Samuel_Tow

Any object wider than the character's hands in the Hurl animation would work with no ambiguous "clipping issues."

"F2P players" is neither a community nor a group nor even a demographic. Free players are just that - players. Talking about how worthless they are as human beings is akin to saying how much people in general suck. Any bad attitude you are likely to see out of a Free player, I can bet real money I've seen from a paying subscriber. Yeah, yeah, paying subscribers can be banned if they act like ********. Think any of them ever are? The worst I've seen is people getting banned off the forums, most temporarily, and almost all of those I've seen perma-banned at one point are now back. If anything, Free players are far more likely to attract severe penalties simply because they essentially have no rights, whereas VIP players and current subscribers have to go way, way, WAY overboard to even get a stern talking down to.

I sneer down my nose at "snobs" who evacuate to the VIP server not because I feel they are somehow elitist (if I do, it's for ENTIRELY different reasons), but more because that won't save them from the things they fear most. If having been a subscriber to this game for 7 years has taught me something, it's that $15 a month is in no way an obstacle to stop ******** and retards from making a nuisance of themselves. The VIP server won't save you from anything. In fact, there's a high chance that it's going to attract that sort of behaviour as Trolls will know where the most "fragile" people congregate, because if you're on the VIP server, chances are you're easily annoyed by disruptive players. If that ain't a high-value target, I don't know what is.

Personally, I intend to deal with people as actual people, not Free players or VIP players or any particular class. WHO a person is is far more important than what that person is paying or what social class said person belongs to. Because there's always a real, living, breathing person behind the stereotype, and a lot of the time this person is actually pretty nice. I've found that, when you get down to it, most people actually want to be nice, or at the very least don't want to be dicks, and most people you can reason with and get along with just fine. There are always the bad seeds and the black sheep, but those aren't restricted to any class, community or payment model.

I remember someone once said that the percentage of idiots in a society is always constant irrespective of the size of the society. Yes, it means that a deluge of F2P players will bring more idiots in, but it also means that no matter how much you restrict your community, you will never escape from running into idiots. And experience suggests that this is true.

Oh good god... I can just imagine the "fun" to be had with those Judgement powers which can hit, what? 50 targets? At least the ones I've heard tend to be naturally a bit more quiet so they don't resonate as much... But they still resonate a hell of a lot more than they should. There's "dramatically loud explosions" and then there's "I need new speakers." Or, in my case, since I have a subwoofer the size of an ice chest, there's "the neighbours are calling the police

Most probably. If your effect is naturally loud or naturally high-pitched, it stacks into a very nasty loud sound effect very fast, and that just doesn't make for very good audio. It's kind of painful to listen to, actually, especially when it exceeds the threshold of your speakers. I know WHY the system works the way it does, but I still feel that we should only ever hear a single effect from the target of the "explosion," which is the enemy target if we're talking Cone or Target AoE, the player if we're talking PBAoE or the reticle pseudopet if we're talking location AoE. Think about it - when you detonate a grenade in a crowd of enemy soldier, you don't get a bang for every soldier, you get one bang for the grenade itself. This is how our powers should sound.

In general, I'd like to see a few emotes that play with a weapon out, be it Titan Weapon or otherwise. Years ago, BABs forced all of our emotes to return players to a non-weapon stance because they had the tendency to play weird and unexpected animations otherwise (like /em bow playing a bow-firing animation if done with a Katana out), but I still feel we could use a few weapon animations anyway. They don't have to be specific to the weapon class, they can be as simple as "right-handed weapon" and "left-handed weapon." Simple things like sword pointing, standing on guard with a rifle and so on. I mean, the Architect's critters can use them. Why not us?

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Something else I want to discuss that's specific to Titanic Weapons is how the running animation we'll get with them out. There are a few ways to do it right and a LOT of ways to do it wrong. Ironically, Lineage II has great examples of both categories. In the "wrong" category is the Orc male, who carries his two-handed sword as though he has a bad back, dragging the thing behind him with both hands and almost visibly groaning under the stress. In the "right" category is the Orc female, counter-intuitively, who simply rests the sword on her shoulder, supports it with one hand and walks around with it casually and effortlessly almost like a bucket yoke.

What I really, REALLY do not want to see is just the basic run animation for Broadsword reused, but with an even larger weapon. NO-ONE RUNS LIKE THIS! Not with a weapon. You don't swing a long weapon around like a madman when you run, especially if that long weapon also happens to be a Titanic Weapon. It looks just silly, and in a bad way, and it must be killer on your arm.

The Titanic Weapons animation needs to be cool and incorporate carrying the weapon in such a way that it doesn't drag and doesn't swing around too much. Carrying it on the back with one hand holding it up, carrying it on the shoulder with one or two hands holding it or, hell, even carrying it in two hands like a shotgun are all acceptable.

We also need a decent stance with the weapon. Nothing too goofy or ridiculous, not a baseball strike stance or some kind of goofy "sword high in the air stance. Actually, Cloud Strife's stance is probably close to ideal. I'll try to get screenshots if I can.

My apologies. I've seen the "let me stab people with a hammer" suggestion so many times I'm starting to see it where it doesn't exist

I'm not sure if I agree with multi-weapon-class sets or not at this point. I guess we'll have to see what they do with Titanic Weapons first before I can pass judgement.

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Also, just because it bears repeating: I am extremely excited about this set. That's all I care about right now, and probably all I'll care about for at least the next few days. If anyone thought I complained too much, you're in for a couple of weeks of Happy Sam. And if I see more info on the set in that time, that period might be extended.

There's a problem with that which we've discussed in the past - not all weapons are appropriate to all animations. One big problem with using existing swords with two-handed animations is that BABs specifically and intentionally made them all with very short, one-handed hilts. Barring swords borrowed from Katana, there isn't anywhere for the character to grip, say, a Chineese Longsword with two hands. The hilt is barely large enough to accommodate one, whereas a two-handed weapon hilt would need to account not just for the size of two hands, but also leave a sizable gap between the hands so as to provide leverage. That can't happen with the current Broadswords.

Then there are War Mace and Battle Axe. They do have long handles, but almost all of the Axe and Mace options are very, very short. At least swords are generally long weapons that might not look goofy wielded with two hands (small daggers notwithstanding). Axes and Maces aren't long weapons. They're short, wide and kind of fat. Exactly the wrong kind of weapon to wield with two hands, at least if you want it to look good.

With this in mind, I'm VERY interested to see how they handle Titanic Weapons when the set will apparently span weapon classes.

Ah, yes, so much THIS! Amusingly, this is how it used to be before weapon customization. Because weapons weren't costume items but instead power system props, they couldn't scale to the model, and so they had to be big enough for the Huge model's hand to hold. That's why the female Legacy Broadsword (easily my favourite of the swords) is so big - it's the Huge model weapon.

For Titanic Weapons, this is precisely what I want to see. Make a weapon that looks really big on the Huge model, and just let other models use the same size weapon. Because when I think "Titanic," I think a sword that's as long from tip to hilt jewel as my character is tall from heel to skull cap, and about as wide from side to side as my character is from shoulder to shoulder. I don't want just a slightly bigget sword or axe. I don't want just a longer mace. I want something that's distinctively big enough to be called its own weapon. I want a weapon that, when stood up on the ground, is as big as I am. Something that would take real super strength and firm footing besides to wield, not just a slightly larger weapon.

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I'm going to set down a rule right now, and I will campaign for this rule to come true: When Titanic Weapons come out, I want the smallest of these weapons, when held by a Female character, to still be bigger than the biggest weapon the Huge model has access to right now, at least proportionately speaking.

I sort of dislike arguments like this because you can name-swap the powerset in question and make that apply to any single powerset in the entire game, new or old. In fact, having taken this out of context, people who read my post before your reply will assume you're talking about Titanic Weapons, when in fact the sentence I quoted is directed at time control.

Generally speaking, how "interesting" something is is purely a subjective evaluation. We can judge a powerset based on how innovative or different it is, how complex it is, how well-balanced it is, how popular it is in general fiction, but how "interesting" it is to any one person really comes down to how much said person likes said theme. I like giant weapons, so naturally, to me Titanic Weapons is very interesting. Far more interesting than Freedom or Incarnates or pretty much everything else. Judging by your avatar, you like a different style of fiction, and so to you, giant weapons will naturally not be as interesting. And that's fine, really - to each their own.

Personally, I feel weapon sets have been falling behind of late. Dual Pistols were cool, I will admit, but they were the first weapon set added to the game in a long time, and even then just about nothing from BABs Pistol Suggestions thread actually made it into the game. What we got for Dual Pistols was pretty much what we had for Thugs Masterminds with a slight retouch to make the slides on the Automatics move. However, we got something like two new guns - two revolvers - and nothing else.

I firmly believe that weapon sets in general still have quite a while to go before we run out of interesting things to do with them, and they can use a LOOOT more custom weapon models before they see an even half-way decent selection. I'll admit that Broadsword has more or less enough weapons to choose from, even for me, and Dual Blades by extension have almost as many. Everything else, however, is hurtin'.

Katana has only a mere handful of options, many of which are actually prop dumps from out of the game. Even with the Vanguard Katana in there, it still doesn't have enough. Battle Axe is similarly low on options, with many of the options being... Weird and many of them being very, very small, though in its case, the three Cimeroran Axes are a nice addition. War Mace is even worse, with so few decent maces in there and so much weird crap like wooden cudgels, baseball bats, billy clubs, two types of pipe wrenches, the "microwave on a stick" and all that. There are a mere handful of actual maces to choose from, and not all of them are good. Assault Rifle is EVEN WORSE, with almost its entire cadre of custom options consisting of props dumped from NPCs, complete with low-res textures, low-poly models and untintable paintjobs. And Archery is even worse than that, consisting of I believe no more than five, maybe six bows, not counting the multiple versions of the Composite Bow, and a lot of those kind of look like the same bow anyway. And Pulse Rifle... Oh, you poor powerset. Last I checked, Pulse Rifle had two options - the stock Pulse Rifle and the "I shoot lasers out of my bagpipes."

As far as I'm concerned, we can always use more weapon sets and, beyond that, we can always use new props for the old weapon sets. I've said it before that I'd pay money for this, and it looks like the development team will make me put my money where my mouth is. And I couldn't be happier for it.

I actually am legitimately excited about this, believe it or not. Enough to not have the heart to ***** about the F2P model or argue about Incarnates and whatnot. I know I should probably curb my expectations and not hope for anything amazing, but... Yeah, no, in this case I can't help it. I've been wishing for something like this for far too long, and right now that's all I can think about.

And, really, I can't quite see how they could screw this up. Sure, the animations will be goofy, but that's to be expected with "Titanic Weapons." As long as the weapons look heavy and solid, the swings have weight behind them and the impacts are explosive and forceful, I'll be happy with the visuals. I don't see much to screw up with the set's mechanics, either. So long as they don't put in Grant Cover or Swap Ammo in there, I don't see what could go wrong. You attack more, you attack faster. This may back-load the set's DPS somewhat, but I already play Brutes so backloading damage isn't that big of a problem for me.

I know I've said before that I expect every cool thing the developers add to be marred by some kind of poor decision, but I'm not going to be preaching that in this case. I want to hope this comes out exactly how I wish it would... Even if I don't know exactly what it is I'm wishing for beyond the most general.

I'm kind of the same way, myself, though not quite as stringent. I'll usually only reuse powersets if I can make characters sufficiently distinct from each other, both in terms of visuals and in terms of concept. I've used Broadsword something like five times, I believe, and I feel each use has been worth it as it's been in the hands of a unique character each time.

What I REALLY don't want to do, though, is repeat entire characters. The only time this has happened was when I made two SS/Inv Brutes, and this was special circumstances at play. One Inv/SS Brute was already made and brought up to 30 when I rerolled a far, far more important level 50 character and she had to have the right powersets irrespective of anything else.

I actually have only three shield characters so far, and unless we proliferate weapon sets across ATs, that's all I'll ever have. To my sensibilities, using a shield without a weapon just looks goofy, so I've only ever made a Sword/Shield Scrapper, an Axe/Shield Brute and a Mace/Shield Brute. That's all I COULD make.

Good point. You'll never satisfy all the people all the time with any single set of animations, and I don't think they want to offer us a huge variety of custom ones, so it makes sense to instead bank on impressing people with a wide selection of custom weapons, which seem to take comparatively less time and effort to make than unique custom animations. I know that the right weapon could easily sell me on at least three characters pretty much right off the bat.

You don't wield a "Titanic Weapon" in a graceful or beautiful manner. The point behind having these things is to have a very heavy, very big weapon which wins by virtue of sheer mass and impact force, not fancy footwork. Grace and beauty is achieved with a light precision weapon like Katana, which we already have. This is the kind of weapon War would use.

...

And in saying this, I finally figured out what I'm going to do with a particular concept I've had in mind for a while... So make that FOUR Titanic Weapons users when this comes out.

This is something which never fails to confound me when people bring up how many weapon sets we have and how we don't need any more - we keep getting non-weapon ones all the time. Yes, Going Rogue brought us Dual Pistols, but it also brought us Demon Summoning, Kinetic Melee and Electric Control, all non-weapon sets (even demons). And now there's talk of Time Manipulation, another set that I'd bet my peg leg won't use a weapon. However, no-one ever seems to complain that we're getting too many non-weapon sets or that we don't have enough weapon sets, and those of us who genuinely want more always end up feeling like we're guests at someone else's party.

Let me put it this way - the last weapon set I recall us getting was Dual Pistols. The last one before that was Dual Blades. The last one before that was Archery. And I don't recall one before that. I'm sure I'm forgetting something or other, but I still don't feel like we somehow have too many, or like it's somehow time to do something else.

Personally, I foresee either smashing/lethal or pure smashing, just based on what we've seen from the suggested weapons. The buster sword would obviously be a cutting weapon, I think the railroad crossing sign would be a primarily smashing weapon and the tree stump with blades stuck to it looks like it might be 50/50, so I call it smashing/lethal. In either case, its damage type isn't what will be making it unique. Its animations and "gimmick" in the form of momentum will do that, and I actually look forward to trying both.

I could actually see the weapon being given a machanic to swap between smashing and lethal damage similar to what Dial Pistols get, come to think of it. Swing the sword sharp end first and it cuts. Swing the sword flat end first and it smashes. One does defence debuff and bleeding, the other knockback and stun. I doubt this will happen, but it just popped into my head and I thought I'd share.

I have other characters to level up, myself, luckily. I think I'm batting at 50 right now, spread between Victory and Pinnacle. I have a few I "can't play" until we get sets proliferated, new sets added, customization options introduced and so forth, but there are still many I can play in the meantime.

The thing with Xanta is I kind of WANT to play her, now more than before with the prospect of Titanic Weapons, but I have to wait until this is done. I am legitimately excited about the game for the first time in quite a while, to the point where I honestly couldn't give a crap about all the things that piss me off. Give me my toy to play with and I'll shut up... So long as it doesn't suck

Would you believe me if I told you that I'm already using Broadsword for that character to simulate superhuman strength?

And, yeah, I can't play this one since I might be rerolling her. I hate the waiting game, but if it turns out like I hope it will, then it will be worth it.

That's actually a pretty neat idea. They've done something like this before, but it's always been by manually editing specific rooms and entering them in as unique maps, like the three or four Freakshow maps we have. I like your idea better, but I'm not sure what the tech could be to make this happen. If it's something as simple as 5th Column logo crates piled in the corners or Nemesis boilers on the walls or Hellion logos sprayed on the walls, they may get away with a system for props that enable themselves dynamically. In general, though, having instances be slightly different based on the faction in them is a good idea.

Varying lighting levels in an instance is another good idea. I fear that their lighting rig for instances... Doesn't exist, however. I'm not sure how their light sources are hooked up and if it's possible to just change colour and level on the fly, or if there are zillions of little light sources that have to be adjusted by hand. Still, I approve.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I find that given how much time we spend crawling through instances, that a LOT more time should have been spent on making new ones and expanding the old ones. I realise that art assets are at a premium, but instances are important. One of the most important aspects of the game, in fact, visually speaking, right up there with costumes. Far, FAR more important than the overworld, as a point of fact. The overworld we travel through, but instances we practically live in.

The lack of a real alternative doesn't help, considering this game doesn't exactly have able competition. Many times you'll see people display hugely negative attitudes towards providers of services that they need to survive, such as food and water, as well as high convenience commodities like heating and electricity. I happen to have access to precisely ONE electricity provider, and that provider's monopoly allows them to have crappy services and overcharge me significantly. And while I may be angry at them for it, I do want to have electricity, and that's my only option. The only dissonance occurring in these situations is wanting a service but not liking the only means by which you can acquire it.

I should also point out that I've mostly seen press releases and official letters speak about post Freedom game content, and they all use carefully-crafter phrases like "more value" and such that can have multiple interpretations.

I'm actually reminded of something Black Scorpion said before the launch of I19.5, that they are "looking into" adding a solo path for Incarnate progress. People immediately beat me over the head, saying "See? See? You are getting a solo Incarnate path in I19.5, they just haven't announced it yet!" Then I19.5 came, and nothing. Then I20 came, and nothing. Now I20.5 is around the corner and still nothing. And now that we know most of what's in I21, still nothing. So, no, that wasn't a promise, a fact which was clear to me from the moment I read it, yet it didn't stop people from honestly believing it was a guarantee.

When I say "I want a red name to say this," I mean say it in clear, unambiguous terms and say it specifically. In this very thread, Zwillinger took the time to say "Your monthly subscription price will stay exactly the same." One sentence, simple, direct, to the point. And I believe it, because there's nothing in there that could be misinterpreted even if I were looking to twist his words. "I worry that my subscription will cost more." "No, it won't. Zwillinger said so." And he did.

How much content we get for our subscriptions post Freedom as compared to how much we got prior to it is probably not as easy of an answer to give, considering there's no good way to measure content, so I don't really hold it against the development team how they're phrasing themselves. Clearly, they don't have all the content they'll offer pinned down and haven't finalised the prices, so giving us a full price list probably won't happen. But that, when you get down to it, is really the one true way to give context to the promises - tells us exactly what we'll get and exactly what we'll need to purchase.

That will happen in time, and my subscription isn't going anywhere in the meantime. At around I19.5, I said I'll give City of Heroes another couple of years, and I believe the game is still well within this time frame. Even if Freedom launched December 31st, 2011, it should still be well within that window. And if my fears and mistrust prove unfounded, well - I'll vote with my wallet and support the developers.

I certainly hope so, despite all I've been saying. Getting new costumes and removing the locks on old costumes is something I'd easily pay money for with not a cringe or a grumble. This is pretty much THE biggest reason I have for liking Freedom.

To a large extent, yes. This is kind of a weird paradox of reward design that I've seen quite a few times. The people who are the most likely to be motivated by costumes are the people least likely to be motivated by grinding and hardcore end game. That's not to say that "raiders" don't care about costumes and that "tailers" will never raid, just that their priorities don't always overlap.

As with the above, I'd be much happier if most of that stuff ended up in the Paragon Market. I can live without the Lineage II armour, though. Yeah, it's cool, I will admit, but it's not cool enough to argue with one-track minds about how it's a status symbol of Incarnate power.

This stance presumes that communication and discussion with the development team are impossible, as though they will never, under any circumstances, be influenced by community concerns, opinions and desires. It also contradicts Matt Miller's "Give the players what they want." mantra which I'm pretty sure ought to still be in effect, albeit a little dated by now.

I'm obviously not saying that just because I don't see costumes as end game content that the development team should kowtow to my whim and hand them out for free. Far from it. But I AM saying that this point is worth discussing, both among ourselves so we can build consensus, or at least be aware of each-other's stances, and with the development team in an effort to both make our feelings known and possibly even affect change.

The development team is not made up of Nemesis Automatons. These are real people with actual human brains inside their skulls, and these people can be appealed to. Yes, what they say goes, but I can still argue what it is that they ultimately say. It's down to the individual developer, obviously, but I have argued with some degree of success with quite a few developers, both past and present. That even includes Jack Emmert himself, who despite all the bile he gets here, was at least open to discussing his decisions, even if that rarely yielded results.

If you hold it as a fact that the game is whatever the developers make it and us discussing this is pointless, then you could simply go ahead and shut down the forums for all they matter.

I've actually suggested adding "fake exterior windows" to instanced maps, like what you have in that one Dr. Aion lab in the future in Time After Time. These wouldn't see out into the actual overworld, but into instances of it with limited view distance. Essentially, you'd have one large "room" on the other side of the glass that has a chunk of an existing zone in it, or even has a rearranged zone like what we got for the old outdoor instances. Essentially, just stick an outdoor instance on the side of an indoor instance and put in a few windows, if that makes sense.

Pardon my ignorance, but since when are emotes considered to be end game content?

Powerlevelling with always exist. It's like trying to cure desire - it ain't gonna happen. However, the point of all of these fixes is to keep it from being an epidemic. There were times when all anyone ever did was sit in the Portal Corp Courtyard and beg for powerlevelling, including plenty of level 1 characters. This is no longer the case. These days, everyone is playing the game to various degrees, running missions, doing proper teams and suchforth. Yes, people are still gaming the system, but not by as wide a margin, not in as great a number and in not as hands-off a manner. Powerlevelling hasn't been eradicated, and never will be, but it's been rendered harmless, for the most part.

I consider this a success, and would be against restarting the powerlevelling craze again by selling experience boosts, raw experience points, levels or other high-profile items like that. In order for people to progress through the game, they should have to play the game. I cannot respect any online game that asks you to pay to play it then asks you to pay to pay so it can play itself. The Architect exploits prove that plenty will pay for that, and I believe they also proved that that's not a good thing.

If you have to sell something, sell either services like server transfers and renames, or otherwise "cool to have" stuff that don't make people any more powerful any quicker.