Captain_Intrepid

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Hey All,

I have a few pic's to add and will post them up soon along with a recap. Yes, I am still alive and I made it home safely.

They did however confiscate my BBQ sause (Spelled the way Rudy's spells it) at the airport. Seems that the National Security Act does not allow BBQ sauce out of Texas.

Liquid or gel....bah!

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For the sake of National Security, no BBQ sauce shall leave the state of Texas!

The fate of the free world demands that no other state in the Union shall possess the awesomeness of Texan BBQ!

Personally, I don't like having stuff stuck to me, so maybe it's better that way anyways

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not to mention the animation will be ripped from the exsisting powersets making it not even close to being new.


i look at it as a iron blade temp power gone wild..it wont be flashy,neat or cool..it'll be simple im sure


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...Have you even BOTHERED to read anything the Dev's have said about Dual Blades? They already said it was having new animations.

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Which is one of the reasons that BAB had those sticks in the pic of his cubicle. He needed them to try out different attack motions. Animators do that quite often, so they can tweak the way it looks in the game. If I recall from the behind the scenes documentaries for some films, BAB would probably have attached to the sticks and to himself (or others that were trying out the new moves) sensors/reflectors which is used to help record movements and placement of the blades and the character.

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No mocap!

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So it'd be along the lines of trying out the moves, or observing someone else do it and them make the adjustments?

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Oooh, I see, because because Nixon got in twice, then the people of the time were morons?

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Yes.

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Hindsight is 20/20. Futuresight is hazy at best.

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Hey BAB, has there been any news lately on the development of that Psionic Weaponry set? I'd love to know if my hopes for it are at least remotely founded.

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Castle makes a strange noise whenever it's mentioned.

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lol

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Ever since dual blades was "announced" I've been racking my brain trying to think of heroes that would use a pair of knives to arrest criminals. I Haven't thought of one. Looking back on all those comic books that I collected as a kid, the only one I can remember using a blade of any kind was the Black Knight (Sorry Electra uses two Sais... they don't have blades).

The way I see it, there are more comic book heroes that use boomerangs, then those that use broad swords, katanas, battle axes, maces, and dual blades combined.

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Katana, from DC's Outsiders, used a Katana.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl/woman had used swords and knives of different sorts. At one time, Katar Hol (one of the versions of Hawkman) used his namesake, the katar. The Katar is a 'punching' dagger from India.
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table used swords, maces, axes, etc. (the super heroes of their time, sure they didn't fly, but not all super heroes need to).
I believe that in the Matrix movies, several characters used swords....
The Highlander used a katana.
Acroyear of the Micronaughts had a cool energized sword.
That's just to name a few.

Btw, except for Captain Boomerang's (DC) son who became a good guy, there's no one I can think of at the top of my head who's a hero with boomerangs. Marvel also had a boomerang based villain.

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"But Tarmac, the people voted for dual blades!"

So what. The people voted for Nixon (twice). The people voted to kill Socrates. The people said O.J. was innocent. In other words, the people are morons.

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Oooh, I see, because because Nixon got in twice, then the people of the time were morons? There were reasons that he had two terms, such as the quality of the opponent(s). Mr. Kennedy beat him out because Nixon was new to on the air interviews, and Kennedy looked more comfortable and at ease. If Nixon did a better job, and Kennedy screwed up, then Nixon would have got in then instead of later.

If the Socrates of which you speak of is the philosopher, then you can't say much about it, because it may just well be that he fell out of favour. Philosophers in ancient Greece were like the celeberties of today. They had groupies, hanger-ons, fans, and enemies. It was a bit harsher for those guys at the time, though....

As for OJ, there were those who believed his guilt too. Me, perfer to assume one's innocent until proven otherwise. The investigators and the DAs screwed up with the evidence and the trial itself.

This is just posturing on your part. Dual Blades is hardly the end all, be all of new powersets. If you don't like them, then just move on and wait for the next set to come along.

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not to mention the animation will be ripped from the exsisting powersets making it not even close to being new.


i look at it as a iron blade temp power gone wild..it wont be flashy,neat or cool..it'll be simple im sure


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...Have you even BOTHERED to read anything the Dev's have said about Dual Blades? They already said it was having new animations.

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Which is one of the reasons that BAB had those sticks in the pic of his cubicle. He needed them to try out different attack motions. Animators do that quite often, so they can tweak the way it looks in the game. If I recall from the behind the scenes documentaries for some films, BAB would probably have attached to the sticks and to himself (or others that were trying out the new moves) sensors/reflectors which is used to help record movements and placement of the blades and the character.

What if they are changing the tutorial for CoH and CoV?

If the 'Outbreak' is spreading, and a new clampdown on the Zig is any indication, this could just be the signal of change in tutorial. Someone mentioned that this could be a 'what if' situation. But what if it's not?

If the Outbreak is no longer contained in that one spot out of the way, then the situation got worse, and a new way is being found to get new heroes first experiences without endangering them to Contamination.

If there's a clamp down on the Zig, that would mean that Lord Recluse would have to find other ways to get a hold of some 'Destined Ones'.

Guys, havest thy never heardst of the World Serpent? The one that would fight Thor in the final battle called:
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Rag·na·rök [ rgnə ràwk ]


noun

Definition:

destruction of gods: in Norse mythology, the final destruction of the gods in a great battle against the forces of evil, after which a new world will arise


[Mid-18th century. < Old Norse ragnarök "fate of the gods" < regin "gods" + rok "fate"]


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The picture very strongly suggest a Nordic influence. The head is very much reptillian (with the way the skin is at the hinges of the jaw), and believe it or not dragons and sea serpents have been described as having ears (they have characteristics of more than just snakes, don'tcha know?).

While Encarta fails me in finding the name of the World Serpent (I believe it starts with a 'J'), it was tricked into biting onto it's own tail. Loki, the father of the World Serpent, saved the Serpent (as well as Fenris) so they could help him win Ragnarock.

And no, I'm not talking 'Marvel's' or 'DC's' version of Norse mythology.

Hmmm, interesting. Looks like a woodcut, maybe the World Serpent from Norse mythology. The World Serpent was an offspring of Loki that was destined to fight in a mortal battle with Thor during Ragnarock. Until then, it was fed it's tail so it wouldn't be able to cause trouble in the meantime.

It was so huge, it could wrap around the world. Since the woodcut shown is in a shape that's referencing 'infinity', that's makes it more intriging.

My hats' off to you (My name is CaptainIntrepid, and I'm an Altaholic too.... ), and best of luck in your endevors

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A few treats to tide you over the weekend!
Our lovely receptionist keeps a fresh stock of sugar on hand.


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Can not say jar is half full. Can not say jar is half empty. Jar nearly empty. Must fill jar!

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So there's no chance of us facing the Sushi Monster???

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Never fought Lusca?

Also...Arcanaville for the win!

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Sure did fight Lusca, but never thought to get some rice and seaweed wrap to go with her....

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Jay actually has a few Harley items I don't have. He is also fond of the little minx.

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I like Harley, but my girlfriend dosen't like when I talk about it.

BackAlley has this Harley costume in a bag he keeps under his desk that says "private no look." Sometimes it smells sweaty.

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lol

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Uh oh!

By the way, that is *the* original whiteboard from pre-beta shown in that picture. I found it in a storage room when we moved buildings and keep it as is for posterity.


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So there's no chance of us facing the Sushi Monster???

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Back Alley Brawler: 09/2007
'Baked in' was in response to someone's comment that colors were baked into animations. The only thing really baked in are some colors into some particle textures and textures on geometry used in FX scripts. Most particle textures use a greyscale image that we tint to different hues in the particle scripts, but some of them we don't tint. It's enough that any sort of power customization to allow changing the hue of power effects we'd have to deal with them. That's not the only hurdle and it's really not even the biggest hurdle.

I really can't stress this enough, there's nothing insurmountably difficult about power color customization, it's just a tremendous amount of time to pull it off.


I am not sure if you will respond, but I will ask:

With the amount of time necessary to implement something like this would it cut into time developing new content so much so, as to stop us from receiving new content at all?

Sort of. It would completely dominate some of the artists' time for multiple issues. That would prevent any content from being developed that required any animation or FX. Obviously we'd be able to develop other things at the same time as this, but we'd definitely be doing the lion's share on this.

It would also require a chunk of support from programming. They'd have to implement the system to allow powers to reference different FX scripts or accept some kind of hue shift value, hook everything into some kind of UI so players could modify and see what they're modifying, possibly change the way character data is stored in the database, etc. I couldn't even begin to tell you the things programming would have to do to make this happen, but it's significant enough to cut into other features, bug fixes, or performance/stability improvements.




There are no costume effects triggered by powers, they're triggered by animations. In the case of Winged Boots, the effects are actually always on. They just have a scaler on the particle emitters that say emit more particles the faster the character is moving. So, whether the character is running, jumping, falling, flying, being knocked back doesn't matter. There is absolutely no way to tie costume pieces to power FX. The two systems are independent, completely unaware of each other, and there is no way to connect them.

Trust me, there is nothing that any player who has no idea how our systems work and what they are and aren't capable of doing is going to come up with an idea that we haven't already thought of. I've seen a few posts that come close to ideas we've already discarded as unfeasible, some that are decent ideas but simply don't work in our system, and the rest are generally in the category of sheer gibberish.

Even if we did figure out a super simple way to do this, the sheer number of powers and combinations alone makes this something that would take more than a single issue to develop. Potentially more than 2 or 3 issues.

It will never be scrapped. We never completely scrap any idea, no matter how impossible it might be at the time.


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I wouldn't mind if it was done sort of peicemeal, in the way portions of it are added in, even if it's 'behind the scenes' to be activated it all comes together.

Sure it would take longer to fully implement, but at least other things like bug fixing, server stabilizing, content, etc. won't have to take a back seat to it (let alone backburnered).

It would be cool to see how (existing) powers would look when the player picks power sets at character creation and at the tailor. Even if you can't currently change the colours/shades, you'd be able to check out what the character would look like with a flaming sword or drawing out a bow or being buffed with Build up.

And being able to do that would be a step in the direction of power customization, without going all the way as of yet.

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Ahhhh, I'm blinded!!


Ex, you evil, evil lady! How dare you post a pic of Jay on here! That's considered pr0n in most modern countries!

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In celebration of next wednesday being National Talk Like a Pirate Day, Jay has whipped up some new costume concepts.

What do y'all think?

Ex

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He needs a can of spinach, and the arm with the anchor tattoo should be the size of a watermelon.

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So, ummm, if he had a can of spinach, would the hook double as the can opener? Just wondering....

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Ok, but I can't talk about Issue 11 or beyond... but that's pretty much what you guys WANT me to talk about so we are at an impass.

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Okay, how 'bout this:

Is there a Praetorian version of Lord Recluse, and if so, what's his name?

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I'd bet his name is Captain Fancy-Pants, and he's the Praetorian World's most flamboyantly extroverted television talk-show host.

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Either that, or he's the Praetorian Serge!

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Since the dev's are chained up working, I thought I would show you where we allow them to play on a short term basis each day.


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The arcade machine is Mace: The Dark Age, which the former Art Director worked on when he was at Atari (I think).

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*sigh* Poor vid-game.... Alone and in the corner. *sigh*

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Ok, but I can't talk about Issue 11 or beyond... but that's pretty much what you guys WANT me to talk about so we are at an impass.

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Umm.. I'm happy to wait for any information on future issues.

I want to know,

Why you guys won't fix: MoG, Energy Aura, Consume, Fire Manipulation.

I eagerly await your response and appreciate your willingness to talk about anything other than Issue 11 and beyond!

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The catch could be that any of those might be in Issue 11 and beyond

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Bring back souveneirs. I'd really like to know what the heck the tf was even about and meant at the end...

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And not just for the T/SF leaders, but for everyone on the team. Not everyone's able to organize and lead a team, and not many of those who can likes to give the details of behind the scenes info.

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Confirmed, CuppaJo will be there, as well as Cricket!

Note to OP, this is an NCsoft player Meet & Greet, so while it would be nice to have our Cryptic Developers out to Austin for this, we only unchain them from their desks at the end of each day.

We will try and pull something together for out here in the San Jose area where meeting the Cryptic Team will be more feasible.

Ex

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I'd be up for that.

WW

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Uh-oh! Someone accidentally unchained War Witch!

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As for Arctic, he has been traveling since then, you know they don't let those Canadians down here for too long so he wanted to make the most of his visit.

Ex

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I hope he was able to take pictures of the newclear wessles for Glorious Cunuckistan! , ! Say no more!

Would be nice, but it's not working for one of the game accounts. I placed a accounting support ticket up (says contact billing support, but didn't see any).

Edit: Logged on in live game, the account there (at least) has been reactivated

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Yeah, Powersets will most likely be I11. I sent in a question/suggestion regarding the recent Powerset Polls, and got an answer back that I, and the game community, would be very happy with what they're currently working on/finalizing for I11 in regards to powersets.

Here's hoping.

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I hope so too. *sigh*