MrCaptainMan

Originally Posted by Anti_Proton

Havent run the trial yet, but I like the idea of having to avoid killing civilians. For years this game has made us to used to our "invincible npc's". The idea that a loose blast could be fatal is a great dynamic and I hope we see it elsewhere. Perhaps if this mechanic has showed up in a few standard missions first, people would be more used to it in the trials.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

There is another reason why league leaders begin to insist on at least a +1 level shift on iTrial toons: it removes the possibility of inadvertantly inviting a non-VIP to the league.

And lest anyone underestimate the frustration that builds from trying to form a full BAF or Keyes league and not being able to enter the queue because one or more people are not VIP (and either don't realize it or won't fess up to it), it can ruin one's evening. One particular league I had joined wasted a good 30 minutes trying to work this issue out. The league leader (with virtually the entire support of the league, mind you) began trying to weed out players that weren't at least +1 just out of desperation.

So before we ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by an inadequate set of iTrial league formation tools, it might help to know that there are some valid reasons for this kind of invite filtering.

Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue

It sounds like the only reason you care about any 'gimmicky-ness' is because your league/cat herd won't read the instructions. That's not the devs' fault.

I know some league leaders on Justice who know how to get people to pull their heads out of their rear ends with some well-delivered criticism. Seems like a useful skill to pick up.

Originally Posted by Bad_Influence

Risk vs reward: if I can get a reward from doing something else more pleasant, I go do the more pleasant thing for the same end result.



I am using a huge monitor. I have a problem with so much crap being all over my screen, that the text tends to appear behind it. I have to have the chat widow up, the league window open, I got a huge "objectives" window that I don't even WANT covering the right side of my screen..... how and where am I s'posed to READ this text?

Originally Posted by MTS

Wait, there's a trial you can't just faceroll on the keyboard and win?

*shock*

Oh well, I'm sure word will spread quickly enough and we'll be back to running BAF and Lambda.

Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion

I don't think there is one but....I'll start with the ones I (and my league) defeated tonight:


Winter Lord (whatever his name is)
Avatar of Hamidon
Kronos Titan
Deathsurge
Jurassik

crud; forgot the 6th one we defeated tonight....

Originally Posted by Kierthos

Oh yeah, waiting on shard drops? That's pointless, ridiculous and time consuming. Get in an BAF or Lambda where the person running it isn't a pain in the butt, and you can have your Alpha slot filled so quickly it isn't even funny. You're not at -4 on those, anyway. I haven't even run Keyes yet, and just off of running BAF and Lambda a few times (and extra threads/Astral merits from parts of the SSA), and I already have a Tier 3 Alpha, and Judgement and Interface are unlocked.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

I will bring the topic to development.

Realistically, don't expect it any time soon. Schedules are planned out months in advance and right now we're working on both Issues 22 and 23 and art schedules are quite possibly the most rigorous and time consuming of the lot, especially the character artists. Time to revisit previous costume pieces is not currently included and to do so would compromise new costume sets, villain groups, etc, etc...it has an extreme domino effect.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

We've been closely following your feedback regarding this topic, both here and on the Beta forums. Unfortunately Cheryl, the artist who worked primarily on the Gunslinger Character Modelling, has been extremely pressed for time creating new costume sets and as such hasn't been able to post directly on the beta feedback thread. That being said, the feedback and concerns expressed have been communicated to the art and production team.

To address a few points

We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern.

If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, I apologize. It's not our intent to offend anyone.

Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we don’t want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted.

Thanks

-Z

Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan

Or a little of both after making some sound judgement calls regarding the branding. i.e. if you make a princess, also make soft unarmored princely pieces with royal cloak, spotted fur collar, various crowns and doublets for him.

If you make a saloon girl, balance it out with a wild west gambler

But the "gunslinger pack" is as if they made a full "firefighter set" which consisted of a full firefighting outfit for him and a burn victim set for her. The two are thematically adjacent. But they miss two big points: some people with female characters might want to make female firefighters while other people with male characters might want access to all those wonderful icky burn scarred skin textures and scorched clothing items.

My example may be a bit severe, but it is to illustrate what I think is at play here. For me it is not gender inequity in terms of unique looks or skin vs. little skin (though this is still an issue), it is about the implied roles. If you make a pack of "soft" costume pieces that implies roles inside the saloon, spread it across both genders. (i.e. bartender/male gambler.) (Would have loved those arm garters for him BTW.) If you make a rugged pack that implies action out amongst the tumbleweed, again, spread the opportunity evenly across both genders. Hence: "chaps for girls."

Female gunslinger outfit with a breadth of more period references at http://www.westernemporium.com/ladie...st_outfits.php

The trail cook, ranch owner and rancher outfits all say "rugged" to me. Meanwhile, with this pack while we get rugged for him, we got a combination of the saloon girl and soiled dove for her.

Originally Posted by Firemoth

Heck, they obviously didn't "err on the side of caution" with this set (or most of the female pieces), so why should they suddenly do it with other things? If the "potential" for the abuse of the emotes (the main ones being collapse, swoon, and pushups that were mentioned to me at the Pummit by other players) is so prevalent, then why not just remove the option instead of hiding behind excuses?

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

That's the major problem - in real life, women wear anything, but men limit themselves to a much smaller choice of clothing types, which means that there aren't reall any clothes that are almost exclusively male, but there are plenty that are almost exclusively female, and that influences how people make their costumes in the game, and how the devs make the costume pieces.
For example, if there are some cool pants for the guys, then plenty of people will ask for them to be available for the girls too - but if there's a new skirt for females, hardly anyone will ask for it to be made available for males too - or if there's a shirt for guys, the girls will want it too, but if there's a corset, hardly any guys will want it - which means that costume part "equality" actually requires women to get twice as many parts as men, so something like the Gunslinger pack would need one male gunslinger outfit, one female gunslinger outfit, and the saloon girl outfit - or if there's a medieval pack, they'd need to make one knight outfit for men, one knight outfit for women, oplus a damsel/princess outfit for the women.
The lack of female versions of some of the male costume parts are probably a misguided attempt at being fair, and giving both genders an even amount of parts with each pack.

Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum

I AM disappointed in this pack for much of Techbot Alpha's reasons, but not angry. Despite my efforts to make (mostly) less-trampy female outfits, my own experiences put us in the minority. For the last 7 years, its been clear that most players have been ignoring the more modest female costume options for things more... revealing. I'll admit to having a few short-skirted options for my female crimefighters, too... and if there are more "good looking" trampy costume parts than modest ones, that plays a part in user selection, too, but I still get the feel that even with all these options accounted for, the overall playerbase leans toward the same tramp-heroine depictions that dominate the comic industry.

I've resigned myself to that reality.

The devs just develop toward what sells.

I'd had great plans for a classic female gunslinger- very much a female version of Techbot_Alpha's male gunslinger outfit. Obviously, I'll be waiting longer.

-
Still, the benefit of a market-based system is you CAN develop for niches if those niches are large enough to sustain themselves. If a costume option has the potential to more than pay for its development costs, then its a viable development option, and you could even justify expanding staffing to cover it. (Or subcontract out to freelancers / between-work artists / modders aspiring for an industry break on a per-project basis )

I STRONGLY suggest the devs take a chance here. Take the time to make a female gunslinger variant similar to the male's and put it on the market.

• DO NOT put it in this pack.
• See how well it sells by itself. (I'd buy it.)
• See if the market demand justifies the extra development cost (I bet it does).
• If it does, then plan accordingly in the future.
• If it doesn't, then I guess keep giving the players what they are willing to pay for and I'll glumly keep working with the legacy pieces that have become standard fare for my characters. It gives me more Paragon Points for other things, I guess...

Just give us a chance to prove that market demand IS there for something less trampy.

Originally Posted by Diellan_

I don't really have much to add, since I already went into several long tirades in the beta feedback thread for the Gunslinger pack (which, by the way, is over 500 replies long: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=277846 ). Basically, the whole thing leaves me with a really, really bad taste in my mouth, especially since I was one of the ones who stood up and complained about the Steampunk Pack, was told "oh, they just did it this time due to time, but next time they'll add different stuff"... and then saw the Barbarian Pack and now this one... I need an "I told you so" button here.

And for those people who bring up the IDF and PPD and CoT sets, I've said in my posts in the beta forum that the "Trend Against the Feminine" skips those sets for which "feminine" isn't relevant (namely, full body armor) and for which the theme is completely divorced from reality. The problem is that they can't do "feminine" without doing "titillating". It is possible to create female clothing (as opposed to unisex clothing) without going into "hypersexed" mode, but they just aren't doing that anymore.

Originally Posted by Jagged

I had issues with the Honoree mission. As a tank solo'ing it was not a problem but Duo'ing it was much harder. This was due to the fact that when I did that mission the 4 portal where all fully formed and running before I got there. Even once I knew what was coming up on repeat runs, edging up to the room, peering round the corner showed the portals running. This meant the spawns started above the aggro cap (actually well above 2xaggro cap) and I could never keep them from my team mate.

Avoiding problems like that will be quite important from my point of view.