I have an answer you're not going to like:
I have *the* answer, and generally almost nobody likes it. But the real problem with the AE from day one is the devs had the entirely wrong idea about what the AE was even supposed to be. They saw it as a way to allow players to write their own content. That's wrong for one simple reason: most players can't write content. By focusing on making things easy for *authors* they made the experience terrible for *consumers*. Really, most of the architectural complaints about the AE boil down to that one simple fact.
The focus of the AE should have been on *consumers* of the content, not the writers. Which is to say, for every decision about the AE, the question should have been whether it improves the experience for players playing the content. I once told the devs that a big mistake they made was believing 10,000 authors was a success. 50,000 authors is a failure, because there's no possible way 50,000 of our players were even literate, much less competent authors. Success, for the AE, should not have been 50,000 authors and few players liking the content. It should have been few authors and 50,000 players loving the content.
We should have been a lot harsher on authors. We should not have been crying about how unfair it was to authors. We were looking for a fair rating system
for authors. As an AE author, I say screw the authors. What matters is that good AE missions survive and reach their audience, and everything else dies. If you want to publish a nonsensical grammatically random gibberish storm for yourself and your close friends to play, I was all for that - but with the catch that it was likely *no one* would ever find it unless they were explicitly searching for it. But if you actually wanted total strangers to play your work, it should have had to pass significant stress tests and reviews.
If you're primarily focused on the top 100, or 500, or even 1000 AE missions and arcs, questions like "what rewards should AE arcs have" and "how do we make a search system that works for players" start to become a lot simpler to answer. When you're talking about the 300,000 streams of consciousness that were actually in the AE, farming arcs were not actually the biggest problem. They were a symptom of the fact that people needed a reason to play AE content, and "for the rewards" isn't the only such reason people would, but it was the only reason they could easily satisfy. "For the stories" was an extremely difficult proposition for people not expert in finding things that qualified as stories.
The idea of dev-approved arcs having standard rewards was a good idea in theory, but because of the fact the AE generated more arcs in a day than the entire dev team could play in a week, it was impossible to execute on. And their hearts really were not in it, AND they were worried about being "fair" to authors, which once again is the cement shoes around the ankles of the AE. Be fair to the poor players that are going to be exposed to the content. For a business to be successful, it needs as many customers as possible, not as many employees as possible.
I actually had a lot of respect for Venture, bastard that he was about it, reviewing AE arcs with no concern for authors' feelings at all, and only looking at them from the perspective of the player that had to run them. Because that's what really matters: does it generate content that players actually want to run and enjoy running. Its ultimately the only thing that matters, and any AE author who disagrees in my opinion shouldn't be an author. Even I had trouble being that blunt, and to be honest I think that was a mistake on my part.
So this is what I would do if I was rebooting the AE and had enough resources to yada-yada-yada. First, anyone can make any arc they want, but that arc would have *no* rewards. They could play through it, or guide friends through it, and there would be no limitations on what you could do in these. You could even do things the devs originally banned for being exploitable, because exploits don't matter if there are no rewards. Fight Hamidon if you want, or spawn all the Praetorians at once. Test your build against pylons, or herd all of Creys Folly into a dumpster. No rewards, so nothing is off-limits. I'm sure there are players that would take advantage of that, rewards be damned. I would even create arena-like switches for those missions that would allow players to turn on and off certain effects, like travel suppression or the aggro cap (yes this requires a lot of code).
If you actually want your arc to have rewards, you'd have to submit it for approval. There would be two tiers. Tier 1 arcs would only award AE tickets and would have to meet certain well documented parameters. For example, some of those switches would be illegal in tier 1 arcs. We'd also run an automatic spell checker, and if you can't even be bothered to spell check, you get rejected. You'd have to show evidence you've put the requisite work into the arc to be deserving of any consideration at all. If the arc met the limits of most AE arcs, you'd get tier 1 certified quickly and your arc would award tickets. It would also be searchable as a tier 1 arc.
Tier 2 would be tricky. Unlike tier 1, it would reward standard rewards. And trickily, also unlike tier 1 it would have almost no limits. You could do things in Tier 2 you couldn't in tier 1. The catch is you'd have to submit the arc for special review. I would create a set of community reviewers pulled from volunteers with experience making tier 1 and tier 2 arcs, and they would be tasked with reviewing potential tier 2 arcs for problems, exploits, and quality of content. You'd need to have multiple approvals to be granted tier 2 certification, and you'd also be searchable as a tier 2 arc.
In all cases, people who tried to abuse the submission system in defiance of the guidelines would get warnings, then banned. Arc creation and publication (for tier 1 and 2) would be a revocable privilege.
On top of all that, I would create a curation system. Any player could create a curated AE list of their favorite or recommended missions, which players could see in-game. Good reviewers would tend to get more followers, which would increase the reach of their recommendations. "Softer" or less discriminating reviewers would tend to get less followers and less credibility. This would encourage honest reviewing, but open the door to many different perspectives to operate that honesty in. Someone that honestly likes a lot of combat but hates story could still be counted on to honestly review arcs with that perspective. Someone that honestly likes story more than combat could be counted on to honestly view arcs with that perspective. Different players with different perspectives but limited time to search around could gravitate to curators with similar sensibilities.
Not gonna happen, but that's what I think a consumer-focused AE system would look like.
