Ban_Sidhe

I believe the release schedule that has been mentioned is 3 a year. So, we've had April's, next up is August then December.

I think we're all in for a real treat, and that's borne out by something as inocuous as the costume change emotes. They're awesome, although I have this strange feeling that there may be some artful, anime-style, use of them. If there was one thing I could change as far as the graphics were concerned, it'd be lighting. Nothing more. Take a look at the Aion screenshots with, and without, proper lighting effects. The change is startling, and in COH it would be amazing. The alley-ways would be dingier, the open areas bright and airy. And all because the light comes from a single point source in the sky, and not the current "Simulated" shadows we have. I'd be happy with just that as a change for graphics, and I'd hope most cards would be able to handle it.

Cryptic is probably pushing very hard to achieve it's CO release date. The screenshots on massively point at a game that is rounding out very nicely indeed. And Cryptic seem to be listening very intently to it's beta-testers. But that's another game, and we all love COH for what it is, and for what it will become.

I think we've already had some lead-in to the coming storm. It's the "End of Days" The dead are rising from their graves in the form of zombie invasions. We're still getting Rikti incursions, even after we handed them their posteriors on a silver platter. Power proliferation is rife, witches and warlocks abound because of the new pack and we have that amazing sci-fi get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of time-travel. Want to reboot you're universe? Just dump a world-changing paradox in the mix and, viola! New universe! Same as the old one, just subtly different in key areas (Star Trek anyone?) like the city environments are larger, the sun shines properly and the fifth column are spreading propaganda like nobodies business. Not to mention nasty Indian gods descending on the Earth with a bad attitude and an inexhaustible supply of green jelly.

"Don't tell me, we about to go over a huge Waterfall?.... Sharp rocks at the bottom?.... Bring it on." - Emporer Cuzco.

<sniff> So good!

This is BEGGING for someone to do a web-app with!

I'm pretty sure the current version of the engine can't apply selectable bump-maps like that. Maybe NCSoft can get a hold of the updated cryptic engine. I think that their agreement with Cryptic gives them access to it. Especially as cryptic have done so much work on it with CO and the up-coming STO.

That's it. Just more chrome/quicksilver type costumes. You can't have anough chrome.

In my defence, I was 2 bottles and a half of wine ahead, but this was hilarious.

I want to say something about that but I'm under an NDA! Aaarrrgghhhh!!!

i believe they have created a monster.

LOL! That's what we need to rampage across paragon city. that'd look fantastic..

Keep your eyes peeled for bleeding walls in Steel Canyon

It's been a while since we've seen a doooom thread....

"WINSTON: Hey, Ray. Do you remember something in the Bible about the last days, when the dead would rise from the grave?

RAY: I remember Revelation 7:12. And I looked, as he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth. And the moon became as blood.

WINSTON: And the seas boiled and the skies fell.

RAY: Judgment Day.

WINSTON: Judgment Day.

RAY: Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.

WINSTON: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is because the dead have been rising from the grave?"

Winston Zeddemore & Ray Stanz - Ghostbusters

Has it occurred to anyone that the zombie invasions are one of the pre-cursors to Judgement day? Just a thought

The end is nigh! DOOOOOOOOM!

The Soundtrack to the Incredibles is just perfect. Especially track 1 for bank jobs.

I'm running the 64bit version to take advantage of the 4Gb's of RAM. I've also not disabled UAC, hence the need to run COX in Admin mode.

Yes, COX does work on Windows 7 Beta 1 build 7000. As with Vista you need to run the game in Admin mode. The beta Nvidia drivers for my 8600GTS work a treat, and I actually get better performance (At least +5FPS) using Win7 than Vista. VERY impressed so far with Windows 7 and will definitely be upgrading. It seems that Microsoft get the OS right every other version!

Did have some artifacts in Croatoa, but dropped the graphics to performance and then back up to Quality seemed to sort it out.

I don't think we'll have COH2. I DO think that we'll get a paid-for expansion with a serious graphics engine upgrade. There's a series of interesting comments from Positron on New Years resolutions for COH (Source: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/...s-resolutions/ )
----------------------------------------
Matt Miller, senior lead designer:

- To prove to the MMO world that we are the #1 superhero MMO, not because we are the ONLY one, but because we are the BEST one.

- To allow our players to customize their character in ways that have not been possible before.

- To allow our players to make their own missions and story arcs, and have the world play and rate them (Mission Architect).

- To continue upon the improvements we’ve made to the game as a whole in 2008, adding more cool stuff for our players to do.

----------------------------------------

Of particular note is the "To allow our players to customize their character in ways that have not been possible before."

That to me has "Power customisation" written all over it. It's one of CO's selling points, and to be able to turn around and say "Yeah, so what! We can do that too, plus we have 5 years of content for players; not to mention players can build their own content too now! Nyah, Nyah!"

Power customisation, from past thread discussions, requires quite a serious change to the engine and Posi's always said it was too much hassle. Even the Valkyrie costume set is beginning to show what the current engine is actually capable of, the wings are gorgeous!

So, here's a noddy prediction... No COH2 in 09, I15 huge graphics update to compete with CO and DCUO (Although looking at the DCUO screenies, DCUO suffers from the same problem as Paragon, namely empty city and deserted streets) Power customisation, the final part of power proliferation, higher detail models with lots of new poses, and finally there'll be a big world event for the 5th anniversary. Although, please, can we just beat the snot out of the Rikti before the Shivans arrive? One invasion at a time? Or is it going to be a balls to the wall Rikti,Shivan,Zombie invasion fest?

Well, Massively seem to want to stand behind their prediction:

http://www.massively.com/2009/01/10/...s-2/#continued

They still think that COH2 is coming when CO is announced and that this ain't gonna be a purchaseable add-on but a complete new game! Complete with, potentially, fixed PvP amongst other things. While the argument is ok, I'm not convinced. Why on earth would NCSoft alienate the current community with a new game utilising the current properties? Unless you can "Transport" into the new game? Still, something to read, and I'm wondering if there's more going on behind the scenes than anyone is willing to let on, and that includes GR who is obviously bound, gagged and yelling for all his worth in the NCSoft basement.

Interesting comment from NCSoft on a Joystiq article about story-telling:

"It's the same obstacle we've always faced - telling compelling stories to our audience. This isn't going to get easier with new technology or higher res models or more interesting gameplay. Those are merely tools and techniques. Our audience wants to be told a story they care about. They want to believe in the impossible.

It doesn't matter if we're developing on the newest game engine or standing on a table spouting our tale to the masses. Can we do it? Sure, we've done it before, we'll do it again, but it's not going to get any easier. If anything it's going to get harder because our audience expects so much from us."

Of note is "This isn't going to get easier with new technology or higher res models"

Ooooh Higher Res models!

Joystiq link:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/29/te...story-telling/

lol funniest posts yet. Although it's always nice to see GR sniffing around, and not just pruning

Here:

http://totheblogmobile.com/2009/01/0...2009/#more-587

Steve's predictions for 2009, which also may have had an impact on Massively's predictions.

Oh, and nice post Necrotron

Well, when something big does turn up you can say "I told you so"

I think there'll be robes in the Fantasy pack that's coming. Necromancers will abound

I think the Hero-zones were built with the "Build it and they will come" philosophy, in which case maybe they were expecting the zones to be a bit crowded with the thousands of players all in a zone at the same time. You wouldn't be able to move for spandex! Of course the reality is quite different, and is probably for discussion in another thread. Like I said though... I'd love to see the War walls taken down, but I know it ain't gonna happen. Not without a huge overhaul of the system, which would probably change a few fundamental ways of doing things. Environment scales would have to change for one thing, along with heaven knows what else.

NCSoft have a 5-year old toddler on its hands in COX. It's growing out of its baby clothes. Computing will always move on, and I really do think that there is something on the horizon that is going to blow our minds away. I14 Architect is imminent, and they've had a really big team beavering away in the background for the better part of a year now. Having done I10, I11 and I12 on a bare-bones team, I13 didn't really "feel" that much bigger. So what has a 30+ team been doing for 12 months? Here's to 09

I wouldn't remove the zones. Shiny new graphics are a must, I agree with you Praf, and would make the game competitive for many years to come. EVE is an excellent example of this.

My biggest, personal, gripe is actually to do with the hero-side missions. Compare them to the villains and the villain mission, TF and Zone design blows the hero side out of the water. After getting a villain to lvl50 I tried to do the same with a hero (got there eventually) and having to traipse most of the way across the city is a royal pain in the rear end. Villains is so well thought out by comparison, that's why it's so fun! As for PvP... I don't want to get into that particular argument, and it's pointless because it goes on "ad infinitum" Personally I'd be very happy with either a PvP zone flag to say "I want to PvP" or a more common "Challenge/Response" ala WoW. I know that WAR has championed the RvR arena, but isn't that just a more advanced version of COX's PvP zones?

I'd love to see the war walls taken down. I also would love to see a proper world event take place for the 5th anniversary. Thoughts of meteorites falling from the sky, crashing and disgorging loads of Shivans comes to mind. but none of us know whether that's going to happen. I think that RockJaw has given a big enough clue in his predictions for 09. He's probably not allowed to say more. Remember, he did used to work for NCSoft, and while he might not have been privy to the hard-core stuff, I'm sure that there's a glimmer of realism in there.

COH 2 will probably take the form of a paid-expansion to the existing game, much in the same way as WoW and LOTRO.

I think there'll be a serious update to some of the graphic elements of the game, along with a very serious expansion of the environment. Space has been muted a number of times, and we've seen experimentation with underwater environments (well, swimming) If it's space, I hope they'll add lots of space-suit costume parts If it's under-water, wetsuits and more Scuba gear than just a Re-breather (cylinders, spear-guns, fins etc...)

More base love. Sorry, but I don't want an underground secret base. I want something that wouldn't go amiss in a bond movie. Stromberg's Atlantis from the "spy who loved me", or inside a volcano, a space station and above all something with some flippin' windows in it! Oh, and some partition walls, and flooring that you can't see through when you stack it half way up the room. And would a fridge, washing machine, drier and Microwave be too mush to ask for? A phone is fine for dialing out for Pizza/take-away but even super-heroes/villains like to eat healthily.

There's also the chance to be a real thorn in DCUO's side. Marvel sued NCSoft and Cryptic for the character generator and the ability to create characters that reflect their established universe. MUO died when they thought it wouldn't make enough money, but what if NCSoft (after buying the all the rights from Cryptic) turned round to Marvel and said "How about a piece of our pie as yours has gone off?" That gives Marvel a chunk of the Super MMO pie, and NCSoft a really big stick to whack the other MMO's with. Unlikely, but it's a nice idea.

Happy New Year!!!