Dr. Aeon's Fireside Chat

When will we have the ability to design our own custom maps ( along with custom tile sets, object placement, lighting, and mob placement ) ?

Are there any plans in the works to allow precise customization for ambush makeup? Said customization would also let us adjust the ambush for party size and difficulty ratings.

For example, I'd really prefer not to get 4 EBs in the ambush when what I wanted was 1 specific EB and a supporting cast.

My custom MA enemies with flight powers rarely use them. Instead, they run along the ground whenever possible, which makes my fearsome winged villain group look silly. Is there any way (current or planned) to force my custom enemies to fly?

Question One: Can you think of any way to force a custom critter to appear at a level lower than the normal level range for a mission? (Or higher?)

Reason: I'm trying to make some "normal" people that can be killed by a villain, but they wind up taking several hits to defeat. I'd like to get them to appear at the lowest of levels, so they drop like you'd expect a normal person to.

Question 2: Given that one of two versions of Fly can be given to custom critters, would it be of any use to you for us to come up with a list of other "non-set" powers that we'd like to be able to tack onto our custom creations?

Example: Lycanthropy.

Do you have your own dedicated map editing person on staff to finish the job of filling in the missing maps, then start in on new instance maps for us? Or are you stuck begging for time from the same general pool of artists who are mostly busy on canonical content, to work on your projects on a catch-as-catch-can basis?

Is there any possibility that an additional arc slot could be awarded as a vet reward?

Is there any chance of the ratings system being overhauled to prevent 1-star griefing, or, better still, a revamp of the search function to prevent the giant mass of very good 4-starred arcs from languishing in obscurity, while the Dev's Choice and Guest Author arcs hog the front page forever?

What are the things an arc absolutely MUST have/MAY NOT have in order to be considered for Dev's Choice? We know only that arcs must be flagged "Final" and AVs (and I would assume timed missions) must have a warning in the mission briefing. Any other requirements?

With "Romance" being a valid story arc keyword, within the limitations of Mission Architect, how can one most effectively make a believable love interest for the player?

*pours some whiskey in Dr. Aeon's cider*

When are you going to put a Field Analyst in the MA?

How many MA missions are played per day? How does this compare with the number of 'standard' dev content missions that are played each day?

(That's the closest I can come to asking 'just how widely is MA being used by the player base')

FYI, 5PM PST was over an hour ago.

*thinks before asking*

How do I win High Score at The Last Starfighter? What sort of bonus side stuff is needed for those ahem.. bonus points needed to get the NOTABLE high score. *winks*

Will I ever be able to make level 50 Tsoo ???!!!!!

I'd like to thank Doc Aeon for doing this. I gather this game's devs are already "closer to the community" than just about any other MMO and things like this thread just add to that.

Next time I'll bring the marshmallows!

Pick any of the 4 following, since I can't bring myself to pick just one.

* Will we see the addition of Epic ATs as custom character options?

* Are there any plans to introduce a selectable number of ambush waves, instead of the current single ambush?

* Are there plans to include the option of having civilians in missions, either as ambient bystanders or even as an enemy faction? 4 Loyalist models do not an angry mob make.

* Though I'm guessing this would just be WAY to impractical for the dev team and the average player, is there a hope in hades that we will ever be able to use cutscenes?

....*facepalm* And this is what happens when you don't read the whole post before responding. Learn from me, people - learn from me.

I'd like to start my response by thanking everyone for all their great questions! I'm sorry that I won't be able to answer them all.

Here are five questions however that I am able to answer. I hope it sheds some light on things for everyone.

1. Can X villain group have their levels expanded?

I spoke to Castle about this when I first came onboard. There are multiple issues with doing this. One example is that these critters were designed specifically to be used in that level range - putting them outside of it can cause any number of problems, whether it's balance problems, issues with the powers, even possible issues with the mission they're supposed to show up in. If we were going to broaden the level range of a group, we would want to include more powerful enemies instead of just the current ones at a different level - a good example would be what we've done with the Circle of Thorns. I would say if you wanted to expand the group, you could try creating custom characters similar to that group - one of the Dev Choices did an excellent job doing that with the Legacy Chain.


2. Can we have more control over spawn placement?

I'll take this question as a chance to explain a bit about the spawn system in MA. Each Architect map had its spawns changed to be generic, so that no matter what map you use or what enemy group you use, you'll know that they'll show up regardless of the map you're using.

On our end regarding specific placement, that's something where the mission designers request the world designers to set the specific location on the map where they want that a specific spawn. Allowing Architect to do this would be difficult for several reasons. The first is that we'd have to come up with a map editing program to allow players to get into the map to move the spawns around to where they want it. Another concern on our end would be exploitation, where players could place specific spawns on a specific map to pose the least amount of challenge - spawns where the enemies are trapped in a part of the map, etc.

We have a few ideas on our end on how to make this work, but it would require a large amount of tech and time to do.


3. Can we have our own map editor?

The creation of a map editor would require work on a scale greater than Mission Architect, so I'm going to go ahead and say that this will not happen. There are a lot of complications that would go into this - are the maps stored like bases? How would spawns work? How long would it take players to download the maps that are created? How big would we allow maps to be? These are just some of the initial questions that pop into my head, all of which don't have an easy answer - all of it would involve a major amount of work to get this in for Architect.


4. Who is in charge of putting new maps into Architect?

The responsibility of putting maps into Architect falls mainly on my shoulders. War Witch and one of our other world designers helped a great deal in showing me how it is done, and the result of that can already be seen in Architect with the five new maps that were released some time ago - Johnny's Hell, Crey Hero Lab, Baron Zoria's Lair, Tyrant's Lair and Demon-Infested Tech. The process for maps to be translated to Architect can vary from map to map. For example, with Johnny's Hell, all the spawns on the map - regular spawns, boss spawns, hostage spawns etc., had to be removed and the spawns for the map placed back in from the ground up to be used in Architect. This is because the spawns were very specific for that map. Luckily Johnny's Hell is a small map, so it wasn't too big of a deal, but when we get to bigger maps, it can take a longer time.


5. Can we have the option on escorts to lead them to a place other than the mission exit?

Yes, this is something that we are definitely going to be putting into Architect in the future, though I can't comment on when this will be happening.

I hope you've all enjoyed this nice fireside chat with me. Now I'm going to have to excuse myself, I believe another hero is trying to throw around conspiracy theories about my Architect system - I'll need to squash the hero - er, calm the situation, quickly before it gets out of hand.

In keeping with forum trend of asking 2 questions and since I only have 2 at this time I must break rule number 1.

1. can we get the option of putting random (or not) NPCs in the maps reacting to whats going on? for instance, prisoners running around and fighting each other (for the Zig maps or any other) or random people running around in a panic in out door city maps.

2. I would like the option to place mission starting points on maps. for instance. instead of starting from the arachnos helicopter on the Zig break out map (why is a hero using a arachnos black helicopter?) Id like to start some where else, like in the jail working my way to stop them from leaving on the arachnos black helicopter.

first after a red name ever! (for me)