I want more room for my stories!!!!

I'm sure this has been posted before, but I would like to be able to do much more intensive and fun story arcs.

I know there are options to buy more slots, but will there ever be an option to buy 'bigger' slots to do bigger AE arcs?

I like the custom critters - they are the death of me

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@Celt on VICTORY!
Heroes - Mr. BoJangles, Boom-stick, GalacticCelt, Hap Hazard, Judas Cradle, Knotwork, Riddle of Flame, Archangel Lucius, Boomerang, Mrs. BoJangles
Villains - Mike Brady

In one words, maybe... in two words, maybe not. Not that I would mind more arc-space, but I've learned to curb my enthusiasm for custom critters and use them sparingly. What I'd really love is more goals, more control over mission/arc-flow and more scripting options.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.

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I doubt that we will ever be able to buy larger file sizes for MA arcs. The main reason given by the developers was bandwidth for file transfer. Storage space isn't really an issue on their end.

Hopefully they can do something in the future to increase the pipeline for it, but I would not get my hopes up. It's more likely we'll see improvements made to the way files are saved so the process is made more efficient.

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Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper

Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."

Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.


Gods no. Imagine the cutscenes in the Mary Sue arcs....

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Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

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Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.

*
Gods no. Imagine the cutscenes in the Mary Sue arcs....

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Or the cutscenes some wanna-be Shakespears would try to put in...

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

Rather than cutscenes, I'd like a little more latitude when "staging" scenes using regular spawns. For example, you can currently have a boss taunt you as you approach, but you can't have two bosses talking to each other, or fighting each other.

The advantage of that is that players can get right into the battle if they don't want to wait for the dialog. The disadvantage is that they might miss some stuff, but then that's what NPC chat logs are for.

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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

I think allowing ONE epic AE arc per account that can use a little more space would not hurt.

And maybe if then enough people click that you are the god of writing epic AE arcs you get another extra-sized slot? O: )

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I welcome having a larger file size, and the capability to have more than 17 created characters in one story arc.

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Be happy!

Qr - one way to sort of get around the current filesize limits is to split your arc over two slots. That way you have 200kb for it. If you leave the mission total at 5 you can effectively use on average double the 'stuff' in each mission. In practise, since you'd need a slot for 2 missions and anothet for 3 missions out of your arc, youd have 50kb per mission for the first two misdions and 33kb per for the last 3, bit thats still a ways up from 20kb per mission the 'normal' wsy.

Of course, dping rhis you'll have to put up with the 'each slot must stand alone!' purists criticising, downrating, or somply ignoring your arc.

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)

I made my story a Trilogy, that fixed the problem. I also did a story with 16 custom characters and found it too crowded, less is more sometimes.
So there is no confusion i list in the story description all 3 in the arc, this is also a good way to advertise all your stories at once. At the end of each story i have.....To Be Continued......In (Name of Story, ID #).

I would love to have more space but we can make do, maybe later on they will increase story size as demand for it goes up. We can buy extra story slots, i am going to look for this, i write lots and lots of good stuff. 3 Story lines is not enough

PS get 4 lvl 50's and 4 sk's set on Tenacious and try Illicit Affair (ID 39278) then move onto Dragon The Destroyer (ID 184844) then to The Forging Of An Empire (ID 239837). Tons of fun.

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How many missions does your trilogy have in total?

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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Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.

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Cut scenes? I guess you never played guildwars! That game has some great cut scenes but you very quickly learned something, the first time you see a cut-scene it may be great after that it is something that is usually best skipped, after the 10 times through it is something always best skipped. If you are trying to make an arc that someone will want to play again it is the action and the fun factor that will bring them back and cut scenes slow the pace of the your arc as players are forced to read the story you are developing.

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Qr - one way to sort of get around the current filesize limits is to split your arc over two slots.

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This is the way to do it.
Make sure both stories have the same name and the part number.

Example:

Really Cool Story :: Part 1
Really Cool Story :: Part 2

Make sure to put in the story notes that it is a part of another arc or few and list the other arc numbers involved in the order that they appear in the "bigger" arc.

Example:

Blah blah blah (This is Part 2. Part 1 :: ####)

You can use your own convention for this, but other players have been using it and it has worked quite well as far as I can tell.

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[ QUOTE ]
Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.


Gods no. Imagine the cutscenes in the Mary Sue arcs....

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Cut scenes are fine, as long as the user is given the option to hit the escape key to bypass...

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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 )

There is currently no way to bypass them in this game though. They also have a habit of triggering at very inconvenient times, the worst being in Dark Watcher's arc.

They are a gimmick that was cool the first few times, and is now horribly overused by the devs, and would no doubt be horribly overused by players.

But a bigger file size...sure, I could do with a bigger file size. I enjoy fighting well-designed and varied customs. I could also do without a bigger file size though, and I don't think "I ran out of room" is an excuse for a sub-par or boring arc.

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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

If there weren't severe limits on peoples' ability to pollute the game with their little "creations" it would be a nightmare -- without ability of players to delete them from the list they see when they open the AE console thingie. Maybe they already can?

I really hate cutscenes.

BUT it seems that if we could control where things went more, we could have an interactive version of cutscenes -- like have it so you can hook up with allies in a specific place, and place specific glowies. There are so many more allowed glowies than I think anyone ever uses in the maps.

Just a bit mo09re control -- not complete control -- would be nice. Or maybe there is more control and I just haven't found it yet.

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Personally I always thought the in game cut scenes in the first Kalinda and Burke arcs were wonderful and would make a great addition to the MA.


Gods no. Imagine the cutscenes in the Mary Sue arcs....

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Cut scenes are fine, as long as the user is given the option to hit the escape key to bypass...

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The devs have explained in the past that this is not currently possible. The cutscenes aren't a recording that's played. They are actually acted out by the actual models currently in the mission in their current place. Once they're started, the freeze everything else until the scene finishes. Skipping a cutscene is therefore not really easily supported currently.

They'd have to make a new cutscene mechanic or implement an overlay that allowed for players to skip them before they run their course. I don't know that doing this is a high priority development effort given the other things that more players want.

I.e. why would the devs implement a new cutscene system just so MA designers could add in content that most people will just skip?

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