City of Heroes Issue 14 Update Previews
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 796
The architect system lets any player write the narrative, select a map, design and name enemies and boss fights, write out dialogue, and then upload and publish maps for others to experience. This means there's bound to be quite a bit of variety for those looking for something a little different, but perhaps best of all, participating in these player quests will bestow experience and more for kills and missions completed in the architect.
NCsoft is hopeful this system will work out, but is concerned about players who'll just set up scenarios meant for easy farming. To combat this, extra bonuses in the form of tickets will be allotted to those who actually finish a mission, so there's an incentive to do more than just darting in repeatedly and smacking around a few easy targets. Tickets won from making kills and completing outings can then be used for purchasing enhancements, recipes, and new maps and costumes for use in the architect, amongst other things.
And a snip from GameZone's article:
All local stories (the stories the player creates) are stored on your hard drive as text files. There is a My Published Stories, My Characters (custom characters) and My Enemy Groups (you can create your own enemies as well) categories that help the player create a rounded mission. And because players are taxed with creating the descriptions for the missions, it is possible to be as creative as they want (within certain filter parameters, that is). You can create your own enemies, using the character creation system already in the game, and it is possible to step outside of the game lore and create your own enemy groups and then create their own legacy. And who knows? If the lore is good enough, your enemy groups may actually surface within the canon of the game itself.
Once you have created a story and mission that you are satisfied with, you can upload so that other players can play that mission. When others are playing your adventures they get the equivalent experience points as if they were playing outside the mission editor. They also get to rate the mission afterwards and the player who created the content will receive benefits and rewards for higher-rated content.