...whoa

[Logan Darklighter]

Posted by Truss over on the City of Heroes Live-Journal.

I'll just let this excerpt from Posi's 4-year anniversary
address speak for itself:






"I can't tell you how excited I am for our game's future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I
can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story
arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You'll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and
any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame
will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are
excited to be able to offer players very soon."

My gast is most thoroughly flabbered....

Now THAT is some END GAME CONTENT!!!

[Wiregeek]

there is not enough emoticons, macros, or jaw dropping in the world.

Hey, WoW - EAT ME.

Let me summarize the threads regarding this on the official boards - "OMG DEVS R LAZY THEY WANT US TO DO THEIR WORK FOR THEM OMG"

And that cackling you hear? That's Skye, achieving Super Saiyan mode and screaming in joy.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Logan Darklighter]

Here's the full text of Positron's address just in case you are work-blocked.

A Message From Positron - 4 Year Anniversary!


Monday, April 28, 2008


Four years.




I will say that again in case you misread it.




Four years.




I am pleased beyond all belief that this game continues to prosper four years into its life. Our community is stronger than ever, the game as a whole is
stronger than it ever has been, and the future for the game, as well as the franchise is extremely bright.




When I look back upon the game that we shipped in 2004, I can't help but look at all the things that were missing from it. Things we added immediately,
and things we added recently. Badges were not in the initial launch. Heck, level 41 to 50 were not shipped with City of Heroes! As the game has progressed, I
think we have added more free features with our updates than any other MMO on the planet. Multiple zones, missions, features and systems have been added to
the base game over the past four years, making the game better and better with every update.




Every time I visit the Tailor in the game, I say to myself "Heh, I couldn't even change my costume when City of Heroes launched." Every time I
Exemplar down to play content with my lower level friends, I note that this too was not a feature in the game four years ago. Now I actively seek out
Inventions and Recipes both in missions and on the Black Market. The Invention System worked out very well for both City of Heroes and City of Villains, and
was not part of the plan when we were finishing up CoH in the first quarter of 2004. Just over this last six months we've also added our Ouroboros
Flashback System, Weapon Customization, and more quality of life features than the game had ever seen (until Issue 12).




That's not to say we haven't been without our missteps. We've implemented a couple things imperfectly (Epic Archetypes and Enhancement
Diversification come to mind), which caused a lot of headaches for us down the road. I can't promise that we will never make mistakes, but I will say we
will do our best to ensure that we don't repeat them.




I can't tell you how excited I am for our game's future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk
about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your
characters and others to participate in. You'll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed
for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the
players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able
to offer players very soon.




In the end I just want to send out a thanks to all of the players of City of Heroes and City of Villains. Everyone, from the veterans who have been with this
game since it launched (and even earlier for some beta testers!) to the users who just subscribed last week, have made this the most fun game to work on in
my seventeen years in the industry. I look forward to reviewing our accomplishments this time next year when we celebrate our 5th anniversary!






- Lead Designer, Matt Miller (Positron)

[Logan Darklighter]

I just realized that there it is highly unlikely that this is going to be a vet reward, because it directly affects the game and is a major system.

Vet rewards are inherently stuff that is just minor cosmetic things, or minor powers that don't affect too much.

Seeing as this is NCSoft we're talking about here, I think it FAR more likely that this feature will be like the Wedding Pack - it'll be a one time
only fee.

Frankly, I'd be MORE than willing to cough up 10 bucks for this feature!

[Logan Darklighter]

A couple of things I'm wondering about. I'll probably think of more as we go along.

How do you set up a contact? Somehow I can't see you adding a new person to the map!

Maybe you start off with an existing contact - say - your origin contact in City Hall. Say I'm on Cyberman 8 and I call up the Tech Origin contact in City
Hall (Davis, I believe).

"Hey Cyberman 8!, I have a friend who wants to talk to you, here is their cell phone number, can you give them a call?"

From there, you start with the cell phone number already and call the contact for the mission. They don't even have to be in Paragon City! ("I see,
Mr, President, I'll get my Supergroup to help with this crisis!")

How about mission doors? Can we use any existing doors on the map? Or is this a case of "go through the portal"?

I'd love to be able to set specific mission doors up. Or indicate a mission reached by the Train. There are some interesting out of the way doors in all
zones that never seem to get used. I'd love to make use of them for flavor.

If we can't add our contact to the world map, can we add them to the mission? Like meet us at the door?

For that matter - NPCs! Can we design our own? We get to use villain groups, what about new heroes to fight alongside? Or people in need of rescue?

Dare I hope that we can design custom Villains to fight at some point?

The mind boggles!

[Foxboy]

Agreed... though I hope we can put some of our own "AV's" in... Say a villain loading a heroes' set of mishes against her?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Wiregeek]

which leads me to a though that's been popping up more and more.

PvP - MISSIONS.

not just zones, we have those, but mission sets where a Villian signs up to Destroy Power Object A, and a Hero signs up to defend it.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Matrix Dragon]

... I can't wait.

[Bob Schroeck]

You realize, we have some fearsomely powerful creative minds here, and as a community we ought to be far more than the simple sum of our parts. When we get the
specifics on how this works, we should be able to come up with some serious winners.

At the very least, we should try and write some nemeses for ourselves.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

I kinda doubt they'll let us do more on the "creating nemeses" front than assign names to bosses, but there's still some flexibility there.
I really doubt they'll let us put words in the Big Bads' mouths, which is sad, because a scripted
confrontation between Lincoln and Nemesis would be sweeeet....


--Sam

"This is graveness."

[Acyl]

As I was joking last night on the Legendary channel, I hope customisation goes far enough to let us do this. Kudos to everyone
who chipped in with jokes here - offhand, Ankhani and Valles, IIRC.



Villain Story Arc: BUDGET MAYHEM

Unsatisfied with the packages offered by other tour providers? Try visitparagon.com, for the best getaways to sunny Paragon
City!

Trips from just 500 inf onwards! *

* prices do not include tax or travel insurance. additional charges may apply.

Mission 1: Stop the costume contest! (50 contestants to defeat, find the winner)


As Ankhani noted, the winner obviously has to be a scantily-clad female character with the chest slider out to
-----> there.

Mission 2: Defeat all heroes in sewer


Mission 3: Steal the influence (Defeat swdfeqdwdf and customers)

You just know this will be a Freakshow boss...

Mission 4: Defeat all idiots in broadcast

Mission 5: Defeat SG recruiter and guards

Mission 6: Stop Katie Hannon! (10 Mary Macombers to rescue)

Mission 7: Defeat all heroes in farm (1 mission objective to complete while leader isn't looking)

...

... etc, etc, etc.

I'll think up an actual serious storyline later. But seriously, I'd love to present a whole mission sequence in the dialogue of a tour agent. Like, if
you can use one of those crummy little tugboats in the Isles as a mission door, you can talk about luxury cruise accomodation...
-- Acyl

[Matrix Dragon]

"Got a job for you hero, although I'll admit it's not as... moral as some of you costume types prefer. I need you to rob a bank. Now don't
look at me like that. The bank is in the Rogue Isles, and the accounts you're going after are all Arachnos. Regardless of the official story, we're at
war with Recluse, just as much as we are the Rikti. Once upon a time, an army marched on its stomach. These days, it marches on its bank balance. You do this,
and you'll hurt Recluse more then you ever would sending his Spiders to the Zig."

*You received a Temporary Power: Gold Bricker costume!*

"Good to hear. Don't worry, you won't make the papers about suddenly turning super-villain. You'll be going in as one of the Isles own
trouble-makers. Hurting Recluse is good, having him chase shadows is even better."

Actually, that makes me wonder. Would temporary powers be doable in a system like this? Probably too much potential for abuse.

[Acyl]

Back before (and immediately after) we got Safeguard missions heroside... well, a lot of folks expressed discontent. I recall people saying they'd much rather have something akin to villain Mayhems, except where you, the hero, goes and invades a villain base...to just totally wreck the place. Do some proactive stuff for once - a SWAT raid with the volume turned up, or something.

Which isn't the same as Matrix Dragon's suggestion, but it's a similar concept. A lot more could also be done by stressing the notion that, well, Paragon is at war. Not just with Arachnos, really, or even the Rikti. Look at Paragon City itself, it's a freakin' urban war zone, it's just that the civilians are still living there. I'd like to see, for example, a mission sequence where you roll into Boomtown and clean out the area... or a version of the Hollows map where you're tasked with helping the Police push their front lines further out - ie. retaking territory.

Setting things in those terms may be interesting, though the difficulty is, of course, being too edgy and having too much forced characterisation - which has always been a main complaint regarding villainside content.
-- Acyl

[Ebony]

", I'm glad you're here. We've discovered something terrible. One of our most trusted M.A.G.I. agents has gone Rogue, literally.
It turns out that she's been selling artifacts to Arachnos for years, masking it with supposed 'thefts' and 'kidnappings.' She's done
business with the Spiders, with the Circle of Thorns, even with the Skulls, for Pete's sake! We're re-evaluating our security and doing a thorough
audit of all inventory and procedures, but right now, we need you to ARREST AZURIA!"

(Not gonna happen, but it'd be funny.)
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Bob Schroeck]

And of course she turns out to be a major AV.

I like all these ideas. I'd really like to the see the "hero mayhem" one if it's possible to make it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Morganite]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

I kinda doubt they'll let us do more on the "creating nemeses" front than assign names to bosses, but there's still some flexibility
there.


I really doubt they'll let us put words in the Big Bads' mouths, which is sad, because a scripted


confrontation between Lincoln and Nemesis would be sweeeet....

They do kind of say that you can write the dialogue. '.'

This seems like it could be really incredible if it works well. Past experience suggests that games with tools for user-created content tend to do very well
indeed. And I'm probably not the only one who's already seen the great majority of heroside missions. (Some multiple times.) New story content for
those people - that they don't have to create themselves - would be a big thing.

Of course, there's a lot of obvious questions. It says you can pick the map. But do you actually get to design the map, putting rooms, objects perhaps, and
enemy spawns where you want them? That level of control might be a bit too enjoyable for farmers, but it'd be 90 kinds of awesome for people trying to do
really creative things.

Instanced outdoor? I actually saw something that was almost a hate thread for these on the forums, but I love instanced outdoor missions just as a change of
pace. And if you can link different map sets together (the way you can enter buildings in Safeguard/Mayhem, or the cave in the christmas missions), that'd
open up a lot of interesting stuff. Not to mention I can think of some possibilities if you could link, say, the office set to the lab set.

Probably the most important question, how are they accessed? I think adding contacts to the main maps is never going to happen, but Logan's idea of it
giving you a sort of pseudo-contact you can call sounds workable. And while I'm sure no one really enjoys errand-running, I'd bet that sort of mission
is possible too. But how do you start the mission in the first place? Where do you start them, what sort of search features are there? Will they be locked to
certain level ranges? If so, will there be an auto-exemplar thing for ones you're past, or are you out of luck?

And also important, are the rewards of battle all the same? I think the feature will see a lot less use if they aren't. (I really do hope that farming
issues won't cause them to place limits on this, because honestly I don't think it'll make much difference to farmers. And anything that could help
farmers will also make more options for creators.)

What'd really be ideal is if we got access to the full set of tools that are used to make the missions already in the game. There's an amazing amount
of possibility here. And I think that kind of power would bring people to the game just for the ability to do it. (It might also involve a lot less coding to
get workable than designing new and more limited tools. Albeit writing documentation might take longer. But undocumented tools would probably make enough
people just as happy that the forums would provide your documentation...)

-Morgan.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

They do kind of say that you can write the dialogue. '.'

I meant that I doubt we'll be allowed to have the big-name features like Nemesis and Lord Recluse appear in these at all, much less write
dialogue for them.

--Sam

"Well that guy's nekkid."

[Morganite]

Ah.

Well, I don't see why you couldn't do it with Nemesis at least. It's not like you're talking to the real one anyway. '.'

-Morgan.