Discussion: Issue 14: Mission Architect - FAQ
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2009-02-26 13:02 in Developers' Corner
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For the record, my philosophy's that every arc is a three until proven otherwise. Not horrid, not great. I'd hate to think I had to go into every arc expecting the worst thing on City of Heroes.
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Yeah, when I think of the normal game missions I've played... 3 for me is "average normal game arc". 5 is something truly exceptional like Viridian. 1 is something truly terrible, either not-even-bothering-to-phone-it-in bad or deliberately obnoxious. You should have to work for a 5... or a 1.
@Mindshadow
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If an MA story starts out crap, and there's nothing to indicate it's anything else, I should not have to suffer through the whole thing to call it out.
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I agree.
However, if you drop midway through the first mission of a four mission arc, rendering your judgment based on that first mission... that doesn't change the fact that you haven't seen any of missions 2, 3 and 4.
I'm more than happy to give you a chance to register your vote on mission 1. But if someone else actually goes through the 4 missions and discovers that as lackluster as the design was and as crappy as the writing was... you know, that custom enemy group he had in the fourth mission was actually kinda cool and fighting them didn't entirely suck, then I'm going to think his opinion and rating are better informed than yours on the content of the mission arc. And so I think his opinion should be weighted more than yours.
Now, if a first mission is as terrible as we're postulating? I think most people will drop the arc right then and there. So if we give one 'vote' per mission started (not completed) and 800 people drop it in the first mission and 1-star it and 1 guy 3 stars it after the fourth mission and final, that's still going to be the weighted equivalent of 200 1-star votes to 1 3-star vote. It's not like this will open the floodgates to crap.
There's an interesting parallel between this and a recent incident involving Roger Ebert, the current dean of American film criticism. Ebert, for the first time in a very storied career, walked out of a movie after 8 minutes and proceeded to review it. He copped to this fact in the review in question.
The response was astronomical, and the following day Ebert posted a retraction and an apology, then proceeded to watch the entire film through and essentially rereview it. Roger Ebert -- a man synonymous with film criticism, champion of independent film and lecturer (in happier days) on the making of great and bad cinema had trusted his instincts in what would be a stinker, and the result was a loss of credibility and a lot of angry people.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008...me_second.html is the story, if you're curious.
You're many things. Clearly you're bright and well versed. But you're not the Roger Ebert of mission criticism (and neither am I), and if even he can't get away with a snap judgment, then neither can you.
The system should take into account how much of an arc you've seen when you rate it, because in the end you're rating it for my benefit as a player, and I deserve the most complete review possible. If you're lost immediately, c'est ca -- that should count for something. But if I slog my way through five bad missions, my 1-star should count for more.
Here's another test case.
Someone writes a five issue arc. He puts a ton of content into it, and builds everything extremely well. His biggest failing is he writes too much -- his mission acceptance text is three screens, his clues are all huge, but for the person who actually reads it, it turns out to be beautiful and poignant.
Let's say in this hypothetical that he does this so well that essentially every person who completes the fifth mission finds himself in tears, and every last one of them five-stars the arc. It is, in the end, a triumph.
But 200 people who launch into the arc see a big block of text to start with, snort, think "oh, no way," and drop the arc, one-starring it with the attitude of 'tl;dr.'
Should those 200 people, who didn't even try to make it through the opening text -- who didn't even read it -- get the same weight in their reviews to the 200 people who went through the whole arc and breathlessly 5-star it? Does it really deserve an aggregate 3 stars when half the people didn't spend more than three seconds on the opening screen?
If we assume this arc was 5 missions long, and assume a weighted vote based upon number of missions started, that would mean the 1-star votes by the people who never went through the front door would be worth 20% of a full vote, whereas the 5-star folks would be worth the full vote each. So, at 400 people rating the arc, with 200 not having done anything in the missions and ranking it the worst ad 200 having done all 5 missions and ranking it the best, the average rank at the end is 4.3 stars. Assuming this rounds down for being below 4.5 (not a safe assumption -- we don't know how they're going to round these things), that would have the arc rated 4 stars at the 400 player mark. A player looking for a good arc would see that and think it might be worth a chance, whereas the 3 the arc would get before would make it hopelessly average.
At the same time, if these trends continued to 1000 players, then there would still be enough nay votes to keep it out of the Hall of Fame -- which means that the half who refused to play it at all would have their opinions registered and noted, rather than disenfranchising them.
It's a pretty simplistic example, but hopefully an illustrative one.
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If an MA story starts out crap, and there's nothing to indicate it's anything else, I should not have to suffer through the whole thing to call it out.
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I agree.
However, if you drop midway through the first mission of a four mission arc, rendering your judgment based on that first mission... that doesn't change the fact that you haven't seen any of missions 2, 3 and 4.
I'm more than happy to give you a chance to register your vote on mission 1. But if someone else actually goes through the 4 missions and discovers that as lackluster as the design was and as crappy as the writing was... you know, that custom enemy group he had in the fourth mission was actually kinda cool and fighting them didn't entirely suck, then I'm going to think his opinion and rating are better informed than yours on the content of the mission arc. And so I think his opinion should be weighted more than yours.
Now, if a first mission is as terrible as we're postulating? I think most people will drop the arc right then and there. So if we give one 'vote' per mission started (not completed) and 800 people drop it in the first mission and 1-star it and 1 guy 3 stars it after the fourth mission and final, that's still going to be the weighted equivalent of 200 1-star votes to 1 3-star vote. It's not like this will open the floodgates to crap.
There's an interesting parallel between this and a recent incident involving Roger Ebert, the current dean of American film criticism. Ebert, for the first time in a very storied career, walked out of a movie after 8 minutes and proceeded to review it. He copped to this fact in the review in question.
The response was astronomical, and the following day Ebert posted a retraction and an apology, then proceeded to watch the entire film through and essentially rereview it. Roger Ebert -- a man synonymous with film criticism, champion of independent film and lecturer (in happier days) on the making of great and bad cinema had trusted his instincts in what would be a stinker, and the result was a loss of credibility and a lot of angry people.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008...me_second.html is the story, if you're curious.
You're many things. Clearly you're bright and well versed. But you're not the Roger Ebert of mission criticism (and neither am I), and if even he can't get away with a snap judgment, then neither can you.
The system should take into account how much of an arc you've seen when you rate it, because in the end you're rating it for my benefit as a player, and I deserve the most complete review possible. If you're lost immediately, c'est ca -- that should count for something. But if I slog my way through five bad missions, my 1-star should count for more.
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To be fair though, commenters are split on whether or not he really needed to go back and watch the full movie to do his review. Personally, I think all he really needed to do the first time around was to not review the movie, but simply state "I turned it off after eight minutes". A simple, unarguable statement of fact (not a review), where the reader can feel free to draw what conclusions he/she likes.
I see no reason to have to finish an arc or a mission to review it. I don't disagree with possible weight given to reviewers that do so, but I'd much rather see other things worked on than adding that.
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I see no reason to have to finish an arc or a mission to review it. I don't disagree with possible weight given to reviewers that do so, but I'd much rather see other things worked on than adding that.
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Generally, so would I. 
I'm not obsessed with this. Among other things, I'm proceeding from the assumption that no one will be amused by my arcs but me, and if I ever manage a Hall of Fame it will be a happy day, not an expected one. (I'm not even going to hope that much for Dev's Choice.)
However, part of the issue here is this has an impact on gameplay and experience. If you play through my full arc, I get X number of tickets for it. If you don't, I don't, and I get a poor review to boot. If you 1-star me without playing my arc, then the next person who comes along won't be as inclined to give it a chance, costing me more tickets down the line. Further, if a pile of folks 1-star my arc without playing it, it puts it out of contention for the Hall of Fame, which carries with it my mission slot opening without taking my mission down and almost certainly a badge that can be applied to every character on my account. These things have gameplay and quality of life implications beyond simply my ego.
And so I think it's important they be resolved before the issue comes out of beta. 
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Here's another test case.
Someone writes a five issue arc. He puts a ton of content into it, and builds everything extremely well. His biggest failing is he writes too much -- his mission acceptance text is three screens, his clues are all huge, but for the person who actually reads it, it turns out to be beautiful and poignant.
Let's say in this hypothetical that he does this so well that essentially every person who completes the fifth mission finds himself in tears, and every last one of them five-stars the arc. It is, in the end, a triumph.
But 200 people who launch into the arc see a big block of text to start with, snort, think "oh, no way," and drop the arc, one-starring it with the attitude of 'tl;dr.'
Should those 200 people, who didn't even try to make it through the opening text -- who didn't even read it -- get the same weight in their reviews to the 200 people who went through the whole arc and breathlessly 5-star it? Does it really deserve an aggregate 3 stars when half the people didn't spend more than three seconds on the opening screen?
If we assume this arc was 5 missions long, and assume a weighted vote based upon number of missions started, that would mean the 1-star votes by the people who never went through the front door would be worth 20% of a full vote, whereas the 5-star folks would be worth the full vote each. So, at 400 people rating the arc, with 200 not having done anything in the missions and ranking it the worst ad 200 having done all 5 missions and ranking it the best, the average rank at the end is 4.3 stars. Assuming this rounds down for being below 4.5 (not a safe assumption -- we don't know how they're going to round these things), that would have the arc rated 4 stars at the 400 player mark. A player looking for a good arc would see that and think it might be worth a chance, whereas the 3 the arc would get before would make it hopelessly average.
At the same time, if these trends continued to 1000 players, then there would still be enough nay votes to keep it out of the Hall of Fame -- which means that the half who refused to play it at all would have their opinions registered and noted, rather than disenfranchising them.
It's a pretty simplistic example, but hopefully an illustrative one.
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This is not a test case. I don't think you can make something up and call it a test case. You could easily change this entire post to illustrate why it's fine to rate arcs without completing them.
Even taking it seriously I'm not totally sure this is a worthwhile argument. The Academy may try to tell people that Chariots of Fire is a great movie, but Star Wars is still going to be what people want. A lot more people read Stephen King for fun than read the Odyssey. And there's nothing wrong with that.
A good mission, or a great mission, like a good/great movie or book, should be well rounded enough to at the very least not turn people off so much in its opening acts that people put it down or leave. The mission you describe above doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame anyway.
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I see no reason to have to finish an arc or a mission to review it. I don't disagree with possible weight given to reviewers that do so, but I'd much rather see other things worked on than adding that.
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Generally, so would I. I'm not obsessed with this. Among other things, I'm proceeding from the assumption that no one will be amused by my arcs but me, and if I ever manage a Hall of Fame it will be a happy day, not an expected one. (I'm not even going to hope that much for Dev's Choice.)
However, part of the issue here is this has an impact on gameplay and experience. If you play through my full arc, I get X number of tickets for it. If you don't, I don't, and I get a poor review to boot. If you 1-star me without playing my arc, then the next person who comes along won't be as inclined to give it a chance, costing me more tickets down the line. Further, if a pile of folks 1-star my arc without playing it, it puts it out of contention for the Hall of Fame, which carries with it my mission slot opening without taking my mission down and almost certainly a badge that can be applied to every character on my account. These things have gameplay and quality of life implications beyond simply my ego.
And so I think it's important they be resolved before the issue comes out of beta.
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I don't think it's that big a deal at all. If you get a bunch of one stars, take down the arc, edit it, and repost it, perhaps under another title. Perhaps indicate its version, or revised status.
I think the important thing is that there be an option for adding comments to ratings. If you get a bunch of one star ratings, but the reviewers take the time to write "wall of text" or "grammar police" in the comments then you have somewhere to start. Just like books, movies, and movie reviews, there's almost always editing that needs to be done. Rarely will great communication spring fully formed from its creator's forehead.
I should be adding smileys into these posts, as I fear I'm coming across as being much more serious about this debate than I actually am.
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However, if you drop midway through the first mission of a four mission arc, rendering your judgment based on that first mission... that doesn't change the fact that you haven't seen any of missions 2, 3 and 4.
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What if the rating system rated by mission, with the combined mission total constituting the arc rating?
Or perhaps the arc rating would only be available to those who finished the arc; if players didn't finish the arc, they could only leave ratings for the mission they started/played?
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This is not a test case. I don't think you can make something up and call it a test case.
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Um... a test case is a set of variables and conditions that tells a software engineer whether or not his program will operate correctly. I listed the conditions and variables and projected the result. That... is actually what a test cast is. You're free to develop a test case to demonstrate why your thesis is superior to mine.
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Even taking it seriously I'm not totally sure this is a worthwhile argument. The Academy may try to tell people that Chariots of Fire is a great movie, but Star Wars is still going to be what people want. A lot more people read Stephen King for fun than read the Odyssey. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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I'm unsure of the relevance -- especially since we're discussing a variance of opinion between people who played it the mission versus people who dropped it at the mission text page. Whether we're discussing Stephen King or Homer, if you picked up the book, read the first quarter page and then dropped the book on the table and declared that it sucked, I'm going to figure your opinion's not comprehensive.
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A good mission, or a great mission, like a good/great movie or book, should be well rounded enough to at the very least not turn people off so much in its opening acts that people put it down or leave.
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But your methodology treats, among other things, unevenness the same as it treats real active badness. It takes an initial flaw and expands it to condemn the whole.
You're probably right -- my test case wouldn't belong in the Hall of Fame. And as I said, it wouldn't end up there if it continued tracking in the conditions laid out. However, it clearly doesn't deserve to be described as mediocre either -- especially when half the sample has literally not reviewed it at all.
To be blunt, if you read an opening mission text and decide it's not worth your time, you shouldn't accept the mission. If you haven't started the arc, you shouldn't start it purely so you can 1-star it. You should just find something you actually do want to try. If you're going to go through and 1-star arcs you don't intend to play because you want to be sure they don't get inflated above what you deserve, you're doing a disservice to the architect and your fellow players.
But, I'm entirely willing to admit that if you accept a mission in good faith, jump in, and decide after playing for a few minutes that it isn't worth your time -- that it is, in fact, bad. And I'm entirely willing to stipulate you deserve the ability to render your judgment on the mission in question.
Why are you so dead set against the idea that someone who does complete the arc may have a better understanding of the arc as a whole, and therefore deserves to have his rating weighted more highly? Is it purely a sense of entitlement? Or do you honestly think that your opinion is as valid as that other person's because the mission creator didn't hold you to the end?
If you believe the latter, I can respect your opinion. However, I can state definitively that your review is worth less to me than the review of someone who played through to the end, just the same as your opinion of a book you've read one page of doesn't count as much as the opinion of someone who finished it. And you're going to have a very hard time convincing me that your less-informed review should be worth more.
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[I think the important thing is that there be an option for adding comments to ratings. If you get a bunch of one star ratings, but the reviewers take the time to write "wall of text" or "grammar police" in the comments then you have somewhere to start.
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This I 100% agree with, totally and fully.
Just for fun, here are some numbers.
The devs said you need to average 5 stars, but they will round up. So if you get one 4 star and one 5 star, that would be 9 stars over two ratings, for an average of 4.5. Rounded up, that's 5. So...
For each 4 star rating, you need ONE 5 star rating to keep your 5 star average.
For each 3 star rating, you need THREE 5 star ratings.
For each 2 star rating, you need FIVE 5 star ratings.
For each 1 star rating, you need SEVEN 5 star ratings to keep your 5 star average.
Unless people are feeling very generous, I don't think we're going to see all that many arcs in the Hall of Fame. Any rating other than 5 is a vote against Hall of Fame status.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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However, if you drop midway through the first mission of a four mission arc, rendering your judgment based on that first mission... that doesn't change the fact that you haven't seen any of missions 2, 3 and 4.
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What if the rating system rated by mission, with the combined mission total constituting the arc rating?
Or perhaps the arc rating would only be available to those who finished the arc; if players didn't finish the arc, they could only leave ratings for the mission they started/played?
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The problem with this is... when I'm looking for an arc to play, what the heck do I care that the 3rd mission is a 5-star awestravaganza and the others are merely 3-star. That's too much information for the end user. And if you're just averaging it out, how is that different from weighting the rating by the number of missions completed?
@Mindshadow
And, like Dromio, I'm coming across as taking this more seriously than I do or indeed than it should merit. My apologies for that. I promise you, I'm having a good time and I'll try not to bog the discussion down into flames.
Blame it, in part, on an insidious combination: Mission Architect has fired my imagination more than anything in any game, MMO or otherwise, in three years, and my only outlets for it are in a notepad and talking on here.
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Just for fun, here are some numbers.
The devs said you need to average 5 stars, but they will round up. So if you get one 4 star and one 5 star, that would be 9 stars over two ratings, for an average of 4.5. Rounded up, that's 5. So...
For each 4 star rating, you need ONE 5 star rating to keep your 5 star average.
For each 3 star rating, you need THREE 5 star ratings.
For each 2 star rating, you need FIVE 5 star ratings.
For each 1 star rating, you need SEVEN 5 star ratings to keep your 5 star average.
Unless people are feeling very generous, I don't think we're going to see all that many arcs in the Hall of Fame. Any rating other than 5 is a vote against Hall of Fame status.
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And as someone who plans top make a lot of use of the MA to create arcs (I used to GM V&V and Champions in years past and will be trying to translate some of my adventures my players enjoyed); I don't have a problem with that.
the 'Hall of Fame' and 'Dev Choice' arcs should be the real 'cream of the crop' stuff, not the 'better than average stuff'. I DO hope:
1) In addition to overall 'star' ratings the system will allow for comments so that the Arc Author can get some feedback from those willing to provide it.
2) There will be a system in place so that Devs can attempt to idendify 'grief raters' (ie those who rating something one star just to mess with the system; out of some sort of jelousy, etc.).
But overall, if a arc is 'Hall of Fame' worthy, it SHOULD be really exceptional. Everyone has 3 publish slots; and that should be enough to get the gambit of 'above average' missions out there.
I don't envy the Devs. While I think that the interface and idea of all this is amazing; wading through the sheer crap that WILL be produced by those who instantly think they can do better than the Devs; or can write "The Ultimate Arc that EVERYONE Will Love (tm)" get toasted by the 'unwashed masses' that is the CoX playerbase. I been involved in a few actual productions (either in a writing, directing and producing capacity) that have made it to an audience; and overall, I can say that the reaction EVERY audience I've been there to watch one with has surprised me in some way.
There's NO story you can create that will please and enthrall everyone. You'll always have those who absolutely love it; those who utterly hate it; with the rest somewhere in between. The stuff that 'wins' is the stuff that gets an overall more positive than negative reaction with the 'in-between' crowd.
However, given the type of folks who play MMOs in general, those with more fragile egos should probably stay away from publishing in the MA - or only play their published mission arcs with close friends. If you do publish something with high hopes, be prepared for the full range of responses and don't take the negative comments personally.
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I think I know the answer to this, but perhaps getting an answer might just make it official.
Am I correct in assuming that NCSoft will retain the rights to any and all stories, narratives, characters, and IP created in MA?
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There's a small chance that a Red name will contradict me, but I'm pretty sure that they will retain all rights, just as they do to the characters you create in COX. That's pretty much standard boilerplate for any on-line service, but not because they are planning on turning your idea into a block-buster movie. Instead, they need to have the right to store your mission on their servers, send it to other players, etc. without a separate authorization from you, and in particular because they need to do so without paying you a license fee each time.
Of course, if your idea is particularly good, they might incorporate into their regular mission set. If they do, they won't have to reward you (since they already own the rights), but I'm hoping they at least give us recognition. If you want to retain the financial rights to your idea, I suggest not publishing the idea in MA.
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I think I know the answer to this, but perhaps getting an answer might just make it official.
Am I correct in assuming that NCSoft will retain the rights to any and all stories, narratives, characters, and IP created in MA?
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There's a small chance that a Red name will contradict me, but I'm pretty sure that they will retain all rights, just as they do to the characters you create in COX. That's pretty much standard boilerplate for any on-line service, but not because they are planning on turning your idea into a block-buster movie. Instead, they need to have the right to store your mission on their servers, send it to other players, etc. without a separate authorization from you, and in particular because they need to do so without paying you a license fee each time.
Of course, if your idea is particularly good, they might incorporate into their regular mission set. If they do, they won't have to reward you (since they already own the rights), but I'm hoping they at least give us recognition. If you want to retain the financial rights to your idea, I suggest not publishing the idea in MA.
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That's my thinking as well, and I was never planning this at all. I have a feeling others might not, so I'm trying to get a red name to say something on this so as to get fair warning early enough.
Arc #345863 - When The Bough Breaks
"Curse you Perry the Plata...wait, is that Love Handel?" - Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
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Here's another test case.
Someone writes a five issue arc. He puts a ton of content into it, and builds everything extremely well. His biggest failing is he writes too much -- his mission acceptance text is three screens, his clues are all huge, but for the person who actually reads it, it turns out to be beautiful and poignant.
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As someone who's written for the "beautiful and poignant" crowd in other RPG settings, I can say categorically and experientially that while that subset of people will love what you do, the people who log in to beat stuff up will hate your guts in the most vocal possible manner and one-star you into oblivion.
Asking people who don't like it enough to finish it to be given less weight in determining ratings is both unrealistic (people do remember authors who write things that don't fit their playstyles, and avoid them) and holds MA users to a different set of standards than those applied to the dev team. If they have to be brilliant to get kudos, we should expect the same. We're being given better tools than they started out with, aren't we?
I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to make HoF with the MA, you're going to have to balance good storytelling with pander^H^H^H appealing to the action junkies. I look forward to the challenge. I may never succeed, but the fun is in the attempt, and the act of creation itself.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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And as someone who plans top make a lot of use of the MA to create arcs (I used to GM V&V and Champions in years past and will be trying to translate some of my adventures my players enjoyed); I don't have a problem with that.
the 'Hall of Fame' and 'Dev Choice' arcs should be the real 'cream of the crop' stuff, not the 'better than average stuff'.
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This is probably the nub of my issues with some of this stuff -- because you're entirely 100% right. The Hall of Fame and Dev Choice should be prohibitively rare.
Which leads to an issue with:
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Everyone has 3 publish slots; and that should be enough to get the gambit of 'above average' missions out there.
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I'm going to write way more than 3 arcs. I know this to be true. And sometimes I'd like to make one a sequel of another, and build off of them, and do all the rest.
I'm more than happy to drop some money on additional arc slots, the same as I'm happy to drop money on a character slot when I want another character on Pinnacle or drop some money on a Flight Pack when I don't feel like shlepping at L2. (Though with the upcoming 60 month reward, that's going to become a thing of the past, I suspect. I can hoof it for 5 levels, dagnabbit. ) But I'd like the option, even if it means spending discretionary cash, to build a library of published arcs assuming they don't get rated 1-2 to begin with.
Darn it, NCNC -- let me spend my money with you! I'll only waste it on food and buying my wife things otherwise!
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What if the rating system rated by mission, with the combined mission total constituting the arc rating?
Or perhaps the arc rating would only be available to those who finished the arc; if players didn't finish the arc, they could only leave ratings for the mission they started/played?
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The problem with this is... when I'm looking for an arc to play, what the heck do I care that the 3rd mission is a 5-star awestravaganza and the others are merely 3-star. That's too much information for the end user. And if you're just averaging it out, how is that different from weighting the rating by the number of missions completed?
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Which is why I included the second option; that is, the only way to rate an arc is to complete it.
Mission ratings would be for those who don't play the entire arc and should not count against the rating on the arc itself. But it would indicate that players did not finish the arc.
Or maybe ratings could simply be flagged "arc completed/not completed" to accomplish the same thing.
I'll admit, it doesn't really matter much to me. I hope people enjoy the arcs I make, but I'm not concerned about getting top ratings, just having fun.
The questions raised about ratings just got my tiny mind buzzing a little and I thought I'd toss the idea out there.
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There's a small chance that a Red name will contradict me, but I'm pretty sure that they will retain all rights, just as they do to the characters you create in COX.
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/this
If you have personal attachments to your arcs, or think they might make a great story or novel or webcomic sometime, then use loosely shifted variations in the MA. I'm creating all new characters and organizations, just against the possibility that the personal material I'm otherwise referencing (some of which I've published) might be useful to me elsewhere down the line.
Besides, it's fun to come up with new things.
If people didn't read the initial block of text and 1-star it with 'tl;dr,' what the heck would make them read the text of mission 5 or pay any more attention?
It's a silly example.
The question is, are people giving 1 stars for the right reasons? And that has little to do with finishing or not finishing mission arcs.
Though I do like the idea of 'adding comments.'
As for 3 publish slots... I'm trying not to think of it, because I have WAY MORE than 3 arc ideas, I'm not going to be happy swapping them in and out, and if it's as hard to get into Hall of Fame as it looks, I'll probably give up on MA within a month and it will make me very sad.
Sniff.
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There's a small chance that a Red name will contradict me, but I'm pretty sure that they will retain all rights, just as they do to the characters you create in COX.
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/this
If you have personal attachments to your arcs, or think they might make a great story or novel or webcomic sometime, then use loosely shifted variations in the MA. I'm creating all new characters and organizations, just against the possibility that the personal material I'm otherwise referencing (some of which I've published) might be useful to me elsewhere down the line.
Besides, it's fun to come up with new things.
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I'm a big fan of the idea of "Paragoning" anything I put in the game. If I've got a militant extremist themed character, I'll write her with ties to the Council; if an evil secret cult wants to unleash darkness on the world, I'll change it to the Thorns. CoH's best storywriting feature is the multitude of concept neutral organizations to play off of. While I've got unique groups in mind as well, its really easy to rework a character into Paragon exclusive variation and still keep my own stories... my own stories.
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I disagree, Cyber_naut. This aint a storytelling workshop. If I publish one of my arcs, I expect it to get ripped. Every arc deserves a 1-star rating unless and until it proves otherwise. If you drop five minutes into the first mission, I obviously failed to prove anything.
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If you're going to review something, then you need to try it first, or your review is worthless. As it is, I could go up and down the list of arcs and star it however I want without having played it or giving it an honest review? What's that do to the credibility of the whole system? It trashes it and makes it virtually worthless.
The only way the system will have credibility is if you make the rater 'pay to play'. If you want to review an arc, you have to actually play it. Shocking, I know. The devs are usually so concerned about exploits, I'm surprised they don't see how a 'rate at will without any effort to actually play what you are rating' system could be exploited, and more importantly, what that kind of system does to the integrity of the game.
I understand the idea that some will be so bad it will be obvious from the very beginning, but it's not like one of those is going to sneak into the hall of fame. Those arcs will just sit there with one or two reviews and thousands of non-reviews, which would probably tell you all you needed to know. But on the other hand, as it stands now, you could have a quality arc that just misses it's deserved hall of fame induction because of random and unwarranted 1star reviews that bring its star rating to just below the necessary level.
Bottom line is, if you are so interested in the arc that you feel the need to review it, why is it so much to ask that you be required to actually play it through first?
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And right there is why it's a good idea to weight votes based on how much of the arc one sees. And as a subnote why it might be prohibitively difficult for folks to make it to the hall of fame.
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No. No, it's still not.
If your mission is absolutely terrible, why should I waste my time finding out if you suddenly learned how to spell 3 missions in?
A good writer grabs you from minute one, and in the loose shared content we're talking about, the onus should really be on the creator, not the audience.
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Well, for one thing... because adventure design and prose writing require two entirely different skillsets.
Seriously. If you're judging how fun and challenging a five mission arc where 95% of the time you're not reading anything other than your standard game interface by the grammar skills of the contact text and the blurb when you walked in the door? You're not judging the content of the mission and your rating is flawed at best.
I submit to you an absolute genius at balancing risk/reward, with challenging and engaging enemies and excellent custom characters might not be able to spell worth a damn. Does that keep him out of the Hall of Fame? I think maybe it does. Does it mean that based on reading the mission acceptance text you can tell his mission arc is one of the worst in the MA?
No. No it doesn't. Because you haven't actually played any missions.
And your rating is not as valuable to me as a player as someone who has. No matter how philosophically opposed you might be to poor grammar.