there are a lot of limitations to MA.
keep in mind there are 20,000 arcs published. If each is 100k, that is 2,000,000k of mission arcs published. That's after a few weeks.
We definitely need to be able to have more unique characters - but the key to that is probably reducing the size they take up rather than allowing larger sizes.
Manually picking objective location is a problem due to possible abuse. It would be nice.
Cutscenes would probably take up a ton of file space - I would think that would be the main problem.
Map creation is also prone to abuse. But yes, it is one thing that I would really like.
You can't copy characters because they limit power selection in MA. Powers are not balanced - powersets are balanced in general. But the real issue is making wimpy villians for farming.
Basically size is a big issue - and giving the players more control lets them abuse the system more.
I am hoping we get more flexibility, but I'm not holding my breath.
Limits tend to increase creativity, not decrease it. You learn to work with what you're given to create great stories. I've seen plenty already. I agree with working on more tools, but what we're given is an excellent start and gives plenty of freedom.
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A lot of this has probably been said by others but here is my feelings about the MA. There is a rant at the top and a summary of my suggestions at the bottom.
I was very excited about the MA, I tried it on test when it came out a little bit to see how it lived up to my expectations, the enemy group creator certainly did, but the mission editor itself fell short, I didn't really try to create anything complex on test, but thought up many ideas, now that it has gone live, I feel even more disappointed.
The main thing I wanted to do with MA was flesh out my heroes and villains, give them back stories etc. The limits of the MA limits my creativity greatly with this. The file size limit is the worst of them. With the current file size limit it is only really possible to have 1 fully fleshed out custom group, meaning either you can only have 1 custom group, or gameplay suffers greatly. A lot of ideas I had were of opposing sides where your character is caught in the middle. I tried to make one of my ideas, but I had to take so much out, it just wasn't very fun to play anymore.
Also, when want to play someone elses arc, I would much rather fight custom characters they have made then regular in game enemies.
Another problem is mission events and objectives. These are very limiting, very little options for npcs to interact together, and very little control on objectives. It sucks that we can only choose front middle back for locations of things, but there should at least be an option to set one object to always be before the other. For example, I had a mission where you had to stop a robbery, there was supposed to be a boss guarding a collection item, and both were set to back, but most of the time it seemed the item would be way before the boss.
Finally, the ability for storytelling is very lacking, I would really like to have npcs have more interactions with each other, possibly a cutscene editor.
I think this is part of the reason that all people do now is run MA farms, its very hard to make unique missions or have good storytelling. If cost is the issue for the size limitation, make us have the option to pay more for more space, maybe have limited mission slots but with a bigger size than currently and allow us to buy more mission slots, or have an "architect" subscription that gives us more slots and bigger file sizes for $5 more a month or something.
Here is a summary of suggestions:
<ul type="square">[*]Increase file size by 3x-5x(to allow at least 3 fleshed out custom groups, a custom contact and possibly more missions in an arc, 10 would be good, add a payment option for bigger filesizes if cost is the issue.)[*]Have events able to interact with each other(For example, have dialog options for allies when coming into contact with other objectives, like say something when you aggro the boss.)[*]Either allow us to manually pick objective location or add a priority option(for example choose to make a boss have a higher priority than a collection so even if they are both set to "Back" position, the boss always appears first)[*]More storytelling ability(for example a cutscene creator would be great, and doesnt seem that hard to do, and different contacts between missions in an arc)[*]Map creation like the base editor(don't see why they wouldn't add this, possibly a technical issue?)[*]A copy character button that would automatically create a character based on the one you are playing (I know there is a load costume button, but being able to copy powers and everything in 1 button would be cool, have difficulty selection and maybe this can be the way to have arachnos and kheldians.)[/list]
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HEAR HEAR!
I have any number of great Ideas, and they all seem to be getting foiled by file sizes and amounts of missions available! new enemy content should be encouraged, not viewed as something that eats into the storytelling capabilities!
VIVA ARCHITECT!!!!
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Limits tend to increase creativity, not decrease it.
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Agreed. The size limit has been my "editor" as it's been doing a good job of making me tighten up my writing.
Dec out.
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keep in mind there are 20,000 arcs published. If each is 100k, that is 2,000,000k of mission arcs published. That's after a few weeks.
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Per Hero 1 in the Massively interview: "Storage size is not an issue -- they're small little text files. We did the math: if everyone in the in the game made three mission arcs and maxed out their file size for stuff we would store 9GB on the server. In the day and age where a terabyte is a hundred bucks, 9GB is not that big of a deal. That's not really the issue. If anything it's more of an issue the amount of content that starts to go back and forth through the network."
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
It's been suggested that the devs may not have had much opportunity to focus on optimization during the development process, and that will come later. If that's true, then presumably once they've got the MA stable and can take a step back, they may be able to look at ways of simplifying and compressing the data for network throughput. Depending on the gains made from that, we could see increases to the file size limits coming eventually. They'd be crazy to promise it at this point, and there's no way to be sure, but I'd say do the best you can with what you've got, and try to be patient.
A lot of this has probably been said by others but here is my feelings about the MA. There is a rant at the top and a summary of my suggestions at the bottom.
I was very excited about the MA, I tried it on test when it came out a little bit to see how it lived up to my expectations, the enemy group creator certainly did, but the mission editor itself fell short, I didn't really try to create anything complex on test, but thought up many ideas, now that it has gone live, I feel even more disappointed.
The main thing I wanted to do with MA was flesh out my heroes and villains, give them back stories etc. The limits of the MA limits my creativity greatly with this. The file size limit is the worst of them. With the current file size limit it is only really possible to have 1 fully fleshed out custom group, meaning either you can only have 1 custom group, or gameplay suffers greatly. A lot of ideas I had were of opposing sides where your character is caught in the middle. I tried to make one of my ideas, but I had to take so much out, it just wasn't very fun to play anymore.
Also, when want to play someone elses arc, I would much rather fight custom characters they have made then regular in game enemies.
Another problem is mission events and objectives. These are very limiting, very little options for npcs to interact together, and very little control on objectives. It sucks that we can only choose front middle back for locations of things, but there should at least be an option to set one object to always be before the other. For example, I had a mission where you had to stop a robbery, there was supposed to be a boss guarding a collection item, and both were set to back, but most of the time it seemed the item would be way before the boss.
Finally, the ability for storytelling is very lacking, I would really like to have npcs have more interactions with each other, possibly a cutscene editor.
I think this is part of the reason that all people do now is run MA farms, its very hard to make unique missions or have good storytelling. If cost is the issue for the size limitation, make us have the option to pay more for more space, maybe have limited mission slots but with a bigger size than currently and allow us to buy more mission slots, or have an "architect" subscription that gives us more slots and bigger file sizes for $5 more a month or something.
Here is a summary of suggestions:
<ul type="square">[*]Increase file size by 3x-5x(to allow at least 3 fleshed out custom groups, a custom contact and possibly more missions in an arc, 10 would be good, add a payment option for bigger filesizes if cost is the issue.)[*]Have events able to interact with each other(For example, have dialog options for allies when coming into contact with other objectives, like say something when you aggro the boss.)[*]Either allow us to manually pick objective location or add a priority option(for example choose to make a boss have a higher priority than a collection so even if they are both set to "Back" position, the boss always appears first)[*]More storytelling ability(for example a cutscene creator would be great, and doesnt seem that hard to do, and different contacts between missions in an arc)[*]Map creation like the base editor(don't see why they wouldn't add this, possibly a technical issue?)[*]A copy character button that would automatically create a character based on the one you are playing (I know there is a load costume button, but being able to copy powers and everything in 1 button would be cool, have difficulty selection and maybe this can be the way to have arachnos and kheldians.)[/list]