Mission Architect

Architect

Overview

The Mission Architect, fictionally presented as a training exercise for Heroes and Villains, allows players to build their own Missions and Story Arcs and share them with others in the game. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game's detailed Character Creator, players can create missions by selecting options like size and type of map/environment, mission objectives and encounter types, and difficulty level of each encounter. Additionally, players can write all mission story fiction and character dialogue.

This feature was announced by Positron in April 28th 2008[1].

Players can create their own missions and they can play missions that have been created by other players. Once you have finalized and "published" your missions, they are accessible by all players across all servers. All players can rate player created missions and a Mission Browser lets players find available missions and story arcs through a variety of tabs, sorts and filters in an auction house type environment.

As missions are played and more people positively rate them, the creator gains rewards and access to unlockable content for his/her missions. Rewards will also be given to players of the missions. Players will gain rewards such as badges and even XP for playing user created missions and story arcs.

The Mission Architect will allow you to create your own named bosses, such as their costumes, powers, and spawn places. You can only have maps for missions that you have visited. By getting high ratings and having many people play your story arcs, you gain rewards such as Signature Villains/heroes as well as some unique maps to make into missions.

The Company

Architect

Main Article: Architect Entertainment

Architect Entertainment is a company created by Dr. Thaddeus Aeon AQSA, with Crey Industries funding.

More Info

What is Mission Architect?

Mission Architect is a new game system for the City of Heroes massively multiplayer game. It allows players to create their own stories and share those stories with other players on the live servers. Creators can pick from hundreds of maps and thousands of characters. They can use existing characters or create their own custom enemies. They can get even more detailed and create full enemy groups, giving each enemy unique costumes and powers. Players are allowed to write all of the dialog for their story as well as decide on level of difficulty and enemy placement. The developers have even given players the ability to trigger one mission goal off of another, creating a chain of events within a single mission. Each story can have up to five chapters or missions and each mission can hold up to a maximum of 25 achievable goals. For people who just want to play the user-created content, they can access the mission browser that shows all the generated content. Players can sort these stories by name, highest rated, length and recently added. Players can also filter content to show only those with specific ratings, arcs you have or haven’t played, as well as the alignment of the story. As people play content, they’ll be able to rate that content from one to five stars. Creators will actually get in-game benefits for making content that gets highly rated. The developers even offer a Dev Choice and Hall of Fame standing for the best of the best. [2]

What it's not

The Mission Architect is not a power leveling, farming, or badging tool. (Exception for badges directly related to the Mission Architect.) The developers have taken various steps to prevent this feature from being used for those purposes.

Architect Entertainment Stations

It will all start at Architect Entertainment Stations (AES) placed in multiple zones throughout the game. (1 in a co-op zone was implied, but not guaranteed. In open beta there is one in RWZ) Here you will be able to search for other player made missions to go on with or without a team, or create, save, load, test, publish, or unpublish your own missions. A quick note about the mission search engine. It will have to sort through content made by ALL players that have published a mission. So it's expected to load slower than the markets load.

What to Expect

A published arc can contain up to five missions. All Architect missions will be instanced and not in an open zone. While you are on an Architect mission it will be similar to being on a Task/Strike Force in regards to other contacts being greyed out. You may well notice that your toon's level has changed while in the mission. Your level can shift in either direction and can even vary with each mission in the arc.

After the published mission is complete, you can rate it from 1 to 5 stars and leave a comment (this can also be done before the Mission arc is completed), or report it as inappropriate and reasons why.

Rewards

Full experience (XP) and influence rewards will be granted for defeating enemies in player-made content. They are also giving players tickets in place of random drops. They can take these tickets to an Architect ticket vendor and redeem them for various in-game rewards, such as enhancements, recipes and salvage. Players will be able to purchase unlockable content with their tickets. They’ll be able to get maps, costume pieces and different characters. [3]

While in an Architect mission, players will NOT get: end mission bonus, salvage, recipes, or enhancements.

The only badges that will be awarded are those tied to the Architect. Defeat, Healing, Debt, and other non-Architect badges are not awarded.

Creating a mission for you and/or others

The exact order of mission creation isn't known, but at various points you will pick a mission type and goals, enemies and level, possibly a NPC combat ally(s) and/or custom boss, and a pre-made map and write the thing and save. The devs have promised us over 1,000 maps to choose from at launch, including all unique maps. (They also said no one wants to see Hamidon in the 5-layer room.) They would like to get us a mapmaker at some point, but that point will not be at launch. (It's a lot of work for that, folks.) Likewise mobs will spawn on the maps at preset points.

The ability to add a custom boss is the feature demanded and the reason the Architect is coming out an issue later. It's known that in [Issue 13], the ability to save and load costumes from the costume creator to the local computer. This feature will be also available for custom bosses. Each one will get a primary (attack) and a secondary power set.

No cut-scenes will be possible with the Architect.

Mission type and goals like glowie clicks or kill-alls are easy enough to understand. Turns out there is a link between enemies and level though, as enemies exist in various ranges and don't always scale out of those ranges well.

Enemies and allies can be pretty much anything you can already fight somewhere in the game. At the time of Herocon, even Giant Monsters were available for use in Architect missions.

Writing well is always a challenge, and this won't be any different. Players will be able to compose briefings, NPC dialog, clues, debriefings, and souvenirs, just the same as the developpers!

Saving is done to the local computer, and an unlimited number of missions can be saved. Missions can be edited offline, as the data is contained in a text file.

Test

Saved missions can be loaded for players teams. Suggeste uses would be SG initiations or just for laughs.

Publish

Players can only have three published story arcs (which can contain up to five missions each) per account, but can publish and unpublish at will.

It is worth noting that the character that is logged on when the mission is published is the character that is getting any Architect badge credit for that mission.

Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame

There are two ways around the three published per account limit. Dev's choice and Hall of Fame. These actually copy arcs onto the game servers and delete them from their published slot, freeing them.

Dev's choice simply means a dev liked it enough to save it. It's not canon, but they liked it!

You get a mission into the Hall of Fame when an as of yet unknown number of players rate it thumbs up.

Both of these will be search options in the Architect menu.

How long does it take to make a decent five mission storyarc?

You can create a single mission rather quickly, in less then ten or fifteen minutes. However, to truly craft something unique and excellent, a decent amount of time in the tool is needed. It could take someone a couple of days of to write, build and test something really good. [4]

Screenshot Gallery

• Massively.com and Ten Ton Hammer screenshots
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  "Welcome to Architect Entertainment"
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  Mission Architect UI - First Screen
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  Mission Architect UI - Story Settings & Story Contact Settings
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  Mission Architect UI - Mission Settings
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  Mission Architect UI - Misson Settings 2
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  Mission Architect UI - Mission 1 Goals
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  Mission Architect UI - Basic and Advanced Mission Goals
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  Mission Architect UI - Mission Text
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  Mission Architect UI - Custom Boss Settings 1
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  Mission Architect UI - Custom Boss Settings 2
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  Mission Architect UI - Boss Settings 1
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  Mission Architect UI - Boss Settings 2
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  Mission Architect UI - Creating an Enemy Group
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  Mission Architect UI - Staging the Boss
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  Mission Architect UI - Boss Animations
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  AE - Exterior - Atlas
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  AE - Interior

Mission Architect Guides

• Mission Architect Tutorial 101
• Mission Architect Files

External Links

• Forum Post from ImpulseKing
• From the personal memoirs of Dr. Thaddeus Aeon AQSA
• Massively.com Mission Architect Article - Feb 16th 2009
  • Screenshot gallery of Misson Architect - Massively.com
• City of Heroes Architect Edition: Hands-On Preview | Ten Ton Hammer
• CoH Issue 14: Video Q&A with NCSoft's Joe Morrissey | Ten Ton Hammer
  • AE - UI Screens | Ten Ton Hammer
• Forum Post from Ex Libris