Mutant_Mike

So, as we sit here on the edge of the world, at the end of our (virtual) reality, I can't help but think of - appropriately enough - a comic book.

Marvel's What If...? #32, where it was asked, "What if the Avengers had become pawns of Korvac?" What made me think of it was the ending, where Korvac uses the Ultimate Nullifier and nullifies the entire universe. The entire plane of existence becomes nothing... But there were three characters that survived the Nullifier, being somewhat above the plane of existence - the Silver Surfer, the Phoenix, and Doctor Strange. Phoenix and the Surfer decide to travel to other planes of existence to explore and seek out more experiences. But Doctor Strange decides to stay in this limbo, stating that he was the defender of this realm, and will continue to do so, until the end of all.

I wonder who will be our Dr Strange, hovering in the emptiness after we're gone...

They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye

The Last Resort - Eagles

And all this could be
Just a dream so it seems
I was never much good at goodbye
Goodbye

Goodbye - Night Ranger

To paraphrase ABBA, "Thank you for the videos!"... They are really entertaining and very inspiring.

I really regret that I never put the videos that keep playing back in my head to film..(or whatever).. But suffice to say that it was the great work you produced that made me inspired to visualize more.

I hope to see more of your work!

All of the maps in the game - except for bases - are stored on the client. In fact, all data is stored on the client. Essentially, all that is received from the server are commands to display objects and play animations/sounds.

As I understand it, if you start a demorecord, it records all these commands in the demo file. Then, when you replay the demo, it's doing the same thing the server does, without the interactivity.

As for how far it sees... The range is... I THINK... 200 feet from the PLAYER, not the CAMERA. (The range might be different, seems I read a tutorial from Zloth that gave that number.) So, you could edit a demo and place the camera all the way across the zone from the PLAYER. What the camera would see is a big empty zone, and waaaaayyyyy off in the distance a cloud of stuff... as the camera approaches, the PLAYER would come into view and everything within range of him.

Zloth's posts on demos is my trusted source, but Samuraiko is definitely the next best thing.

Thith ith the latht time I potht after thomeone with a thpeech impediment!

You only fail when you give up. Whether we win or lose, the fact that we fought for something we cared for speaks more about our character than any level ding or media promo... if not to the world, to ourselves.

Keep the faith!

Wow.. Very cool recap... I'm curious, though... Were there any outtakes of that production?

Hey, it's all the rage!

So is typing really small...

One of the biggest disagreements I have been seeing is over the value of hope. Some people seem to think hope is a useless emotion, that only causes more grief in the end. On the other hand, some people seem to think hope is all you need to avert the impending asteroid impact.

Hope is a powerful force, but it is wasted on truly inevitable acts. The hard part is deciding what is inevitable.

To me, Hope is the bridle on a horse that is running at a full gallop. You can use the bridle to steer the horse to a Valley of Riches and away from the Desert of Despair. But throwing down the reins and letting the horse go where it will... well, did I mention that the Cliffs of Insanity are straight ahead?

Great job! I'll make heavy use of this tool.

There was someone I met in game back in 2006. I only knew her for about 10 days, but we teamed frequently and had a lot of fun.

Her name was Katherine Weeks, from Pinnacle server. Her character was Stainless Steel Kat. In real life, she had lost the use of her legs after an accident that took the lives of her parents. The game was her place to go and be able to walk, dance and fly.

I still have some screenshots and a piece of memorial art. Also - somewhere - I have a few demorecord files with a couple of her toons. I'll PM them to you as soon as I find them.

It sounds like you were wanting to focus more on Lore questions... But, since there are a lot of other feature questions out there -

Were there any plans to implement a Personal Nemesis system? (Yes, I am kind of hung up on this... but it would be COOL! ! !)

If so, how far did the plans get? Was it completely scrapped, shelved, developing?

A: What made CoH great, and how can we use those factors to make a new game even greater?

One thing about CoH is that the world wasn't a pre-established licensed product, like the DC or Marvel Universes. It allowed the developers to take the story where they needed it. It also gave players a feeling with their characters that they were important in the world, and not just cannon fodder for Superman. Unfortunately, not having these licenses also brought problems in the form of look alike characters, but I think that was handled at least adequately.

CoH was also a relatively uncluttered world - rather, I should say Paragon City was... I didn't like the Rogue Isles because the outdoor areas there seemed much more difficult to navigate because of the clutter.

Teaming was also handled well, I thought, as opposed to some of the other MMOs today. (TOR only allows 4 characters on a team - Operations aside - and companions take up team slots. So if you want to have three other friends on a team, you can't have your companions along.)

B: What problems did CoH have that prevented it from having more success, and what solutions do you propose? (Try and make sure the solutions aren't worse than the problem!)

I think the Incarnate system was... difficult to grasp, at least for me. And since my family relies on me to be in the know about the game and its systems... well, we didn't do too much Incarnate stuff. I think a better tutorial that doesn't spew pages of text at you and walks you through the process, providing options and brief explanations - in terms that we have used throughout the game - would make it easier.

The sudden proliferation of various forms of merits could have been done better as well... Influence/Infamy/Information was appropriate, and reward merits was good... but then you have Prestige for the bases, Astral Merits, Empyrean Merits... Too many different kinds. And too confusing. Consolidating the rewards into fewer categories would be much better.

If we are going to include wishful items here, then I'd like to include a Personal Nemesis system of some kind. You could actually opt out of it at character creation, if you don't want to deal with it. You could design your own nemesis, or have it randomly generated. From time to time, in each level range, a mobile contact would find you and give you a nemesis mission. Ultimately, you could work your way up to level 50, but you wouldn't ding until you ran one last mission to "defeat" your nemesis in some grand scheme.. maybe a huge fight on top of the globe in Atlas or something.

Anyway... my two inf...

I agree, a buyout would be best, since I don't even think a promise from NCSoft that they would support the game long term would be enough.

The question I'm asking is who would even be available to come back? I wouldn't be surprised if several devs are being courted by other companies, and the rest are probably knocking on doors with resume in hand. As time passes, more and more of the team will be dispersed as they seek other ventures.

And yes, it's true they were just laid off, so a call back by the company would be plausible. But since Paragon Studios has been closed, what is the situation then?

If somehow, someway, CoH was either given a reprieve from NCSoft, or another company picked it up, what about the development team?

I'm sure they aren't going to sit around waiting for the slim chance of the game being saved. At the very least I would guess it would be difficult to get the band back together again even now...

So, what happens? If it is picked up by another studio, do they try to get as many of the original team as possible and then fill out with their own people? If NCSoft admits their mistake (yeah I know) and revives the game, how many of the devs would be willing to go back to work for them?

(Sorry.. just one of those midnight thoughts that will now keep me up til 2am. )

Everyone is posting their reactions about the news, and it's hard to find an appropriate place for the way each of us is feeling right now... so sorry if this should be somewhere else.

I just wanted to point out that I'll really miss this game and all the greatness that was infused into it.

But more than that, I'll miss the people... the devs, the forum regulars, the pick up teams, the random friends... For me, what makes me sad, is likely not interacting with the PEOPLE from this game again. As difficult as it would be, I could handle changing the game to anything else - as long as EVERYONE came along.

I'm disappointed that the game is going away, but I'm very sad at not having a place to see all of you together again...

Wow... OK, I'll add my voice to the THOUSANDS that are speaking out about this news.

I have enjoyed this game since about August of 2004. I wasn't expecting much from an MMO as I had just been completely underwhelmed by Star Wars Galalxies. But from the moment I started playing I was hooked. I even managed to get my wife playing, and we enjoyed hours upon hours of time adventuring together. Add to that, we both convinced her parents to play.

We will all miss this game horribly. My son started playing when he was three years old. He doesn't even remember not having the game to log in to. I'll always remember him running his kinetic defender, in the middle of a big brawl, announcing in a loud voice, "Fulcrum Shift in 3... 2... 1! ! !"

Even though I haven't been on the forums lately, I'll miss the commentary from Memphis Bill, Evil Gecko, Zombie Man... The numbers arguments from Arcanaville... The art posts of Thor's Assassin... The videos of Samuraiko... The camaraderie of old teammates Gatecrasher, Bubblegum Kitty, Pyrella, systems crashes...

I don't want to go to other games... I want this game... with all my friends...

Thanks to the dev team for bringing us all together.

Yeah... it's not so much that the downloader is slow, it's just that the thing is freakishly huge... 2.5 GB. That's almost the same size as the original game.

I wish they would have released a pre-download, like they used to.