What is AE, MA, etc and why the big deal?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2009-07-16 14:15 in Player Questions
ParagonWiki on Mission Architect
AE = Aeon Entertainment, the fictional creator of Mission Architect in-game.
I'm not sure what else to tell you since you don't have hours to go into details. There are a bajillion threads out there to read and I'm not going to even try to distill them down for you.
Short answer - go dip your toe into the MA building to see if there is stuff you want to do there. There's a tutorial in AP & Mercy to walk you through it.
Or don't, and continue playing original content as before.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
AE is a place where we can build our missions. But, as you can imagine, when we factor the human being, it is open to abuse.
Some of the people in the forum, mostly old veterans, cant accept a change in the game. At least not a change that they dont personally aprove. Its a paradigm shift.
There is new people on the game, and they have different views than some of the veterans. And, saddly, the veterans are reacting like every human civilization did when confronted with change. They are throwing a tantrum and saying that its not fair, and that the game was broke.
This is my personal opinnion on this. You can get yours.
After all, according to current veterans, as I like the AE, I am not "Quality People" and I am "polluting the game".
Now excuse me... i am going to pollute the shadow shard.
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************* 22 XxX 10 *************
Yes. I can get lost on a straight-line map.
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I haven't been on in a LOOOONG time. I've been a member since 6 months after CoH opened up. What the hell is AE, why is it so controversial? Is MA mission architect? And what is up with the ARC #960923490582409243984? I went to try a mission architect mission someone randomly invited me too last month, and CoH crashed. That was the last time I was on. I was on about 6 months before that.
Is there world going mad? It seems people are b*tching more than before. Before it was like, "blasters, defenders, etc. are NERFed! END OF THE WORLD COMING NEXT!" Now it's whatever this AE business is.
Really, please explain, I'm to limited on time to read through anymore threads.
Thank you
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AE = Architect Entertainment, the name of the Mission Architect (MA) company for the game backstory. They are one and the same.
The problem people have with it is that exploits have been found for MA in series. This has allowed people to powerlevel at unprecedented rates (1-50 in 5 hrs has been reported). The result is a whole bunch of people with high level characters they don't know how to play. Worse, new players are being lured into MA by exploiters to pad-out their teams and end up thinking Atlas Park and the AE building is literally all there is to the game. (No joke!)
If you were here for the "Winterlord Babies" of the first Winter Event, then try to imagine that but far, far worse. Horrible PuGs and more-skilled players being unwilling to team with anyone but known friends is what people are complaining about.
MA - Mission Architect
AE - Architect Entertainment (or Edition?)
This was released in Issue 14, and allows players to design their own missions, and run other user-created missions. In theory, it's a wonderful idea. Creative people can write missions. Bored long-time vets can run new content. However, it can also be very easily abused and/or exploited. Some (a lot? most?) of these new missions are farms, designed to allow people to speed-level to 50 in hours. For long-term vets, that isn't necessarily a problem, but it does create a lot of brand-spanking-new players who reach 50 in a few hours and then have no idea how to play their character, or the game for that matter.
Well, this is TopDoc we're talking about. TopDoc would respec to gain 3 points of damage per day. - Arcanaville
AE is a cool idea. Allows you to create your own stories and play through some really creative stories other people have dreamed up. Some of the best story arcs I've played have been in the AE.
But the AE also allows you to create perfect farm maps. You can fill a huge outdoor map with +2 bosses and go to town. The hospital is only 20 steps away from the mission entrance. An insp vendor is only 10 steps away. Missions can be created that auto-SK a bunch of lowbies to level 50 so one or two strong characters can basically PL an entire team. Want to skip taking a travel power? No prob, the farthest you ever have to go is to the trainer.
Many people have reported going to level 50 in just a couple of days. There is a new supply of "MA babies", players who don't know what used to be pretty basic knowledge about how to get capes and auras, what the various zones are, etc.
It certainly has made finding or building non-MA PuG teams harder. Some people go so far as to claim it has ruined the game. Others claim exactly the opposite; that the old game was boring and stale and the MA has revived their interest. That they hated waiting for 5-10 minutes at a mission door for everyone to arrive, only to do content they had done many times before that wasn't challenging.
So in summary: it's controversial.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
In short, people complain because the PL's went from PI to Atlas. It was just as bad in PI a month before AE. 20 level 5's begging for a PL. Now people see just how many people PL in this game.
Personally, i'd rather PL in PI. Got 2 purps today, my cousin got 2 from sat to mon earlier this week. Cant get those in AE. 
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AE is a place where we can build our missions. But, as you can imagine, when we factor the human being, it is open to abuse.
Some of the people in the forum, mostly old veterans, cant accept a change in the game. At least not a change that they dont personally aprove. Its a paradigm shift.
There is new people on the game, and they have different views than some of the veterans. And, saddly, the veterans are reacting like every human civilization did when confronted with change. They are throwing a tantrum and saying that its not fair, and that the game was broke.
This is my personal opinnion on this. You can get yours.
After all, according to current veterans, as I like the AE, I am not "Quality People" and I am "polluting the game".
Now excuse me... i am going to pollute the shadow shard.
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Your opinion seems to be founded on imaginary details that only you're privy to.
From what I've witnessed, vets that have a problem with PLing don't have a problem with AE; they have a problem with using the AE to exploit the system, turning PLing from "the thing you do in PI" to "the thing everyone does because that's the entire game, apparently". The ones crying DOOM about the AE are part of the new crowd, or only been around for a year or two and trying to claim they're long-time players. Long-time players know that farming/PLing have been going on since the dawn of the game and aren't disillusioned into thinking the AE is some kind of PL Harbinger.
My suggestion to you is to form an opinion based on facts rather than imagination. Doing the latter only makes you look like you have no idea what you're talking about.
Main Hero : Annilixxion -- Lv50 Blaster
Main Villain : Menkaura -- Lv41 Mastermind
@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
wow, do you feel answered, zippie?
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Some of the people in the forum, mostly old veterans, cant accept a change in the game. At least not a change that they dont personally aprove. Its a paradigm shift.
There is new people on the game, and they have different views than some of the veterans. And, saddly, the veterans are reacting like every human civilization did when confronted with change. They are throwing a tantrum and saying that its not fair, and that the game was broke.
[/ QUOTE ]
As a long time vet my problem with AE is none of the above. My problem is that it draws in new and trial players who walk away without ever knowing that there are areas outside of Atlas/Galaxy/Mercy and develop the opinion that CoH/V is a MMO that takes place in a building. They don't stay and become a long time subscriber and they tell their friends all about their experience in "the building".
Secondary concerns deal with players who never acquire experience using their powers before picking their next. While an experienced player may be able to pick and choose their powers wisely on a fast leveling character due to familiarity with the power set from other characters, a new or inexperienced player simply won't know better. This leads to "broken" builds and sub-optimal fun.
Lastly is if they do escape the building they will end up on the street with no basic knowledge about which zones for which levels, where the various stores are, how the market works, working the contact tree even how to travel between zones. Knowledge usually acquired simply by playing the game outside of AE.
For Vets, AE is a marvelous place and while it isn't the "level 50" button some may want when creating alts, it does provide yet another path to level a character, usually faster due to the lack of travel time, large scalable missions and a ready supply of players to team with plus new content that we haven't seen a couple dozen times already. It's just what is good for the Vets isn't the best introduction to the game for new players.
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I think one of the big problems for players picking up the AE box to start out is that the Architect edition cover ONLY talks about architect. It doesn't talk about the rest of the game except maybe as a little blurb.
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But the AE also allows you to create perfect farm maps. You can fill a huge outdoor map with +2 bosses and go to town. The hospital is only 20 steps away from the mission entrance. An insp vendor is only 10 steps away. Missions can be created that auto-SK a bunch of lowbies to level 50 so one or two strong characters can basically PL an entire team. Want to skip taking a travel power? No prob, the farthest you ever have to go is to the trainer.
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However, this is against the Codes of Conduct and is punishable by character deletion or account closure.
So use it in this manner at your own risk.
The DEVs have clearly stated that the MA/AE is not to be used as a farming or power-leveling tool.
Wow, awesome responses. So it sounds like winter lords on crack like was said. I see. I partook of WL, but I already had a ton of characters and level up a defender to lvl30 in a day and still play that character lots. However, I get that the new people aren't getting to learn the ropes and that sux. I will go on tonight and check things out. Thanks everyone..
I haven't been on in a LOOOONG time. I've been a member since 6 months after CoH opened up. What the hell is AE, why is it so controversial? Is MA mission architect? And what is up with the ARC #960923490582409243984? I went to try a mission architect mission someone randomly invited me too last month, and CoH crashed. That was the last time I was on. I was on about 6 months before that.
Is there world going mad? It seems people are b*tching more than before. Before it was like, "blasters, defenders, etc. are NERFed! END OF THE WORLD COMING NEXT!" Now it's whatever this AE business is.
Really, please explain, I'm to limited on time to read through anymore threads.
Thank you