Carnifax

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This jetpack.
So it also removes TP problems since you can use it.

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*Learns something new today*

Ooh cool! Ta very much! No more Roadrunner plummenting for me(ep meep)

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Lagville is hell for a Superspeeder to get around.

[/ QUOTE ]I used to think this until I figured out where the elevators are.

They're also on the map, now, I think, so it's even easier.

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And now you can even buy a jetpack so the whole "Hell for SS" is a tad bit... Overdone these days.

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Still hell for TPing about.

Laptop Lag + Grandville Lag + Superspeed = "wheeee" for me a lot. The other pack is a godsend though.

(did you mean the 30 day jetpack? I'm not paying cash for DLC which only lasts 30 days)

Half the time I think I'm playing Booga boo. (and watching someone finish that in 30 seconds after I wasted days and days trying it as a youngster has now depressed me)

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Mercy is probably my least favourite of the CoV zones, and I can see how it might make it difficult to get into. It gets better - all I can recommend is just do Kalinda's arc max, then go to Port Oakes, and then onto Cap ASAP.

Cap is probably the most populated villain zone, it's the closest thing the Rogue Isles has to a hub. You've got a nice area around the Black Market with the University and a salvage vault, and it tends to be relatively populated, people on broadcast, etc. Plus it's an interesting zone in looks. And there's a GM you can generally get a team for.

No, it's still not like Atlas Plaza, which I know some people really miss, but I have to say I prefer the villain zones.

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Cap is my fav too. St Martial is OK too.

I hate the others. Nerva is annoyingly huge. Mercy is annoyingly hard to navigate with all those blind alleys and the dumb high up sections, Sharkshead gets old very, very quickly and Lagville is just a big mess and hell for a TPer or Superspeeder to get around.

Even Talos is more community friendly than most of Villains, the only comparable spot is the market in Cap Au.

PI is easier to get around than stupid Spider City, Nerva is as annoying as IP in terms of the time taken to get around it, but as a hero it's generally fairly easy to avoid IP for the most part.

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Rain of Fire + Tar Patch.

[/ QUOTE ] Huh? Can someone explain that to me . I haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about, the curse of the newbie i guess hehe

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A Fire/Dark corrupter can cast Tar Patch, which slows those trapped in it down and weakens their resistance to damage and then follow it up with Rain of Fire which does wide area damage over time but which the enemies try and run out of.

So there's lovely synergy there, they can't run very fast thanks to Tar Patches -Run Speed effect and their Rain is hitting harder too thanks to its -Resistance effect.

My only real problem with Villains is knowing that I'll be soloing a lot more than I would be hero-side.

To be honest I find a lot of the Villain side zones are as samey as Hero side ones, but Heroes doesn't lean so heavily on Paper missions as Villains does. Of course Hero arcs do suffer from the "Go to the far end of Far-far-away Zone to do this mission from me".

Nice to see Jay has been busy...

Think you need to be logged into the US boards to see them, but you don't need to have an active account over there (unless you wanted to post there).

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Bosses have Mag 3 protection against Mez effects.

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Mag 4

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ParagonWiki (and personal experience) says 3.

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Yep, it's 3, so you need 4 or more to overcome it.

A Controllers epic Seismic Smash is Mag 4 and can single-hold a boss.

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Do you by any chance have an old fashioned clockwork alarm clock?

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Damn things. Once they go off they end up chasing you around the house refusing to shut off.

Not to mention the state it left my TV in while I was in work. Come home to find one gutted TV and dozens of the blighters sitting around.

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Apparently not, looking at DC Online and Champions. Developers in those studios seem to think it's the way to go.


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They think whats the way to go?
Talking clocks?
(Im asking a genuine question, you quoted a large post, and not actually sure which part you are refering to.)

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The plastically, cartoony graphics (both look like The Incredibles)

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What do you mean by plastic what would stop them looking like plastic in your opinion?

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Animated hair!

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No, you evoked it!! She comes. The Golden one comes!!

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but they do say other things of there own back have you never noticed all the "hey there go's hero X did you here how he took down tyrant" they only give you the scripted information if you click on them i like to see how many hours I've played a character for and things like that what is that information being available doing to harm your enjoyment of the game.


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I fully recognize that they do often say things about <PLAYERX> beating <BOSSZ> and so on. These too are scripted in.

I'll be totally honest, I don't know what would be a better alternative to 'click on npc, and get time played back at me' but thats for business and development leads on ncsoft/city of heroes development team to come up with.

Im not trying to say
You will die of boredom if you walk down the street and the npcs sing the time to you.

Im pointing this out as an improvement, civilian characters are classed as ambient life, and as part of the ambient life of the city, they give a sense of ambience to the player about their surroundings.

Having good Civilian Models, Ai, and pathfinding, can overall, help to increase/add to a good ambience or sense of environment to the player.

One of the issues I've pointed out, is that the models look like they are made of plastic, why is this necessary.
Surely comic style can be less plastic?

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Apparently not, looking at DC Online and Champions. Developers in those studios seem to think it's the way to go.

Part of the problem is that it's a bad idea to make an MMO with the level of detail you'd see in Bioshock or Crysis simply because of system constraints. Even compare Halflife 2 and Team Fortress 2. Same engine but the game designed to be multiplayer swaps high level detail for a lower level "cartoony" look partially so it'll run on more customers machines with less graphical lag (and partially because Valve are clever and liked the whole 60s cartoony look in the game)

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ummm... is this not a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about a fairly simple suggestion? unless it can be shown to be BAD suggestion, what does anyone have against the idea of wheelchairs in the game? sure, it needs to be prioritised against all the other work going on, as any suggestion would be. and also it would need to be implemented in such a manner as not to break existing game features etc... but isn't all that a given?
i just think, given the scale of the suggestion (and it is a Suggestion forum), the amount of opposition is a little "off the scale", considering this is a cosmetic suggestion.


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Sorry Cap,
We are sorta off topic.
We did agree that Wheelchairs are bad idea for players, however we did agree that it might be an acceptable improvement for architect (eg - npc contacts and such)
Now the issue seems to be whether or not civilians and mobs should be allowed to be enhanced to look better, get stuck less in walls, and have better AI and pathfinding.

Which everyone seems to think the answer is NO, because we want PVP fixed.

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No they don't. Learn to read properly.

I'm opposed because of the poor "Development time Spent" vs "Potential gain" ratio. But you seem to be too dim to follow the argument and instead prefer to throw out random Software Development models and weird imaginary Ethical scenarios which have nothing to do with anything.

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Carnifax, as a suggestion, the idea has merit. and it is a suggestion, just that. not a proposal for an ill concieved project plan. we're not even talking about a huge change (from the players point of view).


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It's a fairly huge change in development terms though, for almost no benefit. See my post above, I'm not even sure what the OP means by "improving models", it's a horribly vague term.

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who are we, and you, to decide what the actual "ratio" of development time to "benefit" is? i certainly dont have any visibility of the developers day to day schedules! This is a suggestion forum, where players should feel free to make "suggestions", and not have to defend them with high minded philosophical arguments or cost-to-benefit spreadsheets.


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He's free to suggest anything he likes. I'm free to rebuff it. I started out merely pointing out it was a fairly big change with a small benefit. That's when bizarre claims like "It will stop mobs getting trapped in walls and falling through scenery" were made which are frankly nonsense. I don't mind someone saying "I'd like to see better citizen models" but then claiming it'd fix things like mobs getting stuck in scenery, in order to sweeten the deal, is just wrong. If anything it's to do with map holes and dodgy wall geometery than it is to do with enemy models.

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i may be missing something myself here in this whole debate but where does all this "heat" come from? its not as if we are discussing a game imbalance that hinders play or enjoyment here.

surely there are other topics in this forum that deserve a more rigourous "kick up the proverbial" than this one?

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Not unless they grant me Closed Beta access

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ummm... is this not a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about a fairly simple suggestion? unless it can be shown to be BAD suggestion, what does anyone have against the idea of wheelchairs in the game? sure, it needs to be prioritised against all the other work going on, as any suggestion would be. and also it would need to be implemented in such a manner as not to break existing game features etc... but isn't all that a given?
i just think, given the scale of the suggestion (and it is a Suggestion forum), the amount of opposition is a little "off the scale", considering this is a cosmetic suggestion.


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Sorry Cap,
We are sorta off topic.
We did agree that Wheelchairs are bad idea for players, however we did agree that it might be an acceptable improvement for architect (eg - npc contacts and such)
Now the issue seems to be whether or not civilians and mobs should be allowed to be enhanced to look better, get stuck less in walls, and have better AI and pathfinding.

Which everyone seems to think the answer is NO, because we want PVP fixed.

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No they don't. Learn to read properly.

I'm opposed because of the poor "Development time Spent" vs "Potential gain" ratio. But you seem to be too dim to follow the argument and instead prefer to throw out random Software Development models and weird imaginary Ethical scenarios which have nothing to do with anything.

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Lets try looking at this another way what would you prefer the devs put there time into.

1) more varied looking civilians on the city streets some of which have disabilities and contacts that have disabilities.

Or

2) the ability to create your own custom mission and factions to fill those mission which is a feature that as far as im aware has never appeared in another MMO and so allows them to re-release the game and get more money in the door so that they can create even better improvements to the game ?


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So, your saying they can either fix the 'bad' models on the civilians, and not provide issue 14.
Or
Provide issue 14, and never give us better looking civilians that look, and behave better.

Noting you never said that option 2 could lead to option 1, so Im assuming its one or the other.

I've already said that Issue 14 is going to get me playing for a while, regardless of civilians current lack of quality. However there is no reason for them not to provide both.
Do any of you know whats in Issue 15? Issue 16?
No?
Well, whats wrong with them investigating possible improvements to Models of Civilians (and/or mobs), and better Pathfinding.

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Nothing, bar the gales of laughter which will greet the Patch Notes when it's announced. Followed by lots and lots of posts along the lines of "FFS, why are they wasting time with this. Fix (PvP || Villains Content || Set X underperforming || Base Raids) instead".

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The Risk statement was in reference to your own post.
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(b)
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would also prevent some monsters getting stuck in walls too,


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Erm how exactly? If anything all it does is increase the likelyhood of new, fresh bugs being introduced with the changes.


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Your argument is that they shouldnt attempt to improve the models or civilians because it increases risk,
My arguement is that Risk is increased if they release more features, and things that rely on those models, if they ever do choose to change them.

Means that when they try to fix the models, they potentially have more to break, where as, if they fix the models early on, before too many things rely on them, then the risk is minimal, and less costly to fix.

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No, my argument is that there's minimal gain to improving models.

"Improving models" is a ridiculously vague idea anyway. Improve what? Textures? Polygon counts? (massive work in those two) City Citizen pathing & AI? (minimal gameplay improvement here)? Enemy Mob AI? (something they are currently tweaking, at least for new bosses & powersets in Architect, because it has a decent gameplay payoff in the new feature) Pet & Henchman AI (a horrible can of worms which makes Castle cry)?

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Its clearly not one of their priorities, since the models have been the same way, for years, and no announcements have been made to change them in anyway.
In fact, releasing more things that depend on the current model types and AI only increases their reliance on them, and in the end, increases RISK.


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Risk of what exactly?

Them achieving sentience and overthrowing Statesman and Lord Recluse and hunting Heroes and Villains like dogs (actually that'd be pretty cool).

In my experience there's much more risk in changing code compared to leaving older working code alone. I can't imagine any example where there's a risk in leaving code as-is as oppose to changing it into something newer / shinier.

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GlobeCo had made a decision to stop the daily checks because it took too much time


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Im equating this - to NCSoft not improving the little things in life, like the general nicness of the city and inhabitants, yet still being paid by the customers.

The Civilian Models have been the same way they have been from day 1 as someone else said. No improvements have been made to them, at least not that I've seen, and its been agreed that improvements on them would be welcome. Maybe not a high priority, but certainly welcomed.

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They would be welcomed. But as you now say (finally in agreement with everyone else) they certainly aren't a high priority. And in no way does a lack of them forthcoming mean NCNC are being unethical in not providing them for us. Even if NCSoft announced no future updates for City of Heroes it wouldn't really be unethical, just a stupid business decision which would probably kill off the game.

To be honest the only time I'd consider something in computer gaming unethical is if an advertised feature wasn't actually in the game (like Age of Conan did with their DX10 support).

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That is NOT AN ETHICAL ISSUE. It is a purely business decision. Choosing to ignore an issue may loose a company business, but the company is perfectly entitled to decide where to allocate it's resources.


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Ok, I will be sure to pass on you views to the people who make 10's of thousands of £££ from creating these company ethics courses.
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The Story

Jeanne decides to create false records—and asks Samir to cover up.

A few weeks later, Jeanne found a problem during her weekly check of the cooling circuit. She brought it to Alice—and, in response, Alice asked her to create a record that made it look like she'd been doing daily checks all along. Jeanne wasn't sure what to do, so she talked to a colleague, Samir.

Samir: So Alice told you to create false records that made it look like we'd been doing daily checks all along? Are you sure you understood her correctly?

Jeanne: Oh, I know I understood her correctly. We talked about this not long ago, and she told me that GlobeCo had made a decision to stop the daily checks because it took too much time. Now that there's a problem, she wants to make it look as if we were doing the right thing all along.

Samir: What are you going to do?

Jeanne: I'm not sure. I know it's not right to create all of these records. But if I don't, it will make GlobeCo look bad. We could even be penalized by the authorities, which would be terrible for business.

Samir: Right. They might even close the plant.

Jeanne: I think I'm just going to do it—after all, I took those weekly readings. It won't be hard to put something together that's probably very close to the truth. Samir, let's keep this conversation just between us, okay? It's probably best if no one else knows this is going on.

Jeanne has made the wrong choice here. She should not have agreed to go along with Alice's plan to create fraudulent records. And Samir has an obligation to tell Jeanne that she is not doing the right thing and not keep quiet about the conversation.


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Erm, what has this got to do with allocating resources into the various areas of game development? Or development in general. Random example is random.

If I tell my clients they can have Feature A in a week or Feature B in a week, but not both due to time contraints it doesn't mean I'm being unethical in the slightest.

A week later if I discover a minor issue with Feature A (say the interface for it looks bad on a certain browser) but we go ahead with it anyway again I'm not being unethical about anything, I should have designed it better but nothing more.

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As a Trick Arrow Controller I 100% disagree with you here.

The animation time tweaks they made to the set were excellent. I prefer playing my toons properly over cosmetic changes personally.


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Not everyone is a trick arrow controller.
Improving the quality of the citys appearance, and the civilian population benefits everyone.

I remember when they did improve texture quality, that was a really sound decision, as I saw a before and after shot.
You cannot fault them on that decision, as you have to admit, buildings texture quality was hideous.
They only have to improve civilians and the city once, then thats it done.
Once the civilians and city inhabitants are improved, thats it done, they can go back to shaving 0.34 seconds here and there of powers.

Note - You have to admit, the models of monsters and civilians alike just seem to be empty, its like they are hollow, and have no consistency, and dont make any impact on their environment. Their AI sucks too, improving their models and general method of model drawing, would also prevent some monsters getting stuck in walls too, which serves in a practical sense, to prevent you having to call a GM to complete the mission, cause MR Stupid Mob fell through the map.

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(a) They have been doing this, see the Hollows Revamp, The RWZ and Cimmoriaiaiaia as examples.

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would also prevent some monsters getting stuck in walls too,

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Erm how exactly? If anything all it does is increase the likelyhood of new, fresh bugs being introduced with the changes.

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Still not an ethical debate. They cannot afford to squander resources on "good features" such as adding wheelchairs into the game. They are adding other good features such as (in i13) new Storylines, new Sets for ATs and the Mission Architect. They are providing good features, ones that they feel are more useful and appealing to more players than ingame wheelchairs or more realistic crowd movement in city zones.


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Note - I never said there was an ethical issue, I merely pointed out that if they are not increasing quality, merely cause of financial contraints, then that would be a company ethical issue.

Eg
Jean and Paul are talking,
Paul: Have you finished testing this product?
Jean: Diane my supervisor said we dont have enough man power to cover it, so we should just ignore it.

Jean's supervisor Diane, made a company ethical decision, a bad one, her team are being paid to test a product, but she decides that they cannot do it, because of man power, and time restraints. The 'right' choice would have to hire more people, which brings me back to my post about getting outside contractors to fill the knowledge gap, and to get more things done.
Also - I think the post that first mentioned the potential for an ethically unsound decision from nc-soft, would have been around the civilian population, not around 'wheelchairs for players' idea. So please everyone drop that topic, because that was not the "good feature" i was refering to.
The fact that we all acknowledge that the npc civilians are [censored], have been [censored] for 3+ years shows that they arent working on them.
In the mean time, they are working on "good features" as you called, like shaving 0.30 seconds of a power activation time. I mean come on. 0.30 Seconds opposed to improving the general appearance of the city and its population. That was a s**t decision.

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As a Trick Arrow Controller I 100% disagree with you here.

The animation time tweaks they made to the set were excellent. I prefer playing my toons properly over cosmetic changes personally. Hell I play the game with Particles at 100 & Bloom off because I don't like them.

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It went to ethics debate when people started saying that the reason they are not providing good features is because of economic or financial restraints.


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Still not an ethical debate. They cannot afford to squander resources on "good features" such as adding wheelchairs into the game. They are adding other good features such as (in i13) new Storylines, new Sets for ATs and the Mission Architect. They are providing good features, ones that they feel are more useful and appealing to more players than ingame wheelchairs or more realistic crowd movement in city zones.

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From what I remember, you have to log in once a month to be entitled to that month of played time. It does not go by paid time, it goes by played time, thats why they are distinguished between in your account. Plus, the good rewards are at the end spectrum of the veteran reward scheme. Which always comes in handy when players inevitably come back to investigate the latest issue/patch.


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Nope, 100% wrong on this. And I haven't had a good reward since the Nemises Staff and there's none of interest ahead of me.

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Which in my own opinion is city of heroes sticking in the past and not moving forward with competition.


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Erm Mission Architect?

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You cannot fault me on any of these posts, because they are all constructive criticism's that can improve the game.


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I don't see requests for ingame wheelchairs particularly improving the game.

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I would loose my customers, to be frank, the only reason people keep paying, is to keep getting veterans rewards. The occasional monthly log in, and voila, dont have to immerse myself in bad quality game for another month.


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Yes. The only reason I subscribe to the game is for Vet Rewards. Of course it is

If this is seriously your only reason to play the game I've gotta ask why! If you're only logging in once a month (why would you even need to? Vet Rewards don't require you to be on once a month) then how do you actually use the Vet Rewards you've been diligently subscribing for so much?

If you find a game trashy then why on earth bother with it at all? Are you some form of masocist who enjoys inflicting suffering on himself? If and when I find a game dull it gets unsubscribed (as WoW did once more during the week) and wiped from the HD to make room for another shiney.

Your post went from "Request for niche feature" all the way to "Weird rant about unethical games developers ripping us off" in 3 posts. That's pretty impressive.

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Or it could be that they didn't have anyone to do the work, couldn't afford to hire additional personel, and so they focused the minimal resources they had available on core gameplay


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Thats a valid point, and quite possibly correct. However, it is still inexcusable from an ethics point of view.
(My work makes us do these online courses about work place ethics and [censored]... its still in my head)

Cutting corners, to save a buck, might work well for the company, but it works out bad for the customer, and thats ethically bad.
To be totally honest: SHAME ON YOU NC SOFT.
I should save some of my companys ethics courses to pdf, and send them in to nc soft.

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If you regard ropey pedestrian behaviour in a game (and I wouldn't argue that it is ropey) as a major [u]ethical[u] flaw, to the extent that you'll shout "SHAME ON YOU" in public, I think there's something very unusual about your sense of ethics. And probably priorities.

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I agree. There's nothing unethical about using a simple pathing routine to make your models move.

It just looks a bit rubbish really. It doesn't even hurt the customer particularly, it's just backround fluff. It'd be nice if it worked better (along with things like having some weather and more interaction by mobs with their surroundings and each other, something which has been used in newer zones)