Mantic
-
Posts
59 -
Joined
-
Blah. There are a few vocal AE haters who are hung up on how other people play the game, but they stayed just to ***** about it.
Power-leveling existed prior to AE, and there were worse exploits, such as bridging.
Architect Edition was the turning point that made this player endlessly loyal to City of Heroes.
Champions Online lured away many City of Heroes players, as it offered snazzy new graphics and other shinies, and by the time City of Heroes caught up those players were gone. Some came back for Going Rogue, but with all the old content still looking the same they were nonplussed and went back to Champions Online or somewhere else after a couple of runs through the Praetorian content. -
This is heartbreaking.
-
Old school as in King's Quest VIII
Yeah, and if you followed that game's paradigm it would only take about 8 passes to get a functionally complete set of phonemes.
Maybe demo hacking and related tech are the short-term future of the game beyond November 30. All these videos Leandro, Samuraiko and others are cranking out seem to be the most effective way of attracting attention to the #SaveCOH effort, so far.
I'd be interested in contributing to the production of such 'page-flips' for what you're talking about and possibly other effects. However, I have had some troubles with editing some texture aspects. The bumpmaps I can usually get working, but reflection maps always seem to get flipped -- so, for instance, the metallic face would have that problem, unless someone knows how to do that properly. -
If you are wanting to use this free camera to record a video clip but need faster/slower movement, it may be possible using Cheat Engine's timescaling function.
*Edit: you may need to use an older version (6.0 fi) to pick from the list of running processes rather than launching your target through CE. -
Quote:Most of what you are referring to is speculation and scuttlebutt from the community. While remaining positive may seem like a good idea, that alone is just leading us to follow every tangent anyone mentions with no indication whether anyone at Paragon (or formerly with Paragon/Cryptic) has any interest.Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
In the end, you have to "look for the best, expect the worst"...
I realize that if core members of the Paragon team would choose to pursue independence, using the acquired City of Heroes game service as a launchpad for the venture, that is a risk. However, it has a more appealing payoff for them than a disinterested outside investor looking at only the ROI of acquiring this service. Considering reports of the bureaucracy they've had to work under these last eight years, it could be worth taking that risk.
But I could be completely misjudging everyone at Paragon. There may be safer paychecks available in the short term, and retirement may seem too close to be taking entrepreneurial risks.
Without knowing what the Paragon devs/staff (not the players) want, it seems most of our efforts are bound to be at odds and without focus.
Even if we are told that nobody at Paragon is up for taking such risks, that would be something. Something we might balk at... but good to know.
If that is not the case, knowing the goal would let us dispense with all the other tangents and put our efforts behind the right things. -
I think it would be very very helpful to know what the folks at or formerly with Paragon actually want to see happen.
Things have been very vague. In part this may be due to legal restrictions on those currently involved in negotiations, but I believe it is leading to a diffusion of energy in this community, having to guess... and worse, being allowed to dream.
Most of us in the City of Heroes player base are creative people (the nature of this game seems to have distilled that from the general market). Some even creative professionals. So we can empathize with anyone who spent years creating something facing the prospect of that work being effectively destroyed -- that's much worse than just losing a job.
And we assume that you want to save your baby.
The ideal resolution seems to be what Turbine did when Microsoft discontinued support of Asheron's Call. That not only saved the baby, it empowered the studio to remain together and move forward independently with other projects.
That is what I think many of us hope is being pursued. But is it?
Can anyone say anything? -
*sigh*
Pay whatever NCSoft demands for this game only to work on a replacement?
Nahh... you may be playing on the latest high-end hardware and feeling that City of Heroes doesn't live up to your standards, but my current machine still chokes on a lot of the new content that THIS engine is capable of throwing out. And frankly, having the game run at higher framerates on newer hardware is more appealing than having it use more superfluous effects at a choppy 30fps or less.
The plan Paragon seems to have had since the 2010 engine overhaul of gradually replacing old zones and other resources with higher resolution and poly-density versions, complete with expanded gameplay, was plenty to give this game long legs without rebuilding from scratch.
Yes, according to leaked info, the original plan was to reboot with a completely new engine, and port over everyone's existing characters so as not to have two games competing for the same small audience. But that was before ultra mode.
Reality is, the City of Heroes IP is not terribly valuable in itself. It's just another bunch of generic superheroes without the game to support it. So a publisher would be more inclined to develop around either something with a large crossover audience (Marvel/DC) or their own generic properties that cost nothing, than buy CoH only to shelve it at the earliest opportunity just to gamble on a new game anyway...
I strongly believe City of Heroes, with the current engine, can maintain a viable (perhaps not stellar, but steady) audience for another decade by following the development course plotted by Paragon two or three years ago. The hybrid f2p/subscription model only becomes more attractive in time, as more market items are developed and more of the game is updated to take advantage of the revamped engine. There is no good reason to suggest that any publisher willing to invest in acquiring this game from NCSoft do otherwise. -
Quote:What a waste of money.Originally Posted by LittleDavid
It'd take planning, though. How many people playing can make it to a demonstration in Austin? We've got people all over the world playing this game ... how many of them could make it to a protest rally, let alone cosplay for it?
I couldn't afford that, and even if I could I would not do it. It's a wank. You'd just look like the spandex version of furries and have more people making fun of you than anything.
What I would hope is that anyone with any resources to put into this save their pennies in case they are needed to assist Paragon Studios in purchasing the City of Heroes properties.
Though, to date, I've not been impressed with crowdfunding, if NCSoft are willing to name a price, such a method of raising capital (perhaps in concert with conventional investors) looks ideal. All of us players are used to trading in virtual goods, so attractive reward incentives would be easy to offer with very little effort or expense (how many would kick in $20 USD for just a badge, fi? I imagine some would pay $1000 to have a character immortalized in the game somehow, even if very minor. And there are plenty of options in-between). So it would be very nearly "free money" on their end, since kickstarter donations are not an investment to be repaid.
What I do not want is a "sequel" game. Champions Online was a sequel, of sorts. We didn't migrate. I would rather see CoH committed to, long-term, with any additional efforts put toward very different projects that do not split this relatively small player base after going to such lengths to keep it. Again I point to Turbine as an ideal example (though they had to learn the hard way through the failure of Asheron's Call 2). -
I could never pledge a thousand at one time, and this comes at an especially tight time. But I'd definitely be in for something (three month's subscription fee, minimum) if a kickstarter is set up to assist Paragon Studios.
If there are over ten thousand of us willing to do whatever we can (as the petition at this time suggests), and potentially incentivised further by in-game rewards, even the smaller contributions would add up to a lot. -
Quote:^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^Originally Posted by Golden Girl
From the use of the word "investors", it sounds more like they are looking to negotiate a separation from NCSoft, and try to put together backing to become an indie studio.
Best case all around.
Just like Turbine (later developers of Dungeons & Dragons Online) taking over their Asheron's Call MMO from Microsoft. The developers love their games and don't want them to disappear, even if they barely pay for themselves. -
To me, this does not look like positive thinking so much as using the situation to continue grousing about perceived problems with CoH that have characterized much of this board since the beginning.
I had no problems with CoH in recent years. Sure, I would have loved to see some development time spent updating AE and such like. But the reason I have been a stalwart subscriber, and usual day-one purchaser of significant market content, even in lean times when I can't even find time to really play, is not that it is about superheroes, or because I really care that much about the "lore." The CoH game is not for everyone. Some people want more of an action rpg, or worse, a high challenge team combat game. There are plenty of MMOs catering to that.
Just look at all the artists (or doodlers, if you don't want to grant the amateurs such a lofty title) in this relatively small community. CoH thrives on creativity. Even this thread is trying to throw creativity at the problem.
I don't really think in terms of sequels; particularly with MMOs. Success is not assured the same way as with some console title that does not demand a creative investment from players. Asheron's Call 2 died a crib death, while Asheron's Call is still chugging along, thirteen years long in the tooth (even with no "ultra mode" graphic overhaul in that time). Champions Online is not appealing to most of us here, even with some of the same minds trying to improve on what was learned here, it no longer serves the same audience. Further, trying to live up to ten years of constant development with a new product that is as rough and limited as CoH was in 2004 is gambling against the odds, no matter how superficially pretty and demanding of system resources the next engine might be. -
Quote:Originally Posted by The_Entropist
Have they actually announced that they wouldn't sell it for any price? Because I haven't read anything like that anywhere. I kind of doubt they had enough time to even consider such a thing.
The price will be in the millions though and I have my doubts our player base can come up with that.
Did anyone *want* to buy Exteel, Auto Assault or Dungeon Runners?
In just the three months, maybe not (although it would be interesting to see what could be done via kickstarter, should NCSoft name a price).
But, I see there is a petition with over 10,000 signatures. And I know that if you have just a thousand who spend what I do on CoH annually ($300 to $400), you've got a million dollars in about three years. Assume most players spend less -- as little as the base subscription cost of $180 -- and it still adds up over the course of a few years if you can hang onto several thousand players.
So, if NCSoft can be convinced to turn over the service, surely it's a fairly safe (not stellar, but safe) investment given we have well over 10,000 players begging to pay their money.
The main problem I see with rallying a kickstarter to fund such a transfer, is that individuals who pitch in will expect value for money in terms of game time or something else that cuts into that long-term profit potential. Then again, when you can make just about anything in the game, incentives that don't cut into profits might not be too difficult to offer. How much would people really pay for exclusive content? Or to have their character(s) included in the game lore (appropriately enough, given they'd be stepping up to save Paragon from certain doom)? -
Quote:My point? You suggested a five minute window on the market. Loading a page on the market can take longer than that. The situation would be even worse if you send hundreds of people to hammer the server at once.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Again, your point?
Your friend clearly has a very GOOD connection. Just because he can't stand a little occasional lag does not negate that he has a good enough connection to suggest such a discriminative scheme.
--
We agree that all such items should be made available on the market. Giving away over 250 aura codes was equivalent to giving away over $1K USD at regular market prices for auras. No doubt some winners are sitting on those, banking on cashing them in for billions of influence in the game due to their exclusivity.
While I do very much appreciate the time and labor committed to this on Friday, I agree with you that it cannot be a fun time for Hit Streak and Zwillinger. And when it was a mad scramble to grab a publicly posted code it was no fun for most players.
Automation and further time sensitive random giveaways do not solve much. If I am going to suggest anything in the handling of giveaways of exclusive items, it would be to require more meaningful participation and/or creativity from entrants and reduce time sensitivity.
For example, Twitter avails the posting of images (viewable inline, so fairly convenient to scroll through on a web client or graphical app), and the Twitter timeline retains posts for a couple of days -- so an image-based (screenshots, fan art, etc.) contest comparable to the in-game costume contests would be possible, and would not need to be quite so time sensitive. It could be treated like #FollowFridays, using a specific hashtag and tracked for a day (or at least a window large enough not to exclude too many people). Fewer Twitter users would be annoyed by having contest retweets flood their timelines since there would be actual content attached to entries, and that content would serve as advertisement for the game on Twitter. As well, though prizes would be far more limited, few would resent the lucky ones who earned their codes.
Sure, that would still take up some of the community team's time, but I'm guessing it would be a lot more enjoyable than getting carpal tunnel syndrome from sending out hundreds of codes to Twits who did nothing but click a button. -
Quote:You and your friends must have very good internet service, or don't deal with the Paragon Market via the game interface much. Being on Satellite internet service I find the Paragon Market incredibly sluggish. Loading the interface can take five minutes on it's own. Loading times locating and moving a single item item through the cart can eat ten to fifteen minutes.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Okay, after discussing the situation with friends, here is an alternate method that is less labor intensive:
- Put the item on the market, for 0 points and for 5-10 minutes from the announcement.
- Do NOT put it in an obvious place like "paragon picks", or at least not on the front page.
- Announce the surprise item "sale" on Twitter.
Aside from that, it is merely a dummy client -- it does not auto-refresh in any way that would alert users to time limited changes on the market. Nor should it! The Paragon Market, unlike the game, does not pull resources from the local drive but from a remote site (I can see this because, being tightly metered on this internet service, I watch my bandwidth usage constantly with NetBalancer). That may be the very cause of current sluggishness, as that data does not appear to be cashed. A sensible decision, I think, given the problems most web browsers seem to have with caching and memory bloat. Interacting with the Paragon Market also sends a boatload of data back upstream, which is even more of a bottleneck on some internet services. No idea what all that data is.
Before you argue those points, citing your web-development expertise again, bear in mind: every programmer does things differently. It should not astonish you so that things are not done the way you would do them. Instead of reasoning based on your experiences elsewhere, look at what is actually happening with the game client. -
For what it's worth, I personally find Twitter to be far less invasive and annoying than Facebook (which I am not fond of at all). You will probably want to ignore sign-up prompts that you follow a bunch of Twits you don't care about (just close the page when it starts asking or go directly to the verification URL from the e-mail), then go into the options and turn off all the e-mail notifications that are on by default. Maybe double-check to make sure people can't hunt you down on there by looking for your e-mail address, if you don't want that.
Afterward, it is really no worse than having an RSS feed going in the sidebar of a website. If you don't go to the site for anything but events like this, it should not pester you or show up anywhere else on the internet you may go (unlike the ubiquitous Facebook). -
Quote:Originally Posted by Hit Streak
We've modified the way Tweet Code Thursdays are going to work.
For item codes, we'll announce when the codes will be going out, and we'll give people a specific amount of time to re-tweet our post. If you re-tweet our post, we'll respond directly to you with a code to use. No scramble. No luck involved. No twitchy fingers required. Simply re-tweet our post in the timeframe given and we'll direct message you with a code.
In short, if you want an item code, do the following:
- Follow us on Twitter
- Re-tweet our tweet when prompted to do so
- Receive a code
Thank you so so much for this.
Cannot stress enough how much I appreciate you all taking the time to do this differently.
Thank you, again! -
Quote:If I recall correctly, the facepalm codes were not single-use affairs, but were region associated. If you lived in the same State you would get the same code, and it would work on more than one account. Definitely an unusual bit of code in that.Originally Posted by Texas Justice
They've already answered that. They had to use a third party to develop the standalone tab on Facebook that accessed the list of codes. They don't have the capability to add something like that to Twitter.
Otherwise, it was more like the Freedom Freebies we see each week now than a starkly limited "exclusive." -
Quote:Originally Posted by ghoost
P.S. Congratz to all that snagged a Kirby! Im still waiting for the PPD hardsuits to pop in the market!
Hate to tell you, but... they did. I guess it was just for a week. Wish I could give you mine -- I rarely run it and it sounds like you'd appreciate it more. -
Quote:Totally agree. The black wolf is nowhere near the league of MUST HAVE that Kirby Dots resides in. Since I got all the Elemental costume bits I really don't have a lot of motivation to buy more packs. But maybe someday I'll be desperate for merit rewards for something and get lucky.Originally Posted by tfab10
Well I kinda find the um wolf... kinda a big hipe and let down.. in the end hes just a Black Wolf, he follows you around does nothing....
Hes cool looking but I kinda would prefer keeping mine on my beta account instead of main.
In my opinion Hes not worth spending aimless money on, focus on the ATO's and boosters you get... I mean thats helpfull even if you didn't get what you want you wind up with alot of stuff to level, gain inf, prestige ETC.
I would not be significantly happier to have the Kirby Dots aura put on that level of reward chance in the market, though it might be just the thing to turn a grab bag into a gambling addiction for me... -
Quote:Forgot to green the Black Wolf. I don't have it, but it's nice that maybe one day it'll pop out of a pack.Originally Posted by tfab10
Those put in green ARE on the market in the Super packs.
I'm no fan of gambling, but the grab bags don't bug me too much. As long as none of the items are complete duds, it's not quite that ebil.
--
Aaaand...
"Due to the maintenance extension, we're going to postpone codes until tomorrow. We apologize to those who were anticipating them today." --@CityOfHeroes on Twitter -
Quote:Ever heard of a "bad winner?" I'd be happy for your good fortune, but your harping makes me want to see you trip over your feet and fall off your pedestal. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.Originally Posted by Zenlon
See thar?
You are proving a great example of why such things should not be exclusive to the lucky few. You don't seem to appreciate it, but you lord it over everyone else. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Snow Globe
No matter what kind of contest they run, the simple fact is that the contest supply simply cannot match the demand for the iconic costume part.
Even if it were less iconic it would stink. It even blows my mind that costume parts have been used for Freebie Fridays and similar.
I believe every costume part should be monetized. We all pay a little price for having them in memory, and memory remains a pretty hard limit due to players using older operating systems, so why shouldn't every such item be a source of income, and at the same time give everyone an opportunity to use it?
The loyalty program keeping subscribers aboard when the launch of DCUO was threatening to siphon off CoH customers was a sensible alternative, IMO. It was still monetization of a sort, and didn't have too small a window of access (iirc the lead-in was over a month).
One month windows of opportunity for purchasing costume parts is not too bad -- I'm sure that having some time limit drives up interest. Just so long as the window is not small enough to prevent regular customers from seeing it, or being able to rally the paragon points.
I would have really been kicking myself, however, if I had missed the tri-corner hat freebie, since I had been lusting after that since I first stumbled on it in the costume creator late last year. To be sure, that was worth money to me -- so opportunity missed there, but thank you just the same for the awesome costume part! -
Quote:Adding to that point: as outputting as it was to have to deal with Game Stop for the Going Rogue pre-order items, it was a pretty sure deal for anyone willing to cough up the cash. At the time I was disappointed because I'd already bought Going Rogue through the Paragon/NCSoft market and this did not count as a pre-order, but I figured in the end it was worth buying the game twice.Originally Posted by Tymers_Realm
Z, if you really want to get a understanding of some of this negativity, Take a look back at the fervor from when the Game Stop Pre-order enhancements for GR were announced. In essence, it's a similar kind of thing.
My only regret was that GameStop got a big chunk of my money instead of the developers or NCSoft.
I'm still glad that those GR pre-order items eventually wound up in the VIP reward system (though their usefulness was reduced by the introduction of the Death From Below/Drowning in Blood rapid-leveling trials at the same time). -
Quote:Wouldn't giving costume parts to PVPers be kind of pointless? PVPers use the random button in the costume creator, right? (j/k ...mostly)Originally Posted by Black Pebble
Sure. How about next week?
-
Quote:Guess you missed where I said, effective: hey, I have something unique in the game and it doesn't make me happy at all that others can't have it also. With the pre-order items, they wound up in the VIP rewards, and that's great. The loyalty helmets? Kind of like the pre-order items; after a certain point nobody had a chance of getting it anymore, so I wind up feeling bad for those who missed out, and hope they wind up in the VIP reward system or somewhere else at some point. Now I have a costume code from an official costume contest that I haven't redeemed... and the only comfort in that is knowing it's kind of ugly and just a costume code, so not many people would want or use it, as opposed to something awesome and useful like one of the most fundamental and iconic superhero comic-book visual effects for the costume creator.Originally Posted by Zenlon
By the looks of this thread - it's not something I'd doubt.
This entire thread breaks down to, "I want something I can't have that I know we all have the same methods of obtaining, however I don't think I can get it so if I won't have a way of obtaining it no one should be able to."
And we do not have equal opportunity. Some people have fast internet with no bandwidth or connectivity issues. Others don't. We are not equal on this internet.