City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Mission [TAGS] for easy search

300_below

By 300_below,
Posted on: 2009-04-22 11:31 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

Eco has a thread here describing his idea of using [SFMA] as shorthand to let a player know that the arc they want to run in a Story Focused Mission Arc. It makes searching much easier, because you can enter SFMA in the search box and only see the arcs that authors have labeled with this tag.

With tens of thousands of arcs currently published (and it keeps growing) I think we should try to come up with a list of other tags we might want to use. Basically, players helping each other find the arcs they are most interested in. I am already using [LBMA] to designate my LowBie friendly mission arcs. Eco mentioned the possibility of using [PCMA] for Pro Challenge Mission Arcs.

Anyway, I'm going to use this thread to post some tags that seem to be useful to others. Feel free to discuss what elements you think merit their own tags. I would like to use tags of four letters, to stay consistent, and the MA on the end for Mission Arc also lends it a consistent theme. I'll update this post as we develop new tags, at least as long as the forums allow me to.

Here's what I have so far:

Mission Archetype Tags:
<ul type="square">
[SFMA] - Story Focused Mission Arc
--- [NCMA] - Non-Canon Mission Arc (Not grounded in COH canon, an "Elseworlds" arc)
--- [HFMA] - Humor Focused Mission Arc
--- [DFMA] - Dramatic Focused Mission Arc
--- [FHMA] - For-Hire Mission Arc (Your character is brought in to work for the contact as hired help)
--- [VSMA] - Villainous Self-Motivated Arc (Your character has their own goals, contact helps you instead)

[SGMA] - Super Group specific Mission Arc (Specific for the author's SG. May not work well for others)
[RBMA] - Rewards Based Mission Arc (Use at your own risk. For 'legitimate' arcs only)[/list]
Challenge Level Tags:
<ul type="square">
[LBMA] - LowBie friendly Mission Arc
[MLMA] - Mid-Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 20-40, Post SOs and Pre-Epic Pools)
[HLMA] - High Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 40+)

[PCMA] - Pro Challenge Mission Arc
[TFMA] - Team Focused Mission Arc (Put in Both PCMA and TFMA to designate a Team Pro Challenge)[/list]
Server Tags:
<ul type="square">
[TMARC] Indicates arcs created by Triumph players[/list]

Notes:

- Adding these tags is purely optional, and at the author's discretion. Be aware that tagging you arc sets an expectation of the player for the arc to match what they are looking for in that type of arc, and if it does not meet their expectation it could affect the rating they give you.

- Some tags contain more specific tags under that category. More specific tags, especially without the broader tag, may cause some players to miss your mission.

- There is some concern that using the RBMA tag may make your mission stand out to the GMs, maybe even getting it banned as a "farm" mission upon first glance. If you use this tag, be aware that this may happen. My understanding is that if you feel your arc was banned in error, you can petition the ban and get the arc reviewed by the next tier GM.


Rather than continuing to bother the community team to keep editing this initial post, we have decided instead to post these tags on the paragonwiki site and maintain updates there. Here is the link to that page

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mission_Architect_Tags

Please continue the discussion in this thread regarding the types of tags you would like to see used.

 

Posted

I do hope that in the future, we have an actual baked-in tagging system -- something coded by the devs, rather than jammed in by players into descriptions. My descs are pretty freaking long already.

Here's some more suggestions:

[TFMA] - Team Focused Mission Arc. For things that we don't recommend you try to solo unless you're a purpled out warshade or something. Handily it shares the same acronym as "Task Force" which also suggests group content, so it should be visually apparent what this implies.

Team Focus is different from Pro Challenge because they could be used in conjunction or seperately; [PCMA] means badass soloers or good teams, [TFMA/PCMA] means badass teams only.

How should we be adding multiple tags, by the way? [TAG1][TAG2], or [TAG1/TAG2]?

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!

 

Posted

I know on Triumph they are using TMARC to indicate arcs created by Triumph players.

I agree with TwoFlower. It would be nice to add this into part of the system.

Arc 185502: Who Killed Snow Globe? a mini mystery Put together the clues to solve the case!

Arc 22832: And Hell Hath No Fury (extreme)
Will you be the key to the Knives of Artemis' survival? or the instrument of their destruction?

 

Posted

I suggest you also incorporate

[FARM] - For All, Reasonable Missions ... To denote arcs which could be played by anyone... :P

 

Posted

Added Team Focused, I agree that the TF automatically implies what you want it to.

[ QUOTE ]


How should we be adding multiple tags, by the way? [TAG1][TAG2], or [TAG1/TAG2]?

[/ QUOTE ]

You could do either, I think. The search will pick up the one the player is looking for. My preference would be [TAG1/TAG2] as its one less precious character

 

Posted

If you're going to do this, can you please strike off the "-MA" extension? It's unnecessary, we all know it's a mission arc, and for some of us, having to insert five acronyms in order to be recognized might push us over the 100% mark for publishing.

So, if someone had an arc that would qualify for all of the above, it could read:

[ SF LB PC TF ] or +SF +LB +PC +TF
vs:
[SFMA] [LBMA] [PCMA] [TFMA]

...which basically nearly doubles the character length.

I'll add my own suggestions on this later if this takes flight. Thanks.

 

Posted

Yeah, I prefer / marks too. It does mean you can't search for [TAG], you have to search for TAG... so let's make sure these are nonsense-combos of letters rather than anything actually-a-word. Like FARM :P

I've PMed a request this thread be stickied. I was iffy on using player tags because I rillyrilly want dev tags, but this will help a lot until something official comes along. I'll add them to my arcs tonight.

Edit: I don't think striking the MA will work. Remember, this is to make an adequately long and obscure combo of letters that you can search on. Searching on two letters is more prone to false positives. It's either the whole tag or no tag, to maintain consistency.

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!

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I do hope that in the future, we have an actual baked-in tagging system -- something coded by the devs, rather than jammed in by players into descriptions. My descs are pretty freaking long already.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, but that's being argued elsewhere.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Edit: I don't think striking the MA will work. Remember, this is to make an adequately long and obscure combo of letters that you can search on. Searching on two letters is more prone to false positives. It's either the whole tag or no tag, to maintain consistency.

[/ QUOTE ]

I threw in another version after you posted that addresses that, TwoF. I think the inclusion of a "+" prefix (or any other uncommon grammatical character, like ~ or &lt is a fair compromise between querying and character conservation.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
What would be the tag for "Solo Friendly Mission Arc"? SOMA?

Turg, your 2-letter tags would return too many "false hits" when searching for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the whole point of a unique tag is to be able to search on it and return only tagged arcs. There's two ideas here, "codes to help the description be more accurate" and "ways to get people to find your arc in the first place".

@Mindshadow

 

Posted

Sticky get! Hooray!

Brainstorming more. Don't auto-add these, they're just off the top of my head. Let's get some agreement first.

[VFHA] Villain-for-Hire Arc. Your character is brought in to work for the contact as hired help.

[VMMA] Villainous Mastermind Arc. (this needs a better name.) Your character is self-directed with their own goals, contact helps you instead.

[CMDA] Comedy Arc. Without actually breaking fourth wall, this is a silly arc with a focus on satire.

[DRMA] Drama Arc. By and large a serious story, although occasional comedy relief is fine.

[ELSA] Elseworlds Arc. Takes place in another setting or timeline entirely, not grounded in COH canon.

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!

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I threw in another version after you posted that addresses that, TwoF. I think the inclusion of a "+" prefix (or any other uncommon grammatical character, like ~ or &lt is a fair compromise between querying and character conservation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Will the search function pick up the "+" ?

I understand your plight here. I had to cut down my descriptions to get the tags I wanted on there as well. But, I think we really need to make sure whatever tag we use is something that is most likely put there intentionally.

I do want the devs to incorporate something into the system at some point. However, this not only serves the players for now, but also gives the devs some ideas for the tags we want to see and how we will use them if/when they do incorporate the system.

 

Posted

ELMA?

 

Posted

As long as it returns Not Too Many false positives, it's fine. ELSA out, but ELMA could be close enough tom be workable. I'd say if there's six or more false positives a new acronym's needed.

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!

 

Posted

Maybe the devs would be open to increasing the character limit in the description field by about 100 characters. Sure that will take time as well, but probably much less than creating a viable tagging system from scratch.

 

Posted

How about NCMA for Non-Canon Mission Arc?

 

Posted

Elseworld may be considered 'DC'. Is there another term?

 

Posted

Obviously not. If it's not [in brackets], if it's part of someone's NAME I highly doubt someone searching on ELMA will go "This wasn't an elseworlds as advertised 1 star."

I'm just saying a reasonable level of false positives is to be expected. This is why I want a true dev powered metadata system. Without it, we're just going to have to accept the reality of the situation that you can never find a 100%, in perpetuity on into the future, combo of unique characters which will never be typoed or used harmlessly that also neatly encapsulate the tag's idea. We gotta go with non-obvious combos and just accept that.

Edit: NCMA works for me.

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!

 

Posted

Ooooooooo.... Perpetuity. Anyone see how many results you get for perpetuity?

ECMA - East Coast Music Awards


Sorry... not a particularly helpful post...... (NPHP)