Judgement_Dave

Do you realise that this is the point where the new hires start delivering benefits after c.18 months of office moves/reorganisation/hiring/training?

So whilst not getting your hopes too high, this could easily be the release where it's apparent that more work is going into CoX. Of course the delivered product is bound to please some and upset others, but that's personal taste/horses for courses for you.

Whether you like it or not, I'm guessing it'll be apparent that a lot of work's been done. I don't know if the work will be on zones/ATs/powers/arcs/story/TFs or on dancing ponies that sing - but I'm pretty sure there'll be a fair bit of it...

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Yes we can get all excited by it but we have no indication it's happening and in fact Positron's mentioned several times in the past that he doesn't want to leave older PCs behind so graphics tweak? Minor at best.

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Pretty sure that I'd seen a recent comment from one of the devs pointing out that they'd try to introduce improved graphics keeping the current settings as available. It wouldn't be impossible to do this and keep backwards compatibility for older machines whilst giving more shininess for newer silicon beasts.

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New Zones? Well if it's a box and it's going to be in the shops, a whole new game, then there'll be plenty of zones.

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Whilst not expecting your 1 zone that allows you to hop to PC/RI at level 5, it isn't neccesarily a whole new game. It's an expansion.

It might be standalone, but it might not.

It looks likely that it'll be a boxed set and bigger in scope than CoV (again partly due to this being where the new team delivers) but the e-mail doesn't even state that (just that it's the first major expansion since CoV).

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What we've seen is just a teaser to get the juices flowing and so far that's worked. But I'm sceptical because although the Devs are great at developing, Paragon Studios have proven a few times they are below par when it comes to managing expectations and don't have too many clues about good marketing - they've missed opportunities to grow the subscription base in the past. Let's just hope they manage to make this one work.

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So isn't your outlook on this somewhat contradictory?

You seem to criticise the trailer/assumptions for maybe only having 1 new zone, and 2 new powersets whilst at the same time criticising the devs for not managing expectations...

We've had Posi mention dual pistols and demon summoning, and we've been expecting one or more new zones soon - so I'd say that the devs are certainly not overhyping the additions this will bring. I'd say that they're managing expectations fine and should easily deliver more than they've given away in the trailer/email.

BTW - Posi mentioning dual pistols/demon summoning also makes me think that the mail has only gone out early by a day or two at the most. And I'd like to think that this was a purposeful 'leak'.

Well if its the latest patch on test hitting live then it's all MA changes - so would need to be applied at the same time EU and US.

IF it is... then this is it:

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Release Notes for 18.20090422.5T


COMBINED


Mission Architect

<ul type="square">[*]The maximum number of tickets awarded per player per mission has been reduced to 1,500 tickets. Because you cannot get a partial reward for defeating an enemy, you may end up with slightly less. [*]It is no longer possible to unpublish an arc that has been banned, though it may be resubmitted. [*]You may now either unpublish, or resubmit an invalidated arc. [*]If your character is not eligible for any xp/influence/debt reduction rewards in a Mission Architect mission, you will no longer be awarded any tickets for that mission. [*]It is no longer possible to have the Mission Completion ticket reward be greater than the total number of tickets gained before mission completion. [*]The ‘chicken tug’ animation is no longer selectable for critters through the Mission Architect UI[/list]
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But it's still poor that they can't give prior warning of a non-standard EU maintenance period, given that the decision wasn't made at 12:30 UK time when the in-game announcement was made.

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Not really, if you remember about 2 months ago it was said the architect wasnt being released over in the EU because it wasnt deemed cost effective so it would be an automatic response to want to know whether this one (in their eyes) is worthy of being advertised/sold over here.

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IIRC, GR (GhostRaptor) dropped hints that they weren't releasing an Architect edidtion box over here because they were planning to release another box in the near future anyway.

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IIRC he stated or strongly hinted that the EU would see a boxed set this (calendar) year.

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The only post of his that shows any sort of hint was this one HERE [link] .

Though hmm speculative!

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That's certainly not the post I'm thinking of.

IIRC it was around the time of the Mac edition either being announced or being released. People were asking about a general boxed release (partly to provide a more recent installation source and partly due to shelf-presence).

IIRC it was in that 'discussion' that comments were made about a boxed version in the EU later this year.

Of course - my memory is wobbly at times.

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Not really, if you remember about 2 months ago it was said the architect wasnt being released over in the EU because it wasnt deemed cost effective so it would be an automatic response to want to know whether this one (in their eyes) is worthy of being advertised/sold over here.

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IIRC, GR (GhostRaptor) dropped hints that they weren't releasing an Architect edidtion box over here because they were planning to release another box in the near future anyway.

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IIRC he stated or strongly hinted that the EU would see a boxed set this (calendar) year.

Missed any announcement about this, but just announced ingame:

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Attention! In 30 minutes, City of Heroes and City of Villains will go down for daily server maintenance. The “downtime” window is two hours long but maintenance may or may not take that entire time. We will have the game back up as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!

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So it looks like 13:00-15:00 UK - i.e. another US-timed maintenance...

I suspect that tonight is probably called off - given that we know Sing and Grouchy can't make it...

Many happy returns

Downloadable text file would be my preference for this feature.

BTW _emo_, any chance that we can tell search to exclude arcs that you've already reviewed/commented on. Or to highlight arcs in the search results that you have already commented on/reviewed.

Would make it a little easier on me for my ongoing plan to play each listed arc and leave comment/review...

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you know it comes to something when there are so many complaints about devs don't listen then when a dev asks for info there is only one response. sometimes i weep


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You know it comes to something when devs despair after only one response in less than 24-hrs... Give it a little longer unless you know people have seen your request for info!

Heck - I bet that a few of the people who've made suggestions before (myself included) wouldn't object to a PM if you desperately need to know we've read your request (as PMs can have a read receipt on them).

As it happens I've only just read your request...

Leif has most nailed.

As does Carni mentioning difficulty and the difficulty of rating difficulty (as it's often character specific). Though I dare say that you could look at several ratings (mezz-capability, defences, melee/range preference etc) to give a general idea of the groups difficulty for some ATs, this could possibly be served better by a text description.

Is the size of the group being given? min/lt/boss/eb/av count may be useful, but is no doubt covered already.

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Protean and Reichsman would be nice!

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Isn't Protean dead?

Looks that way in issue 9 of the CoH comic book (Top Cow run) anyway.

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Nah, he just built up a little XP debt.

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And since he's not logged in since patrol xp started...

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tbh they brought it out too fast again. ITS thier FAULT for what happens in the aftermath

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Agreed, they put it on test for about what... two weeks? in that time either minor bugs or none at all get fixed and major ones make it through to live. For instance the chat bugs etc.

If they hadnt been in such a rush to say look at the new shinyyyyy it might have actually been successful

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No - the final open beta was something like that. It had been in various stages of closed beta for something like a month before that iirc

Even the EU closed beta had about 2 weeks before the open started.

And many bugs did get addressed in that time.

I agree that it was released too early, but to claim it only had 2 weeks of ineffective testing is utter hogswash.

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I think the strategy is to create new, mroe exotic zones this year, as CO is offering more exotic zones.

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This looks likely - with tests/comments pointing to both a water/underwater based zone and to space/moon/extra-terrestrial zones.

But they're just the ones that have seemed very likely for quite some time now - I'd guess that a frozen/arctic zone may well be on it's way as well (although this could conceivably be an extra-terrestrial zone).


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Positron saying that they can make "cool" new zones might hint at an arctic one - especially as he wrote "cool" in big letters

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He not only capitalised 'COOL' but he did this 2 or 3 times. It's because of this that I mention a possible frozen/arctic zone - though it would be possible that it's extra-terrestrial.

It was funny at the pocket D that most chat seemed to miss the 'COOL' references instead shouting out that DA is a cool zone...

A frozen/arctic zone is in no way neccesarily copying CO in the same way that CO isn't copying any starwars games that had Hoth in them or any WWII games with operations in frozen Norway... It's not a frozen/arctic setting that makes the game, it merely provides a backdrop for the game.

EDIT: It's also possible that a frozen zone was discussed as a potential addition to CoX years ago... i.e. CO may well be running with the frozen zone partly as it had come up in plans for CoX before Jackelope left CoX.

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I think the strategy is to create new, mroe exotic zones this year, as CO is offering more exotic zones.

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This looks likely - with tests/comments pointing to both a water/underwater based zone and to space/moon/extra-terrestrial zones.

But they're just the ones that have seemed very likely for quite some time now - I'd guess that a frozen/arctic zone may well be on it's way as well (although this could conceivably be an extra-terrestrial zone).

Hopefully there'll be at least one new zone that comes completely out of the blue and surprises everyone. Now where did the devs leave that non-Euclidean R'lyeh zone..?

BTW I love the zone naming in CO... It's things like Lemuria, Snake Gulch, Millenium City and... Canada! I just love the way that Canada is a zone alongside fantastical and mythical places. Though it wouldn't surprise me if some players actually thought that Canada was a fictional place.

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Personally I think it might have been a good idea to make the Architect a booster pack type purchase. That way those of us who want to tell stories could do at a small fee, but everyone else would have been free to carry on as normal with some nice costume pieces and maybe a dev-created arc or two. It'd also have given them time/money to work out the kinks in the MA/AE system before it went live and they had to do patches on a seemingly daily basis.

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Remember that I13 and I14 were originally a single issue - so alongside MA the devs did plan to deliver a couple of extra arcs alongside it.

IIRC the previous answers to the OP question have been omitting a requirement.

You do all receive kill credit for the counts, but only if you're in the same zone/map as the kill.

Many a time I've been on hunts in teams where several members of the team need the same kill X (e.g. for costume and aura missions) but split, and only those in the same zone as the kill get the credit.

Other than same zone/map I don't think that there's any other proximity requirement.

Arguing about MA and farming is the new forum endgame. Does that count?

Re: MaX

MA probably fits in as a fair part of CoX endgame, although I think it's more important role is to free up resources to allow the creation of dev-created endgame.

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Aluminium.

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Makes me wonder if 'You can call me Al' was Paul Simon's attempt to unify the British and American nations in using the periodic table rather than squabbling over spelling.


BTW whilst aluminium is the international norm, as with many variations between English and that funny bastardised version that the Americans use, it's not actually the Americans getting it wrong so much as using a word that was once correct but that the rest of the world decided not to use.

This makes for interesting reading on aluminium. TL;DR - the discoverer of aluminium used 'aluminium' at first, but a few years later used 'aluminum'. So both spellings were used by it's own discoverer.

On a similar note 'grey' and 'gray' were both common in English, with one being dark grey/gray and the other a lighter colour (though I can never recall which was which). And IIRC drapes and faucets were also common middle English.

Quite a lot of the variation in language is due to America keeping the vocabulary that was common in Britain at the time of it's main settling, whilst the language of Britain moved on and the common American words fell out of vogue in the UK.

But, dammit, it's called English, it is our language. So we must be right.

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I'd rather they revamp existing zones, redo the lower levels so the stories are more cohesive (revamp them ala COV start), remove hazard zones and actually show some changes to the city as it recovers from the war.

We have a COV mission where you have to disrupt building work in Boomtown. Even just bringing those graphics over into the actual zone would be a step in the right direction.

But that's just what I want. There are multiple other viewpoints out there - some who want the same, many who want different.


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Of course most people would want these things doing - as long as it didn't impact new development!

We know that Posi said something along the lines of developing a new zone isn't much more time/effort than revamping an old zone. And I'd guess that a new zone probably seems like much better bang per buck - 'everyone' likes shiny new toys, and a new zone gives the devs a completely new backdrop for story telling.

Couple this with the devs having access to data about how much time characters spend in each zone (which very possibly comes into play in prioritising zone work) and I'd guess that improving Boomtown and DA probably come very, very low down the dev's priority list.

Not saying that's good - both zones have a lot more promise than their current roles of minor players in a couple of TFs - but it is understandable, and especially as revamping these would provide benefits to CoH only (unless they are radically reworked to PvP/co-op - both of which would upset some players just as much as a revamp would please others).

Regarding changes to the zones as the city recovers from the war: that's one thing I've never understood about CoX - why are the zones so static fom issue to issue? Real cities aren't like that - and I'd imagine that cities recovering from war and populated by supers would change even faster than RL cities.

About the only changes to most of the city/RI are those for WW/BM and AE.

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And they have a fine balancing act to play - too much one way or the other and they WILL lose players. It's going to be harder to keep players when there's going to be another MMO out there along the same theme. Harder still when there's two or three.
And I hope they're looking that far ahead.

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I think that they are, but the things that will help most against the competition are not neccesarily the things that many long term players want to see, e.g.

* Brand new shinies/zones will make much better PR releases than "we improved something we've had for years!"

* Dev-concentration on TF/SFs may well help in the battle, providing some sort of shiny, dev-created, mega-mission endgame (which IMO is a big part of why ITF/LGTF are high level).

Sure CoX will see a wobble (in players online if not really in subs) when each of the competitors launch, but that's partly because players can be accurately modelled using magpies and the new releases will be totally new and shiny.

Having a few new and shiny things to announce/launch not long after the competitors go live could grab back many players (and hopefully grab some players new to supers MMOing who were only sucked in by the oppositions marketing).

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With MA splitting off into its own issue, it looks like I16 (and not I15) was now to be the big story based issue,

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Except for the fact that Posi said they were going to concentrate on SF/TFs and leave arcs to players in the MA (hopefully he just hadn't had his morning coffee at that point though and War Witch has now taken him to task for it).

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* I'd have expected most of the story content for the next couple of issues to have been at least planned out if not developed long before I14 release. The preference to develop TF/SFs over arcs seems to be a reaction to the player reception of I14 MA - and so shouldn't really factor into the planned content for the next 2 or 3 issues.

I'd also expect the next few issues (after I15) could well need some arcs to help explain new zones/factions.

* I'm marginally disappointed that you state that they'll 'leave arcs to players in the MA' since I responded to you mentioning this on a previous thread:

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Why don't the devs actually make new contacts with new arcs/missions?


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To the best of my knowledge, the devs have never said that they won't be doing this.

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Although Posi's "we'll do TF's, you lot do missions!" statement was a tad worrying.


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Do you mean this exchange?

04-28-2009 18:05:29 [Local] Myopic Aardvark: Was looking for more story (as in arcs, rather than TFs)
04-28-2009 18:06:08 [Local] Positron: We could write Arcs, but with MA out there, we'd rather write TF/SF's

If so I see the key word to be 'rather'. He doesn't say that they won't write arcs just that they'd rather write TF/SFs.

I'll probably have chicken and chips for dinner tonight - I've got some in and it needs eating. I'd rather have duck and hoi sin wraps. But I'll still eat the chicken and enjoy it.

Now I think that probably means we'll get the arcs explaining new zones/factions/organisations and TF/SFs but not much by way of additional old style arcs beyond that. Heck - we'll probably see the odd makeover, a la Hollows, with a new contact (though possibly repeatable missions rather than arcs). And if any new EATs come in then I'd imagine that they'd have some unique arc content as well.

That doesn't really bother me too much...

1. A new zone could see a few new contacts offering arcs - so I could see a reasonable amount of new arc content coming.

2. The coming storm will see new arcs as it comes closer then arrives... Probably by the new factions/organisations clause. You just can't throw too much at players with only TF/SFs to explain it... and if the Coming Storm turns out to be the world changing event that it should be then it'll need the odd arc (or at least mini-arc) outside of TF/SFs...

3. Spending more time on TF/SFs would hopefully give the devs more time to devote to the cuning tricks and unique maps/tactics that can make TF/SFs really stand out - the type of thing that you just never get in arcs/normal missions. Look at Katie/Hess/STF/ITF (and probably most SFs - but I've still only done a couple of them )

The opposite side of this is that (when the MA settles down and the whey can be seperated) the players can now create stories/arcs with many (most?) of the tools/tricks used by the devs for their normal arcs - but the players have an advantage. By sheer numbers and diversity they will eventually write arcs that you think are better than at least 95% of dev-created arcs. It's the infinite monkeys effect... the 50+ devs imaginations cannot compete with hundreds of thousands of players' imaginations. And, if they want to write good arcs, as time goes on the players will get better at the writing/construction side. On a level playing field with the same mission-construction tools, tips &amp; tricks the players will eventually win.

So let the devs excel at the bits that players can't do. The bits that let the devs work really shine and stand out. The bits that create those Wow! moments (Hess anyone?)

The biggest real downside as far as I can see is that shifting the dev output to focus more on TF/SFs may mean that peopl ewho never get chance to play TF/SFs wget th eshort end of the stick... But the rest of the playerbase should get real gems that were worth the development time &amp; effort - rather than a new coat of devpaint over the same old arc format.

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source

I know that you read that as you responded to point out that you disagree with my reading of this - though I think that the point stands that the wording (using 'rather') displays a preference for developing TF/SFs and not a blank refusal to develop non-TF/SF arcs.

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Though the big reasons that people had built up expectations was because:
* the official announcements made a much bigger deal of Positron giving a worldwide 5th anniversary address;
* Posi stating that it would be fun (iirc);
* Posi stating in the EU test room that he wouldn't give hints about his too-late-for-EU-residents announcement as we'd only go and spoil it by posting details on the US forums.

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I still thinik there may have been a slight mix-up there, and the details were put on the site too early - like they were supposed to go up after Positron had made his announcement.

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Totally agree (except that I think that when you thinik it! )

Having the announcement followed by the details on the website would have been relatively minor, but would have given Posi something new to break as news. Having the I15 details web page go live less than 24 hrs earlier without any real fanfare felt like a timing/marketing [censored]-up that stole the thunder from Posi's announcement,

Though the page was live something like 6-12 hrs before Posi's appearance in the EU test Pocket D, and it had been discussed to some length on the EU forums by the time he appeared there. So, if it was meant to be secret until his speech, Posi should have known that it was already common knowledge and adjusted his responses accordingly.







All typos brought to you by the power of vodka and the Sheffield a Das Ich gig...

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On a related note, it's a shame COV is always living in [censored] coh's shadow. Thanks for any help

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Of course it does, AFAIK the devs/NC use CoH to refer to both now... which makes sense as it's the same executable, same dev team, same boards, and AFAIK pretty much every player has access to both sides now.

I think they use CoH rather than the schoolboy favourite of CoX or the clumsy CoH/V.

Think this is what you're after:CoH fansite kit from US site

Think the CoV and CoH one are the same, though I haven't checked.

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He doesn't mention that most of the player created content, that 5 to 1 ratio, is banned and not able to be accessed

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I doubt that that affects the ratio too much.

I've not re-viewed the footage but, IIRC, He stated that this ratio was achieved in something like the first 48 hrs.

Looking at Red Tomax for an idea of how much dev content there is I see:
Accomplishment Badge (31)
Contact Store Mission (6)
Costume (9)
Flashback (3)
Introduction (7)
Kheldian Story Arc (11)
Major Story Arc (1)
Mayhem Mission (9)
Minor Story Arc (84)
Mission Architect (2)
Other (461)
PCPD Security Detail (10)
PvP Zone Mission (30)
Safeguard (1)
Special Event (6)
Story Arc (85)
Task Force (23)
TEST (1)
Trial (8)
Tutorial (11)


Ok - we can tell that there's at least some mild dodgyness in this list (e.g. the 1 Major Story Arc should probably just be added to the 85 Story Arcs, and the TEST arc shouldn't be there..) but I think the list is easily good enough for a rough guide.

Assuming that Minor story arcs are 5 missions and major arcs/kheld arcs/TF/SFs are each (a fairly generous) 10 missions long, that'd give something like:

5 missions * 84 Minor Story Arcs = 420 missions

10 missions * (11 Kheldian Story Arcs + 1 Major Story Arc + 85 Story Arcs + 23 TF/SFs) = 1200 missions

Everything else @ 1 mission each = 595 missions

So quick'n'dirty guesstimate of total dev output = 2215 missions

2215 missions. Not arcs, but missions.

The earliest published non-dev/Dev's Choice arc I can see in live was first published at 20:39 8th April. Looking at how many arcs are still up that were first published before 20:39 9th May (so in th efirst 24 hrs) we see that there's still over 142 whole pages of them, going to arc #13754.

At 20 arcs per page that's over 2840 arcs (not missions) published in the first 24 hrs that are still published (and remember that many people still seem to unpublish/edit/publish-again rather than edit/republish).

Many of the arcs published in the first 24hrs were developed and polished to some degree on test. I'm on record disagreeing with the fact so-called testers were doing this rather than testing for testings sake, but at the same time it means that many of these early arcs are multi-mission works that are not farms, and probably work fine to this day.

So in 5 years the devs give us something like 2215 missions (which I feel is probably a generous estimate) and in the very first 24hrs the players publish over 2840 arcs.

I'm pretty sure that in the first 24 hrs there was far more PCC missions than a mere 5:1 ratio (of non-farms) might suggest... Of course, many were still probably not to any one individual's taste, but that's a different matter entirely.

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As I was on a break from Paragon at the time what did he say that was so terrible at his 5th anniversery address?

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Nothing - except for those who'd built up their expectations to an amusingly high level
he also held a Q and A session in Pocket D on the Euro Test, and rather than spending the entire time in a back and forth argument with some PvPers, he declared he wasn't going to answer any more PvP questions, and he concentrated instead on answering one off questions where a single answer would be enough, so he could move onto the next question.
And as there were like 10 questions a minute being thrown at him, he wasn't able to answer them all - which maybe upset people who had a question overlooked

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Smiley person speak truth.

Though the big reasons that people had built up expectations was because:
* the official announcements made a much bigger deal of Positron giving a worldwide 5th anniversary address;
* Posi stating that it would be fun (iirc);
* Posi stating in the EU test room that he wouldn't give hints about his too-late-for-EU-residents announcement as we'd only go and spoil it by posting details on the US forums.

i.e. NC/PS/Posi told us the announcement was something fun, worth announcing, worth paying attention to, and even worth leaking to the US boards...

The actual address at 2am UK time turned out to be nothing that hadn't been covered by the I15 announcement on the US CoX website. So it wasn't really an announcement of anything we didn't know already. It certainly wasn't worth making a big deal about, which the anniversary timetable and Posi's statements seemed to do.

In the same 24-hr period, the announced content of I15 also turned out to be little more than a SF/TF pair.

This aggravated a few people who were looking forward to I15 as some sort of promised post-I13 big story-based issue. Truth of the matter is that:

* With MA splitting off into its own issue, it looks like I16 (and not I15) was now to be the big story based issue, but even so many (myself included tbh) expected more from I15.

* I15 is lighter than planned due to the MA taking longer than expected to sort out to an acceptable level, so leaving less time to test I15 if it's to go live close to the CoX anniversary. Understandably some planned features of I15 will have been bounced to I16.

* Many of those leaving have played an incredibly long time for any computer game and some have just burnt out and need a break. They were placing unrealistic expectations upon I15/birthday to convince them to stay. Because some of those leaving were very vocal in the forums they appear to carry a little more weight when they publicly get upset and leave.

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His shirt, at least, has been in since before issue 14. So some swine told me.

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I have an inescapable urge to point out that all these references to swine flew past me.

But since the pun is weak I won't bother succumbing to it.