Discussion: Issue 14: Mission Architect - FAQ
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2009-02-26 13:02 in Developers' Corner
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Wow... the range of emotions I felt (see below)
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In Beta someone made a Hami (which the devs promptly disabled) so I'd be pretty confident that they opened pretty much all of the creature classes, but I haven't seen anything specifically mentioned about underlings either.
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Violator!!! OMG you are going to get dev-smacked!! You are soo gonna get it!
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PS... that's not a non-disclosure issue as the community reps themselves posted that info.
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Oh
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Lol! I'm glad I didn't take a drink of my coffee before reading that. I don't think my laptop is water resistant!
Question for a dev: Regarding custom made NPCs, will we have access to some of the "pets" (Fire imp, fly trap, etc)? Even if we can't edit their costumes or powers, can we at least give them custom names.
Example. If for say I wanted to make an enemy group of nothing but Fly Traps, obviously the powers would be limited, but could I at least set minion/lt/boss/EB status or give them different names?
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Is it possible to create a custom character and then add them into a preexisting enemy group? One thing that has always bugged me in CoH is that fighting named bosses is for the most part a disappointment in that they are the same generic boss looks-wise as any other boss, named or otherwise, in that villain group. Ergo making a boss for say the Outcasts that doesn't look like any other Outcast boss.
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You can't do what you're asking, but you can do what you're thinking.
Customizable bosses have been confirmed for a while now. It will be possible to make a mission full of Outcasts, but with a boss at the end you design yourself. Its up to you if you want to call him "Mr. WayCoolerThanNormalOutcast" boss.
Mechanically though its a reasonable guess that you won't be able to "edit" any of the pre-existing stuff of the game that is shared by everyone. That just isn't likely to be necessary to get the effect you want (for example, its confirmed you can make your own critter groups - nothing is going to stop you from adding all the Outcasts to it).
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We do not want people to spend days making a great story only to find it shuffled into a list of missions with titles like "Get your Rikti Monkey badge here", "10 badges in 5 minutes", "Down on the AV Farm", etc. etc.
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"Down on the AV Farm" lol. Best quote I've read today!
"Begin with the End in mind" - Covey
Arc #1270 The Death of Xason Mushu
Arc #15364 Frostfire's Plea
One feature that I haven't seen confirmed yet - branching contact dialog trees. I am hoping to use branching dialog trees to reveal much of the backstory for my arcs, instead of hitting the player with a big "wall of text".
For example, my contact could offer the mission "Defeat (character X)", and the player choices would be: <ul type="square">[*]Sure, I go do it now![*]No thanks.[*]Isn't (character X) your father? Why do you want me to defeat him?[/list]If player is not interested in my contact's motivation (or they've been through this arc before) they can skip right to the mission. However, the backstory is available, if they want it.
Will we be able to give our mission-arc contacts branching dialog trees?
First one of you writes a mission with a boss named "The Boss", I am going to hunt you down.
Have to make "The Boss" flee, since he was Born to Run.
Make him talk about his Glory Days as you approach.
"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes."
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One feature that I haven't seen confirmed yet - branching contact dialog trees. I am hoping to use branching dialog trees to reveal much of the backstory for my arcs, instead of hitting the player with a big "wall of text".
For example, my contact could offer the mission "Defeat (character X)", and the player choices would be: <ul type="square">[*]Sure, I go do it now![*]No thanks.[*]Isn't (character X) your father? Why do you want me to defeat him?[/list]If player is not interested in my contact's motivation (or they've been through this arc before) they can skip right to the mission. However, the backstory is available, if they want it.
Will we be able to give our mission-arc contacts branching dialog trees?
[/ QUOTE ]I believe that branching dialogue isn't making it into launch, but may be added later.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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If you're judging something before you've even met a mob, you can't judge it fairly. What if they have a suprise planned? Some people might one star if the mission says you have to rescue Faultline and Fusionette, what if there is more to it than that?
The idea that you have to play the whole arc to give a review is a bit much, true, but the idea that you can judge an arc based on not even meeting the first mob is just as silly. It makes a mockery out of having a review system.
[/ QUOTE ]Dude, give me a LITTLE credit, okay? I'm not trying to claim that I can judge every mission, or even many of them, without even fighting a single mob. I don't think anyone but a complete moron would. I AM saying that I expect to encounter some missions, though, that truly are so bad that I, and anyone else, will be able to tell instantly that they are garbage. I don't expect to encounter very many. And if I'm lucky, I might not even encounter any at all.
But they will happen. Do you really think they won't? That there will never be a mission so crappy that you can tell from the moment you enter it's nothing but 10-day-old offal? Perhaps the player described a basic hostage rescue, and you enter and discover that it's the max number of AV/EB spawns, placed so that attacking one spawn aggros multiple other ones, and the mission text says "SUKER! YOU LOOSE!!" [misspellings deliberate]. Or whatever. Make up your own example. There WILL be some missions that are so bad you know instantly they are 1-star, at BEST.
I don't think most people are going to walk into a mission that turns out to just be tougher than they thought it would be, or not what they expected, or just poorly done, and they'll all drop immediately and 1-star it. I think most people will either get an honest feel for the mission before they give it a rating, or not rate it at all.
But there will be ones that deserve a 1-star the moment you enter. You and I may disagree on which ones they are, even, but they will be there. And we both should be allowed to respond appropriately.
Mmm. If people are going to be rating my arcs based on the degree of difficulty, I may be the all time champion of suck. I'm mostly interested in the story-telling.
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Mmm. If people are going to be rating my arcs based on the degree of difficulty, I may be the all time champion of suck. I'm mostly interested in the story-telling.
[/ QUOTE ]People will rate all the missions/arcs they rate on different standards. Some will look for stone walls of difficulty to beat their heads against. Some will look for creative, original story telling. Some will look for creative, original enemies. Some will look for easy, fast, fun diversions. Some will be looking for the maximum rate of XP and Ticket Drops.
That's why I hoped we'd be able to put a comment with our ratings. So that people could say WHY they gave it a particular rating. Unfortunately, "There are no public comments available. It has been considered but will not be in for release. "
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I just wanted to get some clarification on something, which I think has been mentioned once before but I just want to nail it down.
There isn't any ability to make cutscenes with this tool, right?
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no cutscenes
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Wait... really?
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I just wanted to get some clarification on something, which I think has been mentioned once before but I just want to nail it down.
There isn't any ability to make cutscenes with this tool, right?
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no cutscenes
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Wait... really?
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Yup. The method used to create them is so clunky that (at least a few months ago) they said there was no way they'd saddle players with it.
Me, I'm just as glad. There's virtually nothing you can do in a cut-scene that you can't do just as well in a scene that actually involves the players. I find cut-scenes to be almost uniformly a crutch for lazy story-telling.
This isn't an attack on you, or anyone else who wants to use them. I've obviously not seen your work to know if you'd create something that I'd view as an exception. I don't hate *every* cut-scene in CoX, either, but some of them are just immersion-breaking in the extent to which they provide OOC knowledge.
Plus, I don't want to get stuck in a freaking cut scene of Dr. Aeon and Lord Recluse /em boombox -ing for ten or fifteen minutes, and have to use the task manager to close the program since we can't manually exit cut-scenes in the game as it stands.
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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Mmm. If people are going to be rating my arcs based on the degree of difficulty, I may be the all time champion of suck. I'm mostly interested in the story-telling.
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Nah. I'm definitely hoping to find some favorite story-tellers when this comes out. I actually read the mission text and dialog, and I've been playing for three years 
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Plus, I don't want to get stuck in a freaking cut scene of Dr. Aeon and Lord Recluse /em boombox -ing for ten or fifteen minutes, and have to use the task manager to close the program since we can't manually exit cut-scenes in the game as it stands.
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Agreed. In-game dialog is more considerate of my time than a cut scene is, especially if I'm short on time. Likewise, kills the rush/momentum of gameplay for me.
I am courious about how well demo edit will work with MA.
I could see some enterprise talent creating trailers for their missions.
Champion
Pillars of Might
Darc Ranger [Blas] / Darc Nebula [Cont]
The Bikini Patrol
Darc Lighter:51-[Blas] / Darc Lady:50-[Tank]
The Panty Raiders
Aegis Magnus [MM] / Atomic Spector [Cor] / Dominar Sefus [Dom]
MEGAFORCE
-Darc Ranger [Def]
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Positron, I am a little concerned about the possible rate griefing involved with being able to rate an arc that hasn't been played. Especially when there are badges involved in rating unrated arcs or ones that don't have many ratings. A lot of people will probably get their badges simply by going down the line of unrated arcs, slapping a 1 star rating on them, and getting their badge in the process. I've seen rating systems on web-published content experience things like that, and that's WITHOUT the enticing badge. Please reconsider allowing someone to rate an unfinished arc.
*EDIT* Been here since CoH beta, and this is the first time I've posted after a redname. 
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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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Include a spellchecker
A spell checker in a MMO would be worked overtime
Spellchecker? Only if we run the character names through it first.
I'm absolutely excited with the upcoming Isuue 14, I just cant wait.
I just hope with prior to Issue 14 that the dev's iron out alot of the ingame problems most players have been experiencing
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Yup. The method used to create them is so clunky that (at least a few months ago) they said there was no way they'd saddle players with it.
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Huh. Maybe they could make it available as an advanced-user kind of tool. Something you get access to once dev choiced? Or as a veteran perk?
I say to HECK with the rating system.
I don't want to see someone's great story rated low because that particular player hated to actually bother to read it.
Nor do I want to see someone's Mind Blowing Death Defying mission rated down because he made some grammer error.
I say the Devs judge and them alone. BUT since this isn't going to happen then I'm glad there is a Dev's choice category so that great story arcs that are butchered by player opinion may actually be saved by the Devs.
Suriel- Scrapper MA/SR
Star Centurion- Peacebringer
War Forger- Blaster EB/Devices
Dedjinn- Stalker CL/DA
Cycnus- Mastermind Mercs/Traps
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Yup. The method used to create them is so clunky that (at least a few months ago) they said there was no way they'd saddle players with it.
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Huh. Maybe they could make it available as an advanced-user kind of tool. Something you get access to once dev choiced? Or as a veteran perk?
[/ QUOTE ]Creating cutscenes now is probably similar to creating a demo file manually. Sure, it's possible (and people do it), but it's far from "simple" or "quick".
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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I say to HECK with the rating system.
I don't want to see someone's great story rated low because that particular player hated to actually bother to read it.
Nor do I want to see someone's Mind Blowing Death Defying mission rated down because he made some grammer error.
I say the Devs judge and them alone. BUT since this isn't going to happen then I'm glad there is a Dev's choice category so that great story arcs that are butchered by player opinion may actually be saved by the Devs.
[/ QUOTE ]Would you really let only a few ratings influence your choice that much? Sure, someone can sway the rating at first, but it won't take long for that to be lost in the shuffle as more people rate an arc.
I'm a cynic, and even I expect the majority of people will rate arcs on their content first, and spelling and "grammer" second, if at all.
If you're concerned about your own writing and errors, do like any other writer does: have someone you know has the skills proofread it for you. That or run the text through a good word-processor. You can pick up an older version of Word quite cheap.
Just remember that a spell-checker/grammar-checker is not perfect, and will not catch everything. There's still no real substitute for a well-trained set of little grey cells.
Okay, how about this:
Can we have the eggs from the snake missions that start twitching if touched or you get close enough, and if not destroyed, spawn Cobras?
...Can they spawn something else instead?
@Incarnadine - 50s on Victory:
Electric-Boogaloo (Electric/Psy Dominator) | Floating Flame (Fire/Psy Blaster) | Guldo Golem (Stone/Mace Tanker) | Hornak (Elec/Elec Brute) | Insatiable Greed (Demon/Dark Mastermind) | Solar Explorer (Plant/Thermal Controller) | TimeTraveler (Kin/Ice Defender) | Verranil (Emp/Archery Defender)
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I did a quick search and couldn't find an answer: can we make and use underlings?
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Do you mean enemy group minions and lts or NPC's that help you fight?
The answer to both is yes.
[/ QUOTE ]Pretty sure he means "Underling" class enemies. Like Rikti Monkeys.
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Exactly. Sorry - was up a bit late :P
The idea of players blowing through a ton of them every so often sounds like it would be fun. A bunch of underlings, underlings, then someone harder as a stark contrast ("Whoah, this guy is good!"). I sorta feel like the underling rank is a bit underused...