Ravenswing

Ah... English soil...

There is apparently a video of the Keynote from Saturday on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbikq...eature=channel

I haven't looked. I don't know how good it is, but it'll probably give you some idea of the 'Wow!!!' we got sitting in the audience.

I don't get it. No one has yet replied: "No, we don't all sound American, you lot sound English."

Actually, there's something to Bindweed's comment. Certainly when 'Rock and Roll' initially started moving over here from the US, the performers made an effort to have it sound like American music, because that was what sold. The best example I can think of is Cliff Richard. You just have to see some of the early, black-and-white footage of him doing his stuff to see where the influence comes from. He's even acting like Elvis, complete with the lip thing.

Beyond that, I strongly believe that most singers who move into a more international market end up with a horribly generic, Ameri-Euro-World-English sound. I'm sitting hear in America, I've spent a week listening to accents from all over, and believe me, none of the American singers I can think of sound like the people who are speaking over here.

The real question would be "why do all singers end up sounding the same" not "why do they sound American."

So, sometimes you have to love this country, though not when trying to get into it. Here I am in San Jose airport, sitting at a little workstation with free power and Wi-Fi for my laptop. Since I have about two hours before my plane boards, this is a good thing. Bet you I won't get the same in Chicago where I have a four hour lay-over.

Anyway, it's been a good trip. In case she does read this, I'd particularly like to thank Avatea for making me feel welcome, but also all the other guys on the dev team and such who put up with the weird Brit chatterring at them for any length of time. However, Avatea definately wins the prize 'cos I got a hug from her at the end of the con.

Now, the question is going to be: will I still think it was all worth it when I crawl through my front door about 8am tomorrow? Time will tell.

Well, what a wacky sort of day. I went down for breakfast, happened to get sat at a table for 4 and started putting away enough fuel to keep me going until evening since it's easier that way. One of the guys I've met while he comes and sits with me. On the next table Positron is having his breakfast with someone who had his back to me, but I think it was Dark Watcher. Then Andy Maurer, one of the programmers, turns up looking for somewhere to sit, and then we're joined by John Hegner who does mission design and we end up discussing Forever War and Starship Troopers, and playing Scrabble with Ms Liberty. This is one of those moments that kind of makes a thing like this, rather like having a long, rather convoluted, and generally silly conversation with Sunstorm on Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, on to the panels.

To Be Continued: The Evolving City of Heroes Storyline was a panel featuring the world and mission development 'group' featuring the likes of War Witch and Hero 1, and also the above-mentioned John Hegner and Bruce Harlick (not a name I'd heard before, but an informative guy). They were discussing how developemnt is carried out regarding the world as a whole and the missions. Now, from the conversation with John at breakfast, I knew that there are basically two teams here World and Mission. Most MMOs have Content designers, but due to the heavily instanced nature of CoX missions, World and Mission are separated.
Funny bit: early names for the Power Spectrum Issue might have been "Going Rouge" and "When Pigments Fly," or we may have been having our legs pulled.
There is actually a Bible of background detail that these guys work on. It runs to 500 pages and goes into a lot of detail which we will probably never find out about (Posi later said that some of it was interesting and some of it would put you to sleep on the toilet). Joe (Hero 1) is in the process of transferring this data onto the mechanism they now use which is an internal Wiki. It makes finding the useful info far easier than a 500 page Word document.
Mission design in Praetoria is going to be far more like the Rogue Isles, but more so. If you get Mission X one day, and then again the next day on a different Praetorian, you can expect it to be at the same door, never mind in the same zone. (Inside, the map will be suitable random one. No more walking into an office and finding yourself in a sewer.) Also, the mobs inside should reflect the mobs outside. If you are fighting Syndicate, you can expect the mission door to be in a Syndicate controlled area.
One thing Joe wants to do, which is most interesting from our point of view is that he wants to flesh out the Dawn Patrol. He thinks they could have an interesting perspective on the hero thing that would be different from all that American hero stuff. I wandered up after the panel and said 'hi' and 'thanks, yes, we'd love that, please do it.' However, I'd say don't hold your collective breaths because this was a "what would you like to do if you had the time" question, there's probably no solid, allocated time for this. Other things that came up in the same topic where the Midnighters, which I know I'd like to see more of.

Next up A Whole New World: Praetoria, Utopia with a Price. Bruce Harlick, Joe 'Hero 1' Morrissey, John Hegner and Matt Miller discussing the story and 'feel' of Praetoria pretty much in character. All hail Emperor Cole!
Now, the biggest and most important thing to come out of this panel was also the thing that made me sit up and really take a liking to it. Praetoria is not just the dark-mirror version of Primal Earth. We've always thought that your Praetorian counterpart would be an evil version of your character, but that is most definately not the case. Things happened differently on Praetoria.
The two big events which were discussed were the Well of Furies event, and the Korean War. Not much was said, but the Well of Furies happened a lot differently on Praetorian Earth. Marcus Cole killed Stefan Rictor, there is no Recluse over there. (This was stated far more solidly than yesterday. I get the feeling it really is a fixed fact, especially considering what was revealed about the resistance leadership.)
Now, in our world and Primal Earth, MacArthur wanted to use nukes in Korea. It's an established fact in real world history that he wanted to use them, but never got the chance. On Praetorian Earth, he did and this appears to have been what has spurred Marcus Cole to take over. Pushed over the edge, he has taken on the role of Earth's Protector. Yes, he's evil, he's Tyrant, but his 'evil' is a logical extension of Statesman's personality. Statesman saves the world, Tyrant has decided that the world should stop making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. (Zortel should recognise this since Praetoria is starting to look a lot like Unity Earth. I mean, seriously, it's like they were reading Z's mind.)
So, the leader (or a leader) of the Resistance is Calvin Scott. Somehow he is able to avoid detection and tracking by Mother Mayhem's Seers (aka, thought police). Here is a fine example of a character who is good on Primal Earth and the same on Praetorian Earth. It's not given that your counterpart will be a mirror image. (I always said Nitoichi's counterpart would be a normal girl who worked in a shop. I may actually build her, I think she'll end up in the Resistance because of...)
Now, if you have powers, you get inducted into the Powers Division. You don't get a choice. There, you will go out to help make the rest of the world as much of a Utopia as Praetoria is. Well, that's the story. Actually, you either end up as a super-powered psycho run by Cole and his secret police, or Chimaera orders you executed as a danger to the state. (I'm thinking Ni's twin may end up as part of the resistance after her superpowered brother is executed by Cole's people. Depends how I feel when GR comes out, I guess.)
A few other bits an pieces which came out:
Hamidon either doesn't exist or is very different. Humans have never had the chance to mess the Earth up as they have on Prime, so Hamidon never developed.
The new Praetorian models will get retro-fitted into the existing story arcs, though the arcs themselves won't get revamped yet. They may be revised at a later date.
There may well be some 'cool stuff' for people who stick with being a hero or a villain rather than switching sides, to make up for them not getting the 'cool stuff' of actually doing the switch.

And finally the Wouldn't it be Great If... panel. Some answers to those glorious suggestions, many of which we have seen so many times and never seen Dev replies for.
Water Powers: the reason these haven't been done is that, to make them look good, they would need some high-end effects which means that only people with the right graphics cards could see them. They do not want to raise the base spec for the game just to handle one power set, and I can't say I disagree.
You will, soon, be able to switch characters without logging out and logging back in again.
It seems like the ability to move inventory items between characters on your account is going to go in sometime soon.
There is some form of scripted zone event mechanism going in, details pending.
Mastermind Customisation was actually done, but produced some rather silly results and got pulled. The Blue Smurf Zombies were apparently the thing that really blew it. What they want to do is let you build your own minions and they are holding out for the time to put that tech in place.
Coming next issue will be an option which allows you to show on the mission map any remaining glowies or mobs which must be killed once you have done 90% of those targets. Joe actually commented that he prefers to avoid Kill All missions, he thinks they suck about as much as most of us do.
It looks a lot like the next Super-booster will be Martial Arts-based. Positron's actual words were "Ninjas are cool, that's all I'm going to say."

And that's about all I'm going to say. Hopefully, by the time I get back to the UK, Avatea will have organised my Clockwork costume code and I'll be able to go swan around as a Praetorian robot. I'll be selling tickets for those who want to see it (only kidding, but since the costume itself doesn't do much for me, if anyone does want to see this in game, I may organise a viewing or something since I'll be the only chance you'll get before the beta starts).

And now, an evening of relaxation before I start for home. Heaven only knows what I'm going to do. Probably watch TV and maybe do some writing.

Well, Con's over and I feel like I've been run over with a truck. Some interesting stuff came out of the panels today and I'll write that up in an hour or so, after some coffee and possibly a short lie down. Seriously, I'm bushed. There's that post-event malaise issue hitting me.

However...

I'm not exactly a karaoke and dancing person, so I've come away from the banquet. I've got a few (not terribly good) pictures of the costumes that I'll post sometime somehow.

The biggest news from the banquet is that Ms Liberty has had the operation, can now move her spine, and can dance! I have pictures! She also needs to discuss her costume with Icon, I swear it's shrunk in the wash. Well, it seems to be getting shorter anyway.

Speaking of 'things that bug us,' I did have a chat about the feelings of people regarding the merger of the forums. The community people area aware that there is something of a feeling of being stuffed in a corner and ignored, and they are trying to do something about it, but I can understand the point that it isn't easy. We would complain we were ignored when the boards were seperate, and now we complain when we're all together. Frankly, I think we were better off being ignored and seperate (and therefore the moderation wa smore culturally appropriate), but that's my opinion and it's my choice to post less.

The subject of my sig block was brought up, btw. I pointed out that it did come out rather more, um, suggestive(?) than I had intended. I'm actually rather happy to note that it was actually looked at, considered, and viewed as okay. Having said that, I may actually try to come up with something a bit better. However, I would like it to be better, not simply different.

Okay, the afternoon sessions are over and here's the reports on them. As an aside, if anyone wants to post any questions based on what I'm writing, I'll do my best to answer them from what I remember.

So, first session: How to Dress a Super Being: The Art and Style of Digital Costume Design
Yes, this was a 'Sexy Jay' production. It's the first time I've seen the guy in the flesh. Hell's Teeth! He's nuts, but it's a good kind of nuts. We were introduced to Cheryl Austin, who is doing costume modelling along with Jay now. We went through the stuff that has come out this year, we got some rather sneaky peeks at the next Super-booster (which may be some form of martial arts or martial armour set), and we looked at the costume designs for the new stuff coming in GR.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of this for many people will be that we will be getting such lovelies as costume parts made up from the Praetorian Clockwork models. Jay was pushing it as a sort of Terminator/cyberpunk/robot parts kind of look. Exposed metal spines, that kind of thing.
I was interested to see that the models Jay and Cheryl produce matched the concept art so well. Really, I'm used to seeing concept drawings and then you see the models and they are hardly anything like. The stuff coming up in GR is very close to the concept designs.
One or two bits and pieces from player questions:
Moving tails will be on the new MM demon models and they are hoping to add the tech to player costume tails, if it can be made to work. Cross your fingers.
They are looking at tech to implement dual chest emblems, and also to have more than two colours in the costumes. No news on when, however.

Next up: Walking the Tightrope: Archetypes and Power Balancing
I wasn't exactly totally enamoured with this one. I think it could have done with more time and a chance to really delve into things. As it was, we got some ideas of the processes they go through in creating new powersets (both for player characters and for NPCs) and why they made the changes they have to some of the ATs.
Apparently, they are planning to do something clever in GR which will make the issues with adding Patron Pools go away. No one was saying what that was though.
PvP changes... there are more in the works. They may see the light of day. They are trying hard to 'get it right.'

Finally: Shades of Gray: Meet the Going Rogue Signature Characters
Matt Miller and Carolina Tello Alvarado discuss the design of Maelstrom, Desdemona and the updated Tyrant.
Maelstrom was originally based on one of Matt Miller's old RPG characters, though the end result is apparently quite different. His original concept art, based on a very vague description from Matt, was enormously divergent, but eventually they settled on the design you now see.
Desdemona was originally Pandora, but she was too close to an existing comic character and they needed to change the name. Somehow it's nice to know that the developers have trouble finding good names for their characters, just like we do. She went through a stage where part of her costume was a sort of parasitic demon and the legacy of that is her tattoo, which was meant to control it. One thing Carolina mentioned is that Dessy is rather fuller figured than your typical modern comic figure; they wanted to get away from the stick-figure image made popular by Image and the like. Personally, I think it works. *drool*
The new Tyrant designs, and particularly his white-and-gold, military look as Emperor Cole are a really excellent update. We are, apparently, going to get a very good demo of this new look next year in a trailler video, so I won't spoil it too much, but believe me when I say that Emperor Cole is believable as the kind of guy who could make the world want to be ruled by him.

Okay, we've only had the opening Keynote Speech, but it was frankly good enough that I had to come back and write up a report on it.

I won't go into the waffly bits you'd expect at something like this and skip straight to the meat, which was about Going Rogue, of course.

What's to say? Well, you're all going to want new PCs for Christmas. The beta should be starting early next year and some of the glossy new graphics features will need a higher-end graphics card at the very least. Kent Morris (hope I got that right) of the arts department took us through a demo of the new stuff they are adding, all of it optional, and it does make a significant difference. Some of this is going to make no sense to people, but there are new water effects, ambient occlusion, environmental reflections, character reflections, and real-time shadows. You even get reflections of the environment in the shiny parts of your character's costume! To be honest, the ambient occlusion will make an amazing difference to the look of the environment, even though it's one of the least obvious changes. (It's to do with the way shadows work around buildings and such, for those who don't do 3D modelling.)

Gameplay stuff... Praetoria is a new starting area, with a new tutorial. Praetorians start of as neither hero nor villain and get to choose which they are going to be as they move out of Praetoria and into 'our' world. Except that heoes and villains can swap sides now.

A falling hero is a vigilante. Yes, you will be able to play that dark hero you've been playing since the game launched and actually mean it. There are 'moral missions' designed to show your progression from hero to villain (and obviously there are 'redeeming' villain versions for going the other way). Characters in transition may visit the other faction's zones, and team with members of the opposing faction (but you can't use the other side's auction houses).

New NPC types: well, the Praetorian Guard has had a facelift and the new versions of such people as Mother Mayhem and Marauder are quite something (at least as concept art). Emperor Cole looks quite a bit different from Tyrannt, by the way. (Matt 'Posi' Millar cracked a joke about Back Alley Brawler, the Dev, changing his name because Marauder is cooler.) Praetorian Clockwork are Praetoria's servant class, and do look cool. Mother Mayhem has her Seers, who handle 'thought crimes' in Praetoria. All the criminal factions are part of The Syndicate. There's also the Resistance and the Praetorian Police, both of which can be joined by new Praetorian players.

New power sets: Dual Pistols we got a demo of. It's a Blaster set, so available for Corrupters and Defenders. It features selectable ammo sets and it looks totally awesome. Yes, it does kind of look Gun Kata-ish. The nova is truly fantastic. We didn't see the MM set 'Demon Summoning', but the concept art looks great. (Apparently it was demons or clowns, but the decided to leave clowns for the 'other superhero MMO.' That got a laugh, of course. The audience is kind of partisan. )

Oh, the targetted release date is Q2 2010.

Questions from players produced several things which 'could not be discussed.' Since this is often code for 'we're working on it, but we don't know when it'll be released,' I'll list a few. Post 50 content in GR, Mastermind power customisation, Power Pool customisation.
As I mentioned before, but we got specific confirmation from Posi, they are working on Base Raids, including the Cathedral, so they are trying to get this stuff back in. However, it needs a load of new stuff adding, so they aren't sure when.

Not sure how much of my 'audience' here is into PvP, but I'm planning to go to a panel on powers and AT balancing this afternoon which was mentioned regarding PvP changes, so stay tuned for news on that.

And now I'm going to go see what else is happening out there.

You know the thing about no one who wants power should ever be allowed to have it? Power corrupts; becoming a mod turns you into a dictator?

Whatever, when they first created the GGOOC channel, I refused to be a mod on it. It's a horrible job no one should want. People who are good at it are generally hounded out by idiots, leaving the people doing it because it gives them a feeling of personal power. Generally, we get the moderators we deserve.

Well, my rather long day has kind of caught up with me and I've come away to crawl into bed a little earlier than I might have hoped. It's 20:40 here in San Jose and across the hotel, various people are playing board games, but I can't actually think straight any more, never mind concentrating to play games with, like, rules and stuff.

One or two bits and pieces have come up in conversation. One such was that base raids are due to make a reappearence, but not right now. Also, I18 may be really cool, but my source wasn't able to tell me why, or indeed, anything about it other than that there is an I18 and it's really cool.

Going Rogue may well be as good as I hope it is, but I should know more about it tomorrow since it's going to feature heavily in the opening address.

Rather unrelated to CoH, but still amazingly cool, is the NVidia 3D rig, which I have now had a proper look at. I mentioned it earlier, but have since had a chat with the guy running it and tried it out and it really is an incredibly clever bit of kit. For 90% of games, this rig will transform them into full 3D, stereoscopic views. The magic is done in the drivers, the game does not need to be modified. Aion is running on the demo system and you stick a pair of polarising glasses on and suddenly the game is 3D. It really does look awesome.
Unfortunately, it currently doesn't work with OpenGL, which is what CoH uses, but for most games, which use Direct3D, it's amazing.

More tomorrow after the panels and before the banquet. I'll take notes to be sure to get stuff down.

Right, well, I'm registered at Hero-Con and I figured I'd start a thread here to tell people what's happening and whether it was all worth the money.

So far... I met Avatea briefly. She's doing one of the registration lines. She's tall! Hopefully get to talk to her properly, along with some more of those red names we all love so much (yes, I'm a suck-up) later at the 'Bevs With the Devs.'

We have a rather nice badge thingy in blue or red (hero or villain). They actually spelled my name right! We get board name, real name, and server. Up at registration, there were a lot more blue badges than red ones. Kind of what I'd have guessed.

There's a booklet with the timetable in it, which is pretty useful. I need to do some careful planning about when to go see which panels, and now I have an easier to reference source of the data.

There's the official T-shirt, which is okay, except I almost never wear T-shirts. Still, it is at least fairly CoH-ish, having the Hero-Con logo on the front.

Goodie Bag... Hmm... This is the kind of bag kids carry gym shoes in, except it's blue and black with the Hero-Con logo. Inside there's a lot of merchanising for Aion. I figure that's to be expected, but really I'm not that interested.
Then there's the weird stuff. A pair of blue/red 3D glasses (which makes more sense when you see the 3D rig that is being raffled off here; cool, but I suspect I'm not elligible). A 'Window Crawler Man' which I suspect will wibble-wobble down a window if I throw it at one (think I'll take it home as a present for the cat). There's a rather cool gizmo with 'Razer' written on it which lights up green in a cool sci-fi-ish manner (is this advertising some kind of game PC?). And some 'Gamer Grub' which appears to be sort of solid Red Bull (helps concentration, blah, blah; I hope it tastes bad because I'll probably not be able to get it back home).
And finally, the relevent stuff: both items are GR-based. There's a GelaSkin thing, which is basically an iPhone skin (sticker) showing the character Maelstrom. I don't own an iPhone and I can't see my sister wanting it. Then there's a sticker-thing which I can use, by sticking it to my laptop lid. This (thankfully) is of the delectable Desdemona, and includes a 50% off token for www.gamergraffix.com (I may check them out later).

Someone in line (I'll remember his board name later and post it) pointed out to me that Desdemona is clearly based on Bettie Page. Having had this pointed out I (a) can't see her any other way, and (b) find myself drooling over her even more. Sorry Ms Liberty, but I always did prefer brunettes and Dessy is just gorgeous.

Anyway, so, that's two CoH items and 4 Aion items, plus some random cute bits in the bag. Ravenswing gives it a 3 out of 5 score. It would have been 2, but the Dessy sticker is really awesome.

Back later with more excitement from San Jose.

Out of interest, what login bug?

I've largely stopped posting here, because when I do, I get trashed for having an opinion and I'm not exactly happy about the current RP situation so there seems little point.

I will try to post some stuff in the Lounge here over the next couple of days regarding what's being said at Hero-Con. May as well, since I'm the Euro-attendee.

It is encouraging that you have such faith, FFM.

You'll notice we still don't rate anyone official coming along to say that my worries are unfounded. I suspect this is because they haven't actually read the thread, not because we won't be getting the beta, but it is interesting all the same.

It's weird, since they merged the forums, a move which should result in everyone feeling more 'valued,' the level of service to the non-US customers actually seems to have gone down.

Thanks for that, AP. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This community really has gone downhill faster than an elephant on a bobsled.

I'm attending HeroCon, but this will not make me eligible for the GR closed beta because I'm not a US Citizen. I suspect this has to do with enforcing the NDA so...

Will the EU community be able to joing the GR CB? Ever?