Obsidius

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As someone who shifts from desktop to laptop and back again a bit, I wonder how 'portable' the architect files will be portable? Refering obvious to pre-publish status .

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Well, if they're anything like the costume creator saved files, they'll simply be text files, which should be very portable, once you know in which directory the game stores them. Since we've been told you can edit them offline, I would have to assume it's probably going to be like that.

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In that case, is there something stopping people from choosing two non-attack powersets

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Yes.

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Just like the Cimerora Surgeons

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To be fair, they did originally have attacks. But, IIRC, they then never healed.

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Touché, quite true. Sacrifices made due to the the cludgy AI.

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In that case, is there something stopping people from choosing two non-attack powersets

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Yes.

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Just like the Cimerora Surgeons

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Definition of "decent":

Nearly five years of playing a character and not even half way to Popular badge.

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Subjective. Ad misericordiam.


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So, five years of playing and not getting the badge? You see that as "decent". What is your definition of "decent"?

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And yes, their stance is schizophrenic. You may disagree with it, but that's how I see it.

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Begging the question.


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Stating my opinion.

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Granted, since it's Arcanaville saying it, by definition everyone else is not just wrong, but wrong. I realize no one will agree with me, especially since you are saying I'm wrong.

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Poisoning the well.

The whole counterargument is based upon logical fallacies, including a slippery slope and hasty generalizations.

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Who, once Arcanaville sayeth they are wrong, has ever been agreed with?

Not to insult him/her, but it seems that once she/he speaks, the argument is done. Nothing further can be said.

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Since you want to discuss this subject, and it's not necessarily completely on-topic with this thread any longer, I've taken the liberty of starting a new thread here

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Definition of "decent":

Nearly five years of playing a character and not even half way to Popular badge.

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Subjective. Ad misericordiam.

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And yes, their stance is schizophrenic. You may disagree with it, but that's how I see it.

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Begging the question.

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Granted, since it's Arcanaville saying it, by definition everyone else is not just wrong, but wrong. I realize no one will agree with me, especially since you are saying I'm wrong.

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Poisoning the well.

The whole counterargument is based upon logical fallacies, including a slippery slope and hasty generalizations.

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I didn't read all of the thread, so I don't know if this has been answered, but I'm assuming we can save an unfinished arc, yes?

I.E. I'm building a super-awesome 5 mission arc, and I am currently creating the boss you need to defeat to beat the mission. Well, turns out I have to go. Can I save my first mission, what I have done to my second mission and the work I have done to the final boss?

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I would think it would have to save unfinished content - it just might not be playable until you finish it. Joe and Matt were saying on the interview that you could easily spend a lot of time working on a mission, writing text, etc. I hardly think they would expect a player to do all that work in one lump sum

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Good luck getting them to "fix those mistakes". Much less acknowledge them as such.

It only took three+ years of logic, whining, and arguments to get them to admit Empath was "broken".

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Keep in mind that was probably because risk vs reward had a different meaning when he who must not be named was in charge *cough* Jack *cough*

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QFT

Bet let's drop the tangent or move it to another thread plz.

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sorry if this has been answered,

but what happens if a player already holds 3 missions in there cue. Do MA missions act as a TF or ORO flashback?

Or are we going to be able to hold more then the 3 active missions now?

again sorry if this has been answered

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AFAIR, it's like an Ouro TF, that can be joined regardless of how many normal missions you have, and dropped at anytime.

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Is the cake a lie?

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Only if the mission writer programs it to betray you once you rescue it

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What does pohsyb mean?

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Just spell it backwards

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That video rocked, and I can't wait until the Architect goes live!

Great Job Foo

I loved, thanks again Arby Fab!

MEOW!

Well, I've never asked anyone try draw Obsidius before, so I guess I'll throw my hat into the ring.

<ul type="square">[*] Name: Obsidius[*] (Short) Description of the character concept:A gargoyle, former slave to vampires, now watches the innocent of Paragon City from high atop buildings, warding away evil and ne'er-do-wells.[*] (Short) Description of the character's look:8 feet tall, jet black, Titan horns, point imp ears, leathery dragon-esque wings, scaly hide on chest, demon-like tail, monstrous clawed hands and feet, smoldering red eyes. Typically wears a grimace. Sometimes has a cigar.[/list]Images:
<ul type="square">[*] Obsidius in the Shard[*] Profile w/ bio[*] Side shot[*] Obsidius in flight[/list]I'd like to see what you can come up with

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This is a twisted sort of brilliant, it truly is.

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QFT

Also: Bill's Sweet Child of Mimes - LdMAO

I consider it more of a Danger Room or Holodeck sort of scenario, or similar to how the Arena terminals work.

Sexy and tasteful. Nice work on his part! Congrats to you!

NP. Yeah, you can choose contacts for storyline and RP purposes, but the actual "contacts" and "doors" for missions will always be in the Architect Entertainment buildings.

You actually won't be using any city zones for missions AFAIK. All missions will be run through the Architect Entertainment building's terminals located in various zones throughout the game (and possibly even in bases). So you won't have to worry about using the same city building door for your missions.

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Also, skeball tickets? Yet ANOTHER currency type? When they used the "Player Confusion" excuse for getting rid of Base Salvage? Let's see, that is now currency type #6, number 8 if you count Invention Salvage and Recipes.

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I'm really not sure where they're going with all this. I'm getting tickets to the tailor, tickets for crafting, now tickets for Architect-ing... throw me a bone here, what's going on? Instead of "understood" bonuses like the free/vetspecs we've always gotten and the free tailor sessions... from here on things are represented by tickets?

What's with the Chuck E Cheese system?

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The Chuck E Cheese system has existed since Vanguard Merits. Play Whack-a-Rikti, collect prizes at the Vanguard Terminal

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Wow! We get to start talking about something we know little about but have lots of innate bias!

You know what this means? We're all qualified as talking heads on both Fox News and MSNBC!!

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You win teh interwebz

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Wooooooooooooooooo beta.

Quick, someone in closed post something vague and uninformative for us to speculate wildly over

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Frogs.

But seriously, I'm not in beta... yet...

&lt;Refreshes email every 10 seconds&gt;

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Woot just got an e-mail from support@ncsoft.com !!!1!1!!eleven!

...

Too bad it's just telling me my Lineage II trial expired.

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LOL, had me going for a sec

Here's hoping to get testing some stuff out and shake it down!

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I would think the first call of the npc would be quicker, because its pulling it from the piggs, but once it is called, doesn't the pc model stay in the cache? In the demo text example used above, if the pc gets called again it is called by its variable name, not by the entire set of model parameters.

If so, I am thinking that the initial load of the custom npc would be slow, but after that it would not be.

Also, loading a second copy of minion_01 would not be resource intensive either, once you have defined the model in the cache. So you could have 200 of the same custom npc on the map without too much trouble, its only when you tried to pull up 200 different custom models that you would see problems. So, they might consider limiting it to four or five custom npc /types/ per mission, but as many of each type as they would normally allow.

Admittedly, regardless of the tech involved, its not likely that minion customization will be put in for quite a while.

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You've got a valid point there. So initial loads may be the only concern as far as scripting is concerned, but a bigger concern is the number of polygons used in costume pieces per customized NPC in a situation where many of them may be running around (like in your example with 200 foes using custom models). For example, Sister Solaris uses something like four cape systems. There again, there are only one of her floating around on the map. Doubtful we would have creation tools to that scale, but a bunch of minions all wearing Pain Pads (high poly count) might bog down a system.

For example, with many NPC models, a developer has clipped out extreneous polygons where things like shoulder pads and boots meet the shoulders or legs. Basically, extra costume parts may become part of the NPC's "skin." But on player characters, even though you can't see it, the shoulder pad will go through a character's body, to look right regardless of slider scales and so forth.

In other words, player models aren't optimized like NPC models are. The video card may be rendering several other polygons per model that you can't actually see because they're sunk into a character's body. That's really the biggest drawback of character customization. Most video cards have enough steam to handle non-optimized models (biggest exception being pre-I10 Hamidon Raids, for example, or large parties in Pocket D), but you may see adverse effects if the same sort of thing were used on every NPC in a mission, due to the increased polygon count per character (thanks to extra costume bits).

Probably not, because the game doesn't have a standard file for Minion_01. Also, other clients wouldn't know what Minion_01 was.

Just to give one a fundamental understanding of how the game renders NPCs, the game uses a caller function to pull up a pre-generated model (here's a comprehensive but incomplete list by Scuzzbopper). These models exist in the PIGG files as pre-fab NPC models created by a developer. If the game can't find the model called up in the mission or zone script, it will pull up the first model in the long list of models, which is currently 5th_Archon_Burkholder (Burkholder in his 5th Column uniform). It used to be 5th_Mek_man, which is why sometimes Mekmen would mysteriosuly pop up in missions (do to the caller referencing a non-existing model, or because of a script typo).

But in order for custom models, like player character models, to be loaded between clients, the client has to understand how to draw it, so that the model looks the same for everyone. That's why player charcter models have a long script of items that let the client know how to draw the various body parts, costume items, auras, slider settings, and colors of those various things.

Theoretically, if the game client simply saved a model of a reskinned model as Minion_01, for example, that model wouldn't exist on another client, so the client wouldn't know how to draw it. So to others, all the NPCs may look like Archon Burkholder, for example.

It could be possible that the game could compile a custom character and save that character to the MA server so others could download it from the server, but extremely unlikely. With the amount of mission that will be created, that could take up a lot of space on the MA server's hard disks, and it could cause the client's overall size to possibly increase by gigabytes, depending on how many missions with custom characters they ran.