Hall of Fame is not realistically attainable

I was kind of thinking the Dev Choices were written BY the devs. How else did they get picked out so quickly with so few ratings? Noticed some guy had a hall of fame with 0 ratings...whut? Or one had 999+ on the opening day. That's GOTTA be a dev that just set his architect arc to god-tier.

There's so many pages upon pages, and it's so hard to know what's trash and what's alright and what's awesome. I wish there was some kind of database on the CoH website where you could get a better idea. Ya know, Neverwinter Nights mods style. Read reviews and have the mission creator replying to questions or comments. I had played a few really funny arcs, but I'm sure there's just as many i'll never see shining beneath the clutter :/

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I was kind of thinking the Dev Choices were written BY the devs. How else did they get picked out so quickly with so few ratings? Noticed some guy had a hall of fame with 0 ratings...whut? Or one had 999+ on the opening day. That's GOTTA be a dev that just set his architect arc to god-tier.

There's so many pages upon pages, and it's so hard to know what's trash and what's alright and what's awesome. I wish there was some kind of database on the CoH website where you could get a better idea. Ya know, Neverwinter Nights mods style. Read reviews and have the mission creator replying to questions or comments. I had played a few really funny arcs, but I'm sure there's just as many i'll never see shining beneath the clutter :/

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The Dev Choiced arcs that were already there when I14 went live were some of the arcs created on test in Closed and Open Beta that were DCd in Test. Theya re all written by players, and there's some good stuff there, really. I haven't seen any hoF arcs on live yet, so I can't comment on that.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

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I feel Twoflower's pain, but he does have 25% more slots than most of us already, so it's a little difficult to wholeheartedly sympathise, especially considering I didn't see any of this 'fix the system!' from him on test where he had 6 or more DCd arcs and was sitting pretty at the top of the lists.

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Let's not make this about me specifically, okay? I don't give a hoot if you 'sympathize' with me. Sympathize more with the playerbase who have to deal with a system that is potentially flawed and unattainable. I'd like to think that just because I have a DC I'm not somehow ineligible from discussing the game mechanics.

Anybody who writes well and could potentially contribute more good content to the game if only they had the slots to do it should be getting more slots, be it by DC, HOF, microtransaction, crafting, sacrifice a goat to Zeus, whatever. And in this particular case I'm not seeing how HOF is a realistic option, due to the 4.5+ average.

If I'm wrong about the 4.5+ average, if it's really 4.01+, then that's a BIT more attainable; basically half the arcs you see up there with 4 stars would be HOF candidates. I'd love dev confirmation one way or another, though.

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Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!

Liliaceae:
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I think the best solution would be to preserve ratings when an arc is unpublished, in case you wanted to republish it again later.

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Karl_Rove_Man:
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I'd like the Devs to give it a month.

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These two things. To me, the term "republish" doesn't mean starting over, but as things are structured now, it might as well be. If republished arcs retain ratings, though, I'd like to see a "last date edited" line on arcs so I could see if one had been improved since I saw it last.

Perhaps more importantly, the MA system is so new that no one, including the devs, really knows how any aspect of it, including HoF and DC, will work. Give it time for them to build up some data.

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"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"

Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers

A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"

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Please don't selectively quote from me in order to weight your take on what I said. As I said, I do sympathize with Twoflower, but some of us are in a worse position.

Eco

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I trimmed for length, keeping what I felt was the relevant point for context in making my own. Only idiots and the inconsiderate quote entire posts to add a few lines of their own, IMO.

Also, maybe I felt like taking out the part of your post that sounded even more like a personal attack. This is an issue that affects all of us who might eventually want a HoF. (Me, I've pretty much given up on the whole system and am just waiting for another means of getting more slots.)

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My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

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Let's not make this about me specifically, okay? I don't give a hoot if you 'sympathize' with me. Sympathize more with the playerbase who have to deal with a system that is potentially flawed and unattainable. I'd like to think that just because I have a DC I'm not somehow ineligible from discussing the game mechanics.

Anybody who writes well and could potentially contribute more good content to the game if only they had the slots to do it should be getting more slots, be it by DC, HOF, microtransaction, crafting, sacrifice a goat to Zeus, whatever. And in this particular case I'm not seeing how HOF is a realistic option, due to the 4.5+ average.

If I'm wrong about the 4.5+ average, if it's really 4.01+, then that's a BIT more attainable; basically half the arcs you see up there with 4 stars would be HOF candidates. I'd love dev confirmation one way or another, though.

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Sorry, Twoflower, I didn't mean to come across as having a go at you specifically. Your DC is well-deserved imo, and more slots for you will only mean more good arcs for us all to enjoy.

I agree that the system as is is not perfect, but as I said earlier, I am convinced that more slots will be available to us all at some stage in the future for a price. When that happens, you can buy all the slots you need. until then, why not do the other thing the MA is good for - playing arcs instead of creating new ones?

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

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Why not do the other thing the MA is good for - playing arcs instead of creating new ones?

Eco.

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So often overlooked, thousands of new missions to play overnight! Some good, some bad, some absolutely fantastic, it's a grab bag of new content for anyone to play, whether they're interested in publishing or not.

K5K

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K5K - The Killbot 5000
A Spanner In The Works Part One, ArcID: 336662, A Spanner In The Works Part Two, ArcID: 336665, Enter Japes, ArcID: 96001
In The Darkness Creeping, ArcID: 347709, When Dimensions Collide, ArcID: 412416.

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Unless I wanna drop one of the two arcs I've poured hours of my heart and soul into. I can only write one more.

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Which is still 3 more arcs than you could've written and shared with the general playerbase a week ago.

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One drawback of the internet is how it has trained so many people to think that one day is a long time.

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Unless I wanna drop one of the two arcs I've poured hours of my heart and soul into. I can only write one more.

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Which is still 3 more arcs than you could've written and shared with the general playerbase a week ago.

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Thank you for the history lesson. Now for those of us still living in the present. City has changed. This has raised new issues.

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2. Get a Dev Choice, which will happen to maybe 1% of all arcs at best and only can happen once per author.


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As far as I know the 'Once per author' is not a limit of Dev's Choice. Here's the relevant part of the post from Mod 8 that others were mentioning (bold emphasis mine)

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Having your story selected for Dev’s Choice is beneficial in a number of ways. Dev’s Choice stories do not count against your total published arcs. If you have three published arcs and one of them gets turned into Dev’s Choice, you will be able to publish a fourth. If one of those three arcs gets flagged as Dev’s Choice, you will be able to publish a fifth, and so on.

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Here is a direct link to the post, in this very forum.

Some have mentioned that this policy was changed in late beta, but this post, despite what the date says, was posted AFTER i14 went live. The date of the posting is a forum glitch. If this had been on the forums sooner, it would have saved a lot of debate in the beta. I know it addressed a lot of my concerns.

Limiting Dev's Choice to one per author would be ridiculous. If by some weird moment of insanity they actually instituted that policy, it should be corrected, and fast. Not looking at an author's work because they have already received DC is just as bad as only looking at an author's work if they received DC.

One final thing:

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And finally there will be a forum thread called ‘Dev’s Choice: For Your Consideration’ where players can post arcs they think should be considered for Dev’s Choice. The two guidelines being, you can’t promote your own arc (that’ll likely happen in some other forum somewhere else) and you can’t disagree with anyone else’s suggestion (again, that’ll happen in some other thread).

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Can't wait for this one. There are a number of arcs out there deserving to be at least looked at by the Dev's, and this is a great way to bring some of them to light.

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I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how Dev choice is going to be handled/decided.

If Dev choice is only going to be ~1% of all missions, what happens after that 1% gets hit? Will no more missions be selected? If an arc is Dev choice, does it remain so forever? No offense to those who already have it, but I am certain that more experience with the MA is going to allow for the creation of arcs which are better than stuff which is Dev choice now.

If Dev choice is to be a stamp of quality, and serving the function of letting people know of missions that are good; it needs to be dynamic. It needs to reflect the current status of missions being created by the MA by introducing that new content. Like how video stores used to have employee's picks for movies.

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Casablanca doesntstop being a great film just cos...bubba ho tep is made.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

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Casablanca doesntstop being a great film just cos...bubba ho tep is made.

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But the technology used to create it does show its age when something like 'Star Wars' comes out.

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Jason and the argonauts. The day after tomorrow. They both have stateof the art effects for their time, but only one is still awesome. It's NLT always about the tech.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Sorry, I haven't sifted through the entire thread because I'm too tired at the moment.

But to let the OP know, Dev's Choice can be granted to someone on live even if they already received Dev's Choice on a previous arc. No one is disqualified, from what I was told, from obtaining the DC twice. I asked a Dev if making Dev's Choice would limit the amount of stories that a person could make, so that others have a chance at making DC. I was told, "There will be no limits placed on the amount of Dev's Choice a person can earn. Why would we stop anyone from making the game better?"

That being said, I was also told that only a few arcs were carried over as a starter... so players would be given a range of different things available. Now, I'm far from knowing the criteria, but maybe some of the arcs given Dev's Choice on test were too similar in some way to another arc? Maybe they didn't want people to play the same sort of mission and think "Well, if that's all that's available, what's the point of using the system? I mean, all of these DC arcs are rescues filled with AV after AV, why flood the system with the same mission over and over?"

It could be why, then again, it might not.

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pohsyb: so of all people you must be most excited about the veats
Arachnos Commander: actually, I am
pohsyb: I mean you kinda were one already anyways ^_^
Arachnos Commander:

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Jason and the argonauts. The day after tomorrow. They both have stateof the art effects for their time, but only one is still awesome. It's NLT always about the tech.

Eco

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Ray Harryhausen is ALWAYS awesome, you philistine!!!

Or is that what you meant?

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Dec out.

Ye Gads! Why do I keep reading these whiney "my sooper arc can't get an award cause of all u meanies!" threads.... I see em, I know what they are, and I just read em anyway! Stupid stupid.

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Limiting Dev's Choice to one per author would be ridiculous.

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I used to think this, and then I realized that getting Dev's choice gave you a significantly greater chance of getting Hall of Fame because people will follow arcs from the same author.

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Ye Gads! Why do I keep reading these whiney "my sooper arc can't get an award cause of all u meanies!" threads.... I see em, I know what they are, and I just read em anyway! Stupid stupid.

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This thread started on the same day I had a row with my son, Its the school holidays here, and he was feeling a little sad that his friends were going abroad and we wern't , so I went on line and bought three books for him from a series he likes, as a suprise to cheers him up. They arrived on consequtive days, the first two he was chuffed to bits with, but when the third one arrived it was the paper back version, which didn't contain stickers! He had a bit of a tantrum about it.

My response was "you're acting like a spoilt brat and if you carry on I'll take them all back off you".

I wonder if the devs ever think about doing that?

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Nah, that's what the forums are for. We can smack 'em with a rolled-up newspaper every bit as well as the devs can.

BAD player! Go lay down!

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Dec out.

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Jason and the argonauts. The day after tomorrow. They both have stateof the art effects for their time, but only one is still awesome. It's NLT always about the tech.

Eco

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Ray Harryhausen is ALWAYS awesome, you philistine!!!

Or is that what you meant?

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Lol, I just took it as read that nobody would even consider The Day After Tomorrow a better film than Jason.

Eco.

EDIT maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'still' in my post - The Day After Tomorrow was never awesome lol

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

I've never seen "The Day After Tomorrow", which explains my own confusion. Did cut my teeth on all those old cheesy-but-great Harryhausen flicks, though.

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Dec out.

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I've never seen "The Day After Tomorrow", which explains my own confusion. Did cut my teeth on all those old cheesy-but-great Harryhausen flicks, though.

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Its an eminently forgettable blockbuster sci-fi epic (fail) disaster movie from the bloke that did Independance Day. One of the set pieces has the characters running away from...a bit of really cold air. It's got a kickass tidal wave hitting Manhattan, but in terms of anything else its utterly 'meh'.

I used it and Jason and the Argonauts to sort of illurtrate a point that I think supports leaving any DCs permanent. If it's good now, it'll still be good even if there's all new-fancy bells and whistles to the engine in 3 years, IF the Devs are choosing DCs based on story, not just flashy gimmicks. Which is what I think they should be (and are, from what i've seen so far) doing.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

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Jason and the argonauts. The day after tomorrow. They both have stateof the art effects for their time, but only one is still awesome. It's NLT always about the tech.

Eco

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Ray Harryhausen is ALWAYS awesome, you philistine!!!

Or is that what you meant?

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Lol, I just took it as read that nobody would even consider The Day After Tomorrow a better film than Jason.

Eco.

EDIT maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'still' in my post - The Day After Tomorrow was never awesome lol

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Hee hee...true. "Still" may have been a bad choice. The effects were pretty cool in TDAT at least...I'll admit I enjoyed them. But boy was the rest of it bad.

I would also suggest that the original King Kong is superior to any of the remakes despite the dated FX. (Though Jessica Lange was very hot in the '76 version.)

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Ye Gads! Why do I keep reading these whiney "my sooper arc can't get an award cause of all u meanies!" threads.... I see em, I know what they are, and I just read em anyway! Stupid stupid.

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Right, because pointing out that it's mathematically feasible for a contrarian and/or insane minority (figure 30%) to deny ANYBODY a chance at Hall of Fame equals childish whining.

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Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?

My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)