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.

Creating the arc

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 "Warehosue 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.