AmazingMOO

Mrs. Moo has been threatening for some time to download Warcraft. NCSoft gave her the bullet-proof excuse she needed.

I have very little interest in raiding or large guild building or things of that nature. WoW's character customization is... painful... compared to even Champions Online.

However, they do have a lot of soloable or duoable stuff to explore and a fairly huge tradeskill system. They also seem to be implementing Pokemon in-game.

Yeah, didn't expect that. I'm playing Platinum and White right now and will probably pick up Black2 in a couple weeks. Why not train my WoWemon while I'm at it. They'll even have gym leaders... er... master pet trainers. *sigh* Leafy the combat squirrel is cute, but he's no Gardevoir(m).

Is anyone aware of global channels or hangouts for CoH refugees in the Azeroth universe?

Here's continued hope that NCSoft relents or someone manages to buy them out.

Nothin' but class, CoH devs!

/applaud

What I have learned

CoH has taught me many great lessons about leadership, dealing with people, time management, and other important real-life skills. I've also learned more about Superhero comics and the people who read them during my stay in Paragon City than I did the ENTIRE time I regularly bought 'The Uncanny X-Men' and its spin-offs from my local comic shop.

The recent actions and announcements by NCSoft and NCSoft's failure in handling the reaction to those announcements has taught me some important lessons as well.



'Virtual' Property is a service and not physically worth any value. It can be taken away at any time and there is VERY little you can do about it.

I've spent around $120 on the Paragon store since its inception. I bought enough Super Pack cards to get the entire Elemental Order costume set, and all the costume slots. I bought several costume sets, powers, emotes, and the like.

My expectation was that the things I was buying would be available to me for as long as I had interest in the game. The idea that NCSoft would try to shutter the game BEFORE I lost interest never occurred to me. Why would it? Sony's Everquest is an older game and is still running with about the same Population that CoH has. A few MMOs are actually growing in numbers. Cryptic continues to maintain Champions Online despite relatively poor numbers. That NCSoft would suddenly yank a service with relatively good numbers like CoH was inconceivable a month ago.

I very much hope that NCSoft manages to reverse their cranio-rectal insertion issues to stop it from happening, but if things do NOT change for the better, I will simply lose access to those items I 'purchased' along with the rest of the game in November. I will have very little or no legal recourse. Heck, $120 probably wouldn't make small claims courts, and the people who have long-term subscriptions are certainly ahead of me in line when it comes to refunds of any kind.

Unless there is some kind of group legal action-- and there probably won't be one regardless of the outcome of this sad situation-- I will likely see very little of that $120. Come November, it will be naught but memories. The memories of time spent with my teammates and friends will outshine them by several orders of magnitude.



There is no such thing as a 'Smart' corporation.

Publicly traded corporations are by their very nature subject to a kind of terrified, psychotic mob mentality that results from having multiple, often competing executives in charge who are also beholden to a potentially huge number of private shareholders.

We know that corporations who make bad decisions are capable of making even more bad decisions, even if it's not in their or their customers' best interest. It's nice to think that since a given corporation has made good decisions in the past that it will continue to do so in the future. That is simply not the case. NCSoft's actions proves that ANY corporation can be driven to make bad decisions DESPITE the fact that those decisions will ultimately hurt them and us, their customers.



Both We and They know less about each other's culture than we think.

I've learned more about Korean business practices and issues facing the Korean gaming industry in the last few weeks than the entire time I've played City of Heroes. What I've learned has convinced me that there's a whole library's worth more that I don't know that will ultimately effect what happens to CoH and NCSoft's gaming market in the U.S..

This stings. When I can't buy quality U.S.-made goods, I've been making a real, concerted effort to buy products made by or manufactured in Korea. I was convinced that Korea as a whole had a good thing going and treated their workers relatively well, especially compared to the rest of mainland Asia.

Now that I realize I know so very little about Korea, I have to reevaluate if this decision was a good one. NCSoft has certainly made mistakes with my business and LG (Luk-Hee/Goldstar) is having more and more products manufactured in PDR China. I can't continue to make the childish mistake of simply assuming 'Korean == Good Quality and Ethical Business'. It certainly can't be made about American Business, so I *SHOULD* have known better.



My creations are too important to trust to a third party.

I began writing fanfiction when I was a teenager, and have written a great deal of original fiction since, mostly for my own enjoyment rather than a desire to publish or profit. I make a point of doing writing for my friends when they ask for it and have written some lengthy bio-fics for their characters. As you might guess, my characters have LOTS of fiction written for them. Volumes-- short stories, character sketches, characterization dialogue, fictional technology or business whitepapers, even a fictional medical case-study in one case.

Lots of that fiction is tied to the Paragon universe. Dr. Star is a high-ranking Vanguard scientist. Dr. Hawke is one of the researchers who worked on the teleportation technology in Paragon City. Rebecca Rose's powers are a result of an accident with the War Wall generators.

Happily, there's a great deal of fiction for my characters that's not tied to the CoH mythos. However, I'm now in the very difficult and painful process of divorcing my characters and their stories from that mythos. They will damn well be MY characters, and their stories will damn well be MY creations. Regardless of the fate of City of Heroes or any other game for which I create characters, this will be true forever more.

When they started making headlines, I was rather amused by the sudden celebrity of the '50 Shades of Grey' novels and their relationship to the 'Twilight' novels. I now have a new respect for Ms. Leonard and plan to read her novels at my earliest opportunity... and not for the BDSM porn (Not that there's anything wrong with that), but rather to see how she handled divorcing her story from Ms. Meyer's works. This may require me to actually read said Sparkly Vampire novels rather than the summaries I have. That will probably not be a pleasant experience, but it may be a good, if painful, learning experience. (Again with the BDSM?)


and finally

Watching a good-natured mob come together is a beautiful thing.

There have been several organizers both here and on the Titan forums that have rallied the community and directed efforts to try to stop or reverse what is happening. There have been tens of thousands of petition signatures. Woody Hearn and Scott Kurtz are now involved.

When I wanted addresses of people so I could write angry letters, they were RIGHT freakin' there!

Even dinner has been bought for the Paragon Studios staff! There is so much class, dignity, and style in that one action that it outshines ten thousand rich executives. I am applauding you and am sad you can't hear it.

You guys are wonderful. Every last one of you. Seeing you all work together for this cause, no matter the outcome, is beautiful. Thank you all so much for your emotion, effort, and hard work.

Please continue to fight for what's right and just in this, Paragon City's darkest hour.

I have never been so happy to see a GG post before evar.

*crosses fingers*

My email:

Mr. Newell,

You've probably seen lots of news about City of Heroes being shuttered, and a few of the players of the game have mentioned that they think it would be a GREAT idea if Valve were to somehow take over the reigns of the game from NCSoft.

CoH has a great, LOYAL playerbase, tons of content, more customization options than any other MMO on the market, and is the 8th most popular MMO. In a world where World of Warcraft reigns supreme, that's pretty darn good.

If Valve were to pick up City of Heroes, you would have in me personally a loyal, paying customer for however long the game continued development.

Please make this happen, Mr. Newell. City of Heroes needs a... hero. You're one of our best hopes.

After I calmed down a bit, I thought I'd give voice to some of my thoughts.

I hope a miracle happens and that CoH lives.

I hope that I can stay in touch with all the wonderful friends I've made in game, even if it doesn't.

I hope that NCSoft (and/or Cryptic) can make the extremely unlikely legal hops happen to release the source code to the game or its servers so that its players can continue to be heroes.

That said, I've heard several different lines of hope for the game and its developers, but my personal experience is that being laid off is freakin' hard.

Even if, by some miracle, CoH was picked up by an angel investor who wanted to buy the game outright and keep the servers and development running, a lot of you guys who got laid off wouldn't want to come back.

I know that feel. I've so been there. It's one of the worst things you can feel. 'Well, crap. How do I feed my family next month? How could they do this to me?'

Devs, Artists, IT guys, please know that I hurt for you. I'm praying for you and thinking about you. I want you to all land on your feet as quickly as possible. If it helps, please include the following in your letters of reference or resumes:


Dear Potential Hirer of $FORMERCOHDEV

If you're reading this, it means you're considering hiring $FORMERCOHDEV. As a former player of the City of Heroes MMOG, please let me assure you that you will not regret hiring this person. Their work on City of Heroes made the game an astounding, enjoyable experience for me and my family.

Until NCSoft made what was no doubt the difficult decision to sunset City of Heroes, I was a loyal customer. I would have remained so if the game were to continue on. Sadly, that is not the case.

What made the City of Heroes experience different than any other game I've ever played is that the developers, artists, and staffers genuinely listened to player requests and implemented them as features whenever they could. They *worked* to make their customers happy.

If you hire $FORMERCOHDEV, that means you have a chance to earn me as a customer for your products. They do good work and run a class act, and I respect that. I'd respect you for hiring them.

Sincerely, @hamster, a satisfied customer.


Srsly, CoH staffers, if you'd like a 'Satisfied Customer' letter of reference, please PM me with contact info, and I'll send you a real letter.

Wat.

I don't get it. CoH is profitable, right? The online store is making lots of money, paying for all the new art, writing, and powersets. No issue 24?!

Paragon Studios has tons of talented developers and artists.

I mean, you guys JUST got power pool customization ready. We haven't even finished the incarnate power tree yet. We haven't even SEEN the Batallion.

Please, please explain what's going on, because I don't get it.


I'm hurt, shocked, and angry. And it's not even my job that's been cut. What the hell, NCSoft? What the hell?

I really, really like the new solo and team-oriented Incarnate content. The Mot story and the Belladonna arc are both great. More of this, please. It's great to grab a friend or two and be able to progress through the incarnate system.

With the new trial in the system, however, we're buffeted by the fact that NCSoft would like us to REALLY, REALLY PLEASE YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY DO TRIALS IN GROUPS OF 24, PLEASE!! PLZ! OMG! PLZ!

Yes, yes, we get that you want us to do trials in big groups. The fact that you tied the new incarnate experience type to the new trial and the new trial only broadcasts that clear and loud. There's also the fact that you're rushing a patch to the trial to try to eliminate a bug that discourages large groups. I'd have loved to sit in the prioritization meeting for that one.

However, some servers can't field a group like that off peak times.

Good example: Victory, my 'home' server, goes from being able to populate a single league of 24 at peak times to not being able to field 12 players for a trial after 11:00 PM Central. We have some great leaders on Victory. We have folks who are willing to recruit on Victory and actively try to do so.

What we do not have is lots of folks. It's rare that we can field more than one 12-player incarnate group at a time.

This effectively locks anyone who plays off-hours out of the new content that NCSoft seems determined to hammer into the 'League or Bust' mold.

Victory is a medium-low population server, in my opinion. There are less populated servers, so I can only imagine the grief they're having.

There are two solutions to this issue. NCSoft seems unwilling to consider the solution that players want: Decreased league-size requirements.

Magisterium is actually a LOT of fun, especially if you do it with the minimum team. That also minimizes the impact of the nasty bug affecting the last fight in the trial. I'd LOVE to do this with a team of 8 rather than 12. However, everything we HAVEN'T heard from NCSoft seems to indicate that this is COMPLETELY off the table.

So, let's look at the other direction in which it's possible to fix this problem: Cross-server teaming.

The Devs have given us tantalizing hints before that this is possible, but that it's also tied to no longer having unique names, which players seem to strongly reject.

However, if it were implemented, cross-server teaming would allow those who wanted to play this content off-peak hours to do so. It would also solve the problem of players who like to live on a 'low population' server having a difficult time getting trials together if they can effectively recruit across multiple servers.

Ultimately, this is the same problem introduced with BAF and exacerbated by Keyes and UGT: CoH is a team-oriented game, and the playerbase doesn't mold well into raid-oriented play. Magisterium has only intensified that problem, since it introduces further limits on who can participate.

However, if you insist on keeping the raid-oriented play, can you guys at least make it possible for us to ASSEMBLE a raid team one way or the other?

I came into this thread and was VERY surprised.

I expected it to be about the Melee Haet on Magisterium badge runs.

@Hamster

I'd like to bring Holly Star, a blaster. I can have all the requirements and can bring t4 Ageless or Barrier.

I mean, you can already do some basic swimwear with the 'with skin' options, but there's very little in the way that actually looks like swimwear. Also, you completely lose any options for more than one color.

A simple print-pattern competition swimsuit like so:



would be completely impossible.

It'd be nice to have some more options along this axis.

I don't watch TV often. However, today whilst working out, I asked the attendant at the gym to change the channel on a TV over my exercise bike to Cartoon Network since I can't deal with any kind of reality programming and news is far too depressing. Both of them make me all table-flippy, and that's a bad thing to be at the gym.

(Said attendant offers to change the channel for me frequently since I'm usually there at non-peak times.)

During the commercial breaks, I saw not one but two commercials for F2P MMOs that I would categorize squarely as 'Crap 2D browser games'. One of these was published by a mousy company that very recently distributed as certain movie about super heroes. It can be safely assumed that they have an enormous marketing budget.

The other, and actually better looking game, IMO, was not by a big name studio. Today was the first I'd heard of them.

I have NEVER seen a CoH commercial in any time slot.

Paragon has produced some GREAT videos, but these never make it past Youtube, let alone afternoon cartoons on CN. Paragon's CUSTOMERS have created great videos.

Black Pebble or other marketing folks, will there ever be any CoH commercials on TV to draw new blood into our world? You guys already have all the talent, know-how, and production values to make one, and it seems like basic cable advertising slots would not be prohibitively expensive.

If not... why?

We know that players are generally opposed to both the idea of a server merge and non-unique names. From various comments made, we also know that the Paragon/NCsoft thinks that these are fairly feasible changes to make compared to some requests that have been made.

This suggests that the data structure used to keep track of characters is a fairly sane one. Players are likely identified on the game servers by their Global Account-name and a unique ID. The character's name is just a bit of data that's displayed in the client rather than a long number or some complex string of random-looking characters.

To me, this suggests another possibility... Variable character names.

For example, let's consider a certain character from a copyrighted comic as if he were a CoH character:

Clark Kent is the first name given to him. His costume is casual clothes that are maybe a bit hick-ish since his bio lists him as growing up on the Kent Family farm.

Sometimes he changes into a costume that his adoptive parents found inside his space ship. When he uses the costume change screen, he changes his name to 'Superboy'.

As he matures and gains a few levels and discovers a bit more about his past, he alters his costume slightly and attaches a new name to it: 'Kal-el'.

Once he's really hit his peak, and the whole world knows about him, he again alters his costume slightly once again and adopts a name given to him by the general public: 'Superman'.


Now of course we couldn't use those names without getting into trouble with the GMs and making certain lawyers foam at the mouth, but it illustrates a mechanic I think is possible with fairly little work from the developers.

Imagine if your character's displayed name was tied to your costume, and could change every time you changed your costume. If you purchased all the costume slots, you could have up to 10 names if you so chose and could re-designate those names at a tailor or trainer.

How would you feel about this, especially if it meant that your character's name might not be unique any more?

Con: It would more or less require that unique names go away since the number of names available would have to expand by 10-fold. However, this would please the 'All the good names are taken' crowd.

Con: It could also cause some confusion in chat, especially when a character was changing his costume/name often enough. One might consider mitigating this issue somewhat by restricting a feature like this to VIP or Premium players. However, this seems like a small issue to me since the vast majority of the players I know prefer to use global channels where the name displayed is their global.

Pro: It fits in well with comic tradition, which sees many characters changing their name from time to time. Imagine all the different 'Robins' who have both unique 'real names' and then eventually seem to gain their own superhero name. My favorite example is Kitty Pryde from Marvel lore, who's also been known as 'Sprite', 'Ariel', and 'Shadowcat'.

Pro: It allows more customization for characters and allow for greater roleplaying potential. Imagine a 'Jekyl and Hyde' type character whose name, appearance, and behavior shifted dramatically from time to time.

Pro: Most importantly to me, it would allow characters to have an in-game mechanism other than their bio to establish 'Secret Identities'... another long-standing trope in almost all genres of fiction, not just Superhero comics.


Thoughts or concerns? Is this something you'd like to see the devs spend time on, or would it be something you'd prefer they avoid altogether?

Hmm... These must be done using the 'Invasion 2.0' setup we saw last year. It's a typical invasion, but...

Problems:

There's a month of this.

The invasions are HARD because if you defeat too many lieutenants at once, they cap out on Vengeance. This is frustrating for players since they simply can't hit anything and everything the enemies launch lands.

There's only one badge for the event, for fighting the GM, *BUT*...

Getting the GM to spawn is HARD. You seem to need at least 12 folks over 35 or so. If you DO have the folks to spawn him, chances are you're also stacking that same Vengeance on him with every spawn wave.

(Convincing an entire league of 50+ folks to only use single target attacks is difficult enough on TPN against 5 telepathists at a time. Convincing everyone who shows up to fight Nemi that way? Sheesh!)

It's entirely possible to go the entire event without seeing the GM, even with a full team.

It's also entirely possible to spawn the GM and then be unable to defeat him in the time alotted because he gets defense-capped so quickly and simply out-lasts.

The problem here is that there's no sense of urgency at all. People are interested in getting the badge, but at the same time, it's very apparent that if you then bring TOO MANY arms to bear, it makes the event just as pointless as if you'd brought too little.

If you do try to make every event, you're just asking for frustration. At the same time, if you try to cherry-pick the 'good' events when you know people with gather (Talos, for example) you run the risk of 'too much'.

I think we need to reevaluate this event.

I haven't purchased Staff yet simply because I have no plans to make a staff-wielding character. However, if I do make one, it's likely to be a magical character.

The selection of staves available leaves rather a lot to be desired in this direction. The closest things we get to spears or pole-axes are the 'Trident' and 'Tech' models. I guess a witch might fight with the broom model.

Also missing are any kind of runed staves, fantasy-themed staves, or magic-show-themed staves.

Consider the following scepter and pole-axe wielding magical girls from everyone's favorite sailor-suited anime:

We know that animations propagate across all the humanoid skeletons to some degree. For example, Warwalkers can use all the dance emotes if controlled by someone with access to them.

The cat and dog rigs *probably* have the same major animation bones... head, neck, shoulders, arms, elbows... etc...

Of course I don't know for sure because I don't have access to the source models.

Something I'd like the devs to experiment with is taking the existing cat and dog models and seeing what happens when you apply the existing animations *without* changes. What happens when you give a dog a broadsword and ask it to perform Headsplitter? Does the sword point the right direction, as if you were trying to recreate the 'Puss in Boots' image I posted earlier? Does the animation play anything LIKE correctly? How bad is the clipping and deformation?

Also, can you put a hat on a cat? 'Cause that'd be awesome.

Paragon Studios has been working pretty feverishly on their four-legged rig. If you chart the progress from when the NPC 'scenery' wolves showed up at Halloween, you can see that they've been progressively adding animations and variations to the rig until we now have PC-pet animals in Darkness Control and Beast Mastery.

While some may consider that to be the end of the line of the rig, I'd like to think that the use and steady improvement of the rig means that we'll have player-controlled animal models in the not-too-distant future.

Obviously, this is a ton of work, but Paragon ALSO has a ton of skilled folks working there at the moment. I don't think it's an unreachable goal.

That said, what do we, as players, expect from PC animals? Do we expect them to do nothing but bite and claw? Is it fair to limit them to non-weapon powersets? Can we anchor blast and melee animations to the animals' noses and get away with it?

The following is what I want from PC animals:

Jaguar Strike: Electrical Melee/Energy Aura Stalker

Jaguar Strike is the apparently human son of a Mayan jaguar god. He's supposed to be able to shape-shift into his namesake. (Accordingly, Paragon has me by the short ones when they release the 'Panther Stealth Power'.) I would like him to be able to express all his melee powers in the form of biting and clawing. I'd also need to be able to customize the existing cat skeleton and colors slightly to make him look like a Jaguar rather than a dark lion.

I'd have no problems with all the melee particle animations for electric melee simply starting at his nose or paws. The Energy Aura animations would have to be deformed significantly to fit a 'four on the floor' model as opposed to the existing bipedal models we have. However, they do already seem to have all the necessary anchor points to fit... neck, shoulders, elbows, hands, hips, knees, feet.


Electric Hamster: Electrical Melee/Electric Armor

The Electric Hamster is the pet of a young girl who got lost in the machinery of Heaven. The various divine devices project him onto Earth as a human man. I'd like for him to be able to shape-shift into his namesake for teleporting and stealth. In the past I've used the 'Panda' shoulder pet colored orange and white to indicate him in his hamster form riding around on the shoulders of other characters.

We don't have a rodent skeleton or rodentine animations yet... bristle nose, comb whiskers, stand on hind legs, etc... Also, while most rodent skeletons are fairly similar, a hamster MODEL would require significant deformation of a mouse or rat skeleton to get the appropriate proportions.

Also, travel speed would need to be taken into account. Is an animal that's 1/20th the size of a human going to be able to run at the same speed as one?

Is an animal 1/20th the size of a human going to have a human-size hit box so that teammates can at least try to select him during a melee battle?


Shinx: Sonic/Devices blaster

Shinx is a wildcat genetically engineered on distant world populated by both humans and talking animals.

I made a version of Shinx during the Going Rogue beta (I think...) using the existing animal heads, clawed hands, and digitigrade feet. However, the proportions were all wrong. He wasn't a cat standing on its hind-legs like he was supposed to be. I wanted something a lot more like:

Zwill's recent 'Why U No Staff?!' post hints at the fact that NCSoft thinks its pretty darn early to release another melee set.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ighlight=staff

I wouldn't be surprised if it was held off until after the pummit, or even if another power-set was beta'd and released before Staff.