Clintonian

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I think he's talking about the Rikti invasion at the end of CoH beta.

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But as far as I knew that was never really in-canon...

Can we get some clarification?

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The CoH beta event was "out of canon", a re-enactment, if you will.

Most people are not going to fret over the mistake in the copy. It's not a big deal.

What I want to know is: Will we get a cameo from Ubelman in RV?

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I would rather be shot than listen to the type of abuse folks heap on each other nowadays. lol
heck, I would rather shoot them than hear it.
Now that is Southern. rofl

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That sounds about just right for a Southern attitude: I don't like your opinion, so I'll shoot you.

Thanks for confirming.

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To be fair, redneck mentality lurks in every corner of the USA. Southerners just may lie about it less.

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I dunno -- I find it telling that since States posted, the overwhelming bulk of the thread consists of direct replies to him.

Granted, it's no small function of the forum -- to facilititate communication between the playerbase and the Devs. But I can't help but sense examples of the berating and personal attacks provided above discourage that kind of interaction.

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I think the devs are adults and professionals. I presume they are better than you and I at not obsessing about obviously outrageous complaints, and focus on the pleasant posts and constructive critiques. One doesn't get very far in any entertainment industry with a thin skin. Absorbing personal irate commentary from an web forum is a luxury that only players have.

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Those of you who are satisfied with how things are and look for nothing more---or, at the least, accept what comes forth---are no doubt giddy with glee about this response. But I was assured of much, much more. Apparently I'm not going to get it in this game.

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I think you could have saved time and just posted this, Cal. There are some nuggets of truth in your post and some stuff that I agree with, but there is so much naked bitterness and spite in the post, it's not worth it to distill those elements out.

Yes, this game seems like it do a lot more than it has, but it hasn't gone to [censored]. The company has just gotten realistic with its development goals and has been weaning us off the pie-in-the-sky possibilities (that I think they believed too) that were regularly batted around in the first year. CoV was the wake-up call last year.

Back to the content of your complaints:

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Red Herring, Rhetoric and Sophistry. If you really thought this way, then CoH would not be the game it is. CoH is the better game, period. I don't know why; I don't know what happened to change your game design philosophy---but whatever it was, it doesn't bode well.

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I think the company did a lot of good things in CoV - better things gameplay-wise - but there are elements where I think they took longstanding CoH feedback perhaps too far. I see a year's worth of back-and-forth between players and devs in just about everything in CoV. I also see that they had big ideas that perhaps they didn't have the available resources or expertise to fully implement all at once. Kinda reminds me about CoH at launch, and that turned out pretty cool after the first couple of Issues.

I just hope after I7 that the company is done throwing all these resources at PvP zones. PvP in this game needs time to catch on, and throwing out more and more zones doesn't help. Our cup runneth over with PvP opportunities.

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Jesus Christ, you're unstable. It ever cross your mind that maybe Scourge was joking and he doesn't really believe that they have hamster working on the game?

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from 'Letter of Resignation' thread, 04/12/06:
"I'm no angel, but the irony has always been that Taser became a little hair-triggered because of the coarse level of discourse in the forum, which he would routinely lash out at, lowering the level of discourse further, shortening his trigger further, wash-rinse-repeat until anyone without a pom-pom was a target and he completed the transformation into a funhouse mirror version of himself. It's amusing to see that the cycle will likely begin again. When are college finals? Right around when I7 is likely to go Live? Hm.

*writing note to self to get more popcorn at the end of the month*"

Taser's stated before that he thinks forumbase are children. Children like to see others act out and be crass. Who won favorite poster again?

The Wheel turns anon
Turning, showing some motion
Only in a circle

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“I believe I misjudged you, Mistress.” He said.

“How so, Baron Faust?"

“All this time I was so worried about what the Ferry Pass would look like. I just didn’t want it to clash with the “villainous theme” I’m working on.”

The Mistress smiled as she looked down upon him. “Why? It’s not like I was going to give you a big freakin’ mace with red lightning spraying out of it.”

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I'm definitely losing my edge. I honestly didn't see the punchline march down main street on this one. Nice one. Good times!

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You guys either take stuff for granted or work around the constraints of the medium daily.

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APPs work. From my point of view having APPs and PPPs not available concurrently, is akin but not exactly like (as I mentioned before) having sidekicking only available in CoH and exemplaring only available in CoV. It's very doable, but not as fun.

I think you are taking the constructive criticism too seriously. Most people think PPPs are great in and of themselves. That doesn't change the fact that this game feature doesn't exist all by itself, but as part of jigsaw puzzle of other interlocking features and audience concerns. There's nothing to be done in the short term, but the criticism is out there in order that perhaps the I8 or !9 feature list might address those concerns - because it really takes that long to throw stuff like this in. Ya can't wait until it hits Test and go, "Man, I wish this Issue had such-and-such."

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The reason players don't agree with you is they are the SAME players that make a scrapper and forget what TAUNT is.


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You just don't read the threads much before commenting on them, do you? Or maybe it's just a bad analogy on your part that doesn't properly express your point.

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though I did find it kind of amusing that for the first 15 or so pages of this thread there were maybe 4 people who were in favor of Patron Powers and now, since Statesman has graced this thread with his presence (yes I'm sucking up, can we have issue 7 now?), all of the pro PPP people are coming out of the woodwork.

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Power of the Dev Digest. That and the fact that Samuel is one of the few that just doesn't like a lot of the current aspects of PPPs (which is fair) and many just have a more measured appreciation of them. The Devs know how to read posts for what they actually say even if some players don't.

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f I were to wax philosophical for a moment – I wonder whether it’s the genre (super heroes), the medium (City of Heroes) or the nature of the internet which has led to a greater demand for individuality.

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I think it's a bit of all that and also, in part, how well Cryptic has provided character flexibility thus far without it being cumbersome to the end user. The Patron feature is a great idea and hopefully it will be brought over to CoH sometime - to exist alongside APPs.

It's kinda similar in my mind to the 'sidekick' feature which was great, but felt like half the equation until exemplaring was implemented. I think PPPs and APPs have that relationship as well: PPPs for game narrative post-40 character development, and APPs for those who prefer player narrative or just power-flipping.

Cheers.

They are monsters. Horrible, horrible Stepford monsters.

He might be on a 48-hour coffee jag or just mixed up because, yeah, the Halloween '04 event had unique badges and the 5th/Council Streetwar occurred January '05. There was no special Halloween '05 event.

I'm commenting. Expressing myself pretty politely. I'm certainly avoiding taking anything personally. I'm certainly not poring over my posts to make sure there's nothing that anyone would take adversely. I do make an attempt to write factually and respectful of other's viewpoints. Rarely, I fall short. Rarely. I'm certainly not guilty of everything I've been accused of - which is everything under the sun, it seems.

What's mildly befuddling is that certain other people - that may include you, it may not - seem to be asserting some moral high ground that's pretty shaky. I'm accused of posting inflammatory posts and it's a bad thing, yet what are you doing? While I'm not angrily provoked, I can see that you would like me to be. Why do want that?

Hm.

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Irregardless of being derailed, I think this thread has reached the end of its lifetime as a useful Q&A thread by virtue of being Way Long.

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You would think so, and most times you would be correct. The 'Dev Corner' really is the elephant's graveyard.

Still, there have been very interesting and informative threads that went on and on and on. They aren't fun for the rank and file, but good stuff for more esoteric tastes. It took the HO change thread a good month before people settled down and talked rationally to each other.

*chuckle*

It's amazing that I can use three innocuous words can somehow stir up feelings of anger and resentment, yet others have to work sooooo hard at it. At this point, it's not what I write. It's that I write.

There's this bugaboo vision that's crawled inside your head. I can't do anything about that.

Cheers.

Yes, you would.

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*attempting to head back towards the original topic*

_Castle_, since the Patron powers numbers will be available in-game, will the heroic APP numbers be made available also?

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Probably for the best.

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No one with a rational mind will take seriously any attempts at restraint put forth by a poster named after the most disgustingly self-indulgent U.S. President since Nixon.

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I'm not named after any President.

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Quite a lot of players don't consider story for their own characters whatsoever. Of those that do, quite a lot have loose concepts that take up a paragraph or two. Of those with more fleshed out biographies, some will have PPP-compatible biographies already. Of those that don't, some can make the mental adjustment we just talked about. Of those that can't... there'll be a problem. But how many is that going to be by that point, really?

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A lot of people don't write bios. More than a few like to matching elemental powers. Or matching mechanical foci powers. The PPPs cover a bit of that, but APPs cover power themes better - yet still not perfectly.

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I understand people like their characters. Heck, Lord knows I've been [censored] over a couple. I quit for three months after I5. I just think it's important that people realize the source of the sadness in this thread isn't one-sided. It's two-sided: the direction the devs are taking on the one hand, and a certain level of stubborn rigidity on the other. Not meant as an insult. Just as an observation.

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Fair enough.

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Mm. Not really, and I hope the devs are not as emotionally hyper-sensitive as you portray them.



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Clint, just because you read my posts as if they were being narratived by a screeching woman watching her baby get crushed by a bus doesn't mean that's how I wrote it.

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Wow. Not how I read them at all. I can see now why you think everybody is 'screaming' at the devs. There's just a preponderance of screaming in your world, period.

/em turns on white noise generator

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Honestly, I have no allegiance on this one. I'm dealing with what we got. Am I in love with the idea of patron pools that can't be changed and are similiar across the ATs? Not too much. Some powers look cool. But they are just other powers for me. Am I angry that the devs would dare for me to bow down before a fictional character to get powers? Of course not. We do that everytime we train.

Would I protest wildly if they announced in I8 that heroes were getting patron pools and villains were getting APPs that are based on elements/powersets? Of course not. More choice is always better and we're not 100% sure that's not what they are going to do anyways. Then people can have the option of being part of the greater narrative by aligning themselves with the environment and storyline or have the choice to base their epic powers on their origin and powerchoices.

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Fair enough.

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I think you miss a rather important qualifier of the Villain PPP's -- they're optional.

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They're just as equivalently as optional as APPs in my opinion. You assert that heroes need their specialized post-40 choices much more than villains do. I don't know that that's true.

Anyway, what does making an optimized build have to do with thematic concerns? And because of a perceived lack of villain player need for them (PvPers might disagree), it's automatic that the pools should be non-respecable? I don't see how the two connect at all and your post didn't help.

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The devs have tried something different with epic powers in CoV and ultimately with CoV as a whole. And the judges are screaming "Get back in your box," "Don't take a chance," or "We only like you when you are doing the same old thing."

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Mm. Not really, and I hope the devs are not as emotionally hyper-sensitive as you portray them.

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Not all concepts in CoH can be realized with epic pools either. A rad/rad defender is pretty screwed. Or an illusion controller. A spines scrapper won't get some ultimate spine powers at the end of the game.

Ultimately, I think being given power from someone else is a much more rational explanation for these new powers at level 41 than just "You hit level 41, now your fire blaster can use electricity" or "You hit 41 and now, and only now, your scrapper has learned how to throw throwing stars even though Tsoo have been doing it since level 13." I would love if they adapted the "Patron" set-up for heroes and gave us a storyline or two that explain where we get these new epic powers and why they are important to our characters. Right now they aren't anymore important than the Fitness or Speed pool.

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I said at the time that Patron Powers were mentioned in last year's big CoV magazine article that I'd love it if CoH got Patron-esque options - but not at the expense of the current APP options. I don't see how the two have to be mutually exclusive in the same game. People want flexible post-40 power options now that they've had a taste in CoH. The genie is out of the bottle. Of course APPs don't completely satisfy every hero concept. No one is saying that APPs are perfect. They do, however, have a flexibility PPPs don't have - narratively and in respec terms. PPPs are not bad (though people might impulsively speak that haphazardly in the heat of the internet moment), but they are definitely not better than APPs. I hope that by the end of the year both games have both sets of options.

You say that there's a more rational explanation for post-40 powers now in CoV. No, there isn't. There's just less diversity in the rationales for post-40 powers. Just because a player may not have a website you can visit to read up on the rationale, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't interesting.

I think it's good that you highlight the virtues of PPPs, but just like some of the people who slag PPPs, you offer a distinct bias and seem reluctant to acknowledge that PPPs are a mixture of pros and cons.

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If we're truly admitting this is a case about imagination, ...

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'We' are not.

Freedom ain't known for its uber RP and it ain't starting now.

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Does that put you in my bizzaro world, or me in yours?

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Neither, you're just dialing back a hair on the "wait and see" argument.

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B) I can give it a try and see if it works out. If it doesn't work out at all - say, I hate the powers, I hate working for the patron, the storyline is all wrong, etc. - then I likely won't take any of those characters much past 40. It takes too much effort for a character I'm not happy with. But, there's the (albeit small) chance that they do actually work out. Maybe, just maybe everything clicks into place and I'll be happy.

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Wow. PPPs work so well overall, thematically, that the best you can offer is 'maybe, just maybe' it'll all be fine and good in a general sense. What a ringing endorsement. No marketing job for you, boyo.

Digression:
There's no doubt that PPPs will work for some seamlessly - even a slim majority. There's no debating that it won't. Do PPPs and post-40 content serve the entertainment needs of the general audience as well and as easily as APPs and CoH's unconnected post-40 content does? There's no need to 'wait and see' that there exists additional opportunity costs inflicted on CoV players who want options outside of basic power selections as opposed to CoH players.

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Maybe you, in your infinite wisdom, can forsee how it will affect your concepts. I don't have that luxury, so I chose to err on the side of caution, and at least give it a try.

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This isn't rocket science. Some villain concepts will work very well under the current PPP structure, and some will not. A less flexible system is very unlikely to accomplish everything that a more flexible system can overall. I've said it before, If CoV versions of APPs had been released at the same time as PPPs, this really would be a moot question. It would be just another minor note in the "CoV gets a whole lot in I7, CoH not so much" song.

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"Telling" implies that I'm issuing a decree here. I'm really not.
I offer a simple suggestion...

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Quote: "Perhaps you will have a happier life if you wait with the hate 'till you have something better than press releases to base it on. Like, say, five minutes of experience. "
This is your response to a post that offered no hate in the first place. It politely offered examples of how someone could know that the PPPs won't work with their villain concept because you declared that everyone is ignorant of how well PPPs might mesh. It's a decree you issue - it's derision. It works better when the post you reply to inflammatory instead of just respectfully in disagreement.

Just sayin'.

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Maybe I'll be so awed by Grandville that I won't notice the PPPs.

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*sigh*