Zloth

The same data the server sends to our PCs when it tells our clients to knock them back.

Some stuff in demos actually doesn't look the same each time. The Propel power will spit out different objects each time and Slag Golems will have different junk in their bodies.

I started on demos ... well, way back on the pre-beta, pre-NCSoft boards in the old Game Videos topic I guess. And I dove into that topic hard because I had so much fun with the "gun camera" feature back in the early 90's with Air Warrior.

When Pohsyb (or was it Poz?) posted in the CoH beta boards how to make and play back demos, I was all over them. It didn't take long to get really tired of making shortcuts so I popped together a quick demo launcher.

I figured out that fiddling with the demos could make some pretty funny things happen, so I started trying to figure out what really did what and writing them down. That eventually became the Demo Edit guide.

But in fiddling with demos, I found a lot of edits that got pretty tedious. We didn't know about the -Disable2D option that turns text bubbles and whatnot off so removing them meant manually going in and changing the text to empty strings. Getting rid of 'zombies' popping up after they had been deleted was a pain, too. So the demo editor was born. Not really to replace editing with Notepad, but to take care of all that really tedious stuff.

Hmmm, so I guess the Demo Launcher and the Demo Editor are pretty much products of my own laziness.

Balshor!!! So, my insideous plot to simply outlive you has failed!

Sweet!

Yeah, my interface is rough to say the least. I almost didn't do the feature at all because I couldn't figure out a good interface. But I can make objects and the camera spin or move in straight lines and maintain facing. And it works (more or less) smoothly into your existing demo.

I still have a little demo playback on Imageshack that tries to show a little Warshade pet and clockwork guy spinning around my blaster as she flies along. It's awful hard to see in that little window, though. I really should find that original demo and pop it up on w00t.

Singularities in a bank... it just never gets old!

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This was an oldie made around Issue 2 by Desolate Joker.

Bring Me to Life

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WO.... oh wait, can't use the W word....

INCREDIBLE!!! I don't suppose there's a link to the "real" video anywhere?

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Has anyone had any luck getting the "Ragdoll" entries to show up in the demorecord files since, like i7?

I really miss recording cool knockbacks and having they replay accurately.

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!?!? Ragdoll has never recorded right. Going from memory here but originally in I6 it looked pretty much like we have now. Then it looked HORRID in I7 as enemies would instantly fall down with no animation at all. Then it went back to this. We've had ragdoll entries before that look like they are trying to record the physics data but I don't think they ever actually worked.

You really should point to the Vitae Rising site for the original Hype.... oh frak! It's gone! That thing has been around for over a decade and now it's just a forum!

And the Trimmers don't seem to have the Operatives movies anymore, either. Ugh. Those YouTube things are really compressed. Glad I got the full versions.

What if she goes under the name Ex Librisburg?

This topic is for solutions not for... wait a sec, this isn't that topic! This is the old topic! Oh well....

My bet is that your video drivers are old. Try updating them and see if that helps. If not, start up a new topic that includes your DxDiag log. The stickied 'Read this before posting' topic has instructions on how to make one of those.

You can click the 'ask a question' link and ask. I would be curious to know, too.

<QR>

Pax, I'm impressed you got all that on a controller but I don't think it's going to work well for most folks. Reading that reminded me a lot of the older editions of Word Perfect where you use shift-F7 to save and alt-F3 to switch to bold type. It's going to take folks a long time to learn a complex control scheme like that. (And then it's going to take a long time again if they put the game down for a few weeks.) The tutorial had better take things slow and even then it's going to be the hardcore that really like the game.

But on to the next interview....

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...we want to make sure that this is the year that we wrap a lot of that with additional and beneficial services for our customers that will really make it easy to access games and connect with the people that they like to play with.

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<shudder> Sorry, I know this could be a good thing, but it always scares me when I hear it. There's a whole spectrum of gamers that go by how much time they can spend on their games. It ranges from easy to learn party games for the folks that just want to play the game an hour or two a week all the way to deep, complex games for folks that commonly burn 30+ hours a week on their gaming hobby. I'm deep into the hardcore side but I know very well that the lightweight side is easier to make and has far more customers. I'm afraid the big companies are going to dump me for the casuals.

Heh, we just had a chat about doing this on the PS3 over in the Tech forums....

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I really hope that CoH isn't transitioned to a console friendly format, or if it is, that the PC side of it isn't changed to compensate.

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Ditto - though I feel pretty safe that it won't. I think they could keep a lot of what makes this game great (sidekicking, massive costume choices, sidekicking, exciting combat, sidekicking, and maybe even demo recording). They'll have to make some major changes, though. Zones and even many missions will have to be shrunk way down or a load-as-you-go scheme (like Oblivion's) will have to be put in. Also, the powers are going to have to be chopped down heavily or many of them will have to be conveted to always-on powers. 26 powers plus accolades plus temp powers is going to be too much, IMHO.

And it's not all limits, either. PS3 controllers have the movement sensor thing we haven't got. If a use can be found for that, great! (Just don't force it in.)

The keyboard is nice but how many people have one? How many would be willing to buy one? Does it work very well sitting at a couch or in a recliner chair?

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What's next? Account based storage? Offline supergroup invites?

What a day...

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A little ATI symbol alongside the Cryptic and NCSoft symbols in the login screen?

Looks like a few folks are answering this, so I'll throw my interpretation in as well.

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Im sry im being a little slow can somone please explain the smoothing out the level curve to me?

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Levelling up is not a straight line thing. The first few levels go fast but the levels come slower and slower after that. There are numerous reasons for that having to do with company profit, ability to learn, distribution of content, and so on. The result is a curve.

When the game came out, our curve was fairly smooth I think. Levelling slowed down quite a lot in the upper 30's as you got near the max level of 40. But, when they upped the level cap to 50, the curve didn't contiue smoothly. (If it had, it would have probably taken me six months to get from 49 to 50!) Instead, the curve actually seems to bend downward so each level up takes less and less time!

My guess is they are going to change how much xp is handed out to smooth things out. We will level faster in the upper thirties but we will level slower in the forties. Overall, the time it takes to get to 50 will be about the same.

This will burn people currently in their forties as they will have to "get over the hump" twice. So NCSoft might pull something funky to make up for it like making characters currently in their forties get different xp so they will still be using the old, bent curve. Or maybe they will just toss out an xp bonus. Or maybe they will just let us <ahem> enjoy our longer ride to 50. (ooo, "Enjoyed the Scenic Route" badge...)

On another note...

For the real time stats thing, I'm guessing we will be given a little window with a little table in it with all the stats we care to see. Fire resistance, defense vs. AoE, damage bonus, run speed, and so on. If somebody slaps Speed Boost on you, you'll see the run speed jump up. When SB wears out, you'll see it jump back down again.

It would be even more cool if we could include our selected target's stats so we can see the effects of debuffing.

The VILLAIN base you crazed Ifrit! Nice to have some books around the fire for when you're in the mood for some classic book burning action.

Still, BBQ in a spaceship... I mean, there are a lot of cool spaceships out there in SciFi'dom but how many of them have great food? None. Well, maybe Slartibartfast's bistromatic drive ship, but I wouldn't bet on it. We would be unique! People would come from distant intellectual properties just to see it! Chow down with Chewbacca! Bring 7 of 9 there for date!

A fire pit right in the library! Now that's convenience!

(Runs off to put some book shelves near his BBQ room)

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Another is once you are Level 25 and haven't yet been exposed to Time Travel, have someone open their Ouroborus Portal and you travel into it to the new zone and get the map badge in it.

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Or use the Pillar in your base to do any flashback mission and you'll get the power. However, you may not get the Entrusted badge! You can just go to Ouroborus and get the explore badge any old time, though, now that you have the power.

I'm still completely shocked other games don't let you sidekick. It's a great inovation! I mean, how many times in this form have you seen anyone wanting the sidekick feature dumped??

Another thing to add, though... the lack of flat out time sinks. Most other MMOs make you do outright DUMB stuff, sometimes for hours! They are a lot more like work than play. Crafting systems can be the worst. Hunting thousands of enemies way below your level to get enough crafting parts to make something IS NOT FUN. Clicking the same buttons over and over and over (and, in Dark Age of Camelot's cae, waiting for a progress bar) for hours on end IS NOT FUN. And so on and so forth. If people are watching TV while they "play" then that's a sign they are not playing, they are working.

Here, there are few dumb time sinks. Some badges can turn into terrible grinds but very few of those give you anything more than a badge saying you fought your way through a terrible grind. Even the age old time sink of running back and forth over zones is made a lot more fun with travel powers like Superjump, and lately you've been cutting the time sink out all together with base teleports and Ouroborus.

The big problem with all this is, of course, that it's hard to do other MMOs. Hey, that new MMO looks real cool with nice graphics and... what? No sidekicking? What am I supposed to do if I go out of town for a couple of weeks and my friends level past me? Spend a day power levelling!?! Uhh... yeah... nevermind.

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No, but I found this

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Unless, of course, some art Dev who knows about such things decided to purposefully drop little faces here and there for us to find so we think we're going crazy. They are a tricky lot, those devs!

!!!!!

OK, I've been out of the Arena for a long time now. How did you get the Eden Trial map to come up??

That was great!

Cap au Diablo has a great spot for this. You can shoot critters from the main city all the way to the black market below even without slotting in Power Thrust. Never gets old.

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Like Jay even more now. I also have a action figure.... problem.

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Yes, I've seen this quite often in collectors of action figures - the strange inability to open the container. Yet these same people can open much more difficult containers that hold computer equipment in them. Very mysterious.

Thankfully, any six year old child can solve your problem and many can do so without any instruction or special tools. Simply leave one or two of them in Jay's cube and go do lunch. When you come back, at least half of them will be open and ready to play with!

Sounds like it could be done, but I also suspect it will look nasty. Capes move like fabric. Really long hair just doesn't. I think what you're going to get is hair that looks like it's painted on a long scarf.

Hmmm.... but maybe a really long poney tail?

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I don't know... i might seem odd, but i would total buy a in-game badge for 10 bucks if i knew it was for a good cause.

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Bull's eye. Only three players get to take part in this - less if one person grabs more than one item! But I think I would rather get a costume option than a badge. That kind of option is one we can choose to show or not show. If I'm going to donate to a charity, I would really rather not brag about it by having it as a badge. (But then, if I do "brag" about it, it will encourage more folks to donate. Or is that just an excuse so that I can brag about it? Or is that excuse really an excuse so I can avoid talking about 'hard' subjects like charitable donations? Eeesh... I hate sitting on fences.)

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Since I have surpress close FX enabled.... could this be the issue in not seeing this in the playback?

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That's why you aren't seeing the DA (Dark Armor?) stuff. Custom weapons are not appearing in demo playback yet at all. (Though they are being recorded, so hopefully we will see them show up sometime soon.)