Cantatus
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Amusing. So, instead of them trying harder to compete with HBO, they'll just move HBO to a separate awards show so broadcast television can continue to wallow in mediocrity. Good plan!Originally Posted by Obsidius
In a day and age where broadcast networks are asking the Emmys to have two different award ceremonies (one for broadcast networks and the other for cable TV) because their shows win far fewer awards then cable TV shows, I think Conan has a good chance, actually
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Quote:I knew what that video was going to be before I clicked it.Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Yeah, Mary Tyler Moore did have all that going for it. But, again, I must point out the awesomeness that was Ed Asner's Lou Grant. But, come on, Ed Asner is always awesome.
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I can't confirm it personally, but according to the manual, you need to level a hero archetype (blaster, controller, defender, scrapper, or tanker) to 20 to unlock a Kheldian and a villain archetype to 20 for the Arachnos EATs. It sounds like the archetype matters more than the alignment, but I could be wrong.
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Quote:Yeah, I think that's especially true for a show like Mary Tyler Moore. For its time, it was fairly cutting edge in that it was actually showcasing a societal change - women in the workplace. It was the first show to have a single independent working woman as the star. (I always found it amusing that Mary was originally supposed to be a divorced character, but the network was afraid people would think Rob from The Dick Van **** show left her.)Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
It's all a matter of context. I Love Lucy is a slightly above average comedy with glaring flaws. Historical context and lasting impact are what matter...
On the same token, The Brady Bunch was one of the first shows to explore blended families.
As far as The Cosby Show goes:
Get it or not, hard to deny the impact that show had.Quote:According to TV Guide, the show "was TV's biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes".[1] Originally, the show had been pitched to ABC, which rejected it.[1] Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows based on African Americans, from In Living Color to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.[2] The Cosby Show was also one of the first successful sitcoms based on the subject matter of a standup comedians act, blazing a trail for other programs such as Roseanne, Home Improvement, The Drew Carey Show, Seinfeld, and Everybody Loves Raymond. The Cosby Show is one of only three American programs that have been #1 in the Nielsen ratings for at least five consecutive seasons, along with All in the Family and American Idol, the only program to be ranked #1 for six consecutive seasons. -
Bill Murray was actually a natural choice to play Garfield in the movies considering the actor who voiced him in the cartoons (Lorenzo Music) also voiced Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters cartoon. I guess the two are sort of interchangeable voice-wise.
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Quote:Or the Madden franchise, or The Force Unleashed, or the Rock Band series, or Ghostbusters, or Call of Duty, or Prince of Persia, etc.Originally Posted by Manofmanychars
Or maybe Marvel:Ultimate Alliance?
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Quote:There are already a number of games that are done across all three platforms, with the Wii's graphics obviously lower (the PS3 and 360's graphics typically differ as well). I wouldn't think that would be a huge concern as adjusting the detail of graphics isn't terribly difficult. Computer games are a good example of that. It's just that consoles lock you into the optimal setting for the system.Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
The problem with that logic is that the graphical limitations of the Wii are only slightly above PS2 and far below what the 360 and PS3 put out. This creates development problem of having to choose Wii only or 360 and PS3 only. Also the 3 systems use entirely different motion control systems making multi-platiforming games across them a major pain.
As far as the motion controls go, not being familiar with either the Move or Kinect, I suppose it's difficult for me to make a judgment on how easy or difficult it would be to make a motion control game available on all systems. However, I would speculate it'd be a lot easier to create a game and adjust it for each of the different types of motion controls rather than how it works now where a game either has to add or remove motion controls to make the game work on all three consoles.
Of course, there is also the fact that with motion controls being available on every console, it makes it open to a much broader audience. It will no longer be niche (or, at least, not as niche), which might push some developers more in the direction of being willing to embrace it. This, too, could be something that could be beneficial to the Wii as it may remove some of the stigmas that currently exist towards it. -
Hmm... I saw this girl in red whisper "No more civilians!" Think that has anything to do with this?
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Quote:Actually, I could see the release of 360 and PS3 motion controls as helping Nintendo score more 3rd party support. Right now, one of the big detriments to supporting motion control is that means it can only be played on the Wii. For some gaming studios, that means significantly less sales than if they were to release a cross-platform game as every console owner would have access to their game rather than just the one.Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
It's proving to be a very strong short-term investment console, which isn't good for Nintendo in the long-run considering they can't get decent 3rd party software support now and will find more difficulty once Sony and Microsoft release their motion control peripherals. If these peripherals prove successful (one most surely will if not both), then the Wii is looking at a future of even greater loss in yearly sales in both hardware and software, despite their strong lead in sales in 2007. The continue lack of 3rd party titles will most likely accelerate this if people are getting rid of their dusty Wiis in favor of 360 and PS3 motion releases, thus decreasing the sale of new Wiis dramatically.
When the Kinect and Move release, this potentially allows for a developer to have cross-platform motion control games. This not only would help Nintendo in getting 3rd party support but might also have the advantage of getting some games released on the Wii that might not otherwise be due to them being aimed more at adults. -
Quote:Well, that, and if numbers didn't increase as you progressed you could essentially have level 1 characters soloing in Peregrine Island.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Simply put, endurance costs are normalized. Damage isn't because of the big numbers principle: players simply want to see bigger numbers as a sign of progress. So level 30s have to do more damage and take more damage, even if the actual number of shots it takes to kill them is similar to that of level 28s. The numbers are a visual cue that you're getting more powerful, even though the enemies are also getting more powerful.
I've always appreciated CoH's model. Other MMOs annoyed me in that they'd put a cap on a skills' capabilities, and then I'd have to replace it with an "upgrade" that was the same skill, but with higher damage and higher cost to use. I was supposed to look forward to that? It's like looking forward to your PS3 wearing out so you can get a new one.Quote:That visual cue isn't necessary for things like endurance. If it were, what would happen is your endurance bar would get bigger, but the endurance costs of your powers would also get bigger as they became more powerful, and we'd be back where we started from.
CoH's model is much more simple and makes sense. In my opinion, it also makes the progression more rewarding as I don't have to reach a level and debate if my Controller should upgrade my Blind ability to Blind II or take a new ability I don't yet have. Every time you get to a level where you can pick a power, you know you're getting something new and increasing your arsenal. -
Quote:I think that's one of the issues I've had with hitting 50. When I've hit the level cap in other MMOs, it sort of opens up a whole new world to me. Granted, it's not the best world, but it feels like all that leveling had a point and now I can put all those spells and skills I learned to good use. With CoH, you just sort of run into a wall.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I need to have a point after which I can stop feeling like I'm weak now, and if only I were stronger, this would be so much easier. I want to feel that, OK I have everything I need. Now it's time to go use it. Isn't that why I was earning it for the past 50 levels? Endless progression never gives me the feeling that I've done my work and now I can enjoy the spoils, because the "spoils" are merely tools towards even more work.
It's sort of contrary to the genre of the game. You go through all of these missions, repeatedly saving the city, getting to the point where you're even bailing out the premiere supergroup of Paragon City. You get to the epitome of your strength and have proven yourself to be the best, and suddenly you're no longer needed. I'm not sure about CoV side as I've never gotten a villain that high, but it doesn't really feel like there's any conclusion to the story for heroes. It's, "Here's your badge. Now go create a new character!" Heck, at least at previous milestone levels you get things like costume slots and auras.
This is one thing, at least, that it sounds like the Incarnate system will alleviate. -
Quote:I go back and forth on it. On the one hand, I don't really have the patience anymore for the typical MMO endgame content. To be honest, I'm not really sure I even enjoyed it back when I did do it in other games. I think I primarily did it because it was the thing to do, and I had a lot of friends. It was how I spent the evening with them.
On the note of people leaving because they feel they "finished" the game, this is precisely why I've STAYED with the game for as long as I have - because I always feel that, sooner or later, I will be able to finish the game and start over clean. I DESPISE traditional MMOs which never end, because they constitute endless toil with no closure at the end. This does not make me want to play them more and longer, it makes me not want to bother in the first place.
However, I usually get attached to my characters. When I play a MMO, I generally will get invested in one or two characters. Back when playing one of the earlier MMOs, I had one character, and I pretty much played him exclusively for 4 1/2 years. I'm pretty much the opposite of an altoholic. I don't really like the idea of getting to the point where I have nothing to do with one of my favorites anymore. (For some reason, I've also had a really hard time creating new characters that I can be happy with.)
I guess that's why I'm in favor of a MMO testing new grounds when it comes to endgame content. Realistically, Cryptic/Paragon Studios have been one of the more experimental studios when it comes to MMOs. You really can't deny that they've done some stuff which has influenced other MMOs (sidekicking being a fantastic example of this), so I really hope that the endgame content that is being designed is something that approaches the endgame from a different angle rather than just adapting what every other MMO does to the CoH universe. -
Awesome poem. I had no idea Stan Lee could write like that. Thank you for posting it!
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Quote:The problem in this tends to be that MMO developers have sort of let "endgame content" be defined by what MMOs were doing a decade ago, and few are unwilling to explore new ways of doing things. Just about ever MMO I've played has the endgame revolve around gathering a bunch of people and farming loot to beat some boss/dungeon to get that loot to be able to beat the next dungeon and so on and so on.Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree
I've just returned to CoH after several months on other games (sometimes a change of scene is good) and, having recent experience of how this focus on endgame can poison and warp an MMO and its community it feels great to be back in CoH, where end game is one thing to do, rather than the only thing.
In at least one game I can think of (it'll go unnamed but I'm sure everyone knows which one I mean) the endgame doesn't increase your options. It narrows them. Sure there's so many max level raids you could do, but few people do any of them - except for speed runs to gear up for that one 'end of the end game' raid.
CoH really doesn't do much better by ignoring the problem, however. All that does is make it so people hit a wall. I've read countless complaints on various forums over the years where people quit the game when they hit 50, because they more or less felt like they finished the game. It's always been shocking to me how low of a priority the developers see the endgame to be when it is something that could really help to retain (or even recapture) players.
But then, I'm not overly enthused by the Incarnate system either, at least based on what I've heard of it. It's obviously way too early to complain about it, but it doesn't sound to do much to break the trend. Perhaps I'll be wrong.
Personally, I think something that would really fit CoH well would be something I've been playing with in a certain slimy RPG that was recently released. When you hit the level cap, you can choose to start back at level 1, but doing so opens you up to new rewards. Given this game frequently adds content at all levels, people could easily take their character through different paths each time they started over. Of course, a lot of getting this to work would be finding sufficient bonuses and rewards to make something like this worthwhile. -
Quote:Ah, boy. That was a fun mission. I think I was only able to keep myself alive for the first three ambushes. Luckily, the target I needed to defeat was back near the entrance, and I was able to get him away from the 25+ Malta that was standing in the hall where I died.Originally Posted by Partsman
I am a casual but dedicated player; I play to unwind, relax after work, and relieve some stress. Facing 6 or 7 back to back ambushes of Malta sappers and engineers in a tip mission set to +0/+0 on my solo blaster, where they spawn 30 feet away even before the first spawn is cleaned up, that is just stupid.
Poor Frostfire. He never had a chance.
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Quote:The movie studio is sort of between a rock and a hard place on this new movie. They need to keep it Spider-Man, obviously, but they also need to differentiate it enough to where it's not constantly drawing comparisons to the first series of movies. Since they're doing a reboot, they need to change things up enough to where it doesn't just feel like we're getting Spider-Man 1 refilmed with a new cast.Originally Posted by catsi563
Movie directors and producers still dont get it do they? you'd think they'd learn from the cluster flops that Last Airbender and Catwoman, and a couple others were.
You dont mess with the basics, you dont throw in new characters, and you dont spit on the history and backstory and continuity.
However, I think the problem they're going to run into is most people's exposure to Spider-Man is due to the first movies. The way they were presented made Spider-Man and Mary Jane into a sort of couple like Superman and Lois Lane, the sort of couple that belonged together. Having a new girlfriend for Peter Parker might take some wind out of the romance angle (which they'll inevitably have to draw in a female audience), because people will know they ultimately don't end up together. The girl will just be a pitstop until he meets Mary Jane.
Of course, the studio could avoid all this if, you know, they decided to wait a few more years before they figured we needed another set of Spider-Man movies...
Having them married would certainly be an interesting angle. So far, I can't really think of a superhero movie in the recent glut of superhero movies where the main superhero is married to a non-super. This has always been a ripe source of stories in certain comics, so it's sort of surprising no one has embraced this as a way to set their movie franchise apart.Quote:Originally Posted by PlagueOfUndeath
I dunno...Mary-Jane and Peter Parker have been married as long as I've been able to read, until One More Day.
Why can't we have a spider-man story that takes place during the time AFTER they're married? Limit the romantic tension! Focus on the action! Plus imagine the jokes you could have with a married spider-man! -
I'm finding the alignment system to be extremely underwhelming. Considering this was supposed to be one of the big focuses of the expansion, something talked about for literally years, I expected it to have a lot of shine and polish to it. Instead, it feels almost tacked on, especially when you compare it to Praetoria.
Praetoria has all these cool missions with the ability for you to decide how to progress through them. They also have some wonderfully and long overdue new tilesets. It almost makes it feel like an entirely new game, so it strikes me as odd that these things were left out of the parts of the expansion that are available to CoH and CoV.
Instead, we get the same, bland tilesets we've had for years. There is also no real morality choice like you get in Praetoria. Instead it's, "Do you want to do mission A or mission B?" From my experience, most of the missions are fairly straightforward and not too much different from the types of missions that were in this game 6 years ago (with a few exceptions).
When compared to Newspaper/Radio missions, they become even more lackluster to me. At least when you do enough of those, there is a big payoff in the form of being able to do a Mayhem/Safeguard mission, something wholly unique to the CoH/CoV experience. That's what kept me from posting in this thread for a few days. I didn't want to preemptively complain only to be told, "But you haven't even gotten to the alignment mission yet. Wait until you do that!" I was holding out hope that after going through 10 run-of-the-mill missions, it would be something that would make it all worthwhile. But nope, it was another mission in an office tileset...
I suppose these missions are worth begrudgingly doing if you want to change sides, but I can't really see any reason to do them beyond that, which is a big shame. With this expansion, they had the opportunity to add a lot of polish to both CoH and CoV, allowing players beyond level 20 to continue to experience some new and superb content, but it seems all that polish was focused solely on Praetoria. -
Quote:Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I found Arachnos being shoehorned into the game so annoying. They were suddenly this huge threat, but unless you took your hero into the PvP zones, you never really even saw them. Even today, their presence is fairly limited. I think the only zones you can encounter them in on blueside is Faultline and RWZ.Originally Posted by Peacemoon
I have to say I am also in the camp that finds Arachnos and Recluse terribly overused redside.
I don't see why we have to have such a huge Arachnos & Longbow presence. It would be like Paragon City having PPD everywhere and in such large numbers, controlling what your hero does.
As far as them being overused redside goes, one of the things I've always found a little amusing is if you look at the various enemy groups that were added with CoV, they really don't have much variety in models. The Snakes are basically 2 models colored differently. The Coralax are pretty much the same. The Arachnoids, I think, are just a single model. This makes sense based on the fact that they were populating a whole other game, but on a much more limited amount of time than what they had to do CoH in.
But then you look at Arachnos and all the variety they have. Between all the spiders, widows, robots, and Mu, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that if you added up all the Arachnos models that they'd outnumber every other new enemy group added during that time, probably by a wide margin. -
Quote:I disagree that it'd be creating four paths. With the right writing, making things morally ambiguous enough would still allow for two paths, but it'd be up to the players to determine where those paths fall on the moral spectrum.Originally Posted by Olantern
This makes things simpler from a mechanical point of view, too. If "ultimately support Tyrant" corresponds to Villain and "ultimately fight Tyrant" corresponds to Hero, then only two "morality" play paths need to be created, probably as arcs in the upper teens. (Note that such arcs could operate independently of whether a character starts off tagged "Loyalist" or "Resistance.") If both heroism and villany are open to all characters, regardless of their attitudes toward the Praetorians, then that's at least four paths: villanous Resistance, heroic Resistance, villanous Loyalist, and heroic Loyalist.
I imagine any choice which will change your alignment will be made obvious. I'm sure the developers know no one wants their character to end up villainous when they thought they were working towards being a hero, especially since it's been said you're not just going to be able to change your alignment whenever you want to.Quote:My main concern is that the "right" and "wrong" choices remain clear. I don't want to have a character I see as heroic sent down the villanous path or vice versa because I disagree with or just plain don't understand the moral system the devs are pushing. For instance, one choice mentioned in an early Going Rogue interview was, "Do you let the despot who's killed hundreds of people and will do it some more go, since it might destabilize things, or do you kill him, to save the lives of some specific people you know?" I can't say which of those choices is the heroic one in the context of a computer game, since both are pretty awful. They could tell me upfront that we're using Batman Morality and Killing Is Always Wrong, No Matter The Circumstances, but that sort of defeats the significance of having a moral choice. It's a challenging design problem with no easy solution, unless you believe that the player base has a much more universal code of what's right and wrong than I think it does.
That said, given your example, that's the sort of choices I wouldn't mind seeing in the game. They should be difficult choices where you can't exactly say, "Yes, that was what a hero would do." You can justify to yourself that your hero did what he believed to be the right thing (or conversely, that your villain did the wrong thing), but have someone look at it differently. Heroes should have to make choices that aren't so black and white. That is what makes them interesting, in my opinion. -
Quote:Right. When the Praetorians were originally added, they were basically "Bizarro Freedom Phalanx". Now that Going Rogue has come out, they're getting a whole lot of paint and glitter.Originally Posted by Decorum
Close. He's saying they essentially created a "new character" (and a "new" faction, although he didn't actually say that) with Tyrant's reboot, so that makes it similar to his Recluse complaint.
I have to say, and maybe this is intentional, but I think it does a disservice to the whole "Loyalty" and "Resistance" thing and trying to portray the Praetorians as now a morally gray faction. It's hard to be open to the idea that the Praetorians are anything other than bad when that's how they've been portrayed in the game for the past 6 years.
Perhaps this is how it's intended. I don't know as I haven't played through any of the arcs or anything, but I'd think it would be much cooler if a morally gray faction wasn't colored by previous and obvious villainous actions. It'd be great to have some debates on the boards as to whether or not the Praetorians are villains, but any debate seems like it'd include, "Yeah, but Dominatrix drugs people." or "Yeah, but Siege has a torture chamber." -
Quote:To be overly critical, I'm not particularly wild about Tyrant being "rebooted". It sort of goes along the lines of what I said with Lord Recluse. The game already has tons of fantastic characters, so it feels like a missed opportunity to essentially create a new character by retconning an old one.Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
you know, had you asked me a year and a half ago about tyrant, i would have snarled at you and called the whole endgame of the goatee paragon nonsense to be garbage, seeing how the reboot of tyrant to being this multi-textured and nuanced shows me that they could make states and recluse pop again, they just haven't yet. there are a lot of really cool threads of storyline out there with things like the sleeper under dark astoria, merluna's silence, the coming storm, the game is rife with plot potential, so so it really depends on what hey choose to deal with.
I suppose it also strikes me as odd to have an expansion revolve around the Praetorians when they've never really been that significant of an enemy.
Not that I won't get it because of the lore or anything, just nitpicking. -
Quote:Recluse has always disappointed me, and it's probably part of the reason I've never been able to get into playing a villain. I always found it to be fairly odd that with the large variety of villains available in the game to make CoV's franchise, the writers decided to come up with some new villain and did a massive retcon to shoehorn him into the CoH gameworld. (Seriously, I love how the Rogue Isles are this horrible place and Lord Recluse is Statesman's number one enemy, yet you never heard about him until CoV came about. It was like when Dawn suddenly showed up on Buffy, and everyone acted like she has been there all along).Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Absolutely Recluse should be largely ignored if not killed off. Either way, that story pretty much is done as of the patron arcs, so continuation would not involve him anyway. Future villain arcs should be more like the excellent i17 arcs, more self-focused without loyalty assumptions.
As for Paragon, it makes sense that the story went to Praetoria with GR coming up, but if the slowly approaching storm plays any role in coming issues, it will probably be in primal earth.
I couldn't say I'd be sorry to see him die, but like Golden Girl points out, that would require a lot of rewriting on redside.
But then, I'd love for any of the main cast to do something. Aside from Manticore and Sister Psyche getting together, they're pretty static, unevolving characters. When CoV was coming out, I thought it woud've been cool to have one of Freedom Phalanx (or their sidekicks) defect. Malaise would've been perfect for this since he was previously a villain and he'd also been replaced as the trainer in IP. With Going Rogue coming out, it'd be great to see something like that come about just so a character can change in some part.
I don't really think it's like that for the heroes. For the most part, you can pretty much ignore Freedom Phalanx as they don't often come into the story arcs you're given.Quote:Originally Posted by Xzero45
Gotta agree with this. I never agreed with the idea that we all play a game and design our own sometimes-well-though-out characters only so that we can be second banana to the Dev's heroes and villains at every turn. That just never sat well with me.
Villain side, on the other hand, is something that's been complained about pretty much since CoV launched. It's sort of sad, because all the interviews about CoV had this theme of "proactive, not reactive". That is, heroes are reactive, because they respond to crime. But villains are proactive, because they are the ones causing the trouble. It didn't really live up to that, maybe mostly because you're constantly being told what to do while being under someone's thumb. But then, I think RPGs tend to be more reactive in general, so I can sympathize with the dev's trying to come up with a way to tell the story. -
Quote:Ah, c'mon, Positron! You can do better than that? What happened to all those infuriatingly vague hints you used to drop?Originally Posted by Positron
Thanks for the birthday wishes! I am doing something fun today (kinda), but can't talk about it yet.
Anyways, hope you have a good birthday! -
I've always thought you should get another costume slot once you hit 50. You get one at 20, 30, and 40. Why not 50? It always seemed to me hitting the highest level in the game should come with a few rewards, but you pretty much just get a badge. You get more than that at earlier levels.
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If we do get a Steampunk booster, I'd love a wind-up key that could be worn on the back (like the Clockwork), preferably animated.