Pasting here from my post in the New Efforts thread, since I feel this discussion merits further. . . well, discussion!
My screen name is Tubbius.
I am a wholehearted City of Heroes fan, having played the final 4 years, 3 months, from August 2008 to 3 a.m. Eastern US time at close. My main character was a Plant Controller/Empathy/Ice Incarnate Santa Claus lookalike. He and his pet Fly Trap, Planty, took down many types of villainous scum all around Paragon City.
If I have to rebuild him and his fellow alternate toons, yes, that will take time. It's time I'm willing to give as I can, IF the game goes back online.
Will it hurt to have little or nothing but the "out of the box" installation to go with? Yes. I wouldn't automatically have the Santa hat, boots, and gloves that were part of his clothing, of course. However, admittedly, he didn't have that to begin with. His initial costume, which I kept saved on slot #2, was a bright red tuxedo and large top hat with a big, green necktie.
I am willing to rebuild, though. It would mean a reallocation of existing resources now much tighter per month than they were two years ago, but I would be willing to do so.
As for starting out at I23 or I24, either is doable. I suppose I24 would be preferable, given it was the "fix everything" patch and would mean a lot of stuff I never tried out since I didn't do the beta server at any point.
The question comes up on here as to whether the game would be in maintenance mode or not, stuck at I24 but without further development.
I raise this question, and I don't mean it to be crass. Merely straightforward.
What did YOU use the Architect Entertainment system for?
Were you a farmer? An author? A player who dabbled in it? A player who reveled in it? A player who ignored it?
My answer to that comes in just a moment--a handful of sentences, really. First, a little background: I teach English. I write for fun. I read a great deal. I love comic books. Put all that together, and I was an avid writer of AE arcs, releasing 8 over the time that the AE existed and that I was able to do so without slacking on my work obligations. Arguably, I believe I wrote the final arc in the AE system: PENGUIN Part 4, Waddle On, which went live around 8 p.m. Eastern on the last night. It saw 6 total plays and held a 5-star average rating.
To me, the Architect Entertainment system represents a great source of hope for the future of City of Heroes if the game returns. Even if we have the risk that the developers cannot craft future material, if the Architect Entertainment system is live and functional with the game's possible rerelease, what can WE, the players, truly do for our game, our developers, and our community?
Thank you.
Mostly when Hubby was PLing himself, my son, or others and was begging, "Can you please bring <insert character> to help for just a minute?" :roll:
Occasionally (like when he wan't home), I'd go explore arcs made by others. I really liked that the devs played through and picked their favorites, and I played a couple of those. I'm pretty sure I went through with your group a couple of times as well, if you are who I think you are. Tuesday night AE exploration with each week being a different arc, IIRC.
I never hosted such a night, but I did have a few arcs up and running, as follows:
City of Ho Ho Ho
Fox Hunt
Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City
This Costume Contest Sponsored by Tubbius
PENGUIN
PENGUIN Part 2: Waddle's Revenge
PENGUIN Part 3: Waddle to the Big Top
PENGUIN Part 4: Waddle On
Any of those sound familiar? :)
AE was my tool for GMing my SG/VG's.
I originally put up 2 arcs, but was discouraged that they were lost in the shuffle, though I stuck them up about hour 3 of the first day...then the system was revised, my stories got buggy, and, eh, I didn't download them or fix them. Occasionally I played AE, but not a lot. Though I played every day, I had a massive amount of alts and experimented with powers and fell behind on the content the last year or so, so I was trying to catch up.
I know there were good stories, I went through a couple of them but AE was not a big thing for me.
what I used the ae for was to tell a interesting story. I have spent months on, only to get a few play throughs from the other players, which I did not mind. I made "At worlds end" im not sure about the name I have to check my flash drive for the names.
Well the first was powerlevleing through the early 40's. But more importantly, I used the AE tickets to get stuff that were needed to make IO's. Sometimes it was worth AEing just to use the tickets to get the items you needed for your IO's .
Mostly for filming, though I did love writing arcs for it.
"Cause and Effect" - The timestream is unravelling and the Menders of Ouroboros are powerless to stop it
"Clerical Errors" - Help BAB prove his membership in the Freedom Phalanx after they lose the paperwork
"Dyne of the Times" - There's a new drug in Paragon City and BAB won't let it go unchecked
"For All the Wrong Reasons" - The ends justify the means for the Dark Watcher when it comes to forestalling a Praetorian invasion
"Hell Hath No Fury" - Uncover the secrets behind Lord Recluse's personal project, PROJECT: ERINYES
"Kill or Cure" - SERAPH needs a hero with Omega Clearance to stop an act of genocide
"Lights, Camera, MAYHEM!" - Rescue intrepid videographer Johanna Sinclair when she gets in over her head chasing the Phalanx for a story
"Positron Gets Some" - Synapse thinks Positron needs to get out more, and you get to help
"Too Clever By Half" - Vernon von Grun recruits you after he accidentally transfers Dr. Aeon's intelligence into the Devouring Earth
"War Witch Task Force" - Paragon City's most famous ghostly heroine is about to make a comeback
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Somehow never got around to trying it. Maybe I should when the game comes back.
Quote from: Samuraiko on July 07, 2014, 09:54:09 PM
Mostly for filming, though I did love writing arcs for it.
"Cause and Effect" - The timestream is unravelling and the Menders of Ouroboros are powerless to stop it
"Clerical Errors" - Help BAB prove his membership in the Freedom Phalanx after they lose the paperwork
"Dyne of the Times" - There's a new drug in Paragon City and BAB won't let it go unchecked
"For All the Wrong Reasons" - The ends justify the means for the Dark Watcher when it comes to forestalling a Praetorian invasion
"Hell Hath No Fury" - Uncover the secrets behind Lord Recluse's personal project, PROJECT: ERINYES
"Kill or Cure" - SERAPH needs a hero with Omega Clearance to stop an act of genocide
"Lights, Camera, MAYHEM!" - Rescue intrepid videographer Johanna Sinclair when she gets in over her head chasing the Phalanx for a story
"Positron Gets Some" - Synapse thinks Positron needs to get out more, and you get to help
"Too Clever By Half" - Vernon von Grun recruits you after he accidentally transfers Dr. Aeon's intelligence into the Devouring Earth
"War Witch Task Force" - Paragon City's most famous ghostly heroine is about to make a comeback
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
your cause and effect, was that shown in the closure video you made?
Quote from: Angel Phoenix77 on July 07, 2014, 10:15:32 PM
your cause and effect, was that shown in the closure video you made?
Mender Anomaly, who starts off the video "One Last Day", is the Mender you're investigating during the "Cause and Effect" arc, yes.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
I made three arcs designed to recreate a bad Dungeons & Dragons game.
I stopped playing for a while and of course they got broken by all the updates. When I came back, I saw them all broken and decided to unpublish, but I hadn't really thought about the fact that I no longer had the computer I had made them on, and thus didn't have the original files.
Whoops!
Oddly enough, I used AE the most as a crafting table...
There was a mission in there that allowed access to the table in the Vanguard base - with AE in
every zone, that ended up being really handy.
I did go through a stint of PL'ing while the CEBR missions worked well - mostly for lulz, but I
also spun up a couple toons that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise along with a couple
on my alternate accounts, for convenience sake.
Finally, I did run a few of the story missions - some of them were quite entertaining and creative.
I did also write a couple missions (just to have actually done it) to satisfy my own curiosity.
Regards,
4
AE was a farm. I grew lots of rare veggies there for crafting my IOs. Some types of common veggies was useful too.
I look forward to new and creative stories when I visit the place for farm run #20000
Telling the misadventures of my characters in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles – and I came up with more stuff than I could actually put down.
I fiddled with AE when it first came out. As I'm not creative, I picked the early Rikti farm as an example because it looked pretty simple and tried to replicate it. I never did figure out how people were tricking that out for the huge XP, mine was only giving regular XP amounts. And that was pretty much it for me on content creation. I lacked the creativity to come up with anything original, so I didn't pursue it further.
As for playing AE story arcs, I really had no interest either. Around my 4th or 5th year, I finally admitted to myself that I didn't really care enough to keep up with the minutia of COH's lore and mission stories. I glance at the mission text and just play the game. Thus, running AE missions was just going out of my way with the included downside of being saddled with alternative currency.
Never really used AE.. did a couple of those bubble farms back in the day.. but that was boring.. pretty much was done with it after that...
I made an Easter themed mission where the Clockwork King created an army of themed clockwork (robotic peeps, bunnies, and eggs) to amuse Penelope Yin, but they they ran out of control and were stealing all the baskets in the city. So basically you ended up having to work with the Clockwork King fix things and teach him a valuable lesson about Easter in the process. :)
That was about it for me.
Easy it was great for farming IO's Bronze rolls bank rolled my toons and filled out my toons
I farmed wolfs but I farmed with scrappers so they where perfect for me to farm
Simple really