Samuel_Tow

I was actually going to ask about this, but I neglected to do so. I don't have any characters with Propel to test this with, but having seen what smaller particles do, I had to wonder what's the status on the larger debris from Propel. Are those floating up through the ceiling or down through the floor, too?

I generally don't like to do full quotes, but a very rare thing has happened and I agree with the above post in its entirety. Try as I might, I see nothing I can disagree with.

It's a basic fact of game design that if you pool much of the reward at the end of a task, then the task itself begins feeling like a chore. If, on the other hand, you spread the reward throughout the task, such as every action brings some benefit, then it becomes actually desirable to take your time and clean house.

I may have mentioned before that I LOOOVE clearing missions, killing everything, searching every nook and cranny and so forth. This habit was born and bred in the original Diablo. In that game, the lower down you went, the harder the game got, but if you stayed on the same level and killed everything, you would be better prepared for the next one. In essence, every enemy I killed helped level me up, fund my gear and give me a chance for random drops before the difficulty spiked up. Even today, this is what I enjoy the most.

I enjoy games where rushing to the destination isn't as important as PREPARING for the destination. If we assume that certain tasks represent milestones, then I want to do everything I can BEFORE I hit that milestone, just so I know I'm not leaving anything behind. General-purpose levelling up and basic loot collection works very well in this way. It doesn't matter if I run three story arcs or one very long one, because I'm not fighting for the reward at the end, I'm fighting for the rewards on the way. When NPCs offer me rewards and I have the option to refuse them, I usually do, because I take their quests not for the rewards they offer, but because I'm looking for quests to do, and chances are the gold, drops and experience in those quests will be worth more than the reward at the end.

I fear that Dark Astoria might follow the path of Task Forces and Story Arcs and back-load its rewards, such that doing anything BUT stealthing through missions is a waste of time, and that would be very disappointing. I sincerely hope that enemies defeated on the way there aren't worthless in terms of Incarnate progress.

Oh, right, that! I meant to talk about that, too. There was a patch note which said that ragdolls have been fixed so they shouldn't get stuck as often... And they get stuck many times more often now. Almost half the time, actually. Worse still, even when they don't get stuck, they do REALLY weird things. People's knees will bend the other way, their heads will rotate back, their waists will bend at uncomfortable angles and the bodies will contort horribly in other ways. That seems like a downgrade to me.

Well, at least I know it's not my hardware or software that's doing it. It's disappointing, though. Coll physics were one of the big parts about why City of Heroes looked as good as it did, especially with the subtle physics effects in powers. This seems like a big botch that really hurts the look of the game, and it might explain why everything looks uglier to me these days.

Long ago when Inventions were first introduced and the game finally got "phat lewt," some of the better ones (I'm told they were better, anyway) were only available through a drop table generated by completing a Task Force. Quite a few people (ironically, myself NOT among them for my fear of Inventions) complained that this was unfair to people playing solo. After the "Quick Katie" fiasco and the introduction of Reward Merits, all of a sudden solo players were now able to generate Merits and use them to not only access the same, previously TF-only drop table, but also gained the ability to get the recipes they wanted specifically for a much higher price.

I can't recall anyone complaining about this since it was done, other than the "Too many currencies!" thing. People generating merits solo never seems to have become a problem, yet Merits drop for every story arc out there, including ones from Ouroboros. Essentially, damn near everything we do generates the currency with which we can buy "team only" recipes even outside the Market.

The reason I bring this us is I agree completely. I've never had any illusions that I could like EVERYTHING in a game this big, but for the most part, I've been able to avoid doing what I don't like and still make non-stonewalled progress. This is what needs to happen with Incarnate progression. If people like me are no longer corralled into all raids all the time or no progress for you, then we'll have much, MUCH less reason to complain about them. For instance, I hate the "very hard" TFs like the STFU and the LRSF. So? Who gives a crap? I don't like 'em, I don't do them, and I can snag the Merits, experience and other stuff in other ways.

We'll see if Dark Astoria provides. I want to believe it will, but but I also want to be realistic.

Of course it's based on player feedback. Matt Miller himself said the famous "Give the players what they want, within reason." You seem to want to imply that every time something is done through player feedback, it's because of a vocal minority. Not only is that unsubstantiated, it also insults the intelligence of the developers in the process by suggesting they're either incapable or unwilling to obtain a more comprehensive sample. Either this, or that they're easily pushed around.

Well, it's too bad you're in the minority on the subject, isn't it?

Any time someone refers to a change being caused by a "vocal minority" (which, at this point, has turned into a derogatory term), it's safe to assume that this person does not consider himself part of this minority. You've already stated that you aren't in what you consider to be the vocal minority behind the improvements to the Keyes Trial, therefore you are in the first option I mentioned - the people who didn't get what they wanted.

Of course, I'm extrapolating the obvious based on what you've said. "Those of you" who liked the Keyes Trial before and consider it to be too easy now did not get what you wanted. My original assumption is thus proven correct and your pompous posturing proven unnecessary, when the simple truth is you got slighted about Keyes and blame a fictional vocal minority over it. You can argue about the magnitude of it, but it doesn't change the basic facts that "vocal minority" has never been anything more than the desperate insult of people who didn't get what they wanted.

You must be really crap at posting if making, what... Three, four posts takes you so much time that you don't have much left to play the game. Maybe I'm in the minority of people who are able to make actual reasoned posts and still get time to play, as well as attend to real life. Or maybe you're in the minority of people who can't?

Or maybe you're just running out of material and reaching for every cheap shot insult you can find, and "you post too much and don't play the game and that's stupid" was the best you could find on such short notice. It you really are as bad at posting as you suggest, that's probably a reasonable guess, provided you're not exaggerating.

Let me break it down for you, as I see it. You don't see the need for Dark Astoria, otherwise you would be part of this aforementioned "vocal minority" and thus wouldn't refer to it as a vocal one. Thus, you're getting something you didn't ask for. You are, therefore, perpetuating the kind of "us vs. them" mentality that's damaging to the community.

Either that, or you really did want Dark Astoria and are therefore describing yourself as being in a vocal minority, therefore bringing the kind of self-depreciating rhetoric that spawns these "us vs. them" arguments in the first place.

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All of that said, nice dodge, changing subject like that, when the bigger question is how you know who's a majority and who's a minority at all with no access to data-mining of any kind. Or are you relying on anecdote impressions and word-of-mouth head counts?

Yeah, the "vocal minority" hypocrisy as perpetuated by people who didn't get what they wanted. Maybe you should blame your own silent minority for it, then?

Their opinions are apparently widely held enough to merit changes to at least Anti-Matter Island and the introduction of the Dark Astoria thing. Go figure.

See, that's kind of the thing. Ultra Mode set a new standard of graphical fidelity by which old pieces now seem out of place. I had one charming fellow insult me to my face and tell me that he was more bothered to look at my ugly low-resolution textures that didn't belong than I was to lose the original Metallic and the like. Pity I lost the recipe for tough cookies I offered him.

The thing is that you're right - pieces like these really don't fir the older thematic, but the solution isn't to stick to the older thematic, it's to "fix everything" as time permits... When time will never permit regardless of circumstances. I'm running too close to bashing people I respect over stupid things so I REALLY want to drop that line of argument here, be what may.

Instead, let me just say this - I don't see any real problem with leaving old pieces behind in the editor even if "better" versions of them are made.

We covered it, yes, but I don't mind bringing it up, since it is kind of relevant. The thing is - and that's one of the big things that we got out of the All Things Art thread - is that these changes are never as simple as "just" applying bump maps or "just" making higher-resolution versions of the old textures. They "just" added reflections to Tech Sleek and it went from something I wanted to use to something I'm never going to touch again because it's just absurd.

This is tangentially related to the "Time for CoH 2" thread, in the sense that you can't just take old textures and "clean them up." You have to make new textures, and while you're making new textures, you might as well take some creative liberties and put that snake skin patter into the leather or put that elaborate scratch pattern on the metal plate or reinvent whatever that pattern is on the Medieval pieces that's too low-res to see. You end up with pieces that resemble the old ones, but aren't the old ones.

For a somewhat relevant example, look at what UT2003 did with its remakes of original UT99 maps like Facing Worlds. Where the original was just two towers on two floating islands connected by rock bridges, the new one had significantly larger, more tech-looking towers with more floors, much greater distance between them and an inexplicable pyramid in the middle. It got to the point where they eventually had to release Facing Worlds Classic with I think UT2004 that was pretty much the old map, just with more detailing on textures and meshes.

The point is, "upgrading" the old costume pieces is never going to be just about taking the old pieces and making them better. It'll be about making new pieces that resemble the old ones, but reflect a different, more "modern" style of graphics. In his recent Deviant Art thread, David Nakayama had a pretty solid argument in favour of "extra" detailing, like the hex pattern on "that Kevin Spacey Super Man" movie. I don't want to misrepresent what the man has said, but what I got out of it was that the style City of Heroes is shooting for is one of stylised realism, which means basic flat textures aren't really desirable, and instead more minutely detailed ones - like the snake skin pattern on the new Circle of Thorns - are what they'd like to create.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of that. I don't hate it, so I'm not going to go out of my way to argue against it, but by the same token, I don't want to lose my old pieces that often don't have that over it. Like I said - new additions will more or less constitute new pieces drawn up in the spirit of the old ones, but not necessarily constrained into being exact copies. As long as that's the case, then I insist that I retain access to the old pieces alongside the new. If the new ones turn out the really just be objectively superior, then sure, I'll use 'em. If I end up not liking them... Why NOT keep using the old ones? I like the old Medieval set in its entirety and I'd hate to have much of anything happen to it, for instance.

This is why I would never suggest replacing our basic bodies with better ones - because in the world of artwork, "better" is a subjective term. DX11 graphics don't make an item better than it would have been under DX5 graphics, more detail isn't always superior to less detail as a post I ran across recently demonstrates and while I've gone up and down asking for a more muscular skin texture for women, I'd never claim that were "better." If it were, then I'm fully capable of modding my own game to make my own skins look like that, but then my characters who aren't supposed to be muscular become muscular and it looks off-model. Options and additions are the key to success, and it really benefits much of no-one to take them away. I'm not a big fan of the bodies we have now, but I still wouldn't want to lose the option to use them nevertheless.

Which, for large team requirements on slower servers, takes quite a while. Most people I speak with say they run Raids in half an hour, sometimes as little as 15-20 minutes. I've often seen raids broadcast as forming for longer than that.

Let me give you an example. I walk home from work, and on my way back home, there's a place where they make amazing gyros. I know, because I've tried them. This one day I was hungry, so I decided to stop and get one. I spent 30 minutes in that ******* slow line in the mid-day heat in July, most of it standing in front of a grill blasting radiant heat directly into my eyeballs. I got the gyro, though, and it was quite good. The next day I passed by that same place and wondered "Maybe I should get another one?" then quickly remembered my experience and thought "**** that! The line is a mile long and I'm not spending another hour in the sun! I'll eat when I get home."

David Nakayama originally went down a similar path right at the start of his All Things Art thread, talking about remastering old pieces to give them newer textures and more advanced graphical effects, to which many (myself among them) recoiled. You see, one of the key arguments a number of us made when reflective textures were introduced was that these be done as optional alternatives to classic, non-reflective textures. Specifically, many resented the loss of the traditional version of Metallic and Armour plate - a problem I still have with them - and many others lamented about how poorly they worked with the other old pieces that they used to work with very well. David's ultimate goal was to retouch all old metallic pieces to make them reflective, as metals should be, which brought about a large argument over instances where metal isn't reflective, is dull or has been painted over.

I can definitely see the problem, as I've pointed it out before, but the thing is - it's not something to worry about. David made his point, the players made theirs and the net result is the art team lead left with a better appreciation of how poorly people reacted to losing things they enjoyed having before, and that what may have been "better" from a purely graphics standpoint wasn't always an adequate replacement in people's eyes. After all, what do you gain by taking people's stuff, really? Why not give them options and, if need be, just hide the old ones where players who want them can still find them? That's still on the agenda, as far as I'm aware.

I don't just want new and better body parts, I want a better system for designing my own body. We have about eleventy billion types of jackets, but we have all of ONE naked skin upper body. Why is that? Shouldn't some people be skinny, others fat, others very muscular and others still just sort of square? Shouldn't some people's arms have bigger hands on the end without having larger muscles... Or being male? It's not just the clothes we wear that should be customizable. What should also be customizable is the bodies we inhabit, and they... Aren't that much more customizable than your average MMO, to be honest. Once you take off your shirt, you basically have control of skin colour and that's about it. You can't customize your naked body under the shirt by very much. You have the same one body as everyone else, with merely the option to take off your gear and show it. And in a game with this much customization, there really ought to be more to it than that.

Surprise! Fire up your Beta client, grab the new T9 VIP costume set and have a look. THEY HAVE! We now have a crystal right arm and a rock right arm, though with some issues. Check it out, then hop on over to the Beta forums and talk about it.

To be honest, in my ideal world we'd be able to design our characters' bodies completely separately of their clothes. What I mean by this is look at Tights with Skin - you can't put patterns on your skin because there have to be tights over it, which are a pattern and you can't have multiples. You can never, EVER, put any patterns on men's bare legs. For the longest time, they didn't even have bare legs, and the ones they have now are tights with skin by another name. Can't have leg tattos, even makeshift ones.

The clothes we have to wear (for obvious reasons) limit our ability to customize the bodies we wear them over, and that's a cryin' shame. Physical customization can do with an update. A big one, as a point of fact. And it's an update I would gladly - GLADLY - pay for.

Yes, because that's exactly what I said.

If you'd take a break from making yourself come off like an idiot and actually argue the points people have brought up in this thread instead of launching into a tirade about how "The game was better in my day!" and postulating from this that THAT game of 2005 would be good enough to release now if it didn't look like crap, then maybe there can be a discussion without name-calling and shenanigans. Either you simply didn't read the thread and just skimmed a post or two on the last page, or you're simply insulting people's intelligence when you claim there's no logic, when logic has been presented for your viewing pleasure in the preceding pages. Read that, consider that, and if you feel you can argue against it, then be my guest. That might actually be interesting to read.

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OK, per chance you're not going to simply ignore every argument I make, let me try to be constructive. I never said that a future super hero MMO can't succeed. What I'm saying is that both Champions and DC Online prove that that's not a given. Neither a big budget nor a recognisable fictional universe nor "City of Heroes done right," if Jack Emmert is anything to go by, is a guarantee of success. If anything, they're cautionary tales of how easy it is to falter with what looks on paper like a sure thing.

Moreover, while A super hero MMO of the future may be successful, it won't be City of Heroes 2, sold to the people who played City of Heroes 1. Whenever such a game is proposed, everyone goes tripping over each other to talk about all the things that need to be fixed and improved, but forgetting about all the things that need to be preserved. That's essentially what Champions Online was being marketed as - City of Heroes, only with long skirts, jet packs, fingers, a "points buy" system and loot. I warned people then as I do now - just because these things were improved doesn't mean it's a good game if the rest of the stuff they DON'T market isn't actually there. Which it wasn't.

The bottom line is that City of Heroes 2 is going to be a completely different game. There would really be no reason to make one otherwise, nor would there be enough money to offset replicating seven years of content without seven years to do it in. There's also very little hope that many of the ways that City of Heroes is broken in that we enjoy will make it into a sequel, considering how hard the development team has tried to just keep a lid on them over the years. It's not going to be "the same game but better." It won't be the same game at all, and THAT is the reason it won't be made.

If Paragon Studios ever decide to make a new super hero game, I'm more than convinced it'll be something else entirely.

Victory and Pinnacle are my servers of choice, I'm afraid. That's more or less where all my characters are. I did try Virtue once a long time ago, but it lagged horribly for me for some reason (that's connection quality and ping time) so I had to give up on that.

That's really my biggest problem with the zone - it's more than half filler, and I HATE filler. Missions that don't accomplish anything meaningful I can take away from the game are just a waste of time. It's like robbing a bank for fake money and then not even getting that. What, really, was accomplished here? If the missions are fun, that's kind of forgivable, but a defeat-all in a giant map for the tenth time with no real storyline or meaningful explanation just starts to grate. And I LIKE defeat-all missions!

If Croatoa had a story LINE, as opposed to a story scatterplot, I'd probably enjoy the zone a lot more. I'd enjoy it a lot more if it didn't end in a TF I've never done, too. Because, honestly, I feel robbed when I run through what feels like 3/4 of the "story" and the Skipper LeGrange just sort of trails off his last sentence and I'm left wondering what to do next, only to realise that there's nothing I CAN do next unless I put a team together. Yeah, that'll happen.

And then there's this. This is more or less how I feel about it. The enemies in Croatoa are pretty interesting. OK, the Fir Bolg are just Razorvines with pumpkins on their heads, but the rest are very cool. And I really, REALLY like the presentation of the Red Caps. They're these small, vicious, utterly evil creatures and EVERYONE finds them disturbing. That's a lot of very good build up for these guys. And I really like the way they talk. "Kelly be ours eventually." I can almost hear that in a deep voice in my head

But it doesn't go anywhere. I stopped a ritual, something happened, then I went on my way. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. Off to do other stuff and never speak of Croatoa again. I get that making more missions for it might be problematic and costly, but can't we at least reference it? The Banished Pantheon did something. What did they do? Was it intentional? Did they stand to gain something from it? How did the Circle react? Were they afraid? Were they intrigued? What about the Midnighters? Percy Winkely basically lives in Croatoa, yet no-one ever talks about it.

It's a great idea, but nothing meaningful ever comes of it, and it's never mentioned again. That's just a waste.

If you're shooting for low-brow, dismissive humour instead of an actual discussion, I suppose you don't. But if that's all you ever feel like saying to me, then you can just put me on ignore and save yourself the screen space.