Follow-Up From Positron! ~Discussion~

Please use this thread to discuss the Issue 14 Follow-Up letter from Positron

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I love the MA, its been great fun and it is nice to see all the old faces popping up. I have found a lot of neat arcs that I like, haven't had as much chance to try as many as I'd like (darn work) but all in all, it is a more fun thing than I initially thought it would be. The people here are very creative!

On a sidenote, I would like the base bug addressed though, its really freaking out a lot of people.

and FIRST!

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Thanks, NC Soft, for closing my favorite game ever without warning and with plenty of life still left in it, and thus relieving me of the burden of EVER wanting to buy, try or even hear about another game from your company. Will my decision make a dent, or persuade them in anyway, shape or form? Nope, obviously not. Don't care. NC Soft is dead to me. ~ PsyFox

DOOOOOM!!!








Wait, too soon?

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"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.

<QR>

I'm going to start this by pasting a quote from Posi's letter:

"Users are now talking about which Mission Arcs are fun, and which ones are brutal. They have set up threads in our forums where they "Review" each others' work, giving critiques and criticisms on the arcs published by others. They have even gone so far as to make movie-style posters, comic-style covers, and in some cases machinima using the in-game models to promote their arcs. We never expected anything like that even in our wildest dreams when designing the feature, and I think that is totally cool."

Never expected? Are you serious, Pos? Have you not been creating the same game we've been playing??

Brother people LOVE this game. *I* LOVE this game. There are people who've custom sculpted action figures, comissioned artwork, and created live action and animated films all over are nerdy little hobby here. You can't POSSIBLY be surprised that they're pimping their sites with fake movie posters or mechanima at THIS point in the game's life!

And to think...we've only just begun...

<cues Karen Carpenter>

(Thanks, Matt!)

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- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie

Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608

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Please use this thread to discuss the Issue 14 Follow-Up letter from Positron

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...and 794 arcs that have the 5th Column in them...

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To Positron -
Issue 14 is indeed revolutionary, but I would like to address this comment in your letter, and point out the reason for it.

The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

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Yeah, I'd say make them all 1-54, and then, if we want a particular level range, the mission author can pick the min/max of their arc.

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Dungeoncleaners! (ID#125715): Slay the Adventurers! Rescue the Monsters! Return the Treasure!
Peppermint Cat-- Lv50 Mewtant Ice/Eng Bls

[ QUOTE ]

The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

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... some, yes. All... not so much. Why would, for instance, a basic street gang (Skulls) be level 54?

Besides, right now it allows us to know something's going to be a lowbie arc.

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Grats!

You guys just got the leverage working FOR you.
And we all win!

I hope you will take it in the spirit intended when I say:

Welcome to our world!

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The robot revolt begins!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The 5th Column are one of the few enemy groups that are 1-54. Using a group like this is one of the only ways to make a mission playable to ALL levels.

That's why it's important to make all enemy groups (1-54). If you do that, you will see some truly amazing arcs.

[/ QUOTE ]

... some, yes. All... not so much. Why would, for instance, a basic street gang (Skulls) be level 54?

Besides, right now it allows us to know something's going to be a lowbie arc.

[/ QUOTE ]Plus, simply making a custom group is the easiest way to make the arc 1-54.

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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

First.... i14 was an incredible hit and I have had an incredible time playing in some of the arcs. The biggest draw-back, and IMHO the single biggest thing that will kill the concept, is the total lack of salvage drops appropriate to the adversaries we face in these new stories.
Once people who do care about the invention system see no actual useable salvage drops then most of us that are IO manufacturing addicts will quit the new Architect missions and return to the hum drum, and increasingly boring content of the game to get our salvage drops to make the neater stuff.

Good luck with the new concept....it just needs a little fine tuning to make it really awesome. :-)

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I think lvl 50 skulls would be fun

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Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls... forever

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Shortspark: 50 Fire/Fire tanker

I love, Love, LOVE Issue 14. My biggest disappointment is the "no feedback" rating system. I don't blame the Devs for this, but I do see this as being a place for improvement. And by "no feedback" I mean letting people rate a mission without giving any why. Even a drop down list of half a dozen reasons for giving a low rating would be better.

Regardless, I'm having a blast!

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My one beef I have is that there is too much farming going on with just 1 mission arcs. If the MA could be changed to have at least 2 missions on the arc before you can publish it that would cut down on it alot. It seems to me that too many people are farming and not running regular arcs. I actually had to pay 3 lowbies today just to run my arc and even after that they still did not give any stars but told me that the arc was great. I even paid them about 4 mil each for running my arc.

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Positron and Devs, et al,

You did good. Real good. Thank you.

As long as you create and polish stuff like this, you've got my full attention and support.

-Possibility

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Ahhhh issue 14...




















Well, its been fun,

so, how bout i15?

<_<
>_>

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[ QUOTE ]
First.... i14 was an incredible hit and I have had an incredible time playing in some of the arcs. The biggest draw-back, and IMHO the single biggest thing that will kill the concept, is the total lack of salvage drops appropriate to the adversaries we face in these new stories.
Once people who do care about the invention system see no actual useable salvage drops then most of us that are IO manufacturing addicts will quit the new Architect missions and return to the hum drum, and increasingly boring content of the game to get our salvage drops to make the neater stuff.

Good luck with the new concept....it just needs a little fine tuning to make it really awesome. :-)

[/ QUOTE ]

You can turn in architect tickets for salvage you know that right?


And yes thank you again devs for releasing this MA content. I, along with others, are surprised that I'm enjoying it as much as I am.

There are some issues that need to be resolved (like the random team bug where people can't enter the mission or get into separate instances of the mission) or if it would be possible to have anyone enter the MA mission through any of the AE buildings and not just the one that the leader started it from would be nice. But overall it's quite fun

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Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991

Finally, I can FILM without having to beg and plead for people to help me get particular maps! And I can get full teams of eight by creating allies! And I can have two disparate groups slugging it out!

*hugs Positron and the other devs*

Yep, I-14 is my squee-worthy issue. Been here since the tail end of I-9, but this is my personal favorite.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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First: I love the MA.

Now, with that out of the way, I wanted to rant^H^H^H^Haddress this quote from Positron:

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even the most Pollyanna dev on the team never expected the feature to take off this fast, with this amount of awesome buzz behind it.

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I have to say... that kind of explains it. I mean, people in closed beta were talking about the need for better searching/sorting capabilities from the day I joined, but aside from publishing arcs according to global rather than character name (which I almost regard as exploit closure), none of the many enhancements we recommended were implemented. I had hopes that some of it would make it in after open beta, but nope, the search/sort and rating system we have now is basically what was first given to us.

Players told you it was going to be inadequate given the volume of content the playerbase would generate... and now I think you probably just didn't let yourselves believe it. But events are proving them right. The rating system may not be the worst measuring stick ever, but combined with a lack of categorization and a fairly fixed display order, diving into the MA is like walking into a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, with nary an egg to drop on the floor to mark our way.

I'm guessing you had discussions like, "We can go with this for now and improve it if the system scales beyond what we expected." Well, it has already done so, and the need for better information coping mechanisms is pressing. Don't let us drown in your success.

OK rant over, back to playing with the Architect.

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And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

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The biggest draw-back, and IMHO the single biggest thing that will kill the concept, is the total lack of salvage drops appropriate to the adversaries we face in these new stories.

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I'm fine that collecting salvage is serioulsly important to many people's gameplay. If that's how you roll, great.

But "kill the concept"? Dude. Seriously. I think the 70% of architects who create custom groups are in this to show off. (I know I am.) And I'm sure that the players who play for the brand new content are at least as numerous as those of you who like more tangible rewards.

Besides, can't you spend your tickets on salvage?

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I give Paragon Studio and it's team a round of applause, and will rabidly defend them from any attacks on message boards. I can't stop playing this feature, I've called into work 4 times for it since launch!

I keep saying to the nay sayers who whine there's not enough in it that this is a BASE program. We've got no where to go but UP. Add ons, further coding, new options (maybe even access to death/defeat options, like the screaming females from carnies or the Aeon teleport!!) it's unlimited and fantastic!

I stand behind this issue 114%!

Regards,
-C.A.

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Thank you all for giving us a fantastic tool. I live in MA now, no longer having to check to see if a shiny Purple dropped. It's all about the story again. Best of all, now I get to help create that story.

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Enjoy your day please.

I think one of the biggest features of the MA, is that the devs now have a fantastic tool to make missions with aswell, rather than using their spreadsheets or whatever it is they use. Devs should be able to give us at least 2 new arcs per issue now! (ok that was sarcasm for those who couldn't tell).

Kudos to the devs on a fantastic feature ... now play my arc!

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CHAMPION!

Where do I begin? Well at the beginning. I love it. Architect is incredible for what it is. And yes, I have some awesome ideas for it. I'm still geeking out about it! (to quote Syndrome) And some of the arcs are downright impressive! I like that you can comment to the writer, which I actually do regularly on every arc I play. Even if it's terrible, Especially if it's terrible.

Now, Good stuff aside. Things I'd like to see:
1. Improved sorting. Frankly, being able to filter out features you don't want from the mission list would be nice. (I've done so many elite fights that I get sick of them, and frankly would rather fight a boss)
2. Something to think about: Using Base Builder to allow a player to build an utterly custom map. (and while we're at it, beefing up base builder so that there's more your poor, neglected, lonely base builders can do with it. :P) Rather, once they get the bugs out of Base Builder. Heck even a version that lets you drop 'pregenned rooms' in place would be awesome. (ie the generic office stuff to build your own functioning maps) In short, do for maps what you've done for NPCs.
3. I'd like to have specific placement as an option. Sometimes you know RIGHT where you'd like something, or have reasons why you want it in a specific place.
4. Anyways, here's hoping bases get fixed soon, as I know most base builders are loving architect, but dream of more base options.

In conclusion, Awesome Job! and can't wait to see what's next!

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I love MA..The good and the bad of it tho...

Good-Addicted. Yes, this is a good thing.
bad-Addicted. I now take my laptop to work with me and create mish's there..

Also the inclusion of GM would be awesome.

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NCSOFT may take away our servers and beloved dev team, but they can't break our spirit and community. with all your power, NCSOFT, your victory will be bitter-sweet. I, personally will be there to laugh at you when you face-plant into the ground.