Chase_Arcanum

It works out rather well, actually.

1) you default it to just "name" on display, with "name@global" appearing only on mouseover. (the other game originally defaulted to full display unnecessarily) If two of the same "name" appear in the same channel at the same time, a subscript appends to the name to make the difference apparent.

2) when using a /tell, autocomplete shows all the name@global variants that are online, IF there are any online. It defaults to the one you have friended or that most recently appears in your chat window.

3) You really find that you don't encounter the problem much. The odds that two of the same name are in the same zone or channel at the same login time turns out to be remarkably low, unless done intentionally. I ran into the problem more frequently at a workplace that had three "Daves" out of 160 employees.

Seconded, though our interests will probably differ.

1) Give me a pause, fast forward, and rewind.
2) Let me edit and re-send the demofile without having to fully relaunch the game.
3) Give a "free form camera" mode that lets me move the camera around while the demoscript plays out


oh, and...

4) Give me a winning megamillions lottery ticket. A small one will do: just enough that I can have the free time to go back to making CoH comics. This 3-hour commute is a great time to think up stories and dialogue, but it kinda makes it tough to implement any of it.

I knew I had your profile bookmarked for a reason.

You misunderstand.

You are correct that adding a few more bits of data to the appearance definitions of characters will not add more weight to the traffic. I never said they did.

Most of the problem we have right now is associated with tracking the positional and action data of every element on the stage in potentially-visible range. That data's sent much more frequently than appearance data needs to be, and that's the data packet that's being managed and (hopefully) optimized (usually, that's more of a case of decreasing the interval of updates and increasing the client's ability to predict what will happen between updates, as you can't make them much more lean)



But ALL that data structure was defined early on-- and in an era where code practices that we see today weren't in place. In general, rather than having a function that needed X info call a function that would then extract that info from the data, programmers often accessed that data directly in various (unpredictable) places in the game. It knew that the data it needs was in the 65th bit. It went there and started reading.

As silly as this sounds today, this was rather common practice when defining the underlying code of the communication systems that powered this generation of games. The devs didn't anticipate the broad appeal of the costume creator, so when they defined the costume bits and left room for costume updates over time, they didn't necessarily leave the room for as many extra bits as players may assume.

So, add two bytes... then hope you can find every single place everywhere in the code that also might be using data piggybacked on that packet and make that change.

That's a time-consuming system that CAN be done, but it's money spent that, if you decide a BETTER tactic would be fewer but higher-detailed parts, isn't necessary.

Sure there is.

Every time this is done, it is prefaced by an announcement to all current and prior CoH customers explaining what is being done and when.

No matter how well worded, there will be a good percentage of the population that will misunderstand it and get alarmed by it. A great number of people are irrational idiots, and most of them have internet accounts. They will either post (and repost) incorrect information about it in their rants or they will call and complain.

Managing that takes up CSR time, and that costs the company money.

So, if you have a system that DID NOT meet its stated goals last time but did have a cost of CSR time, why WOULD you do it again?

Long since dead? Now how did you come to access such information, Techbot Alpha. That death always had suspicions circumstances. Was it MURDER? Where were you averylongtimeago? Did you happen to know the victim? Hmm... Ok, I think we have all the evidence we need.

I say it was @TechbotALPHA at the crime scene with a lead pipe!*






*Unless, of course, this predates weapon customization. In that case, it was just a mace.

Cynicism is understandable and my first impression is the same as yours, but IIRC, the last few times this argument came up, several players provided a complete analysis of costume pieces made available issue-by-issue. The reality doesn't match that first impression. There has been no change in the rate that these are made available.


Also note that the costumes are communicated to and from the server in format the limits how much they can really add before substantial codework is needed. While this oversimplifies things, the system doesn't send the data as "bodyID=01, headID=101, hairID=11011" but instead just would send 0110111011. The client is programmed to already know that the first two character defines body type, the next three are head, the next 5 hair, etc. (actual values made up for this example) This means that each only have so many "free spaces" to fill before they've got to work some pretty risky changes to the underlying code. Just constantly adding new patterns, while easy, would fill things up eventually.

...Not to mention that you have to really check if that's what people WANT. Out of a hundred costumes I've easily made, I probably have a non-texture pattern on... at most... a dozen. (And some of them are just using "blend" to make jeans look more worn and "blast" to add a battle damaged look). Patterns alone just might not be a big enough item to demand that much dev work.

I'll concede that a longcoat would be VERY nice, though:

1) most of the victorian female longcoats wrap around the legs, rather than fly back, like our trenchcoats are required to do due to the tech. It might have been difficult to make something thematically consistent and still keep with that trend.

...Of course something that's not trenchcoat-length could probably be done with a matching knee-length skirt and matching jacket top.

2) if you used "steampunk female" in google image search (warning: enable safesearch) you see hundreds of images of corsets and bared legs and cleavage and... where was I... oh, yeah... lots of that stuff*. I didn't find a long coat anywhere on the first few pages. Much of Steampunk fashion does take Victorian-era themes and apply more modern expressions of sexuality to them- things that would get you arrested in that era... and even many of the longcoats I did find were sexualized beyond their norm.

Longcoats certainly have their place, but if you were researching, trying to produce pieces that were ICONIC to the genre and had broad appeal, you can't be faulted for concluding that longcoats were lower on the list.

I am happy for the little things, though-- making the chest pieces "detail" instead of just "chest" gives us a great deal more flexibility in their design - both skimpy and conservative. Compare that to if they'd been just another 'tops with skin' option. Much the same with the belt pieces- many of those could have been hard-defined directly onto a skirt, but the way they delivered it gave us the ability to add it in many different ways, depending on our preferences.




* yes, I have to joke about being sexist in a thread about sexism in costume choices. I'm weird that way.

Heh. I'm usually the one railing against the horrendous use of weapons, explosives, and tactical operations in video games with friends in real life, but I just don't see the point here. The genre's so cram packed with the ridiculous that its virtually become a requirement. It'd be like protesting the lack of realistic physics in a Loony-Toons game....

That is correct.


The game originally called them "Talsorian," rumored to be an attribution to R. Talsorian Games-- a company whose "Cyberpunk 2020" game introduced many gamers to the idea of monomolecular wire used in weapons. In theory, the nothing-can-get-thinner wire would be the sharpest possible edge, cutting through virtually any defense. The wire appeared previously - used as a whip and a garrote- in Gibson's "Virtual Light" and "Johnny Mnemonic" but Talsorian's C2020 was the first that had the molecule-thin wire stretched into a rigid line, serving as an edge to an axe or sword, IIRC. (Shadowrun later had gear that claimed to be much the same)

The idea of an "edge that cuts through anything" probably fit nicely into the Vanguard 'damage resist debuff' power mechanic for CoH and caused some dev-gamer to go onto a nostalgia kick. The ultra-strong single-molecule wire is somehow stretched into its shape by a conductive energy field, possibly of magical aura, resulting in its glow. This combination had the benefit of letting them offerglowy-translucent weapons without making "light swords" that would have alerted dreaded destroyers of fun that are known as the Lawyers of Lucas.



No, this doesn't explain the bow one bit. The bow falls strictly in the "but it looks neat" category that supersedes all other reason throughout the superhero genre.


EDIT: It also doesn't justify how the weapons would be used when animated, but this goes much the same for claws. Again, another case where "looking neat" and "fitting the superhero genre" trump actual functional design. If you gotta deal with ridiculously-heavy operationally-useless and godawful-gawdy uberswords and guns, you gotta be ready for weapons and poses that look neat but have absolutely no operational sense whatsoever.

Can't fit the theme. We all know that the 80's hairstyles were famous with such exaggerated poofs containing such excesses of hair spray that they could double as crash helmets.

If anything, the existing hairstyles would already be perfect for that era.

Disagree completely. Your proposed policy would be more flawed than the one they're using.

If you spend the time to make "shoulder kittens" universal for all models- something that has VERY little widespread appeal- rather than an asset that DOES have wider appeal to the male side, you're wasting resources. (I wouldn't mind a shoulder kitten, but that's another story)

What I do wish the devs WOULD address is possibly consider making more 'general use" versions of some of the more interesting pieces coming out. Things like the "magical bolero" are nice, but very specific in their style because of the level of detail.

- Give an option (for the same sex) with a simple collar and less detailed cape. It would mesh with a LOT more of the art assets then.
- How about a non-leather-textured coat?
- The new "steampunk" skirt could make a nice slinky 1-piece dress with a simple" with skin" top... except it only really works when its set to black.
- The veteran "samurai" armor has excellent styles to it, but smooth one using the geometry with solid colors could be used in many places where the ornate designs just conflict.

We just have so many "unique geometry" pieces that look GREAT but just seem to have so much more mixing potential if they'd also have a version that matched the pre-existing colors and textures. Rather than re-develop them for other genders, I'd much rather flesh out the existing mesh with different patterns.

When nemesis adds dual-pistols to their legions, one of the attacks must have tiny mechanical birds pop out of the barrel.

It can be a stun or confuse attack.

my sentiment, too... once I add my edit.

I team with rian_frostdrake far too often. I have witnessed the full power of the costume creator, and I fear it. Some things just MUST be kept locked away... for the good of mankind.

I've seen many more of the more subtle pieces- the patterns, the different fur style, the cat feet, the furry-legs-on-regular-feet, etc.

I think part of the problem is that... well... faces are kind of defining. I wouldn't be too inclined to change a character's head - even a beast-like character like my "Russian Blue" - just because the heads are there now. I may use it in a new alt, but not an existing build.

... and the endgame content released since the animal pack came out doesn't really encourage new alts.

I don't know. When this started, I was seeing this easily on 1 in 5 arcs taken. Since the last update, I've done close to a dozen arcs and not experienced it once.

Not necessarily.

When talking of entirely new game mechanics that need conceptualized, broken down, tasked, tested, revised, rewritten, and assembled... absolutely, but the devs have also shown how the process for doing things as single story arcs (Issue 13, Bruce Harlick's diary comes to mind). He was learning the creation system when he did the two arcs, but his whole process was measured in under a couple months.

If you keep the new mechanics low, keep the story tied to the various trials in different ways (to reuse the overarching backstory and art assets) and use tech like the moral choices and the optional sidequests in Vincent Ross's arcs to keep repeat performances fresh longer... you could probably offer a somewhat reasonable initial experience at a reasonably brisk pace.






Or...



y'know... they could just give us solo'ers and small team'ers the Trial experience by filling the rest of their team with members of the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators as pets. What could be better than partnering with 7-12 instances of the AI that powers Fusionette and Lady Jane?


(no... I'm not serious)

Don't forget the "we want it to be added in a meaningful way that augments the epic Incarnate storyline and still remains accessible to our more casual players."

That's verbage for 'we're still in the early stages of figuring out how to deliver this right, but we want to do it"

No, that's not a guarantee of "we will do it" but it's pretty strong once you acknowledge that this IS a bit of a challenge.

The incarnate rewards is supposed to be something that can be built up well over time. Even after I get the tier-4 "musculature" alpha slot that I expect to be using most of the time, I can make my character better prepared for possible future content by having the +acc or +rech or +end ones available.

Its a reward system that is SUPPOSED TO take a long time to fully complete, and you just can't make enough solo content to cover all that without repeating it... and if its going to be repeat-content, it should be done in a way to mitigate the repetitiveness (and possibly justify it).

THAT is going to take some time to plan, and THAT is why they're ambiguous. They've stated their broad objectives, though, so we can know what to measure them against as we go forward. Now, we just have to give them time to deliver.

You may solo the game, but you raid the boards constantly.

I'm usually the one pointing out the minority status of the forumites and all, but I must be grumpy today. I'm old, it's been a long day at work, and I was almost force fed the world's largest junebug at 60mph on the ride in this morning. So (obligatory friendly "hi" to any new forumites aside) my gripe:

1) This was answered a MONTH ago in the April producer's letter which is not JUST announced via the forums- its provided on the site's main page AND the launcher. If you're ever interested in the direction the game's planning to take, that ain't a bad place to start reading.

The relevant part is listed below:
Now, I really can't reasonably expect a every player to to go reading all that crap anytime they have a question, they should be able to ask something so common and hope that people more.... fixated... on the game's future could help them... so my grouse there is mild.

No, my grumpiness is at the community represented here. Rather that clearly pointing out WHERE an AUTHORITY has acknowledged the concern and clearly stated effort is being put into it for a future issue, putting the issue of "will it happen" at rest (we can debate "will it be soon enough" all we want, I guess) we got... what? a new vehicle to field complaints on the existing system? ambiguous answers that make the issue still seem uncertain and discouraging? posts as grouchy as mine?

Dammit, guys, just because we have an endgame now doesn't mean we have to behave like every other MMO's boards.

So, if I understand, you would be willing to pay for individual tokens for things like "unlock auras early" or "unlock the rularuu sword" or even "unlock the samurai veteran reward costume early" if they were offered and they were necessary for a character concept?

But are those costume pieces intended to be used all-together or just as one element enhancing an existing costume? The pricing seems on par with the idea of selective use, rather than full-set application.

Not splitting hairs, coming down to the core of the whole timetable you were using. You suggested that some people don't see a need for an endgame, then alluded to the idea that those people would go virtually a year without seeing much of anything. The "endgame mechanics" were I20. Two months old. The "Incarnate story" was introduced prior to that, in I19, using very standard game mechanics that differed very little from the original content. Either way, it didn't stand up to the sentiment that this has been a longstanding divergence from the norm.

As you said- everyone's entitled to their own opinion about an issue- that's purely subjective- but you can't make up facts to back your argument without being called on it. It may FEEL like the non-endgame-content player has been neglected for a long time, but the mixing of dates to justify how you feel was a (perhaps unintentional) shell game.