -- but I have some hero-side stuff too. And of course, once it's all built in MA, there's no reason I can't use it all over and over again.

Honestly, I feel like I'm fourteen years old again, riffling through Champions or Villains and Vigilantes, cheerfully spending my day rolling up characters and speccing out designs.

My wife, it is worth noting, is a very patient woman.

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Great idea, though from a role-play perspective "Probation" makes a lot more sense than "Duress". In comics heros that join villains under duress are usually just setting them up, or they go all the way and never return to heroics. Villains on the other hand often have some good cause they are interested in; maybe they only turned to crime to pay for their sick child's medical bills, or maybe in their mind they are some sort of twisted Robin Hood fighting the establishment. Or maybe they are a villain just because it's fun, in which case they'll do good when good is fun too.

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I don't disagree. That said, I had to have some in-game/RPish explanation for why a hero would start helping villains beat up Sea Witch.

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I'm willing to listen to ideas on how truly horrible content can get rated without having to endure all of it.

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I don't have a good answer to that, but it did raise a concern.

What if someone gets a mad on for a given player, and goes in and 1 or 2 stars all his arcs out of hand? If he doesn't do that for every arc he comes across, just the arcs that have a specific global name attached to them, how can an architect avoid having his stuff sabotaged out of the Hall of Fame?

(I suppose if the player name isn't attached to the arc in the first place, that would be one way. )

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The problem to me is if you let people have 10 arcs they will make 10 arcs, reguardless of quality. Then anyone who wants to play the arcs will have a tougher time actually finding these missions, which isn't good for anybody.

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But that's when having a rating system comes into its own. If you can sort the billion arcs by average rating, and filter your sort to "arcs developed in the last week", for example, then you'll get all the newer arcs that have been rated 4-5 stars right up top. This makes having a 4 star rating an advantage instead of a disappointment. As it is, either you get 5 stars or you have to consider putting a bullet in your 4 star arc that gets a few hundred people playing it a week because you want to put something new up.

No matter what happens, there's going to be a ton of dross. If getting 5 stars is ultimately unattainable, you either sacrifice creating new content to keep your popular but old content up or you yank down something people like and give up any chance of building more than a couple of related arcs.

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While a small number, hopefully three will ensure people put a real effort into the ones they do, which makes the quality of the system as a whole better and thus makes it more likely people will use it, which then makes it even MORE likely that people will play your story.

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Either you get a strong enough rating to keep your story up high, or you get buried in the masses. There will be hundreds -- thousands -- of story arcs on this thing within two weeks. There will likely be 500 good story arcs copied over from beta on launch day. (And huzzah for that. As a player I'm looking forward to devouring some of these storylines.)

3 arcs is just too limiting. There isn't room to build multiple storylines on a theme, and there isn't room to build multiple one-storyline-themes. I can accept that we might need extraordinary measures to get more. (Vet rewards, redeeming astronomical numbers of tickets, or just plain plunking down cash at the NC barrelhead.) But there should be those options in the game, somewhere.

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It was the perfect opportunity to fix several mistakes and oversights re: Defeat Badges, but now? Meh. No real interest in it. That's not to say I don't recognize and appreciate the fact that a LOT of work has went into it, but two steps forward, one back IMO.

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That seems a touch monofocus to me. I understand your feeling that way, but... well, if your real interest was in creating missions full of the mobs you needed to defeat to claim badges, it seems unlikely you really were interested in creating missions. It wouldn't take a lot of creativity to figure out which outdoor map had the fewest obstacles and the most space for mobs and load it down with redcaps.

I realize -- different strokes and all that. Still, it seems like a weird thing to hinge all your enjoyment of a feature on.

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I hope you can play mission arcs without publishing them. Like if you want a SG mission arc that you don't want to be published because it won't fit in the great scheme of CoH. But it'll fit an RP Storyline.

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If it's published, the SG enters the arc, and then it's unpublished immediately apparently the players can finish the arc. Doing it that way means your RP group gets experience and rewards, which if you're only developing your group in the MA would be an important and needful thing.

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No, it's not a good idea to write what you think the audience will like. Write the story that you're happy with. If it doesn't get into the Hall of Fame, oh well.

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I concur, bear in mind. At the same time, there's something potentially wrong with a system that rewards the tyranny of the masses without making allowances for those who might have more specialized appeal.

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Do I even bother trying to get story worth of a hall of fame or devs' choice award? Are there any other rewards other than getting my story arc a promotion? If that's all there is to it, then I'll probably stick to creating rapidly cycling story arcs for my characters, and not worry about the ratings.

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It wouldn't surprise me if there were badges involved, but that's not my interest.

I want to build. Among other things, I want to build on the foundations I set up in the first place. If I create a new enemy group with a story arc, I don't want to have to remove that story arc that creates and establishes them to have room to post a story arc that develops their story. At the same time, I don't only want to tell stories about that villain group.

Heck, before these things were even announced, I actively outlined five story arcs I wanted to do if at all possible. And sure, I can build them, but I don't want to spend a week building a story arc that then I wait to see if maybe -- just maybe -- the three I have up will promote.

I don't know. Three just seems way too few to me. Five, maybe. Seven would be plenty. But three?

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Once the word gets around, those arcs that are truly worthy will get their recognition, and it probably won't take long for some of them to hit the 1000 ratings mark.

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The thing is -- I'm going to feel conflicted every time I rate a mission, assuming I liked it at all.

Do I hold out five stars for absolutely superior story arcs? Even though I thought an arc was fun and enjoyable and certainly worthy? Or do I pass them out like candy to anything I think might be cool as a permanent arc?

If 5000 people rank my story at 4 stars -- ostensibly "well above average," do I pull it down as a failure and try to find something that'll do better?

If the Hall of Fame becomes full of 5 star missions that have pop culture references and lots of goofy humor, and I want to write darker stories and really bust myself to make things that are compelling, but disturbing... do I put my instincts on hold and do something the crowd will like instead? Or just pray that in the thousands of story arcs that filter through, a Dev happens to play mine? (Honestly, I'm seeing Developer's Choice as an unrealistic goal -- they have only so much time in the day, plus they have actual jobs and actual lives. If it ever happens that's fantastic, but it's a mug's game to try and catch that lightning in a bottle).

I'd like other ways to get slots open. I want to see a large number of tickets be redeemable for a new slot (among other things, because that reinforces the system -- encouraging me to play other people's content). Hell, I'd be fine dropping twenty bucks per arc slot. If I have something that's averaging 3-4 stars, I don't want to feel like I have to kill it because I'm not as good or popular as someone else but I actually have other stories I'd like to tell.

The limited number of slots is pretty much the only thing I'm unhappy about. I'm thinking of workarounds, but I'm going to feel really stupid if I end up dual boxing just so I can have six active mission arcs instead of three.

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Ok, dumb question (forgive me if this has been asked before):

Are all the mission arcs that are "published" going to be available to the entire community or will you be able to create mission arcs that are more isolated (for SG events, RP stories, etc)?

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It might be cool to have a fourth slot that's "Supergroup-Only." Still gives tickets and XP, but it has no way to rate it or get ratings from tickets, and only members of your Supergroup (or Supergroups in Alliance with yours) can see it. For the whole "running a full campaign" thing that might be too idiosyncratic for the regular.

But then, it sounds like you can unpublish one of your regular 3 arcs, publish your SG-only arc, let the group leader select the mission and launch it, unpublish your arc and republish your regular one, and your supergroup will be able to play the arc through with rewards even though it's unpublished. Which is likely how I'll do "regular tuesday group RP" stuff.

Another question: can we have "Enemy teleport on defeat," similar to Professor Echo's escapes?

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Too much freedom. Since where only getting the illusion of "build and create". And in turn not not becoming our own GM's, in our own Missions. Its nice to have customizable missions but, if your going to attempt to give us real freedom, We should have GM power in OUR own missions. Why restrict our own mission power?.

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....huh?

We're getting custom missions. Where we can create custom AV/Heroes. And custom villain and hero groups, with custom minions, custom lieutenants, custom bosses, custom dialogue, custom objectives, betrayals by the people who you're rescuing, adjustable names, flavor text, powers and abilities.

What in God's name do you need to feel like you're being given "GM power?" The I-Win command? The ability to have rocks fall and kill all the players in your game? A function that makes you lattes and serves you cheetos every time someone rates your story arc four stars or above?

Seriously. Dude.

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I'm hoping that the "Turn into Warwolf" power is really a "Turn into <insert MOB>" power.

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If it's truly open, it would be awesome. "Quick, Sereni! You're being beaten senseless! Turn into Sailor Lune!" "Right!" (Boss becomes Elite Boss in a leotard and miniskirt.)

Here's a question -- or a suggestion, I suppose.

Could we potentially buy a new Arc slot with tickets?

I ask because while I'm really excited and I'm going to do my best to make good arcs, the idea that a thousand people may A) play my arc and B) rate it five stars with little enough dissent that it'll round to 5 seems pretty negligible. Unless everyone five stars everything they sort of like as a matter of course, anyhow, in which case the star system will quickly become irrelevant.

I'd like to have alternate vectors. And this way, if I play tons of MA content, I could earn the right to put more of that content up. It seems fair to me, though admittedly my perspective may not be the right one.

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yes, that is great news, the problem I have just discovered now is that you must have an Intel Mac, which essentially means, quite ironically I believe, if you have this type of Mac, you could be running Boot Camp/Windows and playing on the PC side.

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For the cost of a licensed copy of Windows and the 'surcharge' of rebooting your machine every time you want to play. I've been doing that for years, and I promise you this is way better.

As for using pre-Intel Macs... the Intel switch happened in 2006. That's now officially three years ago. At this point, as much as I'd like to see pre-Intel machines given robust support -- our school still has a lot of them -- it's hard to get too upset that companies aren't developing for them. By the same token, a lot more video companies are developing for the XBox 360 instead of the XBox, the PS3 instead of the PS2, and the Wii instead of the Gamecube. And nobody expects anyone to develop for the Dreamcast. When it does happen, that's a banner day for Dreamcast owners, but it's not anyone's priority.

Heck, the next version of the Macintosh Operating System won't even work on pre-Intel. If Apple's not going to support the G5 any longer (and that makes me a sad Panda, admittedly), you really can't expect Transgaming to.

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Retrieving Screenshots and Demorecords

WARNING: Tampering with the files within the City of Heroes application may render it inoperable, requiring you to reinstall it from the DMG.

1. Right-click the City of Heroes application and select "Show Package Contents".
2. Open the Contents, then Resources, then transgaming, then c_drive, then either "coh" or "Program Files" and then "coh".
3. The screenshots are stored in the "screenshots" folder, the demorecords in "client_demos".

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One trick to make this more convenient: after you create at least one screenshot or demorecord (which creates the in-package folder), you inspect the package contents as you instruct, surfing down to where the screenshots (or demorecords) folder can be found. Click on the folder to highlight it, then right-click (or control-click, on single button systems) to bring up the contextual menu. Select 'create alias' from the menu. You will now see screenshots alias (or demorecords alias) right underneath the original folder.

Drag that folder to your desktop, and close the package contents window. Voila. You now have a clickable icon on your desktop that will open the screenshots folder without having to open the package contents.

If you can't find it there, the direct FTP link to both game clients is ftp://client.coh.com/US/