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City of Heroes Interviews: Mission Architect Awards Announced and Discussed
Today, Paragon Studios is announcing that they will be holding awards for the best use of the Mission Architect system. As a part of the announcement, our own Jon Wood spoke with Joe Morrissey about the contest and the feature that allows players to create their own in-game missions.
By Jon Wood on September 30, 2009
When Paragon Studios first launched City of Heroes: Mission Architect, it was seen by some as a bold experiment. By throwing open the doors to the tool behind their game, they were doing what very few had ever done before, taking user generated content to the next level.
On October 25th, the company will officially recognize the best that players have had to offer over the last six months and they will do so in a place that their efforts will be most appreciated, at Hero-Con, the annual fan event held for City of Heroes.
Awards will be handed out in the categories of: Best Hero Arc, Best Villain Arc, Best In-Canon Story, Best Enemy Group, and Arc of the Year. The winners in each category will go home with a prize pack that includes a Sapphire ATI HD 3650 512MB GDDR3 video card and other items.
While players, who all have different tastes, will argue the merits and detractors of the system, it’s hard to argue with the statistics that show its popularity. Since its inception six months ago, 200,000 have been published to the game’s servers, while 50,000 are currently active.
“When we first launched Mission Architect we only allowed three arcs per account, so players would fill up their slots pretty quickly,” Paragon Studios’ Joe Morrissey told us when asked about the 150,000 not on the servers. “Then, many would have a different story they would want to tell so they would remove one of the published arcs and put up a new one. This showed us how much the community was enjoying the system, and we wanted to support them so this is one of the main reasons we brought in the micro-transaction that allows players to buy more slots. Now players can gain up to eight Mission Architect slots. However, if one of your arcs is dubbed Developer’s Choice, that arc moves to the Dev Choice section of Mission Architect and frees a new slot for you to use! This encourages people to keep making good stories in the game. So the two numbers you see in the announcement refer to the number playable arcs versus the number of arcs published to the servers over time.
In light of this announcement, I asked Morrissey about the system and how it has affected both the development of the game, and the way that Paragon Studios develops the game:
“We’ve always been a very community focused team so to some extent we haven’t really changed all that much,” Joe answered in response to a question about how the new system has changed the way that the studio interacts with its customers. “That being said, we have shifted our focus with Mission Architect to some degree. Now we feel as if we have an extension to our development team working on the game with us. This team is made up entirely of players who are really excited about trying to create the best content possible for our game. We’re not just looking for subscribers, but participants in the game.
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On the development side, Joe told us that, “We’ve become a lot smarter about how we handle our assets. Now everything we do has to be looked at through the lens of ‘how is this going to work in Architect’? We have a similar focus when it comes to Flashback. With Mission Architect the goal has always been to give the players access to as much of the content we’ve built as possible. That means, enemies, maps, powers -- all of it has to be created knowing that we will potentially end up giving it to the players. Again, it’s supporting our player base as a secondary development team.”
It isn’t all roses and sunshine when it comes to talking about Mission Architect. Like any new system in any new game, it has its supporters and its detractors. In that light, I asked Morrissey if he could speak to the players who accuse Paragon of creating the Mission Architect system strictly to keep from having to add new, developer created content into the game.
“Heh. That’s funny,” he answered. “Seriously, it’s harder to create the tools and the content for the players to tell ‘their’ stories with than it is to simply tell the stories ourselves. It’s not an easy job, even after we launched Mission Architect. We now have a full time designer just handling Architect along with the continued code and art support.
“Also, I should point out that the present is important but we’re also focused on the future of the franchise with the Going Rogue expansion. Our entire team is cranking on this right now. It’s got a lot of content in it and once it comes out I don’t think there will ever be an argument that we’ve ‘checked out’ as a development team. We’re actually doing the exact opposite. We’re working twice as hard now to give the players the content we want them to play as well as supporting them in creating the content they want to play.”
The Mission Architect system is built in such a way as to recognize creator excellence. First, players are able to vote on and rate the work of others and second, developers have their chance to highlight player work that they find exceptional as well. So, what gives? Why the need for these awards?
“Well, these awards look at all of the content that’s been submitted for the awards regardless of the current rating of the arc,” he said. “It’s a great way for players who haven’t gotten the attention they want on their arc to have their voice heard. Also, this award takes place outside of the actual game so it’s a great way to be personally recognized for the hard work many of the players have put into their stories.”
Players can submit their completed arcs (in English) any time before 11:59 Central Time on October 11th, 2009 by emailing them to: CoH_ArchitectAwards@paragonstudios.com. Please click here for submission format and full terms and conditions.
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so do i sibmit the file or he arc id?
MA killed socialization in this game , what was left of it, bold experiment ? not really , it was a way for devs to circumvent writing any new content. Champions Online however is the New Hottness, this is the old busted joint.
I wouldn't call it old and busted till the community is completely gone. I also would hold off on that new hotness with CO till all their nerfs are done. It is easy to bash up on CoX, but it is almost as easy to find all the same things to bash up on with CO.
this contets is a great diea!
I actually just cancelled my 6 month sub of Champions online now that my first fre month is up and bought a 3 month sub on my old account at CoX I have been making some NPCs the last fewe nights and just began work on a new arc.
With the issue 16 changes to the game CoX is hands down the best super hero game on the market. I played CO in beta and then now for the last month and it's good but frustrating. Give the dev team a year to hammer out the lumps and it might look a little better.
Do we do a print screen of the first page of the arc creator screen or just submit via arc ID#?
MA is the best thing ever. Letting the community develop new content allows variations unlike any other mmo. Devs are great when building content but allowing different minds exressing their own individual creativity goes beyond the original focus adding the variety needed to give the game adventure and become less predictable. The MA tools built for users to create Missions shows how talented game devs really are. As well the users creating missions do amazing stuff themselfs.
I believe you take the save file that you can download file when you save it and send it to that email.
I wonder how the devs decide how to check out player content? If 50k stories have been submitted, and the devs work 8 hour days, how many per day do they check out, and still do all their other work? How does a mission arc come to their attention? How can they decide what is good and what is not given the time they have to check things out?
I've always wondered about that part.
Me too. I always wondered how they can possibly check many of them out. Maybe they look thru the votes first.
So all 5 people playing the game will get a reward? Its a really good thing CO is failing, CoX was in maj0or trouble. Hope the expansion is a massive overhaul of everything.
Really it was in major trouble? I didn't notice. Does it have as many subscribers as WoW no but I wouldn't say it was in major trouble. The game has lasted 5 years.
It seems Freedumb is working on a light load at peak hours. Most of those are just farmers. I remember when there were at least 30 people at the BM in Cap, now you are lucky to see 10. Same goes for the WW on heroside. Finding a team 1-8 is easy after that it is a ghost town.
Freedom has been light for a while now. CoH is now a casual gamer game. It has been that way for at least a year. Yeah it beefed up with all the AE farms but now it is pretty much back to normal.
Such negativity.
CoX is not as full as it was, more's the pity, but it isn't exactly dead, either. I see a lot of players.
I'd like to see more, mind you. I miss the good old days, but if I spent all my time whining about how good they were and how bad it is now, I'd probably be posting to Everquest or something, instead of here, LOL.
CoX is still a heck of a lot of fun. It can be better, but it needs some radical new content. Quality of Life content has been nice, I love it, but we need something to galvanize the players into action.
I know one thing that really gets me pumped.... more teaming and really hard missions that require a team. Look into it.... LOL.
I used to like CoX. That is until Architect issue were released. It sounds awsome with player made content doesnt it? Thing is its really not, its a template with what you can play with, Id agree to it being fun for a day or two but thats it. People dont play it cause its fun, they play it because of the massive increase in exp you get compared compared to playing regular missions or killing mobs in open world.
The world is empty devoid of every player not maxxed out and even some of them are crawling around those MA studios. Wouldnt surprise me if this patch/issue would be similar to pushing a free fall buttom, for me the game died 2 weeks after player content was released, it felt meaningless to continue... Im not a great grind fan and I dont like searching parties for hours.
Like what another poster said in another thread though....
"Reactivation (free weekend) and double xp weekend on the same weekend, that is a sign of desperation"
Sounds like you're a CO fanboy. Or maybe a paid shill for Cryptic.
Wrong. CoX has always had reactivations/double xp weekends when new content goes live.
Sounds like the only desperation going on is from the OP.
You guys are really missing it.
There are some very good adventures in the AE lists, you just have to look for them. Sure, everyone is fixated on the pharms, but really, there are other missions out there, which have some clever ideas I know, I created some of them. And none of my missions are pharms.
Further, on CO.... CO and COX are both great games. I enjoy them a lot. Not having as many people is a bummer, but not a deal breaker.
cox has had double xp weekends with the reavtivation weekends after a issue release for looong time.i play on protector an virtue atm. an seen a few more people than 5 -playing the game.full group villain side on virtue. thought trolls could count,shame on me for asuming.
contest sounds intresting dont think ill have my 1st arch done in time tho.cox is still alota fun an has many levels to it. ae only added more to the mix.for some for while it became the pl spot . now its good for low levels toons to build up points for SO's at 22 threw the ae merchant.Theirs some creative great archs their to.
The AE farms that people claim killed the game are pretty much a thing of the past since Issue 16 hit the servers. Now the AE buildings are virtually empty and people are out doing normal content.
Is the game dying? In my opinion, no. I'm sure plenty left for CO but at the same time I think CoX will see some players who didn't like CO come and check out what the other super hero game is like.