Laufeyjarson

I never did see anything at their table, but I did attend the panel today at Baycon. I was pleased to see they got one of the big ballrooms at the convention center, and surprised to see it wasn't full. I blame not having enough notice.

INTRODUCTION

The panel consisted of the people advertised, plus Mercedes Lackey. Larry Dixon was there for a moment, but had to escape elsewhere; it's clear he plays and enjoys the game.



Mercedes Lackey, Eric Johnsen, Vince D'Amelio (Dark Watcher) (flickr)



Matt Miller (Positron), Eric Cleaver (theOcho) (flickr)

I'll try and summarize the panel; I'm presuming anything that Matt Miller presents in front of an audience at a convention isn't secret. If it is, they should have said something.

theOcho started off with introductions, and passed the discussion to Positron, aka Matt Miller. Mr. Miller went through a prepared slide show, some of which we'd seen on the forums before and some of which was new. It was a well put together set of slides and he is a good speaker.

I sat in the second row, like the fanboy I am, and took pictures of all the slides. I'm not going to post them all here because they're horrible pictures, but some were worth putting up. Taking pictures of a screen is always hard. The whole thing is in the flickr set if you want to look.

GAME HISTORY

The slides covered a brief history of the franchise, which worked well to remind all of us how far they'd come. One particularly impressive slde was the list of things added to the game since release, which listed:

• Ancillary Power Pools
• Arenas
• Auction Houses
• Badges
• Capes/Auras
• Day Jobs
• Epic Archetypes
• Global Chat
• Inventions
• Level Pact
• Merit Rewards
• Mission Architecht
• Multiple Builds
• Oroborus System
• Patron Powers
• Pocket D Co-Op Zone
• Power Customization
• Powerset Proliferation
• PvP Zones
• Safegaurd Missions
• Mayhem Missions
• Task Forces
• Strike Forces
• Co-Op Task Forces
• Trials
• Weapon Customization
• Zone Events
• World Events

Pretty amazing when you put it that way, isn't it?

One of the other slides mentioned that there are at least four employees who've been on the team since launch, C. W. Bennett, Melissa Bianco (War Witch), Brian Clayton, and Matt Miller (Positron). If there's a game name for C. W. Bennet or Mr. Clayton, I missed it.

The history also discussed the creation of Paragon Studios, to give full rights to the franchise to a single organization. Positron noted that every person on the CoH team was offered a position, and every person took the offer. I'd heard this before, but it's still a pretty amazing thing.

Positron stopped for a moment and also talked about the Mac client from Transgaming. Apparently they approached the Paragon Studios team and wanted to meet to discuss the possibility. At the first meeting they showed the client running on the Mac! The Paragon Studios team thought this was amazing (it is!) and made the arrangements. Since then, Transgaming has kept the clients completely in sync and the Mac users play the same game, with the same servers as the PC users.

ISSUE 17: DARK MIRROR

Dark Watcher got to talk about Ultra Mode. The goal was to do a complete upgrade to the graphics engine, to allow use of the new features and capabilities of modern video cards. As some players have seen, it's really pretty and works amazingly well. He seemed quite happy with how this came out, and told us that it's even better in Praetoria where the art resources were designed for it.

Positron went over the other new features of Issue 17, dopplegangers, the new arcs, and the new UI for the auction houses. I haven't run all the new content yet, but the dopplegangers are great. There was a little video sample of the shadow-players in action. One question from the audience was, "Where are these things?" which never got answered. Go run the new Positron TF. It's cool, and has dopplegangers.

It was mentioned that they hope to add the doppleganger technology to the mission architect.

ISSUE 18: GOING ROGUE

Next, the general information for Going Rogue was discuses. Most of it has been heard here on the forums before, but it's a new paid expansion, contains new 1 to 20 content with a "cohesive storyline" and allows players to create a Praetorian. They choose to be Loyalists or Resistance, and can pick from any power set available to players.

The new stuff is set in Praetoria, an alternate earth, ruled by Emperor Cole. Some feel he's a tyrant. It's a utopia with a cost.


Tyrant's Tower Concept Art (flickr)

As a note, Eric Johnsen said that the tower came out pretty much like the concept art. Maybe bigger. He also said he can just zoom around the new zones playing tourist and looking at them. I think we're in for a treat.

There are several new zones, Nova Praetora, Imperial City, Neutropolis, and The Underground. Nova Praetoria is supposed to be clean, wonderful, and perfect, with the other zones slowly become less perfect and more grim, revealing the stresses of the world.


Imperial City Concept Art (flickr)

There were pictures of some of the new enemy groups. They looked neat, and I'll post what I have, even if the shots aren't excellent.


Praetoria Police (flickr)

The Praetoria Police stop the bad guys. Except when they get surly about the supers and stop them, too.


Seers (flickr)

The Seers are Mother Mayhem's watchers, keeping check on the minds of the people. They watch without watching to make sure no one is thinking bad things. Creeepy. I'm sorry my picture isn't better on this one because a lot of the creepiness is lost.


The Resistance (flickr)

Another lousy photo. The Resistance is trying to stop the Emperor, apparently.


Praetorian Clockwork (flickr)

The Praetorians have clockwork to do the menial work no human wants to do. Where we have Prototype Oscillators and clockwork are made of scrap, these are refined and impressive. They are generally peaceful, but can be deputized at an instant by the police and are armed.


The Syndicate (flickr)

There must be some bad guys! Organized crime has further organized, squeezing all the lingering forces into one big collection, The Syndicate.


Ghouls (flickr)

Don't know much about these! Subhuman experiments which have escaped, the ghouls are more than they appear. Positron said the devices on their necks and hands and feet did something... don't know what!


Teaser (flickr)

Naturally, my picture of the "teaser" is the worst of the lot. Guess it's still a tease! That's all they said, except that it would be revealed in more detail on the web site soon.

Other than the new enemy groups, there was some discussion of the new Going Rogue system. System starts at level 20. Characters up to max level can participate. The system includes a "gradual progression of a hero falling from grace or a villain on the road to redemption." Heroes will become vigilantes, eventually give up on the law, and fall to villainy. Villains become rogues then earn true heroic status. They did not say if the same character can go through the process more than once.

Going Rogue has new powesets; Demon Summoning for Masterminds and Dual Pistols for Corruptors, Blasters, and Defenders have already come out for prepurchasers. Also coming with GR is Kinetic Melee for Stalkers, Brutes, Scrappers and Tankers as well as Electric Control for Controllers and Dominators. Showed slides of Electric Control (looked like Tesla Cage to me, and maybe some electricy pets) and a video of Kinetic Melee.

ISSUE 19: INCARNATES

I've heard a few people discuss possibilities for what Issue 19 is, and the name "Incarnates" has been around, but this was the most concrete information I'd heard from a solid source. Of course, it's hearsay for you now, but that's just how it goes.

The Incarnate System is designed to give players end-game content. It adds "Incarnate Levels" to level 50 characters. The first Incarnate Level comes with Going Rogue, and was called "Alpha" during the talk. It adds "Incarnate Abilities", which are situational powers to allow the 50-Alpha characters to do additional things.

Issue 19 adds more Incarnate Levels and Abilities, new rewards, new zone events for Incarnates.

Going Rogue will be required to participate in the Incarnate system. Some of the zone events will take you to Praetoria.

Q&A

The last section of the panel was Q&A. theOcho had some prepared questions to get the panelists talking, which were interesting but not critical. He asked Matt Miller what he thought the biggest improvement to the game was. The answer: Oroborus, to let you see and re-do old stuff. theOcho asked Dark Watcher about his favorite contribution, which turned out to be the Invention Houses, as he was involved in creating them and is a crafter himself. The question to Mercedes Lackey was what, as a player, was her favorite change. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she liked the Mission Architecht and the wonderful creativity it unlocks. I know there was a question for Eric Johnsen too, but I lost it. Sorry, Eric.

I believe Black Pebble (Bright Pebble?) from marketing was there, too. I wish he'd have stood up and been introduced so I could have taken his picture too. Yes, people might be there to see "the devs" but everyone on the team has an important role and does interesting things, and people like to have faces for the names! At least I do.

Lots of people asked good questions. Since I was not taking notes, I didn't get them all. I think everyone in the crowd could have asked something if they wanted, and I didn't think of anything I wanted to ask, as they'd just given us all sorts of great stuff.

Someone asked, quite firmly, why there weren't more convention appearances on the East Coast. The entire dev team said, "Money!" and was sorry they couldn't get to more places and see more people. The word "Dragoncon" was bandied about, but with no real sense of authority behind it. It was clear that fans want to see more of them, and want them to head East, and they got that.

That led to a mention of why no more Hero Con - again, money and time. They decided they'd do more meet and greets rather than just the big convention. The big con was great, but took a ton of resources from the whole team and they decided more chances for people to see them was better.

Several people asked for clarifications of how the Going Rogue system works, and got them. You're not a Hero or a Villain, you're a Praetorian and are a Loyalist or a Reistance member.

Someone asked if there would be more slots available for the full servers. Positron said they were "considering" another free transfer time, to help people move characters around. More slots was "not on the list" but not impossible. They've learned their lesson and rarely say anything will never happen.

I'm sure there were more but those are all I remember. I couldn't take pictures of the slides to jog my memory.

Unrelated to anything, Matt Miller showed the extreme good taste of appreciating the Blake's 7 t-shirt I was wearing. The man clearly knows good stuff when he sees it.

Did anyone else make it to the panel?

They are obviously an important and eagerly-awaited guest:

Who did design the office interiors? M. C. Escher? They're just bizarre sometimes.

Someone else suggested street signs, and I love the idea. Names for all the streets and being able to actually learn your way around or give directions would be lots of fun.

Another poster didn't like Skyway - I must respectfully disagree. Skyway is my favorite zone. Having multiple levels with things happening on them is great, and makes you look up. Of course, I'm from Seattle where the freeways look much like that.

You probably did see the mission teleporter. Neat deal, but really long recharge.

TP Self takes a little getting used to. It's not my favorite travel power, but I seem to have it a lot. (I don't usually want to open more than one travel pool, and I like Recall Friend a lot.)

I just put it on '5', and press 5 with my left hand and then click with the mouse. Make sure you've fully appeared before you press 5, then click again. You can zap yourself a long way with it. An end reduction or two in it and Stamina means you can get across any zone in Paragon - haven't tried the shard or villianside.

Lag can be painful, but no more painful that superleaping into a wall.

Aw, I like the patrols and wish there were more of them around. They don't take long.

I'd like to see Synapse get a little revamp, to add some of the newer mission types, ambushes, etc and maybe to remove one of the defeat alls. It's not *too* bad but I'd rather see it be a touch shorter.

I agree with the comments to have less Councily goodness all at once, and think more with the Warriors or Tsoo would be fun. Under-used groups.

I also find the scales of the game a problem. There are often buildings narrower than the streets which surround them. How can they put rooms in buildings so small?

Independence Port is another example of scales gone odd. It's 1.2 miles long, one of the largest maps hero-side. Yet, a 40mph fly takes forever to fly down it. And, for all that, it's effectively empty.

Being able to build bases that looked like they were in buildings would be cool. I know the whole "underground" thing tries to explain it, but it's a bummer.

I also want to see the older zones - Atlas and Galaxy, especially - touched up some. We don't need more places to go, just make our existing places better.

A good and valid concern. The machine (and the 7800s) are pci-e, so I could put a Fermi card in. I'm sure of that. There's a long and annoying sequence of upgrades that led to this machine when the prior machine was AGP and couldn't be upgraded. (It's right here, running a roommate's machine with a 6800 in it.)

I do understand that the RAM (don't recall which RAM I have, no), CPU, etc. are likely to be slower than the newest cards support. An upgrade will just move the bottleneck.

I am leaning towards a new machine... perhaps I will ask and see what people suggest. Budget is not infinite, but not very constrained.

Thank you all for the excellent information. I will give the undocumented setting a try and see if it changes my performance at all.

If that doesn't satisfy - and it sounds like it won't - I'll probably pick up a 470.
Have to decide if I'd rather try and find a 480, and if I care about the difference.

If that isn't enough, I'll have to upgrade the board - the CPU isn't upgradeable. I did check, and it isn't the AM2+ but the Socket 939.

I may just take the plunge and replace the whole machine, keeping this one intact as a spare. A newer CPU, more RAM, Windows 7/64-bit, the new video card and maybe an SSDD volume for CoH and Windows to be speedy on would be a lot of fun.

I also suspect that the early reviews of the Fermi cards are not showing all the card can do. What I don't know is if the OpenGL drivers will get the attention the DX drivers do.

In 2005, I bought a really nice new machine to run CoH on, and it's been doing it well since. Ultra Mode suddenly makes my machine sad, and I'm hoping to fix it without replacing the whole thing.

My machine has an AMD X2 3800+ CPU and 2G of RAM. It also has a pair of GeForce 7800s.

I'm considering adding 2G of ram to bump to the limit XP allows. Easy and should be cheap.

Video cards are more of a question. For various reasons, I'd rather stick with NVIDIA.

The GT470 and GT480 are expensive and I'm seeing in other threads they don't offer a lot over the GT285 and GT295 for CoH.

I see the GT295 is two slightly slower chips on a single card. Does that appear to the computer as SLI? I know perfectly well that CoH doesn't work with SLI. If the GT295 is SLI-on-one-card, I'd be do as well or better with a GT285 for CoH.

I've noticed that there are several folks here with a really clear understanding of video cards today, and I'm hoping one or more of them can clarify this for me.

Thanks for any input.

Ever tried to catch up on the cape mission while others are at the door? It's really hard to do when your waypoint keeps resetting to the mission in AP.

Yes, I'd like my map to stay where I selected it, not to change because some other thing in the team changed. Very frustrating.

Helpless:
Given out correct, good advice in the Help channel, and been shouted down by people spouting errors.

Obsessive-Compulsive:
Clicked all the glowies in the "Find the bowling trophy" mission.

Well-Connected:
Have all your contacts at "confidant"

Street Sweeper:
Street swept an entire level.

Wowk tons of fantastic ideas here.

I'd be pleased with many of them. The Dark Astoria or Boomtown changes would be great. Oroborous missions to let you get back to the old Faultline and Rikti Crash Site would be fun. Brass Monday and the 5th in IP would be great to see.

I'd also like to see more about some of the lesser-mentioned Freedom Phalanx members, particularly the trainers. Someone mentioned Numina already, but no one seems to have mentioned Mynx. There's one badge which mentions her, and little else. Swan, too, gets very little attention. And what about some of the other lost souls in the game? The Djinn who is the magic store in Brickstown, Ghost Falcom, the lost time-travelling doctor, etc.

While Oroborous missions would be fun, I'd like to see that be saved for things that have to be in the past, if possible. A mission where you do a favor for them, or have to find something they used to have etc. that could fit in the main storyline would be even more fun, if you ask me.

(Can we at least see an "Ask About This Contact" option on the trainers?)

Nicely done. Pictures are good!

There are two others which have been removed as well. Strength of Will was the third level of the status effect protection. The first level was called Discipline. I don't remember the name of the second level.

They were replaced by Break Free/Emerge/Escape. Strength of Will was put back as a special purchase in Siren's Call.

I miss them.

I still miss the old Swipe animation. I may be the only one, but I liked the series of fast, light hits.

Ah well.

Hmm. This is a fairly common question.

I can't say I hate any of them. I've tried them all. I've practiced with all of them, and it helps.

Teleport is my least favorite. It's useful and cool, and FAST, but takes a lot of attention to use and occasionally you wind up teleplummeting instead. I am not good enough with it to use it tactically. I know a couple of people who do, and it's breathtaking.

Super Speed is a little more fun than teleport. It's fast and sparkly! I like actually having to learn my way around the zones. Faultline and Terra Volta didn't bother me unduly - never been to the Shadow Shard, but it sounds awful for anybody but fliers. I really enjoy Super Speed in Skyway. I love Skyway, though. Super Speed also feels fast. (Flight feels fast too, if you fly at ground level and dodge in and out of the cars and pedestrians and bus stops and things.) Like with SJ, I made a game of superspeeding along things. One of my speeders is a cat-character... he runs along fences, and that took practice.

Flight is good fun. I really like the superheroic feel. Superheroes *fly*, darn it! My first hero has fly, and there was never any real consideration. He would fly. That's all there was do it. Hover at 6, fly at 14. The city is pretty below you, and it's great to have the freedom. Also nice to be able to chat and get snacks. Flight is the most chat-friendly travel power.

Super Jump is my favorite. Terrain becomes a giant game, and you can learn ways around that others don't see. Can you meet teammates at Portal Corp without dying at level 20? Leap all the way down the power lines from the ferry, you're perfectly safe. (Some flying bad guys in that zone would be great, though!) Getting to the top of a huge building means so much more when you leapt there. (I too am glad I'm not the only one who plays the, "Can I jump on that power line, street light, wall, contact, teammate, etc." game.)

Having broken a rule of my own, and opened two pools with travel powers, I tried Super Jump and Super Speed at the same time. WOW! Coolness abounds! The leaping and control and vertical goodness of leap AT SUPER SPEED! I pass teleporters, and bound off of tall buildings in a graceful, firey arc. Hee hee!

It's amazing that I can have so much fun just moving around the map. You'd think that after two years it would have lost it's luster, but it hasn't.

Also add Loki, CEO Cryptic Studios.

I have this from his red-name posts in mid-2005. Search the forum, they're still there. Don't know if he's still around or not.

I noticed right away, considering the name.

Let's see...

I'm @Laufeyjarson on the global chat.

Champion Heroes:

Machinst (40, Electric/Devices Blaster)
Ward Ohm (19?, Force Fields/Electric Defender)
Codger (19?, Stone/Ice Tanker)
Dr. Mighty Dark (11?, Dark/Dark Defender)
TK-411 (10, AR/Devices Blaster)

Guardian Heroes:

Vidnur Tofa (29, Claws/SR Scrapper)

Villians:

None.

Last night, while I was burbling in the supergroup channel about my encouters with the Envoy Of Shadows ("Ow! Well, that didn't work!") Myrmydon said they were fighting AVs, and could use another blaster.

I joined a team with Myrmydon, AceSTORM (who I presume is AceMACE), and two others I didn't recognize. Worst part is I've forgotten their character names! One of them was another BOSS member, though. (Is AceSTORM? I didn't look.) That turned out to be Kali Magdalene, she of many posts! I hadn't teamed with her before, and her DDD was darkity dark goodness.

I have some screenshots of us beating up on Infernal. Look! Yay! Infernal even tried to run away, and we caught him in the vestibule to finish him off. (Last time I saw this mission, we wound up with endless hordes of demons. Not this time!)

(In the first shot, that's my character Machinst's back in the center, and Ace on the right, with Infernal being the focus of all our attention. I think Kali's behind one of the Phantom Army. The second shot has Myr tanking the big bad AV, and a mess of pets making it so you can't see the others. Machinst is dimly visible in the door in the back, and one of his Voltaic Sentinel is helping. Oh, and in the endless hordes shot, Machinst is dead center, no pun intented. )

Then we went and fought, um, this other AV I've forgotten her name. Nightstorm or something.

(We have, from the right to left is the guy who's name I don't remember, Machinst (very far away), the AV, Myr, and Kali's character. The second picture is just the AV and Myr. Myr's the one in red, white, and blue, and the AV's the black, foreboding looking one. Duh.)

We beat the tar out of her, and all got the Shrouded badge.

Other than my somehow managing to try and go through the wrong portal, things went *very* smoothly, and we cleaned up. Was good fun.

I usually remember to grab a shot with names on, but didn't last night, so have to apologize to these excellent players for losing their alts names. Mostly Kali and the other guy...

The other guy - who's name has TOTALLY escaped me, argh! - is a nice guy, and a great player, and I'd both be happy to team with him again or to reccomend him to others... if I could only remember his name! I feel like a doof.

Myr, Kali, or Ace, can you remember?

Follow the link I gave. It explains it, and even has some of the classic video of "Cal Worthington... and his dog, Spot!" ads.

The funny part of that is that it was never a dog. Seals, penguins, elephants, tigers, yes. Dogs... not that I ever saw.

They were a staple of late-night TV while I grew up. I'm sure I have some on old videotapes.

Oh my deity! XPP01 is Cal Worthington!

As far as it goes, it's nice to be able to share some information without getting too personal. I can safely say that I'm a mid-30's computer geek working in IT in Silicon Valley. That gives you something to understand me, and even a major metro area I live in, but nothing really concrete.

It's not like there aren't thousands of mid-30's guys in IT in Silicon Valley.

I am less worried about stalking than some; while I'm not as well known as XPP01, my personal information has been on the Internet for years, and any of you probably could use common tools and items from this very forum to find it out. (Or you could ask, and I'd probably tell you.)

This doesn't bother me, because I'm used to the idea that people can find me. I know what to do - and have done it - when someone gets too close and won't leave me alone.

I'd rather be a little open than hide completely. I've met some great people various places on-line, and value those friendships. I've met some real stinkers face-to-face, too.

I'm not on the list of those who haven't posted yet? Sadness...

I am a computer programmer, or software engineer, depending on who you ask. I live in Silicon Valley in northeren California. Let's see.. My birthday is late 1972, which makes me 32. I'm single, share a house with some very good friends, and have no pets. My interests are all pretty geeky. I read too much, and am working on being happier and losing weight.

I run a small ISP from my home, and work full-time at a company as well. (This means I have a full T1 to the house, and CoH is as smooth as glass. It also means that sometimes I get pulled away for the strangest reasons.) I keep busy.