In the offsite publicity interviews it was mentioned that there will likely be a pay for pack for extra slots.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
I did a calculation a little bit ago.
At 500,000 active subscribers (This is just throwing a number out there), at 100kb per mission, that means that they are using 500 gigabytes of data with all accounts maxed at file size, three missions.
Personal hard drives now adays have more space than that! Three times as much space. Servers on their own would be able to carry much more. I can't fault NC For playing it safe, however. It was smart of them. But I know that they can, by far, have more missions stored on their end per account 
I mean, not to be vindictive at all, but if I pull up the mission architect, there are probably over a thousand "Kill the Rikti in the Paragon City map" farms *chuckles*. If all these repeats weren't to exist, that would clean up quite a bit of file space, and allow for much much more custom story arcs to be put on the servers for others to enjoy.
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
I think the only answer to "why only three?" is "Because!"
I suspect that they will add slots occasionally, like they have added character slots, and they'll probably do a pay option as Catwhoorg mentioned.
@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
You forget...the 100k only stores the mob graphic/powerset data and the map/mission options. On top of all that is the AE grouping system as well as the AI for each of those mobs placed in your mission. while 3, 100k mission may not seem like much, there is a large chunk server side attatched to each one. Think of it as a library...your options/skins/powers selected just tell the librarian which of all these books to pull out to use. You don't get the entire library for each person. The 100k of keyed data just limits the number of books you can pull per use.
Hope that clears it up a little better for you.
True, though most of the library is pretty generic to the engine. Mob AI, whether or whether not they run, power sets associated, and everything in between is already stored globally on the server itself, and doesn't really take up more "Space" so to speak being the assets for Circle of Thorns, Council, Longbow, etc, already exist server side
The mission just points them in the right way.
So I'm not sure if it would necessarily take up more space on the server for that.
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
Exactly, all that the .storyarc files do is tell the client what maps to load, and what costume pieces the critters are wearing. The server is not using any special AI for custom critters that it doesn't use for generic ones as far as we know, the .storyarc file just tells it what the rank of the critter is, what powers it has access to, and it's preference for ranged or melee.
Yes, but you forget, the server is also running the AE umbrella for the mission accross all servers at the same time for all open missions in the architect. You have to plan for the system to be able to handle a huge amount of people doing the same thing at the same time and still provide enough space for everyone to have a fair share. The missions are cross server after all. Paying for more slots is basically saying you are willing to chip in to help buy a bigger server to store your toys and are want a little consideration for doing so.
The issue is not disk storage, or AI routines. It's the indexing system.
The devs are erring on the side of caution, since the search system broke down several times in beta under less load than we have now. Indexing all that data, plowing through it when users search, etc. eats up a lot of processor -- more and more if there are more arcs to search.
Hopefully, datamining has shown they can squeeze more out of the system, and the pay-slots will open a LOT of slots (and not just "$10 for one more slot, and that's the max").
I'm pretty much unable to use the MA now that my slots are full. I have 7 other arcs waiting on my HD to be uploaded when I have space, but it's not clear if I'll ever have that much.
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!
I can understand the indexing being a problem.
But, then again, the Devs are somewhat working on fixing that by tapering some of the farmable content (Hopefully).
Yes, it's under some pretty intense strain. But a lot of that strain is undue. I mean, as listed above: I published "Full Moon Rising" at midnight on a weekday. Pretty low key time of day, right? The instant that I published it, it got buried under about 30-50 "KILL THE RIKTI" arcs.
The problem isn't that people are making farms, IMO. It's that they're making the SAME farms over and over and over again. Free up that extra space, give it to us to play with. There are those of us who have yet to publish a single farm, and don't want to. We want to create unique stories for others to enjoy
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
Indexing on a few hundred thousand rows is nothing for a modern dbms (like Oracle or MSSQL). Unless they are using some homegrown db ( sincerely hope not), that should not be an issue.
I've worked on systems with millions of rows, and data retrieval is fairly fast, assuming you have the correct columns indexed.
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
[ QUOTE ]
I can understand the indexing being a problem.
But, then again, the Devs are somewhat working on fixing that by tapering some of the farmable content (Hopefully).
Yes, it's under some pretty intense strain. But a lot of that strain is undue. I mean, as listed above: I published "Full Moon Rising" at midnight on a weekday. Pretty low key time of day, right? The instant that I published it, it got buried under about 30-50 "KILL THE RIKTI" arcs.
The problem isn't that people are making farms, IMO. It's that they're making the SAME farms over and over and over again. Free up that extra space, give it to us to play with. There are those of us who have yet to publish a single farm, and don't want to. We want to create unique stories for others to enjoy
[/ QUOTE ]
Please dont' even bring up farming...I really don't want another thread digressing off it's topic.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can understand the indexing being a problem.
But, then again, the Devs are somewhat working on fixing that by tapering some of the farmable content (Hopefully).
Yes, it's under some pretty intense strain. But a lot of that strain is undue. I mean, as listed above: I published "Full Moon Rising" at midnight on a weekday. Pretty low key time of day, right? The instant that I published it, it got buried under about 30-50 "KILL THE RIKTI" arcs.
The problem isn't that people are making farms, IMO. It's that they're making the SAME farms over and over and over again. Free up that extra space, give it to us to play with. There are those of us who have yet to publish a single farm, and don't want to. We want to create unique stories for others to enjoy
[/ QUOTE ]
Please dont' even bring up farming...I really don't want another thread digressing off it's topic.
[/ QUOTE ]
My comments weren't about "to farm or not to farm."
My comments were specifically targetted at the fact that: Whether or whether not it's going to happen, there are hundreds of thousands of the same map/mob group and such just repeating themselves over and over and over again, devouring space on the servers.
If there were to be just one of every type of farm that could be used, instead of everyone repeatedly copying the same thing just to have easy access, space wouldn't be as much of a concern, IMO
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
[ QUOTE ]
Please dont' even bring up farming...I really don't want another thread digressing off it's topic.
[/ QUOTE ]
But farming if the fundamental problem here.
I find it difficult to believe that the devs failed to understand that this sad situation would occur. But apparently they did.
Nope, that's not enough.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Best reason:
I have 12,542 arcs I could make. Seriously. They wouldn't be any good, but I could do it.
Now, multiply that by hundreds (thousands?) flinging a "I'm gonna throw together, I just wanted to do it" arc, then abandoning it because they don't have to care about what happens to them is the biggest problem they face... sheer amount garbage arcs issue. Not that they're all garbage, surely, but you get the point.
All the farms, exploits, etc... whatever. The storage/indexing issue is the problem. Gotta limit things where ya can... this is their way. Make an awesome Dev Choice arc and you get a free slot. Don't, and you don't.
Now as to why they picked three? Well, I mean, c'mon... Three is a magic number, after all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11N-BD1aBo0
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
[ QUOTE ]
Best reason:
I have 12,542 arcs I could make. Seriously. They wouldn't be any good, but I could do it.
[/ QUOTE ]
I hear ya. I'm an altaholic. If I could publish stuff featuring all the stories in my head (good, bad and terribly ugly) just featuring them, I'd do it. And that wouldn't be good for anyone. 
I do hope for either a slot or two upgrade or purchasable slots, though.
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
The issue is not disk storage, or AI routines. It's the indexing system.
The devs are erring on the side of caution, since the search system broke down several times in beta under less load than we have now. Indexing all that data, plowing through it when users search, etc. eats up a lot of processor -- more and more if there are more arcs to search.
[/ QUOTE ]
Only if done incredibly badly. Which given what comes back whenever I search on more than one keyword is likely the case.
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's under some pretty intense strain. But a lot of that strain is undue. I mean, as listed above: I published "Full Moon Rising" at midnight on a weekday. Pretty low key time of day, right? The instant that I published it, it got buried under about 30-50 "KILL THE RIKTI" arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats really amazing seeing as I have never seen more than 3-4 pages of those at any time. Then again if you search on rikti you will get every arc that has a rikti enemy
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's under some pretty intense strain. But a lot of that strain is undue. I mean, as listed above: I published "Full Moon Rising" at midnight on a weekday. Pretty low key time of day, right? The instant that I published it, it got buried under about 30-50 "KILL THE RIKTI" arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats really amazing seeing as I have never seen more than 3-4 pages of those at any time. Then again if you search on rikti you will get every arc that has a rikti enemy
[/ QUOTE ]
*Chuckles* It was just an example. I can't even begin to name all the stuff I saw, but most, by me clicking through them, were indeed farms.
Again, without pointing fingers and saying farming's bad at -all-! But yes, I felt it was pretty unbelievable myself. Even sorting by -date-.
Though I will freely admit to the possibility of me just being crazy due to the fact that it was midnight. *Laughs* I just remember being completely and totally amazed.
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
Even if it was all "farms" like you said. Who is to say your story is more important than theirs? They have just as much right to use their story slots as they want as you do.
New content is always more important then rehashing what already exists in multitude. You're trying to shame him into being silent by claiming his remarks were fueled by ego, but they most likely weren't. His complaint is a logical one.
[ QUOTE ]
Even if it was all "farms" like you said. Who is to say your story is more important than theirs? They have just as much right to use their story slots as they want as you do.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's just putting words in my mouth. I never once said one was more important than another. It was just an observation.
~Valko - Winged Sentinel of the Qozo Griffons
Virtue Server
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Even if it was all "farms" like you said. Who is to say your story is more important than theirs? They have just as much right to use their story slots as they want as you do.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's just putting words in my mouth. I never once said one was more important than another. It was just an observation.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I'll say it.
The story arcs that I lovingly and painstakingly craft, spending hours if not days trying to perfect every custom character, every mission goal, every bit of textual minutiae in order to make the story I want to tell just that much more real, are immeasurably more important than what someone slapped together just so they could exploit the system.
and that is the problem....no one has more right to use an aspect of the game as anyone else.
Tell ya what....we'll start at the lowest arc number and find one of each of the "arc tags" and delete anything using them that comes after it too because they are repeats of the previous incarnation....only one character history, only one playermade TF, only one kidnap, etc.
You see...just because you don't approve of it, doesn't invalidate it either. I just don't see any of them yelling for your arcs to be removed so their's are easier to find.
I'm just curious if there is *any* chance that they may add more slots. Three per account is very limiting. I thought at one point that I read it was going to be three per character, but if that was ever true, I guess it changed when they switched the system to use tells and the global chat handle. I don't claim to know the pros and cons or coding difficulties. But as a user, I have lots of stories that I'd like to work on. And I don't see it as a realistic option that I could hope to get Dev's Choice or Hall of Fame status to free up a slot. It would be nice, but with thousands of MA missions already up, and more flooding in all the time, it would be a long shot at best. (And that's not counting any issues with the rating system.)