Author Topic: Tutorial 2: New Mission  (Read 11061 times)

RedTomax

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Tutorial 2: New Mission
« on: October 28, 2008, 02:22:15 PM »
WORK IN PROFRESS!

Tutorial 2: New Mission

Here's the fun bit!  When you start out you will see this header.  As you add missions to the arc you will see them listed here, along with the option to add further missions to the arc. 


For now though, let's move on to the interesting part, creating your new mission.  To make things easier I'm going to break things down into three sections:
  • Pre mission
  • During mission
  • Post mission


Section 1: Pre Mission
Here we define what the mission is and supply the introductory and acceptence text.
  • The part number .. this is the index of the mission in your arc.  Use this field to order the missions in your arc.  It should be unique, but at the moment it is your job to make it so :)
  • The mission accept title .. Imagine you're in the game right now, when a contact offers you a mission at the bottom of that panel is a short piece of text (in green) which you click on to accept the mission.  This is what you enter in this field e.g. "Agree to start a Task Force", "Take Down the Freakshow in Talos Island"
  • Mission Briefing .. this is the introduction to the mission, it is was it said before you accept the mission.
  • Mission Acceptance .. this is the 2nd part of the introduction to the mission, it was what is said after you have accepted the mission.
  • Goal ... The headline that appears on your nav for the active mission
  • Subgoals ... Secondary goals for your mission
  • Type ... What kind of mission is this (this list is liable to change based on what mission types are available in-game to Architects)



Section 2: During Mission



Section 3: Post Mission


Note: Use $name whereever you wish to refer to the player character's name in your text.

TopDoc

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Re: Tutorial 2: New Mission
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2008, 09:38:17 PM »
You're missing a few things here...

Maybe it's in Tutorial 1, but there can be many Contacts for a mission.  Most missions are given by a specific contact redside, or a specific origin contact blueside.  But some missions (Talk to the Security Chief...) are given by multiple contacts.  There are also some missions in the 30-40 range that are given by multiple origin contacts, so you can do the exact same mission twice.

Missions don't have an order, they just have prerequisites.  For example, Gordon Stacy will only give you the mission about The Doctor when you first talk to him. I assume all of his other missions have that as a prereq.  Some TFs (like Posi) don't always match the order you have on your site because it isn't fixed.

Some missions have multiple-choice names for bosses, location, or something else.  For example, you're supposed to defeat Zip or Zop, or maybe rescue workers in the Old Cloth Mill or the Old Newspaper Factory.

Missions always have a fixed map type and size.  Sizes are usually 30, 45, or 60, and I think represent the number of spawns or maybe spawn points.  There are usually many different maps for a given tileset and size, and the game picks one at random.  The map can also be unique.  I use /whereami to find out map info.

The zone can be fixed or variable for a door mission.  The mission that spawns the Kronos Titan is always in Founders Falls, while Croatoa and Striga contacts always give missions in their zones.  But most contacts give door missions that can be in any level appropriate zone.  The only way to find out is to do the mission a few times and see if the zone is always the same.

If you visit your contact in the middle of the mission, they'll have another line of dialog that I call the Mid-Mission.  Often it's a repeat of the Mission Acceptance text, but it can be hints or just about anything.

After you turn the mission in, there's some text that a random pedestrian may say near you.  Things like "I hear TopDoc recently saved some people from the Freakshow.  I'm glad he lives in Paragon City."

RedTomax

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Re: Tutorial 2: New Mission
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2008, 11:19:21 AM »
You're missing a few things here...

Maybe it's in Tutorial 1, but there can be many Contacts for a mission.  Most missions are given by a specific contact redside, or a specific origin contact blueside.  But some missions (Talk to the Security Chief...) are given by multiple contacts.  There are also some missions in the 30-40 range that are given by multiple origin contacts, so you can do the exact same mission twice.
I'm presuming in the mission architect that all missions are given out by a central contact .. something like a SG mission computer.  This part of the tool is purposely removed when a non admin uses the tooling.

Missions don't have an order, they just have prerequisites.  For example, Gordon Stacy will only give you the mission about The Doctor when you first talk to him. I assume all of his other missions have that as a prereq.  Some TFs (like Posi) don't always match the order you have on your site because it isn't fixed.
Working out all the pre-reqs is well beyond my time limitations unfortunately, so I give each mission an order that represents the order I ran through them to at least give some sense of seqence to the missions.  I believe some missions only open half way through a contacts level range, but determining that is also beyond my capabilities so I stick with the overall range :)

Quote
Some missions have multiple-choice names for bosses, location, or something else.  For example, you're supposed to defeat Zip or Zop, or maybe rescue workers in the Old Cloth Mill or the Old Newspaper Factory.
Again, I just use the names of the version of the mission I ran, I didn't think it was worth trying to include all the minor variations as getting all the missions recorded in the first place is something I'll probably never get to anyway.

Quote
The zone can be fixed or variable for a door mission.  The mission that spawns the Kronos Titan is always in Founders Falls, while Croatoa and Striga contacts always give missions in their zones.  But most contacts give door missions that can be in any level appropriate zone.  The only way to find out is to do the mission a few times and see if the zone is always the same.
I take an educated guess as to when zones are fixed, I've played through most missions 3 or 4 times over my career now, and they only tend to be fixed when there's a reason in the story I find.  Otherwise I leave the location field blank.  For mission architect I am presuming that there will be no need for a location field as missions will be accessed through a central portal of somesort.  Although if it allows you to create a talk to or street hunt mission that field would be needed I guess...

Quote
If you visit your contact in the middle of the mission, they'll have another line of dialog that I call the Mid-Mission.  Often it's a repeat of the Mission Acceptance text, but it can be hints or just about anything.

After you turn the mission in, there's some text that a random pedestrian may say near you.  Things like "I hear TopDoc recently saved some people from the Freakshow.  I'm glad he lives in Paragon City."
I decided to omit those in my original data, along with the mission intro and notable foe converation, I later went back and added in the mission intro, no plans to add the other info in at the moment -- maybe one day when I've already got every mission in the db, or when there's other people helpig me document the game's missions :)

If the in-game mission architect alows users to enter this level of detail I'll extend the db to support it then, I hope we'll hear some solid details about the user created missions capabilities sooner rather than later.  I've never been invited to any closed beta's previously, and don't expect that to change so won't be able to see it for myself until it goes into open beta, which should still give me plety of time to get it ready for this stuff going live.

TopDoc

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Re: Tutorial 2: New Mission
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2008, 03:12:11 PM »
I believe some missions only open half way through a contacts level range, but determining that is also beyond my capabilities so I stick with the overall range :)

Right, I forgot about this.  Some missions have level restrictions.  I wanted to get my Nemesis Staff on one char and so went through all of Tina Chung's missions at level 30.  Nada.  Once I hit 31, it was the first mission she offered me.  Of course finding out the level ranges for missions is rather hard and doesn't really accomplish much.