CoX: Guest Authorship in Mission Architect

After the initial horrific farming experiences in MA, and the discovery that Sturgeon was correct when it comes to user-designed content, I’ve just never spent much time there with any characters — especially since, well, it’s one more layer of unreality than my brain is willing to suspend disbelief for. 

That said, think this is an excellent idea:

Popular user-generated content system attracts industry and comic book notables to try their hands at mission design NCsoft and Paragon Studios™ today announced the Guest Author program for the Mission Architect user-generated content system in City of Heroes. This program invites influential writers and aspiring game or story designers to collaborate with the team behind the City of Heroes MMORPG and publish custom missions directly into the City of Heroes game using the revolutionary Mission Architect system. Participants in the Guest Author program will be announced on a rolling basis. The first participants of this program comprise notable industry veterans from the gaming and online comic industry:

• Rooster Teeth (www.roosterteeth.com): The machinima producers that brought the gaming world the Red vs. Blue series and created a series of live-action shorts for City of Heroes and Mission Architect (starring Barenaked Ladies’ front man, Ed Robertson, as Captain Dynamic) is ready to put their designer skills to the test. Rooster Teeth plans to bring Captain Dynamic and his nemesis, The Great Face, from YouTube to City of Heroes.
• Scott Kurtz (www.pvponline.com): The creator of the popular PvP web comic has already begun collaborating with the City of Heroes team on bringing LolBat to life within Mission Architect.

My only concern here is that we’re talking about humor / satire as the basis for MA missions, which makes them even less realistic (though ostensibly well-done). I will be curious to see how this turns out, though. More news should come out from PAX.