CodeGuy

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I wonder though how difficult or possible it would be for the DEVs to write up a guide and mini tool set that would allow the more artistic in the comunity to create their own custom emotes, power animations, and costume pieces for injection into special "custom" powers/emotes/costume items that are availible only on the test server for customization users. The tools would basically alow you to "clone" a existing animation/object as the basis and inject your art in place of the default art on your test client. (Everyone else would see the normal animation/object)

This would not solve the programming side of the fence but it might give the comunity a chance to particpate. My concern is it may not be worth the time if there is not enough volunteers. So maybe if the devs surveyed the community beforehand. And if they can get enough skilled people willing to help. And if the tools necessary are easy enough. We might see some interesting content, rather than having endless discussions over when if ever PC is going to happen we might actually be voting for/against Lemur's new ringed lemur tail costume piece or YellowLass' bananna colored powerbolts.

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User created content works best when people can pick and choose what they want to download. Take a look at a user supported gaming site like kongregate.com or a site that hosts user created mods for games like Half-Life. 99% of it is really bad. People play that 1% and tell everyone else to play it, so the good stuff rises to the top while the loads and loads of bad content is just ignored.

For a game like this, that wouldn't work. They couldn't add a user created Lemur tail to the game for everyone to use without doing a significant amount of work. Not only do they have to go through all the bad stuff to find the one thing that really works, but the also have to check for any bugs that the player might have missed. In the time they've done all that, they could have built something themselves.

Maxis had to hire full time people just to look through all the stuff posted on their Sims site and remove everything that was questionable. They weren't even trying to maintain quality, just keep it clean.

So user created content really doesn't work for this type of game.

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Also why the assumption that it has to be done in a rush?

Why not let them do it a little bit at a time?

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That doesn't really solve the problem.

The devs have stated that some people would have to spend so much time on PC that they'd get nothing else done for several issues. So that means over a year of work.

Let's say they just work on PC a little bit every now and then. Say, one day a week. One year just turned into 5 years. Is anyone here really satisfied a solution that gets us Power Customisation in 5 years?

Now lets say they devote more time to it. Those people who would be bogged down with PC spend half their time on it. That means we don't get PC for more than 2 years, and the things those people were working on all take twice as long. Nobody likes issues that skimp on certain types of features, especially when they do it several issues in a row. And nobody likes it when the issues get spread out to more than 6 months between them. We've seen both of these things in the past, so having worse versions of them would certainly be problematic.

Time spent working on PC is time spent not doing other stuff. Spreading that out over a long period of time doesn't change the fact that it's still the same trade off. The devs have looked at the amount of stuff that they'd have to delay to get PC, and they've made a decision. Perhaps that decision will change in the future. I'd love it if it did, but us asking for it a million times in a million threads doesn't really change the facts of the matter.

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If, perhaps, the armachair designers postulated theories about how to cut production time, that might be productive.

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No, it wouldn't be productive at all.

Think about someone who's never been to New York trying to give directions for how to get around in New York. He doesn't know the streets, he's never even looked at a map, yet he's trying to tell someone who lives there the best way to get to work in the morning.

That's what we're talking about. People who have never looked at the database code for CoX have nothing useful to say about how to change it faster. People haven't ever looked at the particle files in the powers don't know what it would take to change them, and thus don't know enough to suggest a faster way to do it.

I appreciate that people are trying to help. I think the people at Cryptic think it's a nice thought, too. But there's really nothing that anyone can do to help Cryptic.

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They've really not said anything of the sort.

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They've said something exactly of the sort.

BackAlleyBrawler has said more than once that the reason they haven't done it is because it would take so much work that many people on the team wouldn't be able to do anything else for several issues. The devs have said repeatedly that implementing power customisation would mean taking up so much time that many other things would not get implemented, so it always gets put to the bottom of the list.

No, they haven't ruled it out. But a hundred threads telling them to do it anyway aren't going to change the facts. In the past, it hasn't been worth it to spend the large amount of resources on it that could be spent elsewhere. Nothing about these threads changes that. Nobody has posted a single idea that isn't already covered by what the devs have already told us.

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I actually fail to see the purpose in Any threads on this matter as that guy has already said Numerous times Its not a Viable Option at this point.

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And you know, the same was said of Capes at one time.

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No, capes were different. They knew they were going to do capes, they told us from the beginning that capes were coming, they were just going to take time.

Wings were similar. They told us that wings would take some effort, but they were planning to do them in some fashion.

With power customisation they've said from the beginning that it would take more effort than it is worth. Since then they've experimented with it and found that they right the first time, it will take more effort than it is worth.

Perfect_Pain had it right, none of these threads actually accomplish anything. Many people have posted "ideas" on how to do PC, but none of it has been anything the devs don't already know. The problem with PC isn't a lack of ideas, they already have plenty. The problem isn't a lack of desire, they know we want it and they want it too. All these many, many threads do is get everyone worked up. They don't actually get us any closer to having Power Customisation.

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Total Cost for working Salvage storage and a working Empowerment Station: 130,000 Prestige

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7 members at 20,000 bonus Prestige per member = 140,000 Prestige

Minimum number of members necessary to achieve this: 7.

Devs' idea of a small SG: seven members.

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That's only true if the people in the SG don't play the game at all. It is not unreasonable to expect people to play the game a little.

3 people get a 60k bonus. Those 3 people can easily earn the other 70k in a week or two of moderate play.

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How in the hell did this get by the forum cleansing?


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There's a redname post near the beginning. I think threads with redname posts don't get cleansed.

I don't know. This is actually a pretty interesting necro post. I don't like necro posts in general, but this is a neat reminder of how people yell "Worst. Issue. Ever." for every issue.

I just think they should cut it down to 20 contaminated instead of 100. Defeating 100 of those guys is booooring. Very few people will fight 20 of those guys unless they're going for the badge, so there's nothing to lose.

Sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't. The decision is up to the devs. Since Positron often gives complex and detailed answers, he probably had a reason for not going into more depth this time.

Honestly, it's not a big deal. We seriously won't be better off for knowing what exactly the technical difficulties are.

No, Flame is right, though his response was a bit antagonistic. When a dev says that there are technical problems, that's probably the best answer he could give.

Game engines are complex. If he tells us that trainers are set up a certain way, that won't make any sense to us unless he also explains the advantages and disadvantages. This is likely to be boring stuff like data packets, transfer times, database dependencies, tool libraries, or other details that really won't make things more clear.

Technical difficulties isn't the most interesting answer, but it is a reasonable one. We know it's not because they haven't thought of it, we know it's not because of story concerns, and we know that they'd like to do it. They just have some technical issues with pulling it off.

Also, Positron didn't really "shoot down" the idea, as one poster put it. He just said that something else would be done but this would be harder. That doesn't completely rule out doing it someday.

Infernosect, if you were talking about a regular contact, you'd have a point. But these aren't regular contacts. They exist only for people who want to team. They're very up front about that, they're not keeping you from getting the rest of your soloable content, these are simply team oriented missions.

They're just like TFs. If you don't want to team, then don't do them. Do your regular contact missions instead. There are hundreds of hours of soloable content.

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Yep.

Semi-daft question Castle -

Is this a Database type fix so actve right away, or does it have to filter through the internal QA -> test -> live flow chart ?

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I think everything has to filter through that process, database fixes are just faster because they take less time to implement.

Well, that depends on your point of view.

"Look at this badge that says I'm Statesman's Pal! That trusting fool!"

I dunno. Whatever the devs want to do. I think the ones that have villainous versions have a good chance of being transfered, and other than that I don't know enough to guess.

I can agree with no new CoH zones.

New zones spread people out. If there are 2000 people playing and 1400 of them are on mission maps, that leaves 600 players in zones. That means 20 zones would have an average of 30 people each, but 30 zones would have an average of 20 people each. So you'll see other players significantly less often.

I think that CoH needs one more zone for 35-40, and that's it. Done. From then on renovating old zones and adding missions to them would be better.

In fact, I think there should be some updates that don't significantly change the art for any CoH zones. Have an update where Boomtown gets as much designer time as a new zone (new missions, contacts, storylines), but the art department spends their time on making new interiors.

The EMP grenade seems to be the only potential toggle dropper for my Brute. Usually not, though. Usually I get a tick of End during the time that the EMP effect was dropping my End.

Other than that, I've never noticed any toggle dropping with my level 40 Brute.

Yeah, power is an ample enough commodity early on, but control just dissappears. Most of that extra control you have will be used up just by adding the second worktable.

I got charged rent without having any power units. It was for my single room base that I made for one of my older heroes.

I got charged 6 Prestige.

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After all, all we really are arguing is opinion. You have yours, I have mine. You have said nothing to change mine

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That's because I can't change an opinion you never had. You've never really believed that the Batcave is a base for a Supergroup. You just keep saying that because you made an odd comment and took a wrong turn defending it.

Don't believe me? Still think you actually believe that rediculous notion?

Here's a quiz.

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Which is which?

.................................................. ........Base of a Supergroup......................Personal Lair of a Hero
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Avenger's Mansion.................... |________________________|________________________ __|
Batcave..................................... |________________________|________________________ __|
Xavier School for gifted children |________________________|________________________ __|
Fortress of Solitude................... |________________________|________________________ __|
JLA Watchtower........................ |________________________|________________________ __|


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Give that test to every single person in every comic book store you can find. Don't explain anything first, just give them the test and have them fill it out.

Actually, don't bother. You already know that every single person is going to mark Personal Lair for the Batcave. You know that because before this innane conversation started, you would have too.

It may be less grinding, but that doesn't mean it isn't grinding.

If you can't enjoy something unless someone else had to suffer, even a little, then that's too bad. That's really not a problem with the game, and after Statesman changes it the game really will be better.

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This sounds like advocating that the badge should be so easy to get people will earn it as a matter of course with no extra effort.

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Yes and no. The people who focus on doing Family missions should get the badge naturally. The people who focus on other things should not get it, they should get something else instead. By the time they get through with the something else, they've leveled past the Family unlockable stuff and moved on to the next set of content.

The idea of everyone doing different content is to make sure that different characters see different things. It's possible to do that without forcing people to grind.

If there was no lack of content, then I'd be OK with missing some things. However, grinding is worse than not uncovering a mystery. If the price of having mysteries in the game is people grinding, then there should be fewer mysteries.

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Considering that the result is people running out of content before they run out of levels, that idea isn't working out so well.





Since when has this not been the case? It was always my understanding that this was deliberate, to incent people to do Task Forces or help other people with their missions.

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I have done every TF, even the Super Group one and both Respecs. I've played with other people. I still ran out of missions and had to do repetitive crap from 33.5 to 35 and from 37.5 to 40. Most of the grouping that I did during level 39 was with people who had also run out of missions.

The idea that not everyone does everything is a valid one. Here's how it should work. There are more missions than everyone can take. The people who focus on certain things naturally get one badge while the people who focus on other things get a different badge. This leads to each person later getting the missions that fit what they've already done.

What's currently happening instead is that sometimes people get the badge but never know there's a contact that goes with it. Other times people find the contact, but no combination of natural gameplay before that would have allowed them to unlock it. So people either miss a contact entirely or they end up grinding to get something they couldn't naturally get in 30 levels of normal gaming.

The overall idea of different people getting different contacts is fine. The implimentation just needs some tweaks. Since this is the first time that CoX has done the hidden contacts, some kinks in the system are to be expected.

Weijyan, give it up. You're defending a rediculous arguement.

The Batcave is Batman's lair, and he lets his sidekicks use it too.

When Robin needs to use a computer, he doesn't use the Bat Family Computer, he doesn't use the Robin Computer, he uses the Bat Computer. He uses the Batphone, the Batpoles and the Bat-urinal. Like a guy who doesn't really trust his houseguest, Batman wrote his name on everything to make sure Robin understood who owns it.

The Batcave is well know for all Batman's trophies. A Giant Penny, a dinosaur, various weapons that he's taken from his enemies. Tons of stuff. What does Robin have? A little shelf in the corner. I'm not making that up, a recent issue of Flash had Flash and Nightwing reminiscing about it. It wasn't even a nice shelf from Ikea, it was a board that Robin had nailed to the wall.

The Batcave is a part of Batman, and the sidekicks just happen to be allowed inside. It's not an area they share, it belongs to Batman. Weijyan, you're not saying otherwise because you actually believe that the Bat Family is a supergroup. You just made an odd arguement, and now you're stuck defending it.

Let it go.

I never said you do need to have a huge group to have a base. I never said anything like that at all. I specifically said that the Fantastic Four were a supergroup.

I never singled out Batman.

Someone else made the rediculous statement that the Bat Family constitutes a super group and the Bat cave is their base. That was an incorrect statement, and I pointed out why.

Why you needed to try and prove that the Bat family is a supergroup in the same way as the JLA or the Avengers is beyond me.

Oh, and it's really very unsatisfiying to know you need a badge, but not be able to tell if you're making progress. I have over a dozen badges named "Unknown" with a description of "???". I tried killing a bunch of Mook bosses and seeing which bar got bigger, but by the time I'd killed a significant amount, I couldn't be sure I remembered the position of every bar correctly.

There might as well not be progress bars if they're not going to have names or hints.