double size coming in GR

I'm somewhere in-between on this topic. While, functionality-wise, increasing the allowed disk space should strictly be an upgrade, I do think there is something to be said for editing one's work to make it more effective.

Here's my best analogy for this: your story is at a restaurant and needs a certain amount of "food" (disk space). The Mission Architect interface serves you one plate (100K disk space) of food. Depending on your story, this may be just enough food, or maybe too much to eat, or maybe you're still hungry afterwards.

Suddenly, Dr. Aeon declares that dinner portions are being doubled. Now you get two plates (200K) of food! That's great, right?

How much food do you end up eating?

Some people had enough food already. Maybe they don't eat any more.

Some people were still a little hungry. They eat a little from the second plate.

Some people feel they have two plates in front of them, so they NEED TO EAT IT ALL. Even if they didn't really need it -- even if they feel kinda bloated at the end -- even if they were ALREADY a bit overweight -- they have 2 plates now, so why would they waste it?

The "healthy" choice is to eat just as much food as you need -- then stop. But if you just look around in a typical restaurant - most people don't do this.

tl,dr: More space is nice, but be careful that you don't end up bloating your story arc with filler missions or irrelevant details that don't support your story. Edit your story so it stays trim!

Now pardon me while I go get a snack, writing this post made me hungry....

Twice as many ugly custom mobs for my sucky arcs that are no fun to play for anybody but me? I'll take that and be grateful for it.

Sweet. With more HD space I can make even more variants of Aeon Corp employees for my arc. I was annoyed when I found a few hidden away in AE buildings I hadn't been to before and even more annoyed when I discovered that I didn't have room to add them.

I am pleased that the filesizes are doubled. This will be a big help to some good authors struggling with their arcs. And for us lesser authors, more space to frolic in!
I realize that there are more of the latter then there are of the first but I want to see what for magic the good authors can weave for us.

Another thing I approve of is the fact that we have maps returning to us and the introduction of some archy villains we all hate and love. For example, Snaptooth. This time baby winter will not escape!

Finally, grats to Fearghas for making it into a developer of the game he loves so much.

Good stuff... I actually had a few ideas for custom mobs in my arc that I had to scrap because of the limit.

Speaking of limits -- what about easing some of the text entry caps? Some of them (300-character in-mission clue, and yes, 1000-character briefing) have been a huge pain for me; I had to omit crucial details or move them to different parts of the arc (in-mission clue -> end-mission clue) instead, and formatting was a no-no.

(canned response to "you're too wordy, just learn to condense stuff better" -- this either results in ultra-terse dry text or leaving out crucial information, in my experience. Maybe I need to work on my style, but creating a good narrative flow as a foreigner is hard enough. )


-- Z.

What's this? Venture has another oddball opinion and won't listen to reason? Why I never!

This is the guy who argued that time travel could never be used well in any story and used a quote of me saying I had read his review threads as "proof" that I hadn't read his review threads.

Stay classy, Venture. These boards wouldn't be the same without the unique entertainment you provide.

I think this is a fantastic addition and will use it to not only round out custom groups (because more variety in the models that players see [even if there's no variation in the powers the individual mobs have] is always a good thing) and fill in some of the text I had to edit out on a few of my arcs. At least one is probably only around 60% and will never need to be more than that, but Speeding Through Time and Comics 101 are right at 99.something% and can use all the extra wiggle room I can get.

I don't necessarily see me using all 200 KB, but it always seemed to me like 110 KB was my sweet spot, so having even just a little extra room will be great.

I started playing this game for the character creator, and with the dawn of AE most of my PC gaming time goes to it. It's going to be really nice to have one or two custom mobs that actually LOOK right, not filled out with stock enemies and heartfelt pleas to imagine they look good in the character descriptions. I have little desire to write canon stories, so I've had to reach pretty far to fill out enemy rosters, and I'm never 100% satisfied with the results.
For that matter, I'm going to greatly enjoy having room to write the descriptions and especially dialogue that I've wanted to from the beginning. It's going to mean pulling and rewriting every arc I've got up, but man, actual pirates in the pirate crew in Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Doom, not recolored Ocelots and Crazed Slicers! No-good punk teenagers that don't look suspiciously like Freakshow in Weep Day! Original robots! More exclamation marks!
Whether or not the mission cap changes really doesn't matter to me, what I'm excited about is being able to make one or two custom mobs per arc that actually look and read something like what I had in my imagination when I started. Hopefully, more people approach this in the same way - putting the extra space into honing a balanced, coherently designed custom group - rather than Venture's scenario. I can definitely see potential improvements in mob balance, not having to pick and choose from stock enemies, but it is going to require considerable thought and effort on the architects' part.
With another 100k, architects can at least make a mob that's as diverse and thematically consistent as the in-game ones and still have it fit in a mission. I have to echo Policewoman's concern, though, that people are generally going to focus less on editing with more space to work with. I know I'm going to have to revise constantly to keep from forcing waaaaay too much reading on the players :P I like to think, stretching the metaphor, this means I can now have the soup, coffee and dessert along with what can be kind of a spartan first plate, without having to take all kinds of unappealing substitutions.

Huzzah! More file space. I'm always coming up against the file limit and I have to be very careful with my dialogue and clue usage. Being able to put more of this in, and maybe a few more mobs to add some more variety, sounds wonderful.

Though I imagine that what this means is that we'll get some new features that require more space, like maybe power customization for custom mobs or cutscenes. (Oh please please let it be cutscenes!)

Ah, just read the interview and I'm quite happy about this. I've wanted to flesh out so many mob bios and have always had to make hard choices about what to actually leave it. Huzzah to our Overlords!

Just in case, you might want to take the "Final" tag off of any arc that you want to take advantage of this increased file limit on. Even if it's a ways off and the chances are slim, I know that I don't want to risk such an arc getting DCed and locked for editing in the meantime.

People don't realize that every bit of text entered for easter eggs, detail depth, and so on=extra space. I love putting in extra details to arcs so that the more patient are rewarded for peaking around, reading, and so on. I get disappointed when making a couple custom groups eats up the space so the details/extras are sparse. So yay, more size!

Very happy about this. My arc is sitting at 99%, sometimes more and sometimes less depending on patches. Between custom groups, custom contacts, color altered normal groups, mechanics, and required text there is no room to really expand on the story.


Can not wait for this

I think we're all overlooking something about GR and what it may bring to the Architect.

Does anyone else remember the big fuss that was made a while back about branching options in missions? Wasn't the Origin of Power arc supposed to be a sort of test?

We might be getting twice the size because we'll NEED twice the size to alllow for multiple mission branches in our MA arcs. Even if all we got was Origin of Power style multiple choice conversation rather than branching missions, we'd still need extra space to provide all the text.

Let's not rub Venture's face in it too much, people. It's just one more viewpoint he has among the many expounded here. There's room for all sorts in the world of MArc-writing, and when GR goes live I for one will applaud his ingenuity and self-control in keeping any future arcs he makes strictly under 100kb, even if i don't quite understand why he should want to do so.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Personally, I find the impact of the space limitation varies depending on the type of story I'm telling.

If I'm telling a mostly in-canon story, I usually use a lot of standard PvE enemy groups and standard PvE mobs, with just a few custom mobs mixed in. A story like this usually is only 60-70k (for me - your mileage may vary) at initial publication. Over time, feedback may cause me to add stuff that makes the arc grow a little; I kinda like having the extra room in such cases. Teen Phalanx Forever!, Celebrity Kidnapping, Papers and Paychecks and now Talos Vice all followed this model.

Coming in at only 60%-70% of the arc space let me handle weird stuff later in the story arc's life cycle - for example, I had enough space to add six custom models to Teen Phalanx in response to player feedback. Some of these I think improved the arc a lot, e.g. Vahzilok Brides and Clockwork Adventurers; but some of the space I utterly squandered just because I had space to burn; I used 18% of my arc space on a single ambush in the final boss fight just because I could. (Though I do think that gag ambush is pretty funny.) Similarly, Celebrity Kidnapping I had to completely re-implement the Prisoners faction after it got removed from AE, then had to add lieutenants and bosses to both my custom Prisoners and my Paparazzi faction after the exp nerf hit.

If I'm telling a mostly non-canon story, however, nearly every enemy is a custom model. A story like this ends up taking 120k on my initial draft (for me - your mileage may vary), then I have to mercilessly cut stuff to make it fit under 100k. Axis and Allies and A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force both followed this model, for me.

For arcs like this, I'm often forced to choose between keeping briefing/debriefing/clue/dialog text or custom models. And while it's currently popular to consider Venture to be wrong about everything, I have to agree with him on this subject: when presented with this choice, I will generally prefer to keep written text and cut the custom model. Your mileage may vary (I already see other responses in this thread where people chose the other route), but personally, I choose text over custom model because (a) I feel my arc gets a lot more bang for buck out of 6k of text (whether briefings, clues, dialog or souvenir) than 1 custom model, and (b) writing that text is way harder! So it's a bigger loss (to me) to cut it, than the custom model.

Having an arc initially publish at 99.9% makes it more difficult to respond to player feedback; I can only add something new if I cut something else. This is kind of unhappy because player feedback often helps immensely, so if you can't leverage your feedback to make your arc better, you're missing a big opportunity. For example, I'm constantly getting feedback on Flower Knight TF that I should make Black Scorpion and General Mako different models; or make a custom models for Scirocco and Ghost Widow; but I basically can't do anything in this area due to space limitations. I did have to make a custom model for Lord Recluse after publication, because too many people found his standard model to be immersion breaking; but to make space for him, I had to cut one of the other lieutenants from my custom enemy group, which reduced that group's diversity.

On the other hand, being forced to ruthlessly cut a story arc down to the bare basics has some value to it, as it makes you trim down useless and irrelevant fluff. For example, in my Axis and Allies arc, I originally wanted a mission where Nemesis tried to assassinate the player (for being a rival world conqueror). But, AE is probably a better place for me not having implemented this idea.

Anyway, re: the space increase, for me personally, it probably won't help my "canon-related" arcs very much, since I was already coming in pretty far below the space limit. I probably wouldn't change most of them; maybe I'd add one more custom model.

The "non-canon" arcs would probably benefit a lot though as they're already so squeezed on space; I could add a lot of stuff I was originally forced to cut. For Flower Knight TF, a few extra samurai models maybe, a special model for each patron AV, etc. Would this add a lot to the story? Hmm, well, maybe not. But it'd still be nice.

The danger would be for the next "non-canon" arc I write (if and when I write another) -- I'd want to try to force myself to cut my story arc to fit within 100k or 120k, rather than have my initial draft be a bloated 250k then have to cut down to 200k. This would be something of a matter of discipline. Probably not everyone would be willing or even want to do this, but from experience, I'm finding it's a lot nicer to start a story arc with some space to grow over time.

Not sure if I had a point with all these ramblings, but here they are anyway. I don't seem to have hit the hard cap on forum post space yet.

Gratz to @fearghas for making the leap! I think he'll do some good things.

As for the file size increase ... it's excellent news! I don't know why Venture always fears we'll be inundated with EVEN MORE bad stories in AE ... especially when he also takes issue with so many of the canon stories. I'm inclined to agree with him on the lack of quality storytelling throughout the game - Sturgeon's Law holds true, I think - but we shouldn't overlook the fact that giving players better tools can help them produce better arcs.

I wonder if any of the guest authors complained about file size limits, and if that helped move this decision along ...?