Arc # 535977 (A step-by-step guide on how to fix AE)
Let's see here... "first goal will be to purge the AE of farmers" yada yada...
"eradicate farm arcs, leaving no trace behind"...
"cut off the supply of influence and experience to Mission AE so these cretins will not return"...
Typos and grammar mistakes...
Oh, hey, custom NPCs with no attacks called "Doorsitters," how original. But there's way more than 7 of them in there, so obviously you made a mistake somewhere.
NPCs have backgrounds, but there's missing flavor text everywhere (the accept mission text is just "Accept").
Oh, here we go, start of mission two... Your idea is that we should pay 800 Paragon Points ($10 US) when we publish a story arc, and then every time it gets played by someone the author will earn Paragon Points?
Yeah. You're insane, this idea is bad. You're pretty blatantly insulting to anyone who does farm in the AE, calling them cretins and insects. You're even mildly insulting to people who write actual arcs, implying that they're hopeless despots living in the slums because they're not getting exposure.
Furthermore, you want to dramatically add to the list of features, such as "improved AI" (which is laughable given the AI issues we've already been having since Issue 22 launched), build-your-own-attack-chains, forcing players to play your arc as one of your custom NPCs, and the ability to write league trials with branching paths? I'm pretty sure Dr. Aeon would give his left arm for access to that stuff when he's writing official content, let alone AE arcs. (Except for the playing as custom NPCs bit, which is something that they've obviously been experimenting with in the last couple issues and will be further implementing with their new pop-up power tray in Issue 23.)
Oh, and badges and unique enhancements for authoring AE missions? Because the former didn't blow up in anyone's face back in Issue 14, and the latter is certainly not going to encourage farming at all. Also, "PVP inside AE missions" without any description of how it would work, just throwing it out as a bone to people who want more PVP stuff to do in the hopes of luring them to your side.
And your suggestion on how to get people to play the new vetted story missions is just... I'd say it's facepalm worthy, but really, my head doesn't need any more damage at this point, so I'm going to say it's face punch worthy, because now I'm talking about yours instead of mine. You want to take IOs away from all other content in the game and them only accessible via AE tickets. Furthermore, you want to take all the IOs we currently have away to be regained exclusively playing AE missions. Yeah, that's not going to encourage farming at all.
I can't tell if this is thing you've written is a vastly detailed troll post, a poor attempt at satire or just plain lunacy. You barely address any of the other hurdles that authors face outside of farms, such as griefers grouping together to downvote other people's arcs so theirs would stay more prevalent in the listings.
I give this whole thing 2 stars. It would have been 3 purely for the effort you put in, but the second mission pissed me off too much, trying to find those nearly-invisible spots to place those tablets and hunting down the few and far between hostages on an open outdoor map.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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A three mission arc explaining what must be done in order to fix AE and make it something people will actually want to use.
Feedback/comments welcome.