Am I the only one feeling unmotivated....

Thoughts...

- I've always thought the rating system was a bad idea. I thought it'd be abused, and it was. I thought it wouldn't serve it's intended purpose, and it doesn't. The only thing I was wrong about is that I guessed it'd be gone by now. I'm really kinda amazed that it's still there when it's so clearly not working (and has never worked).

- I think, rather than an average rating, arcs should show the total number of stars given to it. Remove negative ratings (which are just grief bait anyway) from the equation entirely. If we don't like an arc, we simply don't give it any stars. Moreover, as arcs can change and evolve over time, I believe we should have the option to change our ratings on them as well.

- I think total number of plays should probably also be listed, as well as 'last played on'.

- I think stars should be presented, not as a rating of quality, but as a level of recommendation. I'm more interested in what people think I might like, as opposed to what they know they like/hate themselves. It might be a subtle shift in perspective, but I believe it's an important one.

- I've often toyed with the idea of stars, as a reward, being limited, so that players might be more thoughtful about the ratings they give. You'd get more stars to spend by playing (and completing) AE content.

- I still dislike Developer's Choice. I still think it needs to go away. Retooling it into a 'Devloper's Showcase' that features a couple-few different arcs every month would be nice. However, as the 'set it and forget it' approach clearly hasn't worked, they'd have to stay on top of it. If they unwilling/unable to do that, it should just be dumped.

- I recently played through a massive arc that had been written specifically for me and one of my characters (a level 50). Best AE experience I've ever had. At the end of it, the character had 353 tickets (despite having practically cleared 2 of the 5 maps). Meanwhile, I can spend 15-20 minutes in a farm map and get over 1000 tickets. To me, that's just horribly, horribly wrong. Maybe the way tickets are rewarded needs to be completely changed? It feels to me like a radical solution is required here. Sadly, I got nuthin'.

- Where AE is at now is exactly where I predicted it'd be back when I16 was released. If it's going to be a successful feature, I think it needs to be a viable leveling alternative. Otherwise, no matter what else is done, most people will continue to ignore it.

- Story is important, so are the mechanics, but what's also important is the design. If you're not the leader of an AE team, you're just not going to catch all the nuances and details of an arc's story. Thus, the flow and design of an arc matter a great deal, as that's probably going to be the bulk of the experience for a lot of participants.

Sadly, it is in this area that architects are most handicapped/unsupported. Detail placement alone can be an infuriating headache. Architects need to be given greater control over the structure of the experience. A lot of bugs that've been there since the beginning need to be fixed. Design options that've come about since MA's release need to be added. You can't expect quality content to be made if you don't provide the tools to make it.

- More maps. Also, map sets that're exclusive to MA. Frankly, they should've been there at the start.

- I like guest authors as a fun novelty. But, after playing their arcs, it's clear to me that being a good writer doesn't automatically translate into being a good GM/Architect. Also, these people aren't necessarily acquainted with the game lore. Thus, I don't think these arcs should be shoved into our faces every time we open the search UI. The search UI should be about what the players want to find, not about what the authors and developers want them to find. In my view, City's track record for UI design has been pretty consistently lackluster, but I think the AE search UI just might be the worst. It really needs a complete overhaul.

- I don't think any of this is going to happen. I believe what we have now is pretty much what we're going to have. There might be a few bells and whistles added, but that's it. I'm also of the opinion that MA's woes can all be traced back to it being released long, long, long before it was ready. It was an ambitious, enormous undertaking, but I don't think it was treated as such at the outset, and we've been dealing with the fallout of that ever since. To this day, it still feels like it's in beta to me.

- I'll continue to use MA as a roleplaying/story development tool for my characters and the characters of the folks I play with. At present--aside from being an occasional (event) diversion or source of tickets (for salvage, usually common)--that's pretty much all it's good for. It could've been much more, but it isn't and I don't think it's ever going to be. The window of opportunity for saving the feature came and went a while ago.

THAT would be cool, Aliana.

Having um-ed and ah-ed over the whole 'What happened between the potential of AE in my head and the reality of it?', plus my violent reaction to farms and the unfathomable (to me) concept that 'I pay my money so I can cheat how I like', I've been thinking of late about how arcs can be removed for individuals when searching. Especially something that would not be griefing but instead be personal choice.

How about a 'Ignore arcs by this user' function?

It simply* filters out arcs by a global username. It may take a while of typing in the name of a global for each person you don't want to see the arcs of.

Similarly a 'search for arcs by username' that actually works (or more specifically a 'more arcs by this user' function) to balance out the negative aspect of ignoring people via the AE interface.

Any thoughts?

*Insert standard 'not a simple task' rant

I would like everyone here to check out the Ustream that was released pre-I20. Around the 50 minute mark AE gets brought concerning features. While it is disappointing to see things we won't get, I found it incredibly refreshing to get straight answers in a public venue. More importantly, knowing what we can't get helps us fine tune asking for what we can.

Oh, the one where they confirmed we won't be able to use AE to make our own incarnate trials? Yeah, I pretty much figured that. That isn't a "straight answer" any more than "no, you'll never be able to use the base editor to make custom maps" is a "straight answer."

I do not visit the forums so often, but since I am on vacation I have a bit more time and read through the posts in this thread.

I definitely agree with the notion that "everyone should be an author" is wrong or counter-productive for MA and that there has been a lack of focus to make it attractive for players to play the content.

Unfortunately I do not think many of the good suggestions here matters particularly much - in the end any improvements will be judged against other items on the to-do list in terms of what commercial benefit they can bring.

Unless Paragon Studios run out of ideas for other content updates, or they get some "proof" that user content creation in MMOs can be commercially successful I doubt they will put much effort into it, if any.

If Cryptic's efforts with The Foundry in Star Trek Online works out well I guess they maybe would look at it again. I think Foundry is better in a couple of ways than MA, but may still run into similar problems that MA has.

* Accessibility is definitely better; as easy as regular missions and same interface
* A review stage - a mission needs to be _completed_ by reviewers N number of times before being publically available
* Similar rating system to MA (1-5 stars), but with a bit more details on the ratings - e.g. it will show that a mission may have 10 4-star, 1 5-star and 2 1-star ratings out of a total of 13.
* Cryptic is planning to have different missions with regular rewards whose tasks may include to complete a certain number of Foundry missions.
* Search functionality which is somewhat similar to what MA has.

I do not think the interface will be enough if the number of missions grow considerably and something similar to the YouTube approach may still be needed. But the review stage may at least partially control the flow of new missions.

The tools themselves looks promising - they give a lot of control to the author with some basic building blocks. The toolset is essentially an early version that they will be using for their Neverwinter Nights game.

For the sake of MA I hope that Foundry will work out in STO - if there is a positive working and commercially successful example out there perhaps Paragon Studios will make a good effort to revamp MA.