MA questions

[B A D]

Hey gang.

Im currentlhy working on my first Arc - a little ditty between Winter Wicca and Inquisitor  Char. A couple of  simple questions:

1) whats a  good  length for an  arc to  run to get mucho feedback? I could make a 3 or 5 mission arc, but I know from my own ADD experience five missions makes me itch.

2) How much is too much to shove in a mission? My story could potentially involve rescues, glowies, ambushes, more ambushes, ambushes with pie, etc.

3) AV's -how do you do all that cool dialogue stuff (the ITF cutscene for example)

[Funeral-Pyre]

1.  From what I have read on the boards, 5 mission arcs are not very popular.  I believe shorter arcs are usually played more, but you have to go with what is going to tell your story.

2.  Try not to make your missions so burdensome that they become unmanageable for you as the creator or for the team.  Too many ambushes, etc., might make someone stop playing the arc and miss out on some good stuff.  I would recommend starting out mild and then testing it.  If you think it's too easy or get feedback that it is, you could always edit in an ambush and such.

3.  Right now, you cannot do any cutscenes.  I don't know if they are going to allow this in the future.  As far as regular dialogue, when you get to the mission goals for the mission with the AV, you will need to select Fight a Boss.  You will then be given the option of choosing a custom or standard character.  After that you can provide text for the AV when they are unaware of your presence, see you for the first time, you deal damage to them, when they are at 3/4ths, 1/2, and 1/4ths health, etc. 

[Viking]

I think perhaps the most important philosophy to live by is the following:

Playtest your own arc before publishing it.  If you find something frustrating, chances are other people will, too.

Other personal thoughts...

1)  I personally don't care whether an arc is long or short, so long as it is long enough to tell the story the author wants to tell.  If adding a mission helps tell a part of your story, then it has a good reason to be there.

2)  I generally find that most people dislike stuff that gets repetitive, or involves lots of "dead time."  Requiring the players to defeat all enemies on a ginormous map, or having to search out lots and lots of little glowing objects on a ginormous map, or having to escort a hostage from the back of a ginormous map to the entrance are typical examples of things that can get on people's nerves.

3) Getting feedback, I find, is more likely to happen from successfully promoting your arc.  And fellow authors are more likely to take a look at your arc if you're also willing to take a look at theirs.  Getting anyone outside of the FR/NRF community to look at and review your arc is pretty much luck of the draw - there's over sixty thousand published arcs already, and more keep coming.

4) Like Funeral-Pyre said, you cannot (at present) make cut-scenes for your arcs.  But you can have your NPCs speak at triggered moments, and you can assign them animations.  However, don't feel compelled to come up with text for EVERY opportunity.  Several of the conversation triggers can happen in rapid succession.  An enemy can go from not being aware of your existence, to seeing you, to being hit by you, in the span of a few seconds.  If you have text for each of those three triggers, they will fly past before the player has much of a chance to read them.

[Tortuga]

My approach so far has been to make a variety of arcs - my three published arcs are Short (1 mish), Long (3 missions) and Very Long (5 missions) at the moment.  The 5 mission arc has 3 fairly quick missions in it, which makes it way less time consuming and keeps the player feeling like he/she's trucking along at a good pace.

Last night, Viking and I playtested a fourth arc I'm working on, and that was really helpful.  It was a defeat all (because that worked with the story) but that made it ridiculously tedious.  There were clickies which added to the tedium and it was on a multi-tiered outdoor map which made us both grow tired of it.  I've since taken out the clickies and the defeat all and now the mission focuses on a wickedly fun twist.  Much more interesting.

Another mission had us escort 12 people.  On the map that I'm using, it's not that bad to escort 12 people but getting them to get into the glowing-red-outdoor-exit box was highly annoying.  I've changed that into a Free a Captive mission instead.

The best tip I can give is: play other peoples' arcs.  That's the best way to learn what's possible.  Viking and I are getting together Thursday night to play some FR arcs together.  We'd love for folks to join us.  I'll post that elsewhere too.

[B A D]

I will try like heck to finish my first arc by thursday.

Problem is, A better Idea keeps pushing out a good idea.

Im the Butterbur of MA crafting.

[Tortuga]

My first arc is still a work in progress, thanks to other ideas popping up, of which 4 are now complete (but only 3 are published).  I use the "My Creations" tab as a ideas list of stories - sometimes just a title, other times a key mission is whipped up.  It's a neat little system.