The Next Mission Architect: Fashion Architect

It's almost unanimous that Mission Architect has been a paramount milestone in the progress of further developing City of Heroes. Some may argue that it got people into the game for the wrong reasons (The 'A.E. Babies') and many claim that this caused Power-levelers to abuse the game with an undeniable lack of common sense to even the most basic of mechanics behind Archetypes, Powersets, and so forth. While I cannot deny this claim entirely, I can argue that I don't think the principle of Mission Architect was really about leveling or playing non-stop. I'd like to think that the principle behind Mission Architect was to tap into the creative collective of the playerbase via the custom creations.

Between Developer Contests, Hall of Famers, and so much more, I'd like to think the devs have, to an extent, backed me up on such a claim, as would the community, but I'm trying not to look before I leap.

The point I'd like to make is that the developers have seen what their community is capable of with us, and I think that those same developers should extend this trust of creation with us with additional features to Mission Architect: Fashion Architect.

If you haven't already guessed, Fashion Architect would be a program that would allow you to create costumes/costume parts, rather than missions. A program that allows the player to tap into further resources that have been made by the developers to be more user-friendly, rather than an independent graphics studio that JLove/BABs and the art community may use; just as Mission Architect is more user friendly (I can safely assume) than what the developers use to make their official content.

Now, I'm a mind-reader, so allow me to address some concerns;

1. What would this program DO?
A: Fashion Architect would allow the user to select the piece of clothing/costume that he/she would like to modify/create, and then work first with the bare polygons of the model. Modifying the polygon count would tag the model as a 'Custom Model', in which it would determine the data needed to store this, and give you a limit, just as Architect Entertainment gives you a memory limit on the data per arc.
Once you've achived a successful base model for your new costume piece, would could apply a skin/texture to it. This texture can be uploaded from your computer, or selected from a variety of different default textures provided in the Fashion Architect program. Adding a custom skin will tag the model as a 'Custom Texture', and will be categorized as such.

2. What use will this program have?
A: Your character will wear these custom pieces/textures, and they will also be available for three-dimensional display at any Fashion Architect hub, along with the submissions of others.

3. How will the playerbase ALL wear their own, custom pieces without insane lag?!
A: This is the tough part, I must admit. Allow me to elaborate at how you can essentially 'test' your costume pieces:
Step 1: You go to the Fashion Architect terminal and cycle through different costume pieces until you find something that you like.
Step 2: You can select a number of different pieces, so long as you only have one costume piece per area (1 shoulder, 1 Helm Detail 1, etc). These pieces will be listed to be worn by your character through your A.E. arcs.
Step 3: Whenever you enter into an A.E. arc, the pieces you've selected will take the places of your costume wherever you'd selected them to. These pieces will only be visible to yourself and your current team, and ONLY while inside the arc.

4. Why do we need this?
A: We don't 'need' it, of course. We don't even NEED costumes, but we like it- hell, we love it. The allure of creating your own custom costume is something that we continously find ourselves unable to pass up, and with Mission Architect's debut, the stream of creativity was springboarded past everyone's expectations to produce both quality and originality. Fashion Architect would extend these two characteristics into one of the game's most pivotal aspects.

5. This system seems ripe for abuse!
A: The system could, in theory, be used for abuse, and I will not deny that. People are perfectly capable of uploading their own particular images onto textures that are either offensive or pornographic, or simply create models offensive to people! I wouldn't be surprised to find some jerk making a swastika helmet decoration every blue moon or so.
But that's reality, and the system of checking and flagging is different; developers won't have to investigate a story arc, nor would they have to differentiate between farming and just an odd storyline and/or a story about a farm! Checking things just involves a simple scan of the eye; check for nudity, check for offensive textures/modeling, and it's done.

6. I don't want (my children/self) to be exposed to any pornography or offensive images!
A: Then I'd like to suggest one final option: Toggling things OFF.
Yes, you heard me; turning the entire thing off for selective players who are worried about the content of custom modeling/textures:
This toggle would simply replace any and all custom models with the original models the character was wearing on his/her costume to the player who has toggled it off. Thus, if some teammates have the option toggled off, they will see the characters in their default attire, while those who have Fashion Architect toggled on will be able to see these custom jobs.

Finally, we have all witnessed the success of Mission Architect; both it's value to the community and to the developers. Why should we stop there, when we've got so much ahead of us in the field of player-generated content at the game's core?

Thank you for reading this.

tl;dr: Let me make boobie costumes![/badjoke]

After reading your post i have a question:
this is in A.E archs right? Is the "armors" (so to speak) for anyone who plays that specific arch or just for you?

Anything that allows us to have more costume parts is good. I'm all for this, but it seems like it's going to be a lot of work on the devs' parts keeping people from plastering things all over themselves that nobody wants to see, especially when you get costume pieces that look innocent alone but work together to create something awful.

It would be a massive amount of work but I definitely support this. I just feel bad for the person who'd have to code this and then qa it lol.

I stopped when i read the description of what you meant by fashion architect and said "ooo"

Fantastic idea

this could really add to the immersiveness of AE arcs. I will take it a step further and say that we should have this added to the creation system, in other words, let an arc designer create an costume that you wear inside the mish, if you choose to. Could be used for things like "here, strap on this device, it'll protect you"

My two cents

I absolutely, positively, unquestioningly DISAGREE with this idea. Under no circumstances will I accept that trusting people to manufacture their own costume pieces, be it via independent programme or via in-game editor, is in any way, shape or form a good idea. And I'm not even going to get into all the "naked" skins and other questionable material. I'm talking about the utter FAIL that systems like this produce, even when moderated, which such a thing cannot and will not be.

I've seen the user-side mods on things like UT2003. Yes, there were a few (VERY few) good ones, which eventually made it into the Developers' Choice bonus pack, but the vast majority were just utter crap. I remember seeing a Duke Nukem skin that was just Brock with clow-style flat colouring over his armour plates, and that's the mild stupidity.

Some people hold the Architect to be some kind of next step in MMO evolution, but to me it's just a cesspool for bad fan fiction, and I'm saying that as someone with two story arcs in it. I did my best to try and dredge something interesting out of it, but unless I'm specifically asked by specific people to review a specific story arc (which have mostly been pretty good) and instead try to look through them at random, I keep hitting up horrible arcs. I've even tried the Developer's Choice arcs, but I'm starting to think they just pick the arcs they think are funny, and even the ones that weren't I couldn't really get behind.

With the limitations on tools in the architect, the limitations on size and location and the fact that this is fan-made really killed the thing for me. It's a LOT of work to make a decent arc, and I've already seen that it's more work than many authors are willing to commit to. There is greatness in there, but it's not worth dredging through the much to find it.

If you want to keep this suggestion to just the architect, then fine. Easier to just avoid it entirely that way. But if you want to dump these things in the player character creator, then no. I do not want it spammed with everyone's idea of "cool." There's a reason Paragon Studios hire professional graphic designers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.