mission-architect
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Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers
Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.
City of Heroes: Architect Edition giveaway
Everyone's favorite superhero MMO, City of Heroes, turns five years old today! And while NCsoft is holding their own celebrations, at Massively we're marking the occasion by giving away three copies of the game's new Architect Edition (worth approximately $20). So for those of you who've not yet gotten in on the fun that is the character creation mini-game (or Mission Architect, the expanded character creation mini-game which allows you to build your own in-game mission arcs), here's your chance! To enter, just reply to this post with a comment telling us what kind of mission you'd like to make in City of Heroes. Will your mession feature ninjas? Zombies? Velociraptors? [Editor's note: we're not actually sure if missions can feature velociraptors. As mankind's ultimate enemy, they'd obviously be overpowered.] You may enter once per calendar day and all entries must be submitted by 9AM Eastern on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009. So you've the rest of the week to think about it! Three lucky winners will be chosen at random to receive a copy of City of Heroes: Architect Edition. Eligibility is restricted to the legal residents of the 50 United States (including DC) and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 years of age or older. You can find complete rules and restrictions for this giveaway here. And, of course, good luck!
City of Heroes player created content surpasses dev's in 24 hours
It seems as though Paragon Studios have hit content gold with their Issue 14 free update and its Mission Architect system. In the short span of just one day, the City of Heroes community has made more content for the game than has been built during the entirety of the game's life. And even though initial excitement is bound to sizzle down as time passes, we can't wait to see what kinds of missions come out of the players who stick with it over the coming weeks and months.Something that caught our eye was the fact that 70% of all player created content uses custom enemies made with the character creator. If there's one thing you notice after playing an MMO long enough, it's that all the enemies you fight start to become stale no matter how wonderfully designed they may be -- it's inevitable. With this update, however, there's no telling what strange creation you'll end up fighting when a new mission hits the list.The launch definitely seems to have exceeded everyone's expectations, and what's really encouraging is that this is only the beginning for custom created game content in not only City of Heroes, but MMOs as a whole.
Paragon City streets unusually quiet as meta-humans flock to Architect Entertainment
So far, it seems, NCsoft's City of Heroes/Villains Issue 14 Mission Architect feature has been a cracking success. The zones containing Architect Enterprises have been stuffed to overflowing with users learning the system, creating missions and trying missions out. The Mission Architect system isn't exactly all-singing and all-dancing, as it has to work within the constraints of the existing engine, but it does the job quite nicely, and doesn't have a gigantic learning curve. Users have created and published literally hundreds of missions since Issue 14 went live a few days ago.
City of Heroes Issue 14: Architect is live
Much of our recent coverage of City of Heroes has focused on the Mission Architect, and with good reason. Issue 14 brings player-created content into the superhero MMO, placing the tools the developers have used to create missions in the hands of the players. Essentially, players can create their own playable content and tailor these missions to their liking, right down to the characters and the story itself. In some respects, it takes the UI of the character creation tool and applies it to the creation of actual game content. We had a good look at the potential for user-generated content with the Mission Architect at GDC 2009, while it was still in beta testing. Mission Architect is clearly ready for primetime though; NCsoft has announced that Issue 14: Architect is now live, giving City of Heroes players more control over their gameplay than ever before. The Issue 14: Architect release notes are up and detail the many features the update brings to City of Heroes and City of Villains.%Gallery-45908%%Gallery-48661%
GDC09: Mission Architect in-depth
At GDC recently, Joe Morrissey, Senior Designer at NCsoft and Lead Designer for Mission Architect talked to an audience about the challenges of implementing a user generated content system in a 5-year old MMO. Afterwards, we had a chance to sit him down and ask a few questions of our own. But to start with, the basics, for those of you who haven't been following Mission Architect's development: it's a system that allows any City of Heroes or City of Villains player to create their own missions, complete with their own characters and stories. (If the idea of user generated content sounds strange and foreign to you, let Captain Dynamic explain the idea to you.) Currently in beta, this content Godzilla will be released upon the live realms in Issue 14. (For people who haven't yet dived into the City of franchise, there will also be a new game box coming out for Mission Architect: the aptly named Architect Edition.)%Gallery-48661%%Gallery-45908%
City of Heroes Issue 14 open beta has begun
City of Heroes has announced the open beta phase for Issue 14: Architect, which allows players to customize their own missions, at long last bringing player-created content to the superhero (and supervillain) MMO. The NCsoft announcement reads: "Now is your chance to play and give feedback on one of the most in-depth player created mission systems in an MMO to date! Your story/mission masterpieces will be available in-game for all your fellow gamers to play and rate - and the higher the rating, the more YOU benefit!" They also announced that they'll be handpicking the best player-created content as 'Developer's Choice' stories. Those missions will be identified by a unique icon and the creator will receive a Dev's Choice badge. The devs aren't the only ones who get to rate the best missions. There will be a Hall of Fame where the highest peer-rated stories can be recognized for being a cut above the rest. As with the Developer's Choice missions, these stories receive a Hall of Fame icon and badge, but these rankings established during open beta won't carry over once Issue 14 goes live.%Gallery-45908%
Captain Dynamic is at it again in episode two
He's baaaaaaack! We catch up on Captain Dynamic and his crew of mission specialists in part two of this hilarious three-part miniseries. This time he's ready to show off some wicked shape shifting abilities and fills us in on what makes him so dynamic and captain-y. Did you know captains can marry two people on a ship? One would think a license would be required to do that, but perhaps being supremely dynamic supercedes the law in this case. We also catch a startling glimpse of his arch-nemesis, the Great Face!Captain Dynamic was created by Rooster Teeth (the same guys who produce the Red vs. Blue Halo machinima) to promote City of Heroes' upcoming Issue 14 update. A big part of this free update will be the new Mission Architect system where players can create missions that other heroes and villains can run for experience.Check out the entire second episode below the cut!
Captain Dynamic wants you to touch his 'awesome button'
We'd like to take this moment and declare our love for Rooster Teeth, because they have once again created something wonderful (probably by touching their awesome button) for City of Heroes' upcoming Mission Architect system.This is the first episode in a three part mini-series entitled Captain Dynamic, and it's basically about the very cool create-your-own-mission tools coming in the free Issue 14 update. So we hope you enjoy it as much as we did, because we really enjoyed it. Actually, yeah, we may need to see a doctor about the searing pain in our sides.Check out the entire first episode just below the cut!
Full details on Mission Architect system for City of Heroes
Today, NCsoft has lifted the veil on their Mission Architect system coming in the free Issue 14 update for City of Heroes -- which is currently looking at a March 2009 release.We've got both a shiny collection of screens and a nice juicy hour-long audio file of Joe Morrissey discussing the various (and numerous) ins and outs of this hugely anticipated feature. Of course, we've also distilled the most pertinent information into an easily skimmed list, which you can find after the break along with the audio.%Gallery-45908%
New CoX Mission Architect details emerge from HeroCon
Okay, the City of Heroes Mission Architect feature is an issue away, and there's already an issue in testing in Closed Beta, but that doesn't mean the players aren't eager for information. At HeroCon, which recently took place in Santa Clara, California, several of the CoX developers held a panel discussion on the Mission Architect. Fortunately for everyone who couldn't make it, forum poster Quilcene was present and taking notes.You can instantly see where the additional development time is going. Players will now be able to 'customize enemies, rescuees, allies and contacts in what they are calling the Critter Creator.' In other words, yes, players will be able to put their own heroes (and villains) in the missions. Another key fact is how the rewards will work: there will be no mission complete XP and nothing in a player-generated mission will count towards badges, and instead of regular drops players will earn 'skeeball tickets', which will apparently work similarly to the Merit system.
