Discussion: Issue 14: Mission Architect - FAQ
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2009-02-26 13:02 in Developers' Corner
First and foremost if any of these questions have been answered, forgive me for not thumbing through the 88 pages of this thread.
1) How much out, of the normal size restrictions, will we have to play with a characters size? Not an idea I planned on implementing, but if you were sent to another realm where magic was vital and creatures like Cyclops were a reality, could I make them all 15 feet tall? or Fae only 1 foot tall? This would include elongating limbs for something like a Troll (mythological, not Cox)
2) Will we be confined to prefab levels, i.e. Office building #12 that we have seen before a thousand times, or will we be able to piecemeal these together like building a base?
3) Will submitted material have a limited in game copyright? I.e. Joe the Plumber doesn't come along and recreate the same levels he sees with high ratings and calls it his own?
4) Will we be able to select the skeletal movement, i.e. rikti monkeys movement versus generic hero X?
I have other questions, I will keep thumbing through to see if they have already been answered.
Thanks in advance
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First and foremost if any of these questions have been answered, forgive me for not thumbing through the 88 pages of this thread.
1) How much out, of the normal size restrictions, will we have to play with a characters size? Not an idea I planned on implementing, but if you were sent to another realm where magic was vital and creatures like Cyclops were a reality, could I make them all 15 feet tall? or Fae only 1 foot tall? This would include elongating limbs for something like a Troll (mythological, not Cox)
2) Will we be confined to prefab levels, i.e. Office building #12 that we have seen before a thousand times, or will we be able to piecemeal these together like building a base?
3) Will submitted material have a limited in game copyright? I.e. Joe the Plumber doesn't come along and recreate the same levels he sees with high ratings and calls it his own?
4) Will we be able to select the skeletal movement, i.e. rikti monkeys movement versus generic hero X?
I have other questions, I will keep thumbing through to see if they have already been answered.
Thanks in advance
[/ QUOTE ]As far as I can tell from reading these forums daily:
1) Player-created NPCs will have same size limits as existing player-characters. However, you will have access to some (though not all initially) of the current NPCs. You can't edit their appearance, but apparently you can rename them and possibly give them new powers.
2) Only the current prefab levels. Also limited to mob and object placement by pre-existing map set-ups (can't position mobs in ceiling rafters unless there is already a spawn point there).
3) Not sure how you can prevent someone from creating a mission like your after they have seen it. However, I believe that they will have to do so manually - they won't be able to just click a button to download your entire mission to their disk.
4) We will not be able to create our own animations, nor alter the animation sets already assigned to a model. For example, if Ritki monkeys do not already have an animation for dual blades assigned, they will not animate properly if you give them the dual blades power set. However, the screenshots appear to show how we can pick the starting animation of mobs we place, such reading a book, beating something with a bat, etc.
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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?
[/ QUOTE ]Most likely yes, you can have the eggs, no they won't spawn anything but Cobras.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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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.
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I don't recall saying that. I look forward to playing just about all of them. Its people ability to critique them fairly I question.
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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.
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A cynic believes that selfishness motivates human behavior. That being said some 12 year old playing your story arc who can not grasp your well thought out story gives you a low rating because it was beyond his comprehension. Or perhaps someone who just got a bad rating tears your apart in revenge. Selfish behavior.
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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.
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I'm only worried about having the resources to do the stories I want to do. I won't know until I can get in to the Beta. Can't paint without a canvas you know.
Suriel- Scrapper MA/SR
Star Centurion- Peacebringer
War Forger- Blaster EB/Devices
Dedjinn- Stalker CL/DA
Cycnus- Mastermind Mercs/Traps
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I'm only worried about having the resources to do the stories I want to do. I won't know until I can get in to the Beta. Can't paint without a canvas you know.
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Yeah, I wonder about this too. If your goal is to create scenarios to run your friends through (sort of like a GM running a tabletop game), three published arc slots may not be enough. Is there some way to run other people through unpublished arcs?
If it's not onerous to publish and unpublish things, then swapping out these types of arcs would be easy and the three arcs wouldn't be a serious limitation.
People on your team can join you in published or unpublished arcs, the only difference being a published arc actually giving inf/xp rewards, and the skeeball tokens or w/e.
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A spell checker in a MMO would be worked overtime 
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Spell Checker: *PWN u noobz* does not compute.
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CLICK THE ABOVE LINK TO HELP DO YOUR PART TO SAVE C.O.H!!!!!
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A spell checker in a MMO would be worked overtime
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Spell Checker: *PWN u noobz* does not compute.
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This has to be said...
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
So is has there been any talk of eventually increasing the amount of published mission-arcs a person can make beyond 3? I can understand the server capacity issues. But still I have so many ideas I'd like to try and if I don't want to erase anything I've put so much work into, one of my prior mission-arcs, then I could see my interest in Architect waning rather fast.
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So is has there been any talk of eventually increasing the amount of published mission-arcs a person can make beyond 3? I can understand the server capacity issues. But still I have so many ideas I'd like to try and if I don't want to erase anything I've put so much work into, one of my prior mission-arcs, then I could see my interest in Architect waning rather fast.
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Just because you 'unpublish' something, it doesn't mean it's erased; you'll still have the files on your hard drive (and I'm sure you can back them up to any other media as well if you like); and publish, unpublish, re-publish at will.
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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.
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I don't recall saying that. I look forward to playing just about all of them. Its people ability to critique them fairly I question.
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My point was that if an arc only has a few ratings, I don't think most people will allow that to carry much weight, even if they're all uniformly bad (or uniformly good). I expect they'll more likely assume it's unrealistic until there are more ratings on a given arc.
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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.
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A cynic believes that selfishness motivates human behavior. That being said some 12 year old playing your story arc who can not grasp your well thought out story gives you a low rating because it was beyond his comprehension. Or perhaps someone who just got a bad rating tears your apart in revenge. Selfish behavior.
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Again, they'll quickly be lost in the "honest" ratings.
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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.
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I'm only worried about having the resources to do the stories I want to do. I won't know until I can get in to the Beta. Can't paint without a canvas you know.
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Hrms I writen the scritp ( general idea for my Arch)
I didnt like this Idea till I though about my main Villains story line & that in his bio all you see is "What you may not know just might safe you"
so please Hurry up so I can spend a week, er 3 weeks building the arch.. I think i'll take to put the whole thing together it's going to take over a month and a half, thats if everything I've writen down goes as planned.
*sigh* when is open testing??
I could do basic set up of the idea I have.. Lord knows I'll most likely break the Spell checker once I start with the Desc..
SuP SuP
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1) Player-created NPCs will have same size limits as existing player-characters. However, you will have access to some (though not all initially) of the current NPCs. You can't edit their appearance, but apparently you can rename them and possibly give them new powers.
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We will not be able to edit (although we can use) existing NPCs. This has to do with how their "bodies" are built - Castle's example was giving Behemoths energy blasts might animate fine - or they might shoot out of the things chest.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
Seriously, we're still in closed beta? Arrggh!
There may be hope for today still.
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Darc Lighter:51-[Blas] / Darc Lady:50-[Tank]
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MEGAFORCE
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There are a *lot* of open beta threads posted in Community Digest now but they're all access denied. What's up with that?
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I think the Forum started celebrating St. Patty's Day early.
Clearly the forums for Open Beta are being setup. Probably we aren't supposed to be able to see them yet, much less access them.
That doesn't mean Open Beta is coming today - though it still may.
I checked, unable to get into the Training Room.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
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Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
Being someone who loves creative freedom (as much as possible plz ), I really look forward to MA. reading over some of the posts acouple of ideas popped into my mind.
1.) Rating Systems. It seems only fair that those who complete a mission from beginning to end could rate it. If someone drops a mission for whtever reason (boredom, dc or just plan had to go) there would be no rating given.
Anyway I look forward to it.
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Being someone who loves creative freedom (as much as possible plz ), I really look forward to MA. reading over some of the posts acouple of ideas popped into my mind.
1.) Rating Systems. It seems only fair that those who complete a mission from beginning to end could rate it. If someone drops a mission for whtever reason (boredom, dc or just plan had to go) there would be no rating given.
Anyway I look forward to it.
[/ QUOTE ]How about "dropped it because it's a day-old pile of cat vomit"?
Imagine you picked a mission because the description made it sound like an intriguing, challenging test of your ability as a player. 5 glowies to find, and a hostage to rescue. Or whatever. It sounds like a legit, honest mission and arc, something you expect you'll probably enjoy.
You enter it and the mission text reads "25 hostages to rescue", and the mission is nothing but CoT Mages and Behemoths surrounding multiple clones of Fusionette, all chanting "HAHA U LOOS SUKER!!". And you are supposed to rescue and lead each Fusionette to the exit.
Do you really want to have to play that thing through to the end before you can give it the rating it deserves? Or even for five seconds?
Seriously, make up your own example, if you want. Whatever the absolute most childish, stupidest "trick" mission is that you can think of, you know there will be people so childish and stupid that they will think that's "funny".
I'm not saying I expect there will be a lot of them. But I am sure there will be some. And we need to be able to drop those missions instantly, and give them the proper rating. Forcing us to "play along" for even one second, just so we can give it the appropriate rating, is NOT acceptable.
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So is has there been any talk of eventually increasing the amount of published mission-arcs a person can make beyond 3? I can understand the server capacity issues. But still I have so many ideas I'd like to try and if I don't want to erase anything I've put so much work into, one of my prior mission-arcs, then I could see my interest in Architect waning rather fast.
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I suspect that at least part of the reason for limiting the number of published arcs is database performance/size. The screenshots of the mission builder include a "file size" progress bar at the bottom, so arc size seems to have at least some impact.
I don't recall the current number of subscribers, but few hundred thousand users simultaneously loading and downloading large files could cause some concern for the database administrators. Once MA has been deployed for awhile, and they know how their systems handle the load, they might be more inclined to up the limit.
That said, they also may be limiting the number of arcs per player to try and force the players to prune their lower-quality efforts, and only publish the ones they are most proud of.
Anyone can help me?
I'm already creating my own missions But I'm trying to create an ally that starts the mission with you (so you don't have to rescue him). Is it possible?
I have a funny story arc that involves rescuing a character in the first mission, then he joins your team in the next missions. I hope I can do it.
You will be able to do it. I don't know exactly how, but they have talked about having allies, because, unlike in regular missions, allies in MA missions will reduce your XP. (So people can't load up a mission with allies for easy XP.)
So you'll want to keep that in mind, and make sure the ally's presence is worth more than the XP they'll "steal".
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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.
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Consider ebay's rating system. If you see someone with 99.5% positive, and over 1000 ratings, chances are they are a good person to buy from. You go through and look at the ratings and find that someone gave this seller a lousy rating because he bought a book that had a crease in the cover, or a page had been folded over.
When it comes down to it, as long as the arcs are both played and rated enough times, a rating that is undeserved will be ignored.
I, for one, love the idea of a rating system, of a chance to get my name out there. I dont want it to go away just because the occasional person will give me an undeserved bad rating. It also gives me a chance to know, are my ideas really not that good after all? Anyone can look at their own ideas and think they are good, however I have seen far too many stories that people put up that looked like a 3rd grader wrote them, and has such plot devices as "I'm bored, so I am gunna..."
These kind of arcs are going to be in the system, probably a ton of them. The rating system allows us to seperate the ones that are well written, that are truly fun to play, from the ones that arent. At the end of the day, I think most people will be much happier about there being a rating system, than disappointed about a bad review.
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