Mission Architect Tutorial 100 Series

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Overview

This tutorial will walk you through creating a very basic mission in the Mission Architect, the central feature of Issue 14. If you don't know where the Mission Architect is located, it exists in many zones, with an "AE" icon. Go to one of these locations and do the introduction, which will show you around the place.

This tutorial will not go into detail as to what everything is. The help system, and further guides, will go into much greater detail. This tutorial is here solely to "get your feet wet" and get your first mission created. This will take you step by step through creating a mission with a (very) small map and a bunch of bad guys to defeat.

When you're finished, go to one of the Mission Architect computers and click on it. You will see a list of published arcs. Don't worry about those for now. Click on the button in the upper right that says "Create a new story." A window will come up, filling your screen. This is the mission creation window.

Tutorial 101: Story Settings & a Simple Mission

Story Settings

Story Title

This is what your story will appear as in the browser. This is a text field. It does get checked by the censor list, as does everything. For our first mission, we'll keep it simple. In programming courses, the first program is often called "Hello world." That's boring. Let's call ours "World Domination 101." (OK, if you're feeling heroic, something like "Saving kittens 101.")

Story Description

"Story Description" gives a small blurb about what the story's about. Type in "Tutorial mission" and leave it at that.

Story Contact

Here, you can put in your contact name, if you want (we'll use "Bob.") Beneath that is Contact Type. This is where you pick from a long list of NPCs - including a custom one you can create. We're not creating one now (though it's easy.) Leave it at "Default."

Now lets create the mission itself.

On the bottom of the screen, you'll see an arrow pointing right that says "Mission 1 settings." Use ether one.

You should be on a page starting with "Choose mission settings."

The Choose mission settings page

There are two tabs here, Standard and Custom. Custom is where you would create your own enemy (or ally) groups. We're ignoring that one for now - play with it later.

Under Standard, you'll have a few buttons. The first is "Enemy group." This is a dropdown list. Since I don't know what level anyone reading this would be, we're going to pick a group that anyone can play with.

If you click on the word "None," you'll see the (long) list. All of them have the name and level ranges of those enemy groups. We'll use the very first one there - 5th Column (1-54.) Click that.

Next section - Map Type.

Click on "None." You'll see a list of map sets. Each of these sets has multiple maps inside of it. We're going to go down a bit and use "Warehouse Abandoned - City of Heroes set." Once this is selected, you'll see a new option, "Map length." You have four options - Tiny, Small, Medium, and Large.

Since this is supposed to be fast, we'll pick Tiny.

A new section will open up that says "Map." You can leave this at random... but what fun is that?

This selection only has two maps - Map 0 and Map 1 - as well as the Random option. Other map sets can have very lengthy selections. If you scroll through the maps, you'll see a floorplan represented on the right.

We'll pick the most basic map there is - Map 0. You should see a hall and a room. This will also give you information, much like the base editor, on how much is allowed (X many ambushes, items, etc.) Make sure it meets your needs - for this tutorial, it does.

Again, there are many optional settings. We are ignoring them for the purpose of this tutorial.

Next section - Write Text

This is not optional. In fact, if you click on "Show Errors" in the upper left, it's showing you that none of this has been filled in.

Mission Introduction Dialog - This is what the contact tells you when you talk to them. Type in "Hi there. I see you're learning to use the mission architect. Glad I could help!" (Yes, it's lame, but you'll see where it goes.)

Mission Send Off Dialog is what you see after accepting the mission. For this mission, just type in "Have fun storming the Castle!"

Compass Active Task Text - shows up in your nav window. Here, just type "Beat stuff up."

Still Busy Dialog - is what you see if you talk to the contact without finishing the mission. Just type in "Shoo."

Return Success Dialog - is what the contact tells you when you see them at the end of the mission. Type in "Thanks, you wonderful being you!"

Click "Mission 1 details" on the bottom right to proceed.

Mission Details

There are two sections here - basic and advanced mission goals. Given this is a basic tutorial, we're just going to touch on Basic Mission Goals.

We want to beat stuff up. Pick Defeat All Enemies. You'll have two choices - Defeat: ... everything on the map (literally defeat all) ... everything in the last room.

Either will work for this mission.

Look to the upper right. If you see "No errors," you should be ready.

Click on Save and Test in the lower right. In the dialog that comes up, pick Save and Test again. It will ask for a file name - call it "Tutorial 1" or something.

Click OK, and select "Accept" in the dialog box.

Now what?

Now, if you're in the main floor of the AE building (with the energy cascade,) you'll see some holograms. By default, they're a generic male form (like in the costume creator.) Had you picked a contact (say, Ms. Liberty,) it would appear like that character. Select "Ask about available missions."

You'll see some of the dialog you wrote. ("Hi, so you're learning to use the mission architect...") Click accept, and it'll tell you to have fun storming the Castle. Click "Leave," and go to the energy fountain int he middle. Like a portal, it'll take you to the map.

Now go beat stuff up!

Inside the mission.

You'll note, up top, that you automatically have an "Exit" button as well as "Architect options." Don't get confused - when you actually do finish the mission, you'll get a "Mission Complete" dialog coming up. (If you were playing a published mission, you'd also get a dialog to rate the mission and send a comment.)

The mission we made should only take a moment to defeat - go finish beating things up, and come back. Hit Exit when finished.

Publishing a story

All right, so this is the rockinist mission ever, and you want to share it with the world! How do you do that?

Go back to the computers that you used to get into the MA to begin with. Along the top, click on "My creations." Look for "World Domination" (or "Saving kittens" or whatever you called it.) Click on it, and you'll see it expand.

Expanding will give you two things - more information (map size, enemies and the like,) and a series of buttons. PUBLISH sends it to the Architect servers. It will take a little time to show up, usually a couple of minutes. This is the one we want.

Note that you can only have three published arcs out there. Yes, this is taking one up. You can have as many unpublished ones as you have space for on your computer.

Er, wait, I don't want that taking one up!

No problem. In the same section, you'll see "My published stories," "My unpublishes stories," "My characters" and "My enemy groups." Once it shows up in "My published stories" (again, it takes a bit as the story is reviewed," you'll get another button that says "Unpublish." Select that, and it will free up a slot.

Now that you've done it once, feel free to go back and explore your options. I hope this little walkthrough has shown you how quick and easy it is to create the basic framework which will let you expand and tell the stories you want.

Mission Creation Tutorial 102: Basic Story Setting Options

Overview

If you haven't done the basic mission creation tutorial guide, you may want to, as I will be using that mission as a basis for this, and possibly future, guides.

All right. We have our basic World Domination (or Saving Kittens) arc. One simple mission. Open this mission up from "My Local Missions."

We skipped multiple sections when we did the walkthrough. Let's go back and look at the first page, Mission Settings. Specifically, we're going to look at optional sections.

Start by going up to the second icon at the top and pick "Save as." Give it a name such as "Tutorial 2." This will preserve your original so you can go back. When editing, it's a good idea to save prior versions before doing anything - don't rely on the autosave button. If you save, you know where you're at.

Choose Mission Settings options

We're not going into custom groups yet - one step at a time. Under Choose Mission Settings, you will see two optional sections:

• Mission Parameters
• Mission complete Clue

We'll look at these individually.

Mission Parameters

Click on Mission Parameters. If you click on the blue square with the quesiton mark, you'll get a simple explanation of the two options in here.

Mission Pacing

Mission pacing refers to how the levels of the enemies change through the map spawns. You have four options.

• Flat - All enemies stay roughly the same level.
• Back loaded - Enemies will start off lower level in the beginning and jump up higher near the end.
• Staggered - Personal favourite. Enemy levels can vary throughout the mission.
• Ramp up - Similar to back loaded, but with a steady progression up in level or difficulty.

The default setting is "Flat."

Time to Complete

If you want the mission to have a time limit (the default is no limit,) this is where you select it. You can't just type in a time, however. You must pick from a list, ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours.

Your choices are 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes and 2 hours.

Please, if you use this option, be realistic (unless, like Tina McIntyre's infamous mission, you want the chance of failure to be high.) Also, if you use this option, pay attention to the next section, "Additional Text."

Since this is a tutorial on a very small map, set your time to complete to 5 minutes.

Mission Complete Clue.

This is very simple - you have two fields, one of which lets you give a title to your clue ("An interesting find") and a description.

Write text

This section missing description of 5 fields

Additional Text

This section has multiple options. We'll be filling in everything here.

Mission Title

When you go to talk to your contact, often you'll see a title and subtitle - Levantra, for instance in the Rikti War Zone has an example of this with "Introduction to Vanguard, Part 1." This is similar to the "Introduction to Vanguard" at the top.

Fill in "Mission Creation Tutorial."

Mission Subtitle

This is where you'd put in Part 1, Mission 1, Beginning, finale - whatever you want to call your chapters.

Fill in "Misison 1." Yes, it's boring. But you only have one mission.

Mission accept text

This is the "Accept" that you click at the bottom to take the mission. By default, it is filled in with "Accept."

Fill in "Now see what you've done!"

Mission entry popup

This is the window you see come up in many missions - "This office is nice. It won't be nice when you're through with it, but it's nice now," for instance. It's a little opening flavor bit.

Type in "Times must be tough. They seem to have gotten a storage unit instead of a warehouse."

Mission Success Popup

This pops up if you've successfully completed a mission. You don't see these very often, actually, but if there's some action you want to imply ("Soldiers come up and whisk your hostage away," for instance,) that's what you put here.

Type in "Well, that was easy."

Mission Fail Popup

This is the same as the Success popup - but obviously only comes up if you fail. If the mission is able to BE failed (timed, prevent X from being destroyed,) you may consider using this. ("You emerge from the rubble. Time to face the music.")

Since we have a five minute timed mission, go ahead and put in "You wake up... oops, bad time for a nap."

Return Fail Dialog

This is what the contact tells you if you failed the mission. This is a bit more important, in my opinion, if you have a failable mission. You can use it to segue into the next mission, or give a story ending ("Well, you failed, and it looks like they now have a biological weapon. We'll have to hope they don't use it.")

Type in "What were you doing, sleeping? It's so hard to get good help these days."

Running the mission

Save the mission again. We won't publish, since this is just for your own use.

When you look in the mission browser, you should have two, possibly three, World Domination 101 missions. If you look closely, you'll see a file name listed under each. One will be "Autosave," possibly. The others will be Tutorial 1 and Tutorial 2. We just finished Tutorial 2, so that's what we want to run.

Start the mission, talk to your contact, enter the mission...

Then go get some coffee or something. You should have a 5 minute timer to let run down. This will let you see the "failed" dialogs and contact response. After you do, run it again and play it, beating those wuss 5th Column troops. You should see an end of mission dialog box, and different dialog from your contact.

Tutorial 103: Adding a second mission (and beyond)

Overview

The Mission Architect file you've been saving is a .storyarc file. As the name implies, it doesn't have to be a single mission - and I'm willing to bet, more often than not, it won't be. An arc, of course, consists of two or more missions. You've likely run these either as mission arcs or strike forces, task forces, or trials.

Any arc you create can have from one to five missions in it (at time of I14 Open Beta. The restrictions may be changed later through various awards or at the whim of the developers.) This tutorial will expand the "World Domination 101" mission into a two mission arc.

As always, open the most recent local copy of the file on your machine (Tutorial 2) in the Mission Architect. Click on Save As... and save it as Tutorial 3. This is the copy we'll work with.

Creating a second mission

Adding another mission to your arc is very simple. Select Tutorial 3 and hit "Edit," then look at the editor window. If you look to the right of your mission "books you'll see a button that says "Add mission." Click that.

You will now have a new, blank mission called "Mission 2 (1-54)" ready for editing. These titles (Mission 1, Mission 2) cannot be changed, but they have no impact on how anyone else sees your missions. The 1-54, as you might have guessed, is the level range. This will be determined by the critters in your mission - it can change from mission to mission. We'll get into that in a later tutorial.

Page 1 of Second Mission

For now, let's make a second, fast mission. Under Choose Mission Settings, Type in or select the following:

• Enemy Group: 5th Column (1-54). Again, we're ignoring custom groups.
• Map type: Again, we want something small, but we'll pick something a bit bigger this time. Pick Office Abandoned - City of Villains Set.
• Map Length: Small
• Map: Office Abandoned: City of Villains - 8. This is a two story map.

Skip to Write Text, for now. If you want to play with the settings dealt with in 102, come back to do it. We want to get you a second, working mission. Under Write Text:

• Mission Introduction Dialog: We've found more 5th Column for you to clean out. They're in a warehouse down the way. Go get 'em!
• Mission Send Off Dialog: Show those goons who's boss!
• Compass Active Text: Clear out the 5th!
• Still Busy Dialog: Are they gone yet?
• Return Success dialog: Great job, $name, you really showed them!

Page 2 of Second Mission

(We'll get into the dollar strings later.) Now click on either "Mission 2 Details" or the "2" page on Mission 2.

Oh, didn't I mention that? Yes, the "1" and "2" in the mission books actually have a purpose. You don't have to arrow through each mission! If you need to fix an objective in Mission 4 of an arc, you can just click on "Page 2" of your "Mission 4" book, and it'll jump right there!

The first mission was a defeat all. Let's pick a different one - Fight a BossItalic text, under Basic Mission GoalsItalic text. We'll go over each basic goal in the next lesson. Right now, just fill in the blanks.

• Boss name: Put in Bob. Because that smiling guy is just creepy.
• Boss Enemy Group: 5th column (1-54)

Optional settings will be explained in the next tutorial.

Click the first check mark to save your mission.

Testing your mission

Just click Save and Test, right? Well, hold on a minute.

Yes, our first mission was short, and wouldn't be hard to play through to get to your second mission. Before finally publishing an arc, you'll probably want to do just that - play the whole thing through. Right now, though, we just want to see mission 2. How do we do that?

We rearrange the books up top.

The books aren't just for show and quick navigation. If you've just finished Mission 5 of an arc and JUST want to test that, you don't want to play through the first four missions. So, click on Mission 2, hold down the mouse... and drag it in front of Mission 1. The cursor will indicate it's dragging the mission by turning into a hand clenching a bunch of pieces of paper. Anywhere on the "ribbon" in front of the first mission will do.

Now, click Save and Test. Go wipe that smile off Bob's face!

Remember to drag them back into order when you come back, then re-save the storyarc.

Errors and Editing

Ah, so things don't always go as planned. If you look in the upper right hand corner, you'll see a little speech bubble and, hopefully, "No errors" in grey. If there IS an error (forgotten mission objective or other, required piece of text, for instance,) that will turn bright orange and give you "Errors found."

Well, that's not useful. But wait! Before you go laboriously digging through your missions to try to figure out what's wrong... click on that bubble. You'll see that it expands, listing specifically what's wrong!

Now, that's useful. But wait, there's more! Yes, for no extra charge, it will actually take you TO the area that's causing problems! Just click on the specific error (say, "Boss Name not provided") and faster than you can say COH/V, it takes you to the page the error is on and highlights the field in red for you to fix!

Handy little bubble, isn't it. You'll find little tricks like that all over.

In fact, you'll find it just below, too, in the Mission Description. Don't like some of your dialog? Click on it -- it'll take you to that line so you can edit it. Want fewer (or more) glowies to find? Click it! Nice little time saver, wouldn't you agree?

Deleting a mission

All right. So you want to delete a mission. Maybe it's so messed up a little tweak won't help. Maybe you accidentally clicked "Add mission" twice instead of once and now have a blank mission. So how do you do it?

For the purposes of the tutorial, click "Add Mission" again. You should now have "Mission 3" available.

Looking at the mission "books" up top, you should see a little red dot next to them. Click that, and it will delete that mission. Take a look at the mission first -- click on the "1" on the book to see the first page, just to make sure you're deleting the right one. In this case, it will still be "Mission 3." It will disappear from your list.

I personally recommend saving your arc before you delete a mission, JUST in case. (Call it something like "Delete M3") -- we're not going to do this for this tutorial, but when you really get into editing, just assume you WILL make this mistake at some point. This little precaution will save you grief and headaches. (Note that you might want to check into CVS systems suggested in open beta for versioning and archiving. Or, you can back up your MA files stored locally on your hard drive in some other manner, such as putting on the list of files to be backed up with your back-up software.)