What motivates your creations?

I have a good amount of ideas I'd like to make into arcs, but next Tuesday I'm going back to school. At that point, I'm going to try to work on my arcs on offdays and holiday weekends and what not, but I was wondering what motivates authors to create their arcs and where they get their inspirations.

Just the process of creating and working these arcs is very draining, and I'd just like to see how people tend to push themselves through to the end.

Back when I still had available arc slots to create new arcs it was when an idea would strike me that felt right. Depending on the idea, I might work through until I had it done over the course of a few days to a week or I might start it, get stuck and set it aside. My most successful arc was one that ideas came slowly over the course of two months before getting it releasable.

In total each of my last two arcs I have ultimately invested around 60-80 hours a piece. I would say at least 15 of those hours were post publication changing stuff due to feedback or correcting problems that have come with some game patches. I guess, considering the crazy amount of time spent you have to make them you should do it because you enjoy it.

WN

I've always had creative interests but I can't draw, own a subpar computer, can't afford an artist, and have always had problems with those who supposedly volunteer for free. Creativity feels like a curse. While there are a sizable number of headaches due to "missing" features or visuals, Mission Architect feels like a breath of fresh air. Basically, it's "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" in a medium where I actually can do it myself.

Making a MA arc is the way to tell that one story that you think the game always needed or could really use. Whether you use it to change the general mood of part of the game, to happify or engrimmen something that didn't feel right, to explore in more detail an enemy or plot event that you thought was needlessly skipped, or to change the feel or detail of an enemy group is up to you. You might feel that you don't like the way you never really achieve anything against Malta, and build an arc to fix that. You might not like the drastic lack of detail in the Warriors or Wyvern and write an arc that really expands it. Or maybe you just have a story you really want to tell in CoXland, and MA is by far the best way to do that.

The key is to MAKE THE STORY FOR YOURSELF.

You're never going to get Hall of Fame, and almost certainly never going to get Dev's Choice. You're probably not going to get more than a dozen plays. Hell, my arcs have yet to even be rated by anyone, and I know I didn't skimp on the promotion. If you build your arcs expecting a certain result, you will be disappointed. You have to build them for the arc's own sake. If you can be happy being the only person who ever plays that arc, then you'll be fine.

Being an IT security engineer IRL, I'm about as far from creative writing in my work as possible; MA, for me, is an outlet for creativity. Back in high school / university I wrote short stories, then later on I designed story-heavy MUD zones. The MA in CoH seemed like the perfect match -- it's a (relatively) powerful toolset with instant publicity in a game that I already play! Plus my friends can play them too, which is a huge plus.

For this reason, I don't really regret spending a LOT of time planning (and a smaller amount of time actually writing) arcs. My 2nd challenge arc took the better part of my free time in 1.5 months: planning things out on paper, writing backstory that ultimately never made it into the arc, scouring the text for grammar/spelling errors due to me not being a native speaker, etc. It didn't win any prizes, and I didn't get more than 10 plays on it outside SGmates and reviewers (actually 0 plays in the last 6 months). It's still out there and people can "read" it at any time... good enough for me!

Anyway, in summary: it's a hobby and creative outlet. All that time I spend on the arcs doesn't really feel "wasted" for me, no matter how frustrated I get about actually getting people to play the arc. This doesn't mean I don't want more people playing them, though... and I think everyone gets PO'd when an arc hits the 4-star limbo due to anonymous one-star bandits.

Edited to add: As for ideas, the main theme either comes to me from something I read recently, or a more general "what if"; after I have a theme, I try to figure out how to fit it into the COHverse. For instance, "The Coldest of Wars" was inspired by a short story called "Nightmare" by Krzysztof Borun (but you could substitute any generic story about 'time travel via cryosleep', I think there are quite a few of those). "To Dream of Nothing" was the result of fitting a mad scientist idea I had for some time to make sense with COH lore and fulfill the challenge conditions. My latest project is a post-apocalyptic series based around the question "if such a disaster happened in the COHverse right now, would person/faction X survive, and how would they react to it?".


-- Z.

Many of my arcs started with a "what if" or "wouldn't it be cool if" idea popping into my head one day. The question "What if the Banished Pantheon tried to enslave the Shivans?" lead to me writing "All Consuming" in a single afternoon, then spending a few hours here and there revising it based upon player feedback over the past several months.

My whole "Naga Saga" began during issue 14 beta when I first started playing with the custom character editor and saw that I could import my own characters into AE missions. Then I thought "why don't I take one of my characters and give then their own villain group!" and so the Nagans were born. That group has only gotten bigger as I fleshed them out over 5 arcs and I ended up turning a lot of my custom critters into playable character as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by uberschveinen The key is to MAKE THE STORY FOR YOURSELF. You're never going to get Hall of Fame, and almost certainly never going to get Dev's Choice. You're probably not going to get more than a dozen plays. Hell, my arcs have yet to even be rated by anyone, and I know I didn't skimp on the promotion. If you build your arcs expecting a certain result, you will be disappointed. You have to build them for the arc's own sake. If you can be happy being the only person who ever plays that arc, then you'll be fine.

This is very, very much true. The Dev Choice has worse odds than the lottery and HoF is not going to happen unless the Devs finally cut the requirements down from their current and rather insane level. I really wish that they would just let those who want to continue buying arc slots do so and set the limit somewhere much higher than 8 per person.

Just write what you want to write, don't try to write for an audience that can't agree on what it wants.

The first 2 arcs I wrote came out of writing the adventures I always wanted to experience on my villains: that is a action-y and slightly humorous arcs hopping from one scene to the next with the feeling of character autonomy. The general feeling of my villainous arcs are also what would now be labelled as "rogue".

The third arc which I submitted to the Dr Aeon challenge was a story I had kicking around for a while, but I was having trouble trying to write an arc scenario for it that I was happy with. With the conditions of the challenge, it made me think of a way to make the arc work which in the end I am very pleased with.

. . . .

What they said.

I've got 7 of 8 active right now. I had an 8th, but I deleted it at one point and incorporated some elements from it into tweaks of my other arcs. I'd like to write more, but I'm at that point of "I can't do anything else past this eighth one, and I don't have a SUPER AWESOME STORY to tell at the moment, so I guess I'll wait for now until I get an idea."

I like it. That's why I do it, I like doing it. I have stories to tell, and AE lets me do that. Ideas pop into my head while I'm playing or just at random, and AE lets me do something with them. Occasionally someone will even play them and say nice things about them.

Of course I start way more arcs than I actually finish. I come up with a basic premise, characters to play it out with, I play around with the mechanics a lot, but I'm not that good at actually putting out a finished product. My most recent published arc sat nearly finished (as in, completely playable except for some missing contact dialogue) for months before I finally redid the contact completely, polished it up, and published it.

When I come up with an idea I think would make a good arc, I have to make it or else the clown will eat my brain.

Well for me, I am struggling to learn the MA system. What motivates me is that I want to write more grim stories. City of heroes is too bright and shiny for me. I prefer a more gritty, street level hero. Also, I am a grinder, MA makes it nice and easy to find arcs that suit your AT needs. I just wish I could create ones for myself, I like making villain costumes and dialog.