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Alowing players to hack thier missions would give them more freedom.
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Easy enough to protect against. Just encode the files and use a seperate MD5 hash key on them, or use a digital signature.
Preventing savegame hacking isn't difficult...
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You massively underestimate the abilities of most hackers, FFM.
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Nah I don't. I just know it's not exactly difficult to prevent the buggers. 
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You would need to store the MD5 on the server to prevent it being changed. At which point you probably might as well store the mission files on the server as well. Preventing hacking that way is a lot easier than doing it the other way.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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I feel the need to requote this bit,
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Players are rewarded for playing, creating and rating Arcs.
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Emphasis mine.
Although I agree with you, rating systems rarely work without incentive to rate properly.
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Then let me quote this bit: "On the sites where voting is rewarded or mandatory, most people just give the same rating to all stories."
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Players are rewarded for playing, creating and rating Arcs.
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Emphasis mine.
Although I agree with you, rating systems rarely work without incentive to rate properly.
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But what kind of incentive that could be offered?
No rating system can ever be perfect; but that is a very academic problem, lets not go into the details.
That said, there are ways to make a rating system as accurate and close as possible to the gross public opinion on the related subject matter. First, limit the number of vote one can cast. If I have read that right, it is said that only one vote can be casted per one account (ie per one Global name) to each story. And I would add to that: only those who completed the story could actually rate the story. This can help to screen out some causal voters who do not even know what is s/he rating for.
Further, the rating can be made more sophisticated by showing the total number of players actually completed the story against how long that story has been online. In that case, even though that story might not have good star rating (for whatever reason, including people just forget to rate it or they have not made up their mind yet), it will still draw people attention to it and they will know it is a popular one. Very much like the View and Replies columns of this forum: some posts, including this one, are popular but it just does not get any star. Despite the lacking of stars, it did not stop people reading it and writing in it; and continuing to keep it alive.
Also, I would suggest something similar to the eBay-rating system where reveiwers actually know when the rating was given. In that case, players will know whether a story is being constantly rated as a good one or whether it is just rated as good when it first came out (possibly rated by friends then). I don't know whether people wants to leave short comments, for example 'very good/exciting but a bit too short/long', along with their ratings. Perhaps a succinct 10-20 letters long comments will do fine. This might also drive up the quality of the story in the long term.
I am not sure whether the rater's Global name will appear along side his/her rating. If it is so, other players will know whose rating is reliable and whose is not so.
But after all, we do need more about the overall structure and the working mechanism - and also the initial response - of the SimCity of Missions before we can put forward something more useful and constructive.
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Easy enough to protect against. Just encode the files and use a seperate MD5 hash key on them, or use a digital signature.
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Won't work, as the calculation of the hash key / signature has to be done locally, and thus amenable to interference or highjacking.
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Preventing savegame hacking isn't difficult...
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Preventing naive savegame hacking isn't difficult. Preventing savegame hacking in general is.
I agree that they need to avoid attaching anything important to the rating system. It won't WAI.
I really should do something about this signature.
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I feel the need to requote this bit,
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Players are rewarded for playing, creating and rating Arcs.
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Emphasis mine.
Although I agree with you, rating systems rarely work without incentive to rate properly.
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Then let me quote this bit: "On the sites where voting is rewarded or mandatory, most people just give the same rating to all stories."
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You can't fight it: it is social psychology. People's opinion, although initially divert and vastly different, tends to slowly converge into similar value once they see some others are having that similar value.
It WILL happen.
The way to avoid it is to give more details behind each vote (see my above post).
Neverwinter Vault has a rating system for player created modules that seems to work out mostly okay, so it can be done. You got the odd dodgy module with a high score, but overall most of the high-scoring modules were pretty good. And some of them were brilliant! Really looking forward to the mission creator and might even give it a go myself.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
Maybe no one should be able to see the actual ratings except the people who own the arc or who have to power to upgrade it.
Obviously this then makes picking a good arc more difficult so maybe arcs could show a general rating rather than a specific one.
EG less than 10 ratings - Unrated
11 or more ratings
rating 0-3.....Poorly Rated
3.1 to 6.......Average Rated
6.1 to 9.......Good Rated
9.1+...........Excellent Rated
Assuming the score is out of ten, thus I'd look at PC arcs and see
Name...................Rating
Making a Hatbox........Poor
Fixing the Future......Good
Singing in the Wind....Average
etc
The idea being to stop people following the crowd with there vote.
I personally am really looking forward to it. I've long wanted to tell the massive story involving the majority of my alts.
As far as solving the problem of not rating goes, the devs could design it so that once the last mission of the arc is completed, a popup akin to the arc completion reward window could appear with the voting form. How much effort would it take to vote if its flashed up right in front of you? If the window can be forced to stay up after zone transfers, those intent on not voting would have to log to remove the pop up. and since it takes less time to click twice than wait 30 seconds to log, seems to make sense to vote. Not only that, but ensures the players involved have witnessed the entire arc before submitting a vote.
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Then let me quote this bit: "On the sites where voting is rewarded or mandatory, most people just give the same rating to all stories."
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/signed
And here is an interesting article about ratings
some more info about the mission creator from hero1
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post11825933
No offence to you, but while you would find an arc about all your alts fascinating, other people may be bored to tears by it and it would not mean a thing to them.
Just an observation....
Zhaan, Chakyra, Fiorina 161, Aeryn, Polly Nation, Dee Pression, Shazanne, Night Jester and too many more to mention.
Network Hell 47640
Valley of the Harpies 74519
Green and Pleasant Land 75966
it might be interesting. if those alts were well defined and well written characters in their own right.
edit:wooohooo! 5th time lucky it actually posted!
suppose I'll take this opportunity to say that I think the PCC should be accessed through Vanguard. Makes sense that they'd like heroes to train up, and it'd get lower levels used to going there, even if not able to get through the portals.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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No offence to you, but while you would find an arc about all your alts fascinating, other people may be bored to tears by it and it would not mean a thing to them.
Just an observation....
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No offence to you, but nothing was said about the characters being fascinating to other people.
Just an observation....
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No offence to you, but while you would find an arc about all your alts fascinating, other people may be bored to tears by it and it would not mean a thing to them.
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Well, that's where good storytelling enters the picture, nicht?
Rockjaws Blog has a link to some penny arcade video's an attendee filmed.
I know the text has been transcribed earlier, but as you get a very brief shot of a mockup of the mission creator that hero1 has done, I thought it might be of interest. It's towards the end of *This* Video segment.
hmm. parts 1,2 and 4, but no 3. still sounding good
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
oh oh when it goes live can we have a new forum section for player created missions 
Would make sense to have an official place to post ideas and feedback certain missions.
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
I'm really hoping that we can set the waiting emotes on the characters in our missions, so they can be looking at laptops or drinking coffee or something more interesting than listening/dancing to music/throwing fire.
"Idealism is such a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use." - Kerr Avon
Myopic Aardvark on Twitter
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Yes, I want to make the Kronos Titan /e flip
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Well maybe a restriction on what you can have - coffee, tea, fear, doughnuts, laptops etc. The standing emotes.
Or (if one day we get the chance) the ability to position some fishermen?
"Idealism is such a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use." - Kerr Avon
Myopic Aardvark on Twitter
with all maps supposedly available, i've a few thoughts on how to use the outdoor instances
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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with all maps supposedly available, i've a few thoughts on how to use the outdoor instances
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A "defeat all" mission on the full IP map featuring Gear-only mobs on perma hide?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I don't know what Gear-only is, but no. I was just thinking for story reasons.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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Alowing players to hack thier missions would give them more freedom.
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Easy enough to protect against. Just encode the files and use a seperate MD5 hash key on them, or use a digital signature.
Preventing savegame hacking isn't difficult...
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You massively underestimate the abilities of most hackers, FFM.
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Nah I don't. I just know it's not exactly difficult to prevent the buggers.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.