Zaphir

I realize that it's an unfair characterization, but I also think that the context here is clear. I said in an earlier post that some people use them to build their own stories for their friends to play through, taking the missions they make completely out of the realm of "programmed superhero entertainment" and into "it's real to us" territory for those players, and that is a good way to do such things. But you also know that there is a reason why many people see it as "that place to level up fast at". And for every solid story you might find there, or even attempt at a real story instead of just an XP farm, I suspect that I would find one or more of those XP farms to go with it. Maybe that's the perception now, but it certainly wasn't that way on live. Just off the top of my head, there was an alternate contact tree made up entirely from best-of-the-best MA storyarcs, a review thread for hundreds of stories (and there were tens of other threads like this, as well as a dedicated site and a podcast), MA-playing supergroups, and people making the aforementioned in-character-ish review threads of their 1-50 AE-only journey (part 2). So what changed? BTW, the story arcs I mentioned are not really for RP within a small group of friends, they're story arcs intended for everyone, similar to the ones you see out in the world from contacts. See the SFMA thread. Of course I won't deny there are many farms -- there are way more farms than story arcs. That was pretty much always the case as long as MA existed, and wasn't helped by discoverability for story arcs being a HUGE issue (you could make a story arc and basically have no chance of it ever getting played). There seems to be something in the works in Homecoming, though (see sticky in MA forum). Getting back to the OP, though, 'killing' AE is the wrong solution here, I think. It's very much a baby-with-the-bathwater kind of solution, and it's not like it's ever going to be possible to stop people farming and powerleveling (and why do you want to limit other peoples' playstyle anyway?)

I remember that Origins made a lot of difference when getting contacts / missions in the earlier versions of COH. Your initial contact was tied to your origin (DATA/MAGI/SERAPH/GIFT/ELITE) and IIRC you'd spend the first 10 levels (a long time!) fighting the major themed enemy group for that origin; it was not possible to work with any of the other origin contacts. (I remember going Tech and developing an early disdain for Clockwork... :P ) Eventually they'd introduce you to a 'dual-origin' contact, and after that things got a bit blurry... I remember most high-end contacts being origin-agnostic, though. Honestly, I'm not sure it added that much to the game (which may also be why it kinda fell by the wayside) -- I prefer the current freeform style a lot better. * Ref: ParagonWiki list of origin-specific contacts

It kinda saddens me to see the common perception of the Mission Architect as "oh, it's that place for easy powerleveling/farming". Sure, that's a big part of what people used it for back in the day, but... there are also a lot of story arcs out there. Some of them are pretty great. Have you tried playing any of those? (search for 'SFMA' to find them more easily) Back on Live we had several communities built around creating and reviewing arcs, holding contests, etc etc. There were just so many story arcs that it was possible to level multiple characters entirely through MA, only playing story arcs (zero farming) and not repeating any content. Some people chronicled the progress of their character (also serving as a review thread) on the forums, which was great for highlighting story arcs while also providing an entertaining narrative. It is my hope that one day we'll have enough story arcs on Homecoming that this'll be possible here too!

The Mission Architect Tutorial on Paragon Wiki is pretty good! edit: The guide thread on the old forums also has a few guides, including recommendations on what powersets to avoid on custom enemies.

I loved using Air Superiority (flying power pool attack)... and not even because of its usefulness as soft control, but because the animation looked amusing. So much this. I've leveled some characters back on live entirely through player-created story arcs (even considering it was a very suboptimal way of getting xp/inf/loot), and it was amazing. I'm getting ready to do the same thing on Homecoming as well... fire up those [sFMA] tags, author people! :P

Yeah, we were just talking about this in the discord server the other day -- forums and stuff are nice and all, but most players / creators won't read them. IMO the main issue is that there are basically two Mission Architects: One is used for farming. A *lot* of people use the system for this, and honestly I have no problem with it. They want arcs with a lot of rewards and efficiency. There are many different subtypes (solo farm, group farm, xp/inf farm, ticket farm... many optimized for certain builds), so there's a lot of arcs in the system. Besides, farmers want variety too! One is used for stories and other activities (combat challenges, humor, SG events, roleplaying, what have you). Unfortunately the text-heavy nature of story arcs doesn't always lend itself well to play in large groups, so these are frequently played solo. The playerbase for the two does intersect sometimes, but for the most part, those looking for farms dislike inefficient story-driven things (my favorite story arc has a mission with basically zero combat / xp!), and may even downvote them... and vice versa, perhaps. But I think the two groups can totally coexist, as long as each could browse the things THEY want from the Architect. I 100% agree with what MCM said -- have two separate AE/MA databases (maybe even give the ones in the 'farm' DB 10% more rewards or something) and have players select which one they'd like to browse. With the source code, I believe something like this could be possible... eventually. :P

We should totally recreate the 'MA Arc Finder' channel! I still have screenshots of random Dr. Aeon and pohsyb sightings in there. :P (Seriously though, go for it! I think global channels are cross-server, too)

This has been re-uploaded and is no longer in limbo (yay!). New ID is 239.

Yeah, your old arc files should work; the only thing I had to change was set a contact category for some of them. Basically copy over the Custom_Critter (.critter), CustomVillainGroup (.cvg) and Missions (.storyarc) directories and you should be good to go! Unfortunately those bugs are still there -- whenever you enter a mission, all captives will immediately yell their first two lines (+ their captors will say their thing as well). Boss text works fine, though.

Who Dares Wins ID: 239 Faction: Rogue Creator: @Zaphir Level range: 30-35 Difficulty: Easy. No customs to speak of other than optional minibosses, no EBs, no timed missions. You have an ally in 3 of the 5 missions, and other sources of help in the fourth (you ARE a Sky Raider captain after all). Length: Fairly long; it has 5 missions, but 3 of the maps are Small. The other two are a Medium map and an outdoor map. Enemy groups: Crey, Rikti, Freakshow; some Council, PPD and Sky Raider cameos. Two custom "bosses" (LT-level). Possible annoyances: Mainly the fourth mission, because it's a kill-boss mission on an outdoor map, and we all love outdoor maps. Unfortunately, there is no better choice for that level, and it's not as bad as it looks (enemies should be spawning on the ground level and maybe the first level; they should NOT spawn on the catwalks at all) Synopsis: You are the leader of a Sky Raider strike force working directly under Duray's command. You've been planning a daring attack on Terra Volta for nearly a year. Nothing can get between you and your prize now -- or so you think. Note: This was my winning entry for Dr. Aeon's 3rd contest (Rogues and Vigilantes). I have noticed some strangeness with ally rescue text not firing, but this may be an issue with MA in general.

To me, CoH is about creativity. All aspects of the game are about the players expressing themselves in ways that no other MMO has come close to, in my view. The costume system itself is huge. So many games have characters with uniform looks due to gear or whatever, but in CoH everyone is (potentially) unique! Powersets have a TON of combinations that lend themselves to unique playstyles. The invention system is crazy in-depth, and can really change how a character plays even within the same powerset. So many possibilities when playing in a team. My character (rad/sonic defender) would focus on different abilities depending on group makeup -- sometimes almost playing like a blaster with debuffs, sometimes focusing on controls over damage, sometimes even mixing it up in melee with Total Focus and stuff. My most memorable group was 8 defenders burning through an ITF like nothing. What's this nonsense other games have about tank/healer/DPS? :P The Mission Architect is an amazing system that has not really been replicated anywhere else. It can tell stories (and I have played some great ones!), it can create challenge missions to push character abilities to the limit, it can be used to support RP and SG events... and yeah, it can be used to level and get resources very efficiently as well. And the barrier of entry is not particularly high, either, which helps a lot of people in making their ideas real and sharing it with thousands of players. Another thing about CoH was the positivity and helpfulness of other players. Sure, there were bad apples, but there is really no comparison with any other MMO I have played (before or after).

Celestial Nemesis and Doom Metal say hi (with energy punches and blistering guitar riffs, respectively)!

Heyyy, great to see some familiar names! We should totally resurrect the MA Arc Finder channel -- or have some threads to share story arc IDs, like in the olden days. I've seen some authors (like TheCheshireCat) on the Homecoming discord too, though the AE channel is not focused too much on story arcs at the moment. BTW, it seems like arcs are shared cross-server now after the May 1 update -- any arcs you had uploaded before that are also shared (and playable), but you may not be able to edit them anymore and won't be able to read feedback either. I've uploaded my old set of arcs -- the first three are in the aforementioned 'limbo' state, but I have control of the second three. You can find them if you search for @Zaphir: ID 710: Who Dares Wins (Rogue, 30-35) - A Sky Raider captain executes a daring heist on Terra Volta with unexpected results. ID 711: The Coldest of Wars (Hero, 40-45) - Crey awakens something sleeping under Paragon City, and it's up to you to stop it! ID 713: The Astral Prison (Hero, 40-54) - You awake to find yourself trapped on a strange alien world. Can you escape? ID 1300: Tales from a Scorched Earth - To Reign in Hell (Villain, 20-25) - Two years after most life on Earth was extinguished by a catastrophic solar event, you emerge from an Arachnos arbiter's bunker in Grandville. ID 1301: Tales from a Scorched Earth - Kali's Scythe (Hero, 20-25) - Two years after most life on Earth was extinguished by a catastrophic solar event, you emerge from a Vanguard shelter in Atlas Park. ID 1302: To Dream of Nothing (Hero, 20-29) - The PPD asks for your help with a missing person case that quickly spirals out of control.

Honestly, I have no problem with the concept of powerleveling / farming -- a lot of people do it in a lot of games (I personally find it boring and unengaging, but different strokes etc). It's natural that when the players have control of a system to create content optimized for their favorite activity, they'll do it. Admittedly, giving standard rewards to any AE mission skews the balance a lot from how it was in live (there you could only have tickets/xp for most arcs, and standard rewards were restricted to Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame). I love the Mission Architect, it is a great outlet for creativity and could be used to create a lot of diverse content (story arcs, challenge arcs, joke arcs, RP events, and yeah, farms) and I spent a lot of time playing (and sometimes making) story arcs back in the day. That said, if the only way to keep the servers from dying is to get rid of AE entirely, then I'd say do it... it'd make me sad, but eh, getting to play CoH again is worth it!

Heyo, I used to be pretty active in the Mission Architect scene back in the day (and I'm happy to see some fellow authors from The Olden Days uploading their arcs to Torchbearer!) -- it was a great addition to the game that allowed a lot of creative expression (challenge missions, fun/joke missions, farming, story missions, SG content, etc). I was delighted to see that importing my old arcs worked pretty much flawlessly, too! I am curious about how the server admins see the future of the MA on this server (or I25 in general). Specifically: Farms and farming is a (big) part of the AE, no question about that; however, farms have a tendency to dominate the AE interface over story arcs, which get fewer plays and have lower visibility in general. In the long run, this can make most story arcs borderline impossible to find unless someone knows the name/ID in advance. Back on the MA forums there were some ideas tossed back and forth about this, from entirely user-driven solutions (tags) to drastic stuff like having completely separate browsers for story and farm missions. Any thoughts on this? Are there plans for picking Dev Choice arcs in the future? (I have seen some mention of specific functionality in I25 for this) Would story arcs that had Dev's Choice status on the official servers (contest winners, etc) get grandfathered in? Players used to be able to buy additional MA arc slots up to a maximum of 8; any plans of putting these on the P2W vendor? Is AE content shared between the two servers (or planned to be shared in the future)? Thanks in advance for any answers, and really glad that COH is alive again! :D