Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Pictures from the Fifth Anniversary
The announcement said "CHAOS" and that's what it was. But, in a good way.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
I Don't Like Issue 14
Don't say that out loud, and please don't spread it around. Mobs with torches and pitchforks will show up. The Mission Architect is sacred and the best thing ever to happen to the game, if you read the forums. I'm... just not impressed. Or maybe just not interested, or both.
But, there's like a hundred new badges you can get! Yeah? Well, I could not care less about badges. I think you have to have some sort of collector gene to "get it," and I don't.
But you can earn tickets to save and get what you want! Oh, yeah? I thought that's what merits were for? And before that, it was just influence, which worked fine for me. Have you looked at the market lately? I mean, really? The market's always been... a little shaky, but right now* it's just ridiculous. Sure, selling common salvage is great. But wait until you try to buy something or, worse, wait until you try to sell some of that rare salvage you had saved to finance alts.
But there's unlimited new content! Think of the creativity! There are thousands of missions available. That's very true. Last I looked, the MA numbers were over 50,000. Part of that has either been removed by GMs and some have been unpublished by players. A HUGE part of that is farms. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate farming. I've participated in it before, and I probably will again. It's boring, but it can be effective. In fact, I was trying to get Tresa some XP last week, and came across a farm MA mission where the lieutenants were called "Tickets" and the bosses were called "MOAR Tickets." I finished the mission, and plan to never go back to it. I was on a PuG with Mo in Peregrine, and we ran a farm MA mission where the enemies were called "Meat." Mo got half a level off of that, and I hardly had to do anything. So, it served its purpose. It was effective, but boring.
Not all the MA missions are farm missions, though. A lot people actually tried to create actual missions. Like the person who tried a tribute "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Or the arc that I was on yesterday with a team where the missions were meant to resemble "Snakes on a Plane," "Shaun of the Dead" (which had the title character's name misspelled as "Shawn," not to mention other spelling and grammatical errors), and the Austin Powers movies. Aside from the fact that the devs have forbidden even parodying copyrighted material, they were awful. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" tribute was at best boring and pointless. The other was just terrible.
I've seen more than a few missions that someone wrote featuring their supergroups. That's very nice for those people and their supergroups. I haven't bothered attempting any of those.
Some people tried to write missions that fit into the game world. I've run into a couple of those that were are comparable to anything you might find in the game outside of the MA.
Here's the thing, though, for the people that actually tried. Some people write very well. Some people write pretty good. Some people should not be allowed to form written words. Most people, though, are mediocre writers. Once you wade though all the farms, the missions with (TEST) after the title, the ones with such "questionable content" that you know just by looking at the title that it'll be pulled within the hour, and the ones that have spelling and grammar mistakes just within the title, chances are you're going to end up with a sort of okay mission.
Of course, there are exceptions. But first you have to get past the 49,650 missions and arcs that are not.
* "right now" because that will likely change in the next couple of weeks for better or worse. It will either settle into a more predictable pattern which will become accepted as the norm OR something new will be introduced, again, and the market will change accordingly, again.
But, there's like a hundred new badges you can get! Yeah? Well, I could not care less about badges. I think you have to have some sort of collector gene to "get it," and I don't.
But you can earn tickets to save and get what you want! Oh, yeah? I thought that's what merits were for? And before that, it was just influence, which worked fine for me. Have you looked at the market lately? I mean, really? The market's always been... a little shaky, but right now* it's just ridiculous. Sure, selling common salvage is great. But wait until you try to buy something or, worse, wait until you try to sell some of that rare salvage you had saved to finance alts.
But there's unlimited new content! Think of the creativity! There are thousands of missions available. That's very true. Last I looked, the MA numbers were over 50,000. Part of that has either been removed by GMs and some have been unpublished by players. A HUGE part of that is farms. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate farming. I've participated in it before, and I probably will again. It's boring, but it can be effective. In fact, I was trying to get Tresa some XP last week, and came across a farm MA mission where the lieutenants were called "Tickets" and the bosses were called "MOAR Tickets." I finished the mission, and plan to never go back to it. I was on a PuG with Mo in Peregrine, and we ran a farm MA mission where the enemies were called "Meat." Mo got half a level off of that, and I hardly had to do anything. So, it served its purpose. It was effective, but boring.
Not all the MA missions are farm missions, though. A lot people actually tried to create actual missions. Like the person who tried a tribute "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Or the arc that I was on yesterday with a team where the missions were meant to resemble "Snakes on a Plane," "Shaun of the Dead" (which had the title character's name misspelled as "Shawn," not to mention other spelling and grammatical errors), and the Austin Powers movies. Aside from the fact that the devs have forbidden even parodying copyrighted material, they were awful. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" tribute was at best boring and pointless. The other was just terrible.
I've seen more than a few missions that someone wrote featuring their supergroups. That's very nice for those people and their supergroups. I haven't bothered attempting any of those.
Some people tried to write missions that fit into the game world. I've run into a couple of those that were are comparable to anything you might find in the game outside of the MA.
Here's the thing, though, for the people that actually tried. Some people write very well. Some people write pretty good. Some people should not be allowed to form written words. Most people, though, are mediocre writers. Once you wade though all the farms, the missions with (TEST) after the title, the ones with such "questionable content" that you know just by looking at the title that it'll be pulled within the hour, and the ones that have spelling and grammar mistakes just within the title, chances are you're going to end up with a sort of okay mission.
Of course, there are exceptions. But first you have to get past the 49,650 missions and arcs that are not.
* "right now" because that will likely change in the next couple of weeks for better or worse. It will either settle into a more predictable pattern which will become accepted as the norm OR something new will be introduced, again, and the market will change accordingly, again.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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