Kree_A_Tivitee

Just as a quick informal followup, the main advantage to this idea would be the continued and ongoing success of this game. I think that, a lot of the time, ParagonStudios is just fishing in the dark when they make updates. Not everybody who plays the game uses the forums, however everybody who plays the game will be a line of text away from voicing their opinion. That sounds like a wider opinion base to me. City of Heroes / Villians is a small community, so ParagonStudios can not afford to make arbitrary decisions that will alienate their customers. Games like WoW and others may be able to get away with it, but due to the small number of subscribers, the voices of the players must be heard for the game's essential survival.

The other list of changes this update would cause are wide, however the large upsides are listed below:
- Wider range of opinions
- Sneak-Peeks to future updates
- Democracy styled governance (more opinions heard)
- Better customer based anchoring (the more content you know is going to be changed, the more likely you will keep playing)
- Increase in player approval. (IE: No messups such as the PvP gimp)

Subject: Suggestion
Regarding: In-Game Content

Body: I think that ParagonStudios should integrate a polling function to the game. There should be an ingame /poll command that opens a window. This window will contain sortable active (as well as inactive) polls that will allow ParagonStudios to aggregate data as to who likes an idea, and who doesn't.The polls themselves would be posted from topics on the forums. If an idea interests the programmers, they could add it to the in-game polls. Another possible idea would be to add a form that allows player to suggest ideas. People should be able to sort between "Dev Posted Polls", and "Player Posted Polls". Before any polling, players must read a prompt and click an, "I Understand" button. The prompt would contain red, bolded text notifying all players that this polling box is, "Completely unofficial, and will in no way impact the progress or orientation of this game. This polling box is solely for the purpose of collecting numbers." The voting itself should be on a scale of 1 - 5, that way the programmers have an idea of how strongly the players want a certain feature added (or removed) to/from the game. Lastly, to keep players up to date, there should be a MOTD posted every 2 weeks that contains Hot Topics within the 'Polling Place' that alerts players about ideas that are popular --text removed--.

On the developers side, the data could easily export to an excel spreadsheet (since everybody loves those)

Example:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggested Change: To add functionality to the game
that supports democracy.
Your Vote: ****o (4/5)
[Submit & Next Topic]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People who vote would not see the actual poll results. The only people who would see the results are the programmers based at ParagonStudios.
- James

General: All edits bolded
Edit 1: Corrections made dealing with keeping players in the dark.
Edit 2: Text added amending where polls could be taken from.
Edit 3: Elaborates what is contained in polling box.

All their responses can only be based on "you". What you are saying is that you think there might be people having trouble/complaints with the download process, and that the process should be changed for those people - even though there is no real evidence that they exist. The only person who we can reply to is you, not any of these Currently Fictional "Other People" .. and you don't actually HAVE any problems with the download. <-- Quote

Well yeah, of course I don't have a problem... but I still think there is room for improvement. If people didn't try to improve things during the industrial age, we may not have light bulbs, cars, computers, televisions, telephones, telegraphs, cameras, iPods, and all of that fun stuff. If people decided to just be happy with they way things are, then things would never change. I'm sure history in most cases supports that fact. They didn't fix the stock market (which needed fixing) until it finally crashed. It put the world into shock, promoted dictatorships, and poverty spread. Not until after the war and after rebuilding did we finally put measures into place to prevent the market from crashing. If we realized things that needed improving before the crash, for all we know, WWII may not have occurred (It know it would have, Isolationism and things like that kept anybody from interfering with Hitler's rise to power).

I hope that makes my point evident enough.

Assuming you've got seeders, sure. I've torrented a lot of things in my time, both legal and illegal. If you've got hundreds of seeders, you can download hundreds of hours of video in just a few hours. If you've got a piddling seeder pool, it could take weeks to complete the torrent. Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight. I recall torrenting an anime movie last year and I was stuck at 96% for two months before someone came along to seed me the last 4% of my file.


The idea is that immediately after the release, people will be able to use a torrent instead. Say 40% of the community use the torrent, that's maybe 200 people or more, which means 200+ seeders. After the initial downloads, sure the seed count will go down.. but it's meant to get as many people in game, as quickly as possible after a large update. If people don't want to use the torrent, then that's fine. They can use the updater the game provides.

Admittedly though, I can see that malware could be an issue. The only solution I could see is that CoH emphasizes that the only official torrent link is on their website. Any other download source would be false and unsafe.

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Not necessarily. The only people who would know whether the updater could reliably work without the applying process are the devs. It isn't a given that a torrent system would remove that need.

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Actually, the only way the updater could work without having to do the applying process would be wholesale file replacement. So instead of downloading at most a couple of megs for a new costume, you would have download a new 30 meg or so file for EVERY LITTLE COSTUME CHANGE. A file that will only grow the more is added to it.

And that is just one of the two costume files (totaling about 50 megs between the two, right now) most of the other files are much bigger.
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Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight.

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To be fair - if someplace like NCSoft/Paragon Studios went to using bittorrent, there would be at least one seed at all times, from the servers.

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Torrents don't magically make your connection faster.

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[/ QUOTE ]In my experience, the opposite happens, in fact

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Thanks for remaining slightly open-minded, it's reassuring since I'm thinking about never logging into this account again if the responses are always so pessimistic. I mean, how hard is it to remain open minded?

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Wow, you guys really tore this thing apart....onto the replies..



You post, they answer. Just because they don't agree with your opinion does not mean anyone is 'tearing' into anything.


How is emphasizing this relevant to the topic. All of the sudden there are 3 or 4 replies, with lots of things to defend. The idea of a debate is that you defend your argument, is it not?

As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit. - For the people who forget and don't want to sit around and wait for it to update.

Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.

- With city of heroes already previously updated to the most recent version at NC Soft, all you would need to do is get the torrent, download it.. and a file manifest would verify you have the correct files. I've done this multiple times to update to new versions. I don't know why I have to repeat myself, twice.

The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.

- Umm, shoot and miss. The aim is for NCSoft to offer an ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE (Just to make this clear) to using the CoH updater. You download all of the files, and replace only the appropriate ones with copy and paste. It's simple stuff, download, copy, paste.


First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download & apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.

- You they wouldn't need to rework it. This is meant to be an alternative for people that either have bad connections, don't want to wait.. etc etc. It would simply be a link on the official CoH site that would let you torrent the new update.

Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.

- The only official link (which would be stated with a few lines of text both in the updater and online) would be as follows.

Hai! This is the new update, in torrent form! If you want to torrent the new update for fastliness, then click the link above. It is the only, and guaranteed safe link to do torrentz!

But of course, people are pessimistic... so let the pointless debate continue!

Wow, you guys really tore this thing apart....onto the replies..

The applying process does indeed take longer, however with a torrent system in place. All you would need to do is start the updater, it downloads a file manifest.. and then confirms that the files are accurate.. and doesn't need to install or do anything of that sort. Say for example the CoH Test folder is up to date.. and a new issue comes out.. I will simply replace the City of Heroes folder with the CoH Test folder.. it will quickly check the files... and I'm up and running in minutes.

Patches would work as normal, you would still have to use the updater and all that.. but for big releases such as the new upcoming issue, providing a torrent will take stress off of the initial downloads. Yes, I speculated that spammed downloads on the system may influence gameplay... but it does stress the servers none-the-less.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is a good example of this. They thought their servers were amazing and could handle the stress, but as soon as they released a new video.. their server crashed. A torrent would take most if not all of the stress off of the server.

As far as it goes for updating after closing the game, I have experienced this... but it's just an extra hassle. As it updates and finds more files.. it takes up bandwidth and stresses my family that uses our security enabled wi-fi when all of the sudden it takes 3 minutes to load facebook. Not to mention, I don't like having unnecessary programs running that are just hogging memory.

The idea of torrenting the new updates would be to minimize time it takes to download and update a new patch. Sure, a fraction (say 65%) of you may update ahead of time, but some people either forget to do it, or leave it off till later. My best friend always forgets to update the second family computer to the most recent patch after an update, and I'm forced to play guitar hero while I wait an hour for it to download and install.

With a torrent, EVERYBODY will be able to download new patches quickly... it means more people in game after an update, it means less stress for those who don't have high-speed internets, and it means no more waiting for the new patch to apply. With the game wrapped up already preinstalled and updated, all you need to do is extract it and wait for it to check the file manifest.

Let me make this abundantly clear, all if not all of your responses are based on I myself. I myself update ahead of time. I myself am able to download it in 20 minutes. But You yourself is not the same as everybody themselves. Everybody has a different circumstances, and a torrent will accommodate for a wider population of the city of heroes gaming community, both in speed and efficiency.

As everybody knows.. it's a pain in the butt to wait 1 hour (or more) to download every new issue. So I had a question for the devs, why not switch to or offer a torrent system? With enough downloaders, people could download every new issue in a matter of minutes. The same could be true for patches as well. I mean think about it. With all of the people that play CoH, people would download quickly, it would take pressure off of the servers to could reduce lag ingame, and completely safe. Since CoH requires an account and password, it would be safe to provide a torrent.. instead of a .zip file.

I know the restrictions of this come with the fact that the game is sold in stores, but you can already download the game on city of heroes. So why not be able to download it nearly instantly with a torrent?

I think it would be an amazing upgrade, and it would make many people very happy.

This has been bugging me for a while. Since the release of the AE system, I looked at the building.. and thought.. this is beautiful.. whey can't all of the buildings look like this. So I thought that maybe... instead of lead (Pb) windows, there are windows we can actually see through.. with workers doing work, chaos.. etc. It really would make it feel like a city, instead of a bunch of NPC's walking around the streets into buildings that seem like the place where vampires like to live. If you guys made the buildings see through, it would seem like a real city.

Not to mention the sky. It's obvious that the system generates marquee clouds... but why not more? Add some rain marquee.. add some snow. Make it so you can't actually vividly see the sun as it moves across the sky. I'm pretty sure that in real life, it isn't sunny every day. And this should affect the lighting too. I want the ability to change how vivid the sky is. And you guys probably think, well we couldn't incoporate rain.. it would cause map lag!... wrong.. it's all about what the camera sees. If you make it appear as if rain is falling (but on the map itself, it's not) it will feel like rain, and cause very little lag. There should be water spattering on the streets, and puddles should form when the 'rain switch' turns on. It's dissappointing that they haven't integrated this.. I feel that the one turn off about this game is the unrealistic feel that the environment gives. If we had rain, lighting effects, realistic buildings... reflective glass, and more.. then it really would feel like a city. Obviously, people will have the option to turn off rain and weather effects, as well as lower the quality of buildings.. that way people aren't lagged out of this update. I know people want it for the genuine feel of it, so please discuss. With enough support we can cause change.

Ok, first off I agree with what Hit and Run has to say. There's so many things for lower level players to do, yet hardly anything for level 50's to do. So, I propose that you can go through TWO sets of level 50 on a SINGLE character. Once you hit 50, you can choose to stay 50, tier 1.. or move onto level 1, tier 2, and work up to Level 50 Tier 2. At any point you could switch between Tier 1 and Tier 2, but tier two set would have more perks (IE: Choice of Fly, Super Jump, Teleport, Super Speed at level 1.; A choice of three powers from any power pool, all could be fitness, or or mixture from any pool). As well as having a choice between multiple powers, you have a new choice of a primary and secondary sets. Say if you had Fire Blast / Energy Manipulation at level 50, you could start at level 1 with Ice Blast / Electricity Manipulation. And of course, full access to your costumes. There could be badges, awards, unlocked features for all characters. Etc, Etc.

Now THAT would give all of the level 50's something to do. At any point the Tier 2 Level 1 Character could switch back to their Level 50 Tier 1 to take a break (by means of talking to any trainer) and then go back to their Tier 1 set later on.

Let me know what you think

I'm not sure if anybody has asked yet considering i don't have the time to look through more than 20 pages of posts.. but I was curious..

If when you purchased both City of Heroes and City of Villains separately... and applied them to your account.. Just speculating of course, would it have been / be possible that your account receives the benefits of the Good Versus Evil edition.. Taking into consideration that now when people buy either CoV/CoH, they get both for the price of one.. when we long time veterans(and some short) had to pay for both games

I've moved this post to CoV @ Gamemp, Mostly to avoid criticism from those who laugh at people who put hard work into what they write, and who are only trying to help.