Samuel_Tow

I, personally, wouldn't mind seeing everything sold to vendors ending up on the Market at vendor prices, but I'm afraid that low-demand items would very quickly cap whatever limit their is on items for sale, possibly breaking the market or locking more interesting things out. That thing lags enough with the traffic it has now.

This isn't actually unprecedented. During the Winter Lord craze, a change was instituted which prevented any character from gaining more than half a levels' worth of experience from a single grant. As Winter Lords gave 2 000 points of experience to characters of all levels, a single defeat would give level 1 characters a dozen levels in one go. The change was instituted to cap experience gain speed from Winter Lords.

The way I've seen this explained, weapons are animated costume pieces similar to wings, but only have two frames of animation - visible and invisible. I have to wonder, then, if weapons can't be made in two parts, or can't come with an extra item that would have two frames of animation, itself - empty and with a weapon in it.

Of course, Standard Code Rant applies, but I do agree it would be cool.

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I don't find many of the games Samuel_Tow mentioned to lack fluidity comparative to CoX; what they lack is the predictable launch position rooting provides for an attack animation, and generally don't compensate appropriately for the barrel vector on fire (often deliberately, as a simplification step for the players).

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It's not fluidity they lack, it's visual appeal. I've spent more hours than I should have watching a friend of mine play World of Warcraft, for instance, and I can call up handful of hand waves and I think JUST ONE animation for firing a bow. Essentially, a lot of people swivel their lower body from forward left to forward right and repeat the same gesture with one hand or recycle the same 5-frame bow shot. It's fluent, it just doesn't look good.

Far too many games look like those small animated gif files people use as avatars - too fast, too repetitive, not very interesting. One of the things I LIKE in City of Heroes is that, by and large, our animations are some of the longest in any MMO I've played. WoW has all of these sub-second casts on everything excluding bar-fill-charging attacks, Lineage II relies on attack speed buffs, which just make you swing your sword at five swings a second with the same two stupid hack animations and even 9Dragons, a game I will freely admit has beautiful animations, loops the same three attacks infinitely. In fact, they had to string ALL of their fighting styles together just to produce a 10-second clip of a martial artist shadow-boxing.

By comparison with the above, we have intricate, exciting animations like Full Auto, Sweeping Slice and Vengeful Strike, Head Splitter, Total Focus, Energy Transfer, Shadow Maul, Blazing Bolt, Ripper and so forth. I LOVE the stance Sniper Blast puts you in if used on the ground. I love the Air Superiority animation when used while flying. I adore Foot Stomp, how it looks and what it does. I love these animations, and I cannot imagine even liking them if they were doable while "your legs are running." As a matter of fact, I can't imagine how something like Foot Stomp would look under these circumstances.

Like I said - condition-sensitive animations are the ONLY way I can see this working, but also like I said, I don't see THOSE working without any rooting at all, as games that use them lock you in the direction you were moving anyway. What I do not want to see, most decidedly, is Rune's gameplay of starting an attack, letting it animate a bit and then rushing forward to hit the enemy just as it's coming down. Or, in our case, the ability to start an attack then run away around a corner as it's animating. It's bad enough we can fudge it with jumping even now.

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I still think people came in here with an agenda of flaming at the get-go, but that's pure speculation. The problem with joining a hugely populated server is that it's only adding to the overpopulation issue. I wish there was a middle ground we could all find.

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Here, let me give you an illustration straight from the OP:

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Wow. I make a suggestion and recieve nothing but bile laced smarmy response. How underwhelming. Hey Im willing to bet you all go nuts whenever someone you see has just got a haircut. Ripe pickings in the land of cool huh?

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I understand y'all have 20 50's and can speak COH abbreviation like a military linguistics operator, but being a spazzy tool is hard to hide. Chill out folks. The idea has some merit, and I wouldnt be surprised theres always a long whine fest whenever someone suggests something out of the norm.

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That ought to explain the general attitude of the thread.

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I think your definition of "butt ugly" differs from mine. Do you think Team Fortress 2 looks "butt ugly"? Because I don't see a massive difference in animation quality between the simple ranged attacks there and the simple ranged attacks here.

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I haven't played Team Fortress 2, but I didn't know players there could shoot fire and lighting from their hands. And yes, I do indeed believe that most, if not ALL FPS characters look incredibly stupid if you look at them from a third person perspective. To my eyes, that's clearly evident from looking at other people skating around the field in very stupid-looking sideways run animations and firing their guns with but a few frames of animation.

Maybe I'm wrong and Team Fortress 2 is somehow vastly superior, but I doubt it. Quake wasn't, Half-Life wasn't and isn't, Unreal and all of its spawn weren't, aren't and will never be, neither Far Cry nor Far Cry 2 nor Crysis are, er... I'm running out of famous shooters. Counter-Strike is basically Half-Life and I haven't seen Delta Force in years. Oh, Aliens vs. Predator was spectacularly ugly, what with Aliens running around throwing out alien slaps and predators with their funky weapons, and, best of all, Humans were STILL rooted when they fired their miniguns in both the original and its sequel. I can't tell what it looks like in the Battlefield series as running and gunning reduces your accuracy so much you may as well not even aim.

I reiterate - I have not seen it done in such a way that isn't stupid once, and I've played my fair share of shooters. They are most decidedly NOT what I want City of Heroes to look like.

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Most melee-primary enemies at higher levels have move speed buffing innate powers.

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First, that's not actually true, and second, that doesn't really help. As anyone who's chased a running boss knows, it's not catching up to him that's the problem, it's that every time you attack, he runs 50 feet down the hallway before your attack is done animating. Lastly, it just looks stupid for rangers to be able to run and gun but fighters, who are expected to be MORE active, being that they need to be in melee, be rooted in place like chumps. Even ignoring the ugliness of the situation, either you extend this to ALL attacks, or you don't do any of them. A half-[censored] conversion is worse than no conversion at all.

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Stop Nerfing PvP

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No, on the contrary! Start nerfing PvP again! It was was a lot of fun watching it.

I just checked. I'm sorry to say I failed my "take this seriously" throw. Oops!

XP for the moment, and from the looks of it, I won't get to use Vista at all. I hear Windows 7 is being released soon, and with a brand new machine from the day before yesterday, I don't foresee myself doing a fresh re-install any time soon.

Switching to good old stereo seems to have fixed the problem, though. I'll make a mental note to keep all the fancy Creative options OFF from now on.

These Broken Wings

Chapter 1: Innocence and Consequences

This is not a happy story. If you came to hear about the power of friendship or how love conquers all, you turn around now. The world is not a nice, forgiving place where we everyone can succeed and live happily ever after if only they try hard enough, where good things happen to good people. This is not a happy story, because the world is not a happy place, and to believe otherwise is... Foolish, in a way, but more than that, dangerous. So, so very dangerous. To think so is complacent. To think so is a mistake... Such an easy mistake to make.

I live now in a world of good men and strong women, a world not yet jaded by the reality of war... The reality of defeat. A world which has not yet tasted of the true poison that is desperation, the true acid that is fear and the hatred, malice and cruelty that come from them. In this world, they call me a hero, the idealistic fools. And while I should be honoured for others to feel that, it scares me more than anything I have ever experienced, for I know what I am, and they do not. If they knew the things I have done, the horrors I have wrought and the... The hearts I have broken. If only they knew, they would be... Should be horrified. I do not deserve to be called a hero, do not deserve their respect and admiration. Not after... Not after everything. What I have done cannot and should not be forgiven. There is no redemption for the likes of me. There is only this endless fate, only this endless battle... To pay for sins that cannot be redeemed. To pay for my mistakes.

And even that is more than I deserve.

I had a name once, so long ago, but to utter it would be to disrespect the... The good person I once was. No. The person who once bore than name is dead. Has been dead for a long time. The monster I have forged with my own two hands, the monster I created through mistake after mistake... The monster I am... This is the name I carry, this is the curse that will forever be burned into my soul. I am Katarla. That is what they said in their curses, that is what IT called me, and that is the only name I still deserve to carry. A spoken representation of all of my sins of, of all the tears I have brought in others and all the pain I have caused. A representation everything I have done wrong.

And it didn’t use to be that way. I... I used to have a home back before... Before everything. I had a proud father and a loving mother, I had many cheerful, kind siblings. I even still had use of my wings. Back then, I still believed in good, for I lived in a world where good reigned and injustice didn’t exist. It was a good world... It was. I shouldn’t speak of what was. It is disrespectful to all the good people who lost their lives to madness and stupidity. What I had, I did not deserve. I took this good life for granted, believed that everything would always be alright, that if we all just did our best, nothing bad would ever happen. I was such a silly child, still living in the clouds.

I am... Was, what you would probably describe as an “angel” – a winged, somewhat radiant being living on a plane of existence near to the gods themselves. Our elders acted as their emissaries, spreading their word and passing down their religion to the creatures of the lower plains, and in return the gods offered us protection and sustenance, offered us homes and happiness. They offered us everything. They offered us paradise. And in paradise we lived, believing ourselves to be above the mundane dangers of the lower plains. The elders, those who were born before we found our home, who had built this paradise on their own backs, through blood, sweat and tear, those who knew the world as it truly was, they always tried to keep us in shape, to keep us aware of the dangers. But we were children, most of us, born into a world of happiness and comfort, growing up knowing nothing but people we could trust and people who loved us. We never believed them.

I want to say it was their fault, that they babied us and hid the truth. I want to, but I cannot, for the truth is that... We were foolish. All of us. We knew not the world, and we cared nothing for it. We looked upon the grizzled old men with skin covered in scars and old weapons proudly carried on their belts as a curiosity, the strange ways of adults who still lived to traditions no longer relevant. We were still young and innocent, still looked upon the world with big blue eyes and saw nothing but endless opportunities. We still believed. And we paid the price for it. No... No, this is a lie. “We” did not. I paid the price for it, and they all paid for my sins. Even the worldly elders were not worldly enough to do what had to be done to protect their people. But I refuse to blame them for it, for I know full well what it would have taken for them to do so. I know what they had to do, and I know what they would have had to become. They would have had to become like me, and this is a fate I cannot wish on anyone. The irony of it all has haunted me my entire life. And well it should.

A paradise, destroyed solely and specifically BECAUSE it was a paradise. Had my home had more evil, had it been more cynical and less forgiving... Had it been less perfect... It might have survived. I often wonder if things might have been different... If I might have been different, had I stayed in paradise. I know now that my world was doomed from its very inception, just as any utopia is. Our elders alone could not protect it alone, and they were foolish to rely on the gods to do so forever. Their children could never grow up strong enough to defend their home, living as they did in comfort and friendship. I know that, and I realise that, had I stayed, I would have simply burned with the rest of my world. And yet, after all that I have done, after what I have become, I have to wonder... Would death not have been better after all?

But fate said otherwise. There was a structure in my home, one my father had repeatedly warned me not to go inside. I should have listened to him, but I was still a foolish child, blinded by curiosity and complacency. I was, after all, in paradise, where everything was safe and everyone was nice. What possible danger could a simple building hold? As it turns out, the greatest danger of them all – a path to the outside world. Only the gods are able to cross between the plains of existence of their own free will. All lesser creatures need magic or machines to traverse them. What I had walked into, was the machine our elders used to descend to the plains below, as was their business. However, they were proud and powerful being, well prepared for the world below. I... Was not.

Such a simple mistake, born of a child’s pure innocence and understandable inexperience, yet it would change my life forever. But I am not what I am because of a single mistake. My mistakes are many. This one... Was merely the first. I was transported into a strange and unfamiliar world and dropped out of the sky. My kind, blessed with powerful wings, had positioned the exit high into the clouds, where the creatures below could not reach it to threaten our home. But I was still a little girl who had, up until that point, lived in a comfortable world where flight was unnecessary. My wings weren’t very strong, and I had not the knowledge needed to use them properly. I had always believed that I would have ample time to learn to fly before I faced any express need to do so, trusting in the security of my make-belief world. And now, hurtling through the sky to my death, I quickly realised the folly of my ways.

I don’t remember how long I fell. It can’t have been more than a few seconds, if that. But in my mind, it felt like an eternity of sheer terror. It was the first time in my life I’d been truly afraid, and the ugly, sickening horror of it has never left me, even though I have since seen things so much worse. This... This nightmare of screaming, flailing, clawing for my life with every muscle in my body, every breath I had, every single thought... And being helpless. So... So completely helpless. A few simple moments of staring death in the face, watching it come to claim me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

But the fall that should have killed me... did not. I never fully understood why my life was spared, but I somehow ended up landing in a densely-wooded area, and dropping through hundreds of branches seemed to have broken my fall, although just barely. I did not escape at all without injury, not in the slightest. I sprained my wrist, hurt my leg, got covered in scrapes and bruises from head to toe and, apparently, had broken my right wing very badly. Flying out, even if I could have mustered the skill required, was now completely out of the question. And while I could not still fully comprehend what had happened to me, danger would not let rest. As if being badly hurt was insufficient, my fall had alerted a whole pack of beasts I had never even heard of before, and they sensed an easy meal in me. As a child, my instinctive desire was to sit down and cry, but my body told me to run.

Through the darkness of the forest I ran, deeper and deeper, the sound of claws against the ground and the howls of bloodthirsty beasts at my heels. Tired and injured as I was, I should have had neither the strength nor the drive to even stand up, but it was as if my body moved on its own. My mind was slowly giving into the fear, shutting down my senses and reason, leaving only a singular, repeated thought: run! I don’t know how long I ran, I don’t know how many times I tripped and fell, I don’t know how many more injuries I caused myself. At the time, I didn’t care. I was too scared to think. All I wanted was to survive, to escape this ugly fear, to save my miserable, pathetic hide. And so I ran, until my legs would no longer carry me.

I collapsed near a great tree, out of breath, out of strength and out of hope. I shut my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the horror I felt was imminent, but it didn’t come. I had lost the beasts which pursued me, possibly hours before, never even realising when and how it had happened. Blinded as I was by fear, however, I had simply not noticed. So single-minded had I been in survival I had simply not turned to look. And it had cost me. With nothing left to give, my body gave out, leaving my lying in the dirt, broken and spent.

Then the pain came. I had not felt my wounds when I fell, the shock of it all had dulled all sensation. But resting my body now, and with my mind returning to its senses, I began to realise just how badly I was hurt. Every move I made sent me into agony, every part of my body hurt horribly, my head felt like it was splitting open... This was the price I was paying for survival. At first I tried to fight off the pain, to put my wounds at ease and try not to agitate them, to find some semblance of comfort in this torturous situation, but there was none. No matter what I did, no matter how I squirmed, there was no relief from this paralysing pain. All I could do was endure it as night crept over the forest like an ominous spirit.

Desperate and alone, all I could do was lie down and cry. I dared not make a sound, for I feared I would alert the many creatures I heard creeping around outside, but I could do nothing to stop my tears, flowing down one after the other. I could no longer even wipe them, for my hands were already wet, and dirty from the ground. I lay there, crying quietly into the night, stifling my sobs into little, strained hiccups. What I saw of the real world, I was badly unprepared for and could barely comprehend. I’d heard tales of the forest and its many wonders, thinking it a mystical, exciting place of high adventure. Seeing it with my own two eyes, however, feeling the shivers it sent down my spine, I realised that this had been nothing more than an wishful illusion, tamed down so that it wouldn’t scare the children. What had sounded so glamorous was instead a dark, painful, frighteningly brutal reality.

It felt like day would never come. I lay in the darkness, clutching my wounds, praying to all the gods that this horrible night would end, and yet it seemed like it never would. I don’t know if I fell asleep or if I lost consciousness, but when I opened my eyes, it was already daytime. I was awakened by what sounded like a voice. Rushing outside, I found the familiar silhouette of an angel in the distance and my heart sand with relief. Surely this terrible experience was coming to an end and the good life would return... I was just an innocent child praying to go back home.

But the truth was worse than I could have imagined. What I had thought to be one of my people was, in fact, a devious shape shifting predator, a vile creature which lured its prey to their death by showing them their most deeply-held desire. Before I realised what it was, it was already too late and I was firmly in its grasp. However, it wasn’t until I realised my real fate that true, unhinged panic set in. As its teeth sunk into my flesh, I realised this creature intended to devour me alive as I stood there, looking at it. It is surprising what a person can do when cornered and afraid. Through the pain and the panic, my mind went blank, and all I knew at that moment was survival. I pulled with strength greater than I knew I had and wrestled the monster, I hit it, stabbed it, kicked it, but it would not release me.

I’d read books about the heroes of our past and heard stories from the heroes themselves. I remember the glory and honour in their battles, the dignity of their victories. But fiction did not... Does not reflect reality. I saw survival for what it really was, and there was no honour in it, no romance. It was an ugly, dirty struggle where it wasn’t the one with the higher ideals that won. On the contrary, it was the lower, fouler creature which clung to life more desperately that survived. And that’s all there ever was – survival. There were no winners in this struggle. And forced chest deep in putrid mud, bleeding, hurt afraid and desperate, I proved to be the one who wanted to survive more badly.

Panic and fear gave way to a calm, cold-hearted drive and a strange, almost eerie clarity of thought. I knew I had to survive, and I knew that for this to happen, my adversary had to die. And so I fought, ruthless and merciless, overpowering the creature as it dragged me down. With my own two hands and with not a doubt in my heart, I beat and beat the creature until I had literally wrenched the life out of it. And even when its grip loosened, I did not let up. One of us had to die, and I would simply not allow that someone to be me.

When I dragged myself out of the swamp, I was no longer a child, no longer innocent and idealistic. I had just murdered another creature which, for all intents and purposes, was just trying to survive, and I felt no remorse. Tired and beaten as I was, the only thing I could feel was relief that I was still alive. And as I washed my wounds and examined them, I realised I would die if they were not treated. Then, almost like flipping a switch, all of these boring survival training lessons I had been taught against my will flashed in my mind. I knew what I had to do to stop my bleeding and heal my limbs, I recognised the plants I needed to use and I could perform the techniques needed to achieve it. It was as if my body was fighting to survive to the last breath even though my mind was slowly breaking down.

The next few days I spent with no memory of ever having made a decision. It never seemed like there was one to make. I bandaged my wounds, splintered my wing and even began looking for food and water. I’d learned to spot those shape shifting predators and now knew what I had to do to kill them quickly and efficiently. I also knew that they would present themselves to me to bait me. I counted on it and used it against them. Without realising it, I had turned into a vicious, unforgiving predator, preying on these animals for my own survival, taking their lives without a second thought and desecrating their bodies. The morality of it never crossed my mind. All I knew then was survival.

Until the day something went wrong. I saw the image of an angel – the telltale sign of a shape shifting predator. I snuck up on it and attacked it, catching it completely by surprise. However, as soon as my mortal strike made contact, I realised something was very, very wrong. It did not transform into an ugly, toothy creature in its death rattle, but instead turned around and looked at me with shock and horror in its eyes. And in an instant, my heart sank. This was no wild animal, no predator out to kill me. This was a real angel, one of my people. I even knew him, he had been a friend of my father’s. I cannot imagine what look of bloodlust I must have had on my face, but the look in his eyes is something that has haunted me in my dreams my entire life. I remember this man, proud, strong and gentle, but I also remember his face in death. He recognised me, I know he did. And it wasn’t his pain or his panic that stuck with me. It was his surprise, and the single word he managed to utter. “Why?” Why had the girl he’d known since birth, who had always been so nice and polite, just now killed him so brutally? Why, indeed...

I have my excuses. I didn’t know it was him, I feared for my life and so on and so forth. But the sad, depressing truth is that that is all those ever were – excuses. He came to rescue a lost, scared little girl who he thought was hurt and alone. What he found, instead, was a rabid beast with murder in the heart and survival in mind. By this point, I had forgotten all about being rescued, forgotten all about who I was. My injuries had started to heal and I was feeling stronger, but I didn’t use that strength to find a way home. I used it to make this wilderness my home. The girl he had come to save was gone. She may as well have died in her fall for all it mattered. I had slowly been losing my mind, but with this last, terrible act, I finally lost my heart, too.

I cried, I howled, I wept. What happened afterwards, I don’t remember. When I killed one of my own kind in cold blood, I simply... Lost it. I... I think I drifted through the woods, surviving off the land and mostly hiding. I saw several more angels during that time and I knew they were real. They were looking for me, trying to save me. But I couldn’t show my face to them, not after what I had done. Not after what I had become. It wasn’t even shame at the time, that didn’t come until much later. I was just afraid of what they might think about me if they knew. They searched for weeks, but eventually, they gave up. I didn’t show myself, didn’t allow them to rescue me because... Because I was a foolish, foolish child. If my mistake in going into a building I should not have was born of innocence, then my mistake in staying in the forest was born of fear. This was no innocent mistake, no understandably bad decision. I made a choice, a conscious choice, to exile myself from my people. And it is a choice that I have deeply, deeply regretted ever since, and a choice which would drive me to the greatest mistake I have ever made.

I've decided to start a new story, one I'd been mulling over for a few weeks. I'd like to start out by saying that it will be a rather dark, more than is usual for my style, and I'm not really sure why I've chosen to go with this theme considering I'm not actually feeling dark, myself. Nevertheless, keep that in mind when going into it.

I'd also like to point out that the protagonist is female. The format I've chosen doesn't really make this clear, so I thought it might be worth stating up-front.

As usual, I would like to hear any and all feedback you have on it, good, bad or neutral and will be very thankful for it. It's still a work in progress with no rigidly-defined timeline that I can't change as necessary, so it might feel a little vague or open-ended. I promise, however, that I WILL, time and opportunity permitting, finish it with a definitive, satisfying end.

Thank you for your time

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Nearly all of the single-target ranged blasts are suitable, and basic melee attacks (many of the single slashes of various weapons outside of Katana, forward punches, etc) are suitable. That, to me, is "a lot," possibly even "most," of the attacks in CoH.

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Your definition of "suitable" differs from mine, because while I can see how most single-target blasts COULD BE MADE into running attacks, they are unsuitable in that the result would be butt ugly. One of the key selling points in City of Heroes, at least in my eyes, is the beautiful, beautiful animations. Mess with that, and you slash the game's value by a third, if not more.

Simply put, I do NOT want a game that looks and plays like Rune.

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And doing it really well would require context-sensitive animations (similar to how Punch, -> Punch, <- Punch, and -> -> Punch are usually different moves in fighting games), but that's exponentially more effort than even what I proposed.

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It's also the only way to do it that wouldn't look horribly bad. Like I said before, I've seen PLENTY of games that allow you to attack while moving. Very, VERY few of them have looked good, and those who could even claim do were done in just that way. You cannot, plain and simply CANNOT, get away with "running and swinging" and have the game look in any way, shape or form good in the slightest. I cannot emphasise that enough.

Well, I found a very big part of my problem. Stupid "Stereo Xpand" was doing more than just adding stereo to the game, it was muting and modulating my sound, I suppose to make it "more punchy." Bleh!

I noticed it just today, listening to music. If anyone's familiar with Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams, where the singer sings "when the city sleeps and I'm the only one and..." his voice gets hideously muted, because that's where drums start playing, making my sound card think it needs to mute because it's not a "punchy" place that needs to be "emphasised." That's somewhere after 3:08 on the link.

Simply disabling Creative Control Panel stereo seems to have fixed the problem, but since I actually WANT stereo, I'll see if the simpler option will provide it without messing with my sound quality.

Stupid make-belief progress! This is like the "everything's better with bloom" of audio. Eh!

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How about taking Freedom and breaking it between Infinity and Triumph?
hahaha.

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Great, now I have the mental image of cracking the server like an egg, or possibly snapping the server in half over one knee like a stick. Thanks a lot!

Hats with hair can either be just a load of work, or flatly impossible, depending on how you want to see it. If you want every hat usable with every hairstyle, that just cannot be done, and even each hat with a dozen hairstyles is just out of the question. However, if you want just any options whatsoever, then having, say, three types of hair per hat - none, short, long - then it's just a matter of making a different hat variant for each hat/hair combination, and possibly tossing the combinations into sub-options for your current hat selection.

It's possible, and something I'd very much like to see, but I'm afraid it's so much work I wouldn't expect to see it ever. Which is a real shame.

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There are a number of games which use pretty generic animations for attacks that can be performed while moving, and a lot of the CoX attacks are suitable for that treatment.

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This is both false and misleading. Not "a lot" of City of Heroes animations are suitable for this approach, lest you butcher what actually makes most animations cool, which is the overall stance. Possibly a select few ranged blasts could be applicable, but even that would be pushing it. It's also misleading, because you keep neglecting to mention how BAD this looks even when it's done well. I've seen other games avoid rooting. WITHOUT AN EXCEPTION, all of them have looked stiff, staggered and plain ugly. The best you can hope for is being allowed to use an attack while moving, but being locked into moving in the same direction for the duration of the attack, which is just a different form of rooting.

I have not seen, not ever, an example where being able to attack while moving has looked anything better than maybe just about passable, and that's actually including a good deal of shooters. It just doesn't look good, however it may "feel."

Ironically enough, the MegaMan X series, one of THE most fast-action games I've played, actually roots Zero on every attack that doesn't lock him into a set trajectory, and while X manages to get away with running and gunning, Axl still ends up locked in place while hover-shooting. And even then, certain attacks STILL lock both of them.

The problem with removing rooting is that it just creates another problem - what to play when you activate an animation while moving. Unfortunately, there is no easy, and indeed no GOOD solution to this, and believe me, I've thought about it.

The obvious solution to "just remove rooting" and change nothing else is unacceptable. Animations made to play while stationary look STUPID when you move while activating them. We've all had lag spikes and engine skips that allowed us to slide around when activating an attack, and it's easily evident why this isn't workable.

The "easy" solution is to do what so many other games have done and animate only the upper body for attacks, leaving the lower body free to animate running, a lot like what happens to most FPS games. The net result, however, is that while this does look somewhat passable, it's downright UGLY. Plenty, PLENTY of City of Heroes animations are as cool as they are because they involve the whole body and plenty, PLENTY of WoW animations... Aren't, because they're just upper torso motions, or in many cases just arm waves. What's more, strafing left-to-right-to-left while swinging a sword around is just that - ugly.

The hard, and one might argue "correct" way to handle this is to give attacks separate animations for being used when moving and when being used while stationary. Oni did something like that, replacing all standard attacks with running tackles and jump kicks and slides and so forth. The problem is that this is a HUGE amount of work and there's practically no guarantee that it will look good. What's more, it would have to do what Oni did and lock you into whatever directional movement you were doing while the attack animates to prevent it from looking stupid, and that is potentially dangerous, game-wise. Much running off ledges and into adjacent spawns would ensue.

It's a good idea, really, but I don't believe our combat system, which is essentially click-n-kill, is robust enough for something like this.

Well, I looked for a driver for the thing, but there was only one on Creative's site, and it was from 2008 at some point. I assumed that's the one I had already, because the PC came with SOMETHING installed for the card. I could try reinstalling and see how that goes, but it seems to me that creative and their drivers is always a big mess. I've never had an easy time finding and installing drivers for a Sound Blaster, aside from the times I've had other people do it for me, and Lord knows how much trouble they had.

I'll see about finding some new drivers. The bad thing is that now I can't even use my on-board sound card, because it doesn't appear to have been installed

Well, I can't say if they're designed to be front-loaded, but that has been my experience with them when I used them back a few years ago. It got to the point where I aggressively disabled any and all 3D sound because it made me flatly unable to hear half the sound in most games. I'd thought it was just better technology when I stopped hearing that, but it seems it was just me switching to a PC with an on-board sound card.

I did find a special 3D sound option in this card that allows me to pick a balance point between Centre and Surround, which helps somewhat, but the problem is that even surround still seems to be slated heavily towards sound coming from the front over sound coming from the rear. Plus, I can control the volume of my centre and my surround separately from the physical controls on my speakers.

I need to find out what this thing really does.

I got myself a new PC today. Brand new package deal, comes with everything, including an ACTUAL sound card, which is something I'd been missing for years. You'd think this would be a great thing, a massive step up from the motherboard audio card I had before. Well, either I have NO idea what I'm doing, or something is seriously wrong here, because my sound quality has actually gone DOWN. Let me explain.

Before, I had some kind of Realtek on-board audio card that came with its own controller and a set of pretty simplistic controls, but the sound was relatively good and 3D surround sound was accurate. I run a 5.1 speaker setup, so it's easy to tell. However, my new PC came with a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card, and as soon as I ran it, I remembered an age-old problem I've had with Creative audio cards - their stereo is front-loaded. Back in the old days of Half-Life 2, I had to be facing Dr. Kleiner directly, or I would barely here him speak, and as soon as I turned my back on him, I'd hear nothing. With Realtek, this wasn't the case. With X-Fi, it once again is.

I tested this with a Portal Corp portal in City of Heroes. I trust we all know how annoyingly loud they are - you can hear them as far away as the the corridor. However, when I went right up to the portal and turned around, I lost ALL sound coming from it. All I could hear was the ambient rumbling which I'm pretty sure is either omnipresent or coming from the centre of the room. Bad.

Now, City of Heroes has a really weird take on 3D sound, using some kind of muting and dumbing effect on sounds not coming from dead centre, and turning this off removes ALL stereo and surround, so I've had to keep it on. I've additionally activated some weird options on X-Fi that I've never heard about before, called "X-Fi CMSS-3D" and "X-Fi Crystalizer" and that seems to have taken care of SOME of the oddities, but... Not all. The 3D thingy, when activated, does allow me to hear things "behind" my camera better, but still more muted and I'm pretty sure it does NOT allow me to hear things right directly behind me, as I'm unable to hear the "whoosh" you get when, say, switching from Hover to Fly. And whatever that Crystalizer did, I'm still missing most of the "punch" in my punches, specifically Energy Melee, that I used to have before. With Realek, they sounded like slaps. With X-Fi, they sound like parade drums.

I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong and I'm not even sure things are wrong now, as I may have been hearing wrong before. I've no way to test it, however, as the Creative console has no means to test surround other than having a cute female voice narrate my channels. The Realtek control centre had this test where I could move a buzzing ball around my "head" in 3D and would play audio accordingly, letting me test my surround thoroughly, but Creative does not have that, and I'm completely unable to find a programme to do that on the 'net. If anyone knows of a good programme to do that, or at least a good way to test it that doesn't consist of "just play some Doulby Surround DVD," I would be very thankful.

In general, though, if anyone has any idea how I can set this... This THING up so that it plays proper surround with the correct sounds, I would really appreciate it. The thing is, I'm not sure what settings my Realtek setup had before, and it may very well have imposed some heavy filters I had no control over, so any help at all is appreciated.

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Something just occurred to me. Since "servers" is countable, shouldn't that be "fewer servers?" "Less," from what I remember of my English education, should be used with uncountable nouns, such as, say, "water" or "space."
Or have I just forgotten?

[/ QUOTE ] It bothers me that you seem to have a better understanding of the English than I do. I grew up in the U.S. and I'm a smart guy. I should have studied better.

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The funny thing is I actually learned the bulk of my English off these very forums. I like to rub that in the faces of people who claim you can never learn anything useful on the Internet and that games are just a waste of time. I actually honestly have you guys to thank for the language skills I have. I'm not sure what level I would be at if I hadn't taken root on these forms, as it were, as I slept... Literally SLEPT through my last two years of high school education, and University English education in a Mathematics degree sucks so bad it isn't even funny.

And, yeah. Sorry about repeating the remark. I kind of skipped from page two or three all the way over to the end, because with the OP's attitude, I didn't feel the thread would be a very interesting read.

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Umm... this wouldn't work for players that don't wish to play the Arc stuff. In addition, the behavior being exhibited may drive those who have a hate for farms or farmers to avoid Arcs all together.

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It's a little ironic that that's exactly what I went through when they removed Trainings and DO drops from the higher levels.

-But now I don't have enough money to buy SOs.
-You can make a lot more money on the Market than you could with DOs and Trainings.
-But I don't want to play the Market.
-Tough.

The whole point is moot, in my opinion, because Assassin's Strike is not just usable as a first strike capability. It recharges fairly quickly and since the Hide duration on Stalkers was reduced hiding in combat is very possible, especially with someone else distracting the enemy. As an in-combat power, especially one that you're going to want to get out before you're interrupted and seen, it really shouldn't be autohit.

I think that would fall under "technical limitations." The engine is pretty rigid in what it can do, essentially limited to applying effects to the caster that other powers can then key off of. With attack animations hard-coded to where they cannot be change, doing anything but adding more damage or a secondary effect likely dabbles into the area of activation sequences, which is the stuff that BABs has been pretty stern about in the past.

Plus, this late in the game, it would have to be a pretty serious re-imagining of the combat system.

Since every costume actually saves four colours per costume piece, I'd say simply allowing the UI to allow choosing more than two colours would be the more trivial of the problems. Plain not having costume pieces that can make use of four colours would be by far the biggest problem, and having four selectable colours for EVERY piece when 99% of them can only use two would be a bit silly. Still, I wish the Tuxedo and the Bolero would allow four colours. I'm getting tired of having to pick Trenchcoat before I select one of them so I can pick my coat tail colour.

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Except having an R&R facility available for weary soldiers *does* make sense. It should be closer to the Vanguard controlled area, though.

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QFT. I do wish they had gotten more time to make more zone-personalized AE buildings, but ultimately it's not entirely out of place.

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Know what I'd like to see? An Architect complex in or off the main Vanguard base, within the defensive perimeter of the compound. Know what I'd also like to see? Say one day they decide to move it. What to do with the old building? Simple. Make it shot up, glass broken, consoles missing and essentially as "decrepit" as the rest of the buildings in the War Zone. That way, we get the Architect in a more fitting location AND we have a logical reason for why it's there