Dacy

That is so cute, Vectress!!! Enchanting 🙂

Base shift has been conquered. 😄 Thanks again, devs! YES to more lighting. I want invisible lighting, such as you find in the base, tintable and such, that you can place above or below the base. I agree with the ugly salvage, as do most people; here are ways to hide or disguise all services so that you don't see any of them, but can still access them (note that inspiration containers were additionally changed after this was made so that now you can simply turn them upside down and sink them to access them from below; turn on hidden markers (in editor options on bar) to see the blue touch zones).

There is a search function in the editor itself, but it is very limited. When you say, that's assuming that a slash command doesn't already exist, what slash command would you mean here? I wasn't clear on what you meant exactly, sorry.

Thank you! It would not necessarily have to change the UI, just be something that could be called up in game to, for example, search for things that can be used as doors. Or things that are tintable. Once you find the item, maybe it can take you to that item in the editor. I’d love rearranging the editor, sure, but realize that’s a lot.

How are mods created? How extensively can they change things? I would love to get the base editor to be better organized and searchable by such things as type of material, size, properties such as whether or not it can be tinted, gives light, has collision, etc. We started working on an online reference tool, but first of all, that's more difficult to use than a mod would be, and secondly, as we have found with another project, various people will object to various sources of programs, such as Google, Windows, and Apple; they all have their haters who will not use those products. Last question has to be, is there anyone who writes mods who could and would help on such a project (if it's even possible, I'm asking from absolute ignorance here). Thank you!

Aww, well, you can still see the base, it's open til the base reset on Tuesday. No monsters (tho if you tell me when you're going to show up, one or two might decide to also show up). 🙂

That is sweet, Troo, thank you so much! Glad you had so much fun, Black Spectre!

I’m glad you were able to come for a little bit too, Jiro Ito! I did leave the base open, and the AFK characters are still there until the next reset if people want to stroll through. No monsters this time.😏

Thank you so much!!

Yes.

It's been a blast so far! @wednesdaywoe stopped in, and she took and put up a cool video (spoiler alert, but for those who think it's "just a base" and haven't seen it...have a look!) And, we've had some wonderful costumes stop in! I just wish I'd gotten to take pictures of all of the ones I liked, but here are some we did get. My apologies for the ones without UI, because we also lost the names there. Bio Surge on cheat day: Ready Tobler One Esperette ZookyLaTooky The Philadelphia Phantom

I did come back to see because you replied. See this? This use of "elite" and your repeated claims that the base building community is "elite" are hurtful. I know a few people 'dismissed" the directory, but it's a valuable reference, and until such time as we have something in game to use, it's all we have. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I can't program the game, I can't get the devs to value the things I value, so I do what I can, and it feels really antagonistic when you keep putting it down. Even if the directory wasn't even my idea, I think it has value. Of course, maybe you don't realize how often I used to get asked, "hey what's the code for such and such base", so maybe you don't realize how often people DO use it. I wish there was another alternative, but right now, we improved what was there by updating and correcting it and making it so other players can't mess with entries that aren't theirs, and that's all we can do. As for the base building community being "elite", also hurtful. Different builders have different standards for themselves, and some have very high levels of expertise and skill, but it's not an exclusive elite club; no one looks down on those who do not do as much or have less skill. I help beginners all the time and all are welcome, and I encourage (and see) builders helping each other. I have never dissed someone's base for not being up to some imagined standard (or at all, honestly, there is no reason to do that!) Building is the marriage of imagination, perseverance, and practice. It's not some unattainable status that should be seen as exclusive, "elite". Do contests only award to the bases judged as best by standards that have to be set in order for it to be a contest? Yes. And that is why I said, contests have problems. Because there are lots of great bases out there, but in a contest, winners are limited. And I bet there are lots of great stories out there, but if you have a contest, winners will be limited. And then you'll get people complaining about how the AE people are "elite". But contests do open the doors for more people to be exposed to whatever the contest is about. More bases are toured. More stories are looked at. If you don't find some way to expose people, then you truly do have just the "elite" few who have managed to get people to their stories or bases, and the material is good enough that word of mouth does its work. But in my experience, only a few things will earn recognition like this, and authors, like builders, crave recognition. I do not know anyone who has written or built anything who does not want someone to come see or play what they've done. Hence, this dilemma. How to get that word out. I can only go by my experience, and my experience is, the more methods you use to get the word out, the more people will hear. Forums, discord, reference aids like a directory, streamers, YouTube, other social media sources, server leaders, posters, and announcements on General. Each of these will reach a portion of your audience that the others will not. Contests and giveaways will perk the interest of some; Tanker Tuesday type events will bring in others, but the more avenues, the better. Your description of what someone has to do to find a story driven arc (with no promises of quality) are a perfect example of why I was recommending a directory. First of all, someone would have had to put those tags on their story. "Story driven arc" can also refer to a story created for a specific role play, so there's that overlap. It just would be nice to have a reference, with a better interface, was all I was saying. It's also a hella work, so, yeah. Not ideal. Neither, as you illustrate, is the interface. My itemization of uses of the AE were not in order of most use. Obviously. It was just a list. Which means 1/2 are not. Isn't it a disservice not to also include them in what is written? Especially since they are the ones most likely to be interested in the story. But anyway. Enough. 🙂 I talk too much. Got stuff to do...

Yes. Thought I was contributing. Apparently not. I'll shuffle off now, let y'all figure it out. In my mind, having arcs meant to be stories, not farms, not RP specific to a character or sg, listed in searchable ways that are easy to understand, is preferable to a wall of choices that might or might not be what I want. So I suggested listing those out, separate from the chaff, so to speak, in a directory. Not like the base directory, where we'd like to list all the bases, but just a story directory. I want a good story with good action in my alignment. My guess is that people who go to the AE go for one of four reasons: 1. to find enjoyable new stories. 2. To farm 3. To make or play a story specific to an RP, or 4. To make really high difficulty content. And no, you can make really high difficulty content without just "throwing in GMs". Pairing some of the right kinds of debuffers with your damage will wipe teams out if you don't use them sparingly, for instance. Of COURSE there are certain combinations that are much more lethal than others. Picture an enemy group with sappers and Super Stunners and dark -tohit. There is a reason the general game doesn't put all of the nasty into one group, but you can totally custom groups that do. Very much not like "meeting a new group" in game. As to your swipe at me for not wanting to spend all my limited play time searching through the database to see what was there in terms of story, sorry that was my experience. I have farmed, finding a farm is easy. Story and alignment doesn't matter. But to find a story I'd like to try takes time. I was trying to show what someone who isn't a regular AE creator does to try and find something to play, someone who is willing and looking for a story to try. If you don't understand where the process falls down, you can't begin to address the problems. Guess I'm the odd duck (again) on actually playing characters from start to 50+, but I do that, and that is how the general game is set up. I can understand why people would create arcs for just the 50s, as you say, but I also know there are other people (and they are usually the story focused ones) that take their time and don't rush to 50. The people who only want to play 50s are usually not the ones focusing on the stories. Something to consider, for those willing to do so. Tapping out.

Now, I'm not usually in this topic area, but I have to say, I've always thought AE was a brilliant add to the game, and it's been disappointing that it's not caught on more. As someone who is -not- deep into AE, but who has gotten into some stories sometimes, here is my perspective, fwiw. I typically play with a friend, and we duo about everything. I've asked before, do you want to go play some stories on AE, because my friend is big on story; I thought it would be a natural fit. But no, because of "balance issues"; the custom critters can be super nasty. That surprised me, because as a team, we routinely tackle things we should not, at a high difficulty. We duo'd the ITF with a scrapper and defender at 1 star. I won't say that was oh wow, how did they ever do that, but clearly it is also not the easy route. But super nasty critters in AE can come swooping in and you have no way to gauge their difficulty before you're in the thick of it, and unless you're really in tune with what powers and powersets and combinations are going to cause the most havoc to the most teams as a AE writer, you can easily cause problems for people trying to play it without realizing it. And from the outside, reading the description, you get the standard warning of "this arc may contain" blah blah blah dangerous things, but you can't really tell HOW dangerous. We did create a duo just to do AE arcs, tho. I got to look through to find them. Looking for stories is just *hard*. Sure, you have the Dev Choice, but those are pretty limited in number, and if you're trying to go for staying just in AE, it's hard to go that route. We wanted: Stories that were consistent with our level throughout the arc Stories that were in line with our alignment (we were blue, and a great many of the stories I saw were red or at best, vigilante) Arcs that we could approach with the difficulty set to what we'd normally set our team at for whatever level, and be able to handle it with a bit of a stretch, that's the sweet spot. and of course, a good story. If I could have gone farther into what would be nice, it would be following a story through quite a few levels. Levels appropriate for your character. Yes, your character adjusts to the level of the mission, but we all know that a low level being bumped up to say, 45 or 50, is still a low level in many ways, and is going to get creamed. Yet many many missions aimed their level at the highest levels. Many others jumped around; we eliminated those from consideration. We ended up taking the duo out for a while and doing TFs, because it was just really difficult to find missions with a good story for blue side that were consistent with their levels through the arc. Now, starting out. there are a few low level arcs, but finding them after that and being able to progress a character through AE while being true to your character's level proved to be too much of a challenge. We wanted to spend the time in the missions, NOT searching through an uncooperative and ultimately uninformative UI. Either there were not enough missions written for lower level characters that were consistent, not being a low level for the first story and then jumping up to a higher level for the next, for example, or it was too difficult to find such stories. I would like more categories or tags, or something, to help people who aren't super familiar with the UI, find stories they will want to play. First, yes, let's separate farms from the stories. And I know there's a way to separate out things by alignment and so forth, and we are not likely to get work done on the UI, but as I see it, the biggest problem is there are just way too many stories, and it doesn't seem as tho any of them ever get weeded OUT. There's no way to see multiple arcs that are connected. There's no way to see which arcs or missions are written with the story as the priority. Have anyone considered creating a directory of sorts? A competition can pick out great stories, yes, but also create problems in the community; there are also people who really do not want to compete, and they can be some of the better writers, even. And even if a story does not win, that does not mean that the story isn't good. What about a directory where you can set up the UI how you'd like it? Our base directory was created with that in mind, so we could find a base whether we were looking for bases by a particular person, or in a particular theme, or we just knew something about the base, like, "it was a castle, really big, and dark" and then we could use those key words to find bases that had those characteristics. You could set up one for AE story arcs where you could look for connected stories, story arcs by topic as well as alignment, and stories written at a particular level and which are consistent at that level across the arc. Or whatever you come up with, you are more expert at this. But, having had some experience with usability, I would ask people who are NOT experts to evaluate what you're doing as you go, so you know that people not so familiar can find what they want. Regardless, I think that it's likely that such a directory would be hugely pared down from the mess that is the AE computer, now; plus, you'd get the story authors who are most interested in listing their works. Once we can FIND them, more people might run the stories and rate them. An icon might help with sorting out the current directory, sure; but you'd have to get the Council to do that, and I would not place bets on that happening soon, if at all. I know I would use such a resource! I mean, how do you find books you like? You go to the subject area you are interested in. Help me find an arc that's consistently written for a fairly narrow security level, where I can find things for my preferred alignment, that isn't going to be maxed with unexpected difficulty, and bonus if I can see that it has other arcs that connect to it, and I will give it a go if I'm looking for something new to do. I will bet that there are a lot of players who are intimidated by the thought of trying to sift through that interface to find a story worth playing. Instead, players rely on word of mouth or players they know.

Thank you! And thank you to those who came! We gave away a TON and had a TON of fun doing it. Backstage, the cast loves to share stories of the funny things you all do and say, the interplay with our characters. YOU ALL ROCK! Love the energy, and the community brings a ton of creativity in with them, too. Special thanks to the GMs who have selflessly helped out by staffing the mad scientist/doctor character who changes people into other things. We have a seriously brilliant cast who constantly crack me up with what they say and do, and we share lots of stories and pics backstage of the stuff you all come up with! Sunday should be a blast, and the next best chance to get millions worth of treats! We hope to see you there!