Samuel_Tow
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Posts
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I couldn't find it on the Male head, but I may have missed it. I do know for a fact it's not on the Female head, however, since my costume files that had it won't load any more.
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Well, I found need for some Victorian attire, so I decided to go back to the Steampunk pack on Test and see if I can't come up with anything new. Here's Carmilla (temporary name):
That's a Steampunk jacket, chest detail, sleeves, belt and choker. The rest is the Magic Pack High Collar cape (obviously), matte gloves and low stilettos, cargo pants (closest I had to a fabric bottom) and the Disco top, which gets overridden by the fake arms from the Steampunk sleeves. The face is one of the "new ones" and the hair is that bun which I think came with the Wedding pack, but I don't remember.
The idea behind this one is that she's elegant, striking and also a complete evil shapeshifter monster. I'll obviously need a second costume slot for her transformation, but I intend to use her other form to fight. Just doesn't feel right to fight in that dress.
*edit*
And sorry about the dark screenshot, but you try taking a pic of a black costume in the Rogue Isles at night
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Quote:I haven't checked, but I know for a fact that costume pieces can be placed at different offsets depending on what you're wearing under them. This is precisely what BABs did with Shields back when over half the glove options clipped through them. I imagine this would be a necessity for such backpacks, as well, only without BABs, it's unlikely to happen.Originally Posted by ThePill
How does it look when wearing a jacket?
*edit*
Though, are you suggesting that the backpack was intended to go over the Steampunk jacket and as such never even aligned with a non-jacketed back? That would make sense... -
I actually went through exactly this kind of trouble trying to purchase Section 8: Prejudice because whoever was in charge of distribution failed to release the game in Europe. I got a friend of mine to get it for me, but it's been mountains of trouble since.
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Quote:Personally, I'm wary of time-gating mechanics in general, because they essentially prevent me from playing the character I want to play when I want to play him, how I want to play him. This is actually the central source of my dislike for forced teaming events. When I log on a character and I feel like doing something, I want to up and do it. But what if there are no teams forming for it? What if no-one wants to run that content (say, Sewer Trial)? What if I've done it within the last 20 hours and I can't repeat it for another 6 hours? What then?Originally Posted by Forse
Time-gates. Instead of time-gating activities, instead have a monitor on the number of times ran. If you've not done it before, or it has not been done in the last 48 hours... it's on normal level. If you've done it in the last 48 hours, spawns are set at x1.5. If you've done it in the last 24 hours, spawns are doubled, and all mobs have a passive increase to resistance to all. In the last 12 hours? Look forward to 3x the spawn with a passive increase to resistance and damage. Immediately trying to re-play the same mission to farm it? Say hello to 4x the spawns with an increase to resistance and damage and a chance of spawning extra bosses. None of this applies if you're in a group.
I don't so much mind the time-gating on Tip missions because they're just one small subset of the things I could be doing, so even if I'm time-gated on tips, I can run story arcs - a mission is a mission is a mission. However, when I'm time-gated on the ONLY activity I want to do, then this becomes a problem. I suppose the assertion is that I can just swap to another character and essentially play several at the same time via alternating, that isn't actually an option for me. I thrive on familiarity. Whenever I alt to a character, the first day or two are actually quite unpleasant, until I manage to get a good feel of this character's powers, what he can and can't do, where all of my binds are, how fast my powers recharge, what I want to slot for the next couple of levels and so forth. It's only after I settle into the character that I fully enjoy the game.
This is a problem with certain game design decisions, since grind content REALLY drags when you sit down to do it over and over again for lack of an alternative path of progression. If I were inclined to swap between three or four characters per play session, it might not feel as repetitive, but I stick to one character for a week or two at a time.
It is for all of that why I don't appreciate time-gating mechanics. -
Personally, I find that the best way to find a character you like is literally that - FIND a character you like. You need to expose yourself to as much of other people's fiction as you can. Watch movies, play games, follow series both cartoon and anime, read books and comics and discuss people's concepts with them. What you need for a good character is a solid foundation of things you like. You don't have to have a solid theory or explanation of exactly what your preferences are, but if you've seen enough things that struck you as cool or interesting, then you have a basis.
From there, I'd suggest picking a template for a character concept based off of one or more existing characters made by other people. Start with something solid, then tweak that to be even MORE like what you enjoy. It's a fact of life that we all have unique tastes and one person's character won't be an EXACT match for another person, so take a couple of characters you like, mash them together, weed out the things that bug you and replace them with other traits you prefer, instead.
City of Heroes' primary draw, at least in my opinion, is that it gives you the tool to make exactly what you like, your own action figure, as it were. You just need to figure out what it is that you like.
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I'll give you an example with my namesake character: Samuel Tow. Sam is a combination of about five different characters, last I counted.
1. My original inspiration for him was Zero from the MegaMan X series, specifically MegaMan X4. I loved the concept of one tiny dude with a laser sword being able to take on huge juggernauts by being fast, nimble and dangerous with a sword.
2. Then there's Oni's Konoko. What I liked about her story is the concept of being implanted with a genetically-engineered organism which gave her incredible strength, speed and skill, but at times served to alter her personality.
3. After that, there was Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack. Jack proved that you could have a man with a conventional (if blessed) sword fighting off evil robots and giant enemy crabs without it looking awkward, as well as giving me the concept of the hero alone against the world who overcomes it all, as well as the concept of the wanderer.
4. Afterwards, there was Sands of Time's Prince of Persia, who for the first time gave me a visual representation of what true acrobatic combat might look like when not choreographed, as well as a good sense of unknown-terrain parkour.
5. Solid Snake gave me a good idea for a look, that sort of jumble of "military stuff" as a suit, plus the attitude of the serious, professional operative.
6. Finally, there's Final Fantasy's Sephiroth, for the concept of the white-haired pretty boy swordsman who's so skilled everyone's afraid of him. I'm not a big fan of the literal character, but I can appreciate the concept.
When you put that all together, you end up with a guy who has a soldier's background, but underwent a genetic experiment to turn him into a super soldier. He's proficient with all weapons, but favours a special overpowered sword with which he can cut anything. He's functionally ageless but still mortal, and his super powers come at the cost of sanity, at the hands of a parasitic intelligence. The stronger he allows himself to be, the deeper he falls under the influence of that intelligence and the more dangerous he is to his friends. Roll all of that together into a string of difficult experiences in an alternate timeline and a fear of emotional involvement and you have a character who's pretty cool, is allowed to be overpowered, but still has weaknesses that limit what he can do, as well as shape him as a character.
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Really, my advise is to find things you like and then make things a lot like them. The trick is to make them just different enough from the source material to be unique, but not different enough to lose their narrative impact. -
I'm actually kind of surprised people are A-OK to be treated like cattle. Yes, indeed, we are so incapable of self-preservation that we need to be herded into doing whatever a higher intelligence believes is better for us and occasionally milked for money. And all of this so we can live docile lives appropriate for generating the most income for the lowest cost of investment.
And this doesn't strike you guys as insulting?
I'm not making this up. Every time the subject comes up, the usual arguments are:
1. "It's a business, they're out to make money not to entertain you."
2. "You don't know what's good for you, the developers know better."
3. "You're in the minority, you don't matter."
It's not hard to construct the above argument from those repeating arguments, even if I did inject a little melodrama to tie it all together. -
I found something else noteworthy now that I've had a chance to actually play around with the Steampunk gear: The baclpack seems to be set VERY far off the character's back. Have a look:
The backpack seems to be anchored at about the level of the kidneys, and there's a huge gap between the top of the pack and the actual back. At this point, I think I'd prefer the backpack to clip with my character's back a LOT more than it does now, so as to feel like it's flush against it, not held by one raised surface and hanging off at an angle.
This is actually a problem with shields, as well, I'm noticing, especially the Vanguard shield - prop costume pieces seem to be set with too cautious an offset off the character, ending up looking like they're floating on air. -
Well, David said that lost costume pieces should go here, and I have a fairly big one: A whole entire face! I only have a screenshot of it from the female model, but I can't find it on any of the three models. I'm talking about this face:
This face was there at least as recently as 146 days ago, which is the last time I logged the character who had it in. I can't tell at what point between then and now it was that it disappeared, but pleas, put it back.
*edit*
According to my costume file, the face in question has a system name Texture1 !X_Skin_V_Face_Reptillian_01, which reminds me that in the editor it was called Reptilian. The face is now gone and saved costume files which had it refuse to load. Not good.
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Also, I don't think this constitutes a necro-thread. David made this one to report "lost" costume items, it's official, so I consider it still just as relevant now as it was back then. Hopefully, he hasn't stopped reading it when it sunk off the front page. -
Quote:Well, that's just the rub - what I want more than anything else is power customization and powerset proliferation. More realistically, I want COSTUMES. At character creation, more specifically, so I can be inspired to make more, newer characters. I find that the game has more than enough content 1-50, personally, even for a solo player. I'll never refuse more, but I'm not really all that much a content person. I care about my characters, less so about the world around them.Originally Posted by Arilou
I'm just curious: What DO you want? The last big updates we've gotten pretty much every kind of content update (story arcs, tf's, trials, low-level content... The only thing lacking is PvP) I'm genuinely curious. (The two things that they've kind of put on a back-burner is of course customization for pool powers and power proliferation, but I'm fairly sure they're going to get working on that at some point)
That is to say, I'm not a content person provide enough content exists, which it doesn't in the case of the Incarnate system, but I'm pretty sure "enough" will never exist for it as it does for the rest of the game.
Personally, I want more ways to customize my characters. More custom animations, more custom effects, more colour option on existing effects (Curse you, Ice powers!), more costumes as broadly available as possible, more mounting points on our characters, a more extensive character editor which allows for greater asymmetrical design. I want muscular women, I want bubble face helmets, I want jet packs, I want back packs, I want wraparound cloaks, I want butt capes, I want skirt robes and long skirts, I want better long hair for men, I want a greater selection of non-robotic options for Robotic Arms, I want more types of Monster legs, I want better animal faces with selectable muzzles as face details, I want more faces with higher-resolution textures.
I could replay this entire game, as is, a thousand times over counting from now and never get bored if I had enough freedom to replay it with a truly different character every time, a character that matched what's in my head as perfectly as possible. I don't need new things to DO, I need new things to BE, and a decent game to be those things in will suffice. -
Quote:Here's the thing - City of Heroes is not your typical MMO. I remember in the days of old when we used to pat ourselves on the back how we're here as much because we like THIS game as because we don't like OTHER games. Now that City of Heroes has competition, a lot of why people come here is exactly what sets it apart - the customization. That's a large reason why I find that stuffing customization behind gates is a bad idea. The broader the tool kit players have to work with, the more powerful the customization.Originally Posted by Arilou
And that's fine. You're not responding. But some people are. Are more people like you than people who like unlocking stuff? (And remember there's a bit of an exclusivity thing as well "look, I'm special!") I don't know. Maybe the devs datamine these sorts of things.
Personally, I don't think competing with conventional MMOs in conventional ways is a good idea. City of Heroes simply isn't competitive, not against the more popular MMOs out there. If I wanted raid grind or costume drops and greater challenge, I would not have come to City of Heroes. I'm here because this is the only game which allows me to eat my cake and have it, too.
I've been accused of being selfish when I say this whole thing is moving the game in a bad direction for everybody, accused that I'm saying it because only I don't like it. But I feel that Paragon Studios aren't playing to the game's strengths, and haven't for a very long time. They're trying to invent brand new strengths for the game, and for a seven year old game, I honestly don't see that having nearly enough of an impact to justify the immense cost of development.
These costumes are a prime example. Yes, they look... Decent. But how many people are actually going to use them? Now how many CAN - lots of people have 50s. But how many WILL? Matt Miller seems to regard these costume pieces as somehow objectively "better," and as such worthy of being a level 50 unlock. In this, Matt Miller is provably wrong, because there exists no such thing as a costume piece which is "better" without the context of the rest of the costume it exists in, the theme of the character using it and the aesthetic preference of the player behind the wheel.
Not a single costume piece is objectively "better" than any other piece. Even the low-res, low-poly junk left over from CoH launch still has uses that far surpass those of newer costume pieces. For all the new fancy helmet designs, for instance, the old medieval "bucket helms" are still far superior at what they are - medieval helmets. I don't care how marvellous a tech-looking helmet gets added, if I want a medieval knight, I'll use one of those. I still use one of those, as a point of fact, and have no plans to change it.
Costumes are exactly the WRONG thing to gate. Anything else I can see gating behind anything else, but not this. -
Quote:Oh, they do have a choice. They can either attempt to "give the players what they want," as Positron once promised, obviously to the best of their ability and keep people coming back because they're satisfied... Or they can build their game on Skinner box design and keep people coming back because they are clinically addicted. One design approach makes for a better game than the other.Originally Posted by Arilou
And it's not as if the devs have a choice: The game needs to turn a profit or they won't get paid, and thus can't offer any kind of content at all.
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Quote:While my disappointment has been going stead for about six months now, if not more, I'm pretty much in the same boat. My thought process went something like:Originally Posted by Ashen_EU
Like I said, I don't mind. In fact for me this update has nothing I can physically use bar the aoe buffs. It would be nice to be able to get the auras, but my disappointment lasted all of five minutes.
1. Oh, cool, costumes!
2. Wait, there has to be a catch.
3. They're level 50 only.
4. Son of a #$%!
5. Fine, whatever, another patch note I don't care about. What else is in there?
6. AoE Buffs. Huh... Well, that'll make my Masterminds a lot less tedious. Cool. -
Quote:You have a very strange view of a business model. The kind of view which sees customers as cattle to be herded into whatever position earns you the highest revenue while keeping them as docile as possible.Originally Posted by Arilou
If people play this game for the character creation they are going to gate custom parts behind content, so that those people *keep* playing and thus earn them money.
That's the MMORPG business model.
This completely ignores that people PLAY THE GAME for the character creation aspect of it. Playing dress-up doll gets really old really fast as costume addicts will tell you. The point of making a great costume isn't to sit back in your chair and go "By Jove! I made a great costume!" and then go do something else. It's to PLAY THE GAME with this costume.
Here's a personal anecdote: By far the characters I play the most are those with the costumes I love the most. They aren't always great costumes or interesting costumes, but they're ones that I like. I play them because I like them, and the more I play them, the higher they get in level and the longer I spend in the game. By contrast, characters whose costumes I hate get left behind to rot at a low level for a while until either I give them a better costume, or I delete them for ones with a better costume.
What keeps me playing the longest is being allowed to play the character I want when I want to play that character for as long as I want to play it. Making me play characters I don't like with the vague promise that I may like them more some day is about as convincing an argument as making me keep striking my thumb with a hammer with the promise that I'll stop feeling the pain eventually. If I'm dumb enough to do it even once, I'm not going to want to suffer the pain until it improves.
Keeping me from my costumes keeps me from playing the game. In fact, I have a thought experiment for you: Take away ALL costume pieces out of the editor and force everyone to start the game in their underwear until they start unlocking pieces at level 10, one by one through specific tasks. Then tell me how many people stick around for your "business model."
So here's a thought - LET ME SPEND REAL MONEY FOR THIS. Don't gate it behind arbitrary limits. Put a dollar price on it and I'll probably pay it. Put a time price on it, and I probably won't. Seriously, how much time do you think this will buy for anyone?Quote:Originally Posted by Arilou
Except that people have proven themselves wlling to spend a lot of time (and time=money in the MMO world) in order to earn cosmetic rewards. -
Quote:For powers. Not costume pieces. Not in a game who bills itself as having the best customization around. Boy, it's like I'm looking through a wormhole into Jack Emmert explaining gating Capes at level 20.Originally Posted by Arilou
"locked behind arbitrary gates" is kind of the point of MMO's. It's called "character progression".
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Quote:Aha, I found the the perfect quote that sums up everything I feel is wrong with the game at present. OK, then. Thanks to Matt Miller's explanation, I now know not to waste my effort on those pieces. I guess when they gave out the Vanguard pieces at character creation, they had to have SOMETHING which was locked behind arbitrary gates, but knowing that makes it easy to ignore.Originally Posted by Positron
The Ascension Armor is NOT some random costume set that we locked into the Incarnate System. Every step of its design was under the assumption of only available through the Incarnate System, and only to level 50s. David Nakayama knew this before he ever started working on the armor, in fact it was a driving motivation in the concept art he delivered. He specifically made something that could be used in pieces to augment your characters existing costume to give it the Im an Incarnate flair.
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Straw men aside, I honestly don't see why the Incarnate costume pieces have to be level 50+, especially when that comes with a change to make other level-locked pieces available at character creation. I, personally, have no problem with putting in the WORK to unlock these things, provided they're unlocked for my characters at character creation. But I literally have ZERO use for a costume set that only unlocks at level 50.
And the set isn't even all that good. Yeah, it's new, but again - costumes only have value within the context in which they are used. I have, as of the time of this posting, 9 level 50 characters. They are, point for point:
A Slid Snake-looking dude with a sword
An unkillable girl in shorts and a vest
A dude in a military uniform
Another dude in a military uniform
A girl in in a leotard and metal boots and gloves
A huge green woman in hotpants and medieval armour
A huge black woman in animal furs and chains
A tall Indian woman in a trenchcoat and miniskirt
A man in a white uniform
NONE of these people make sense to have any of the stuff for Incarnates right now. I do have a few characters who could use those earlier in the levels, but they don't have access to the pieces and likely won't within the timeframe that I care to play them. I do have a few good ideas for NEW characters, but it will be a cold day in hell before I play a character for 50 levels with a placeholder costume.
Locking costume pieces behind level 50 is a dick move because by that point, characters are formed, solidified and decided, at least in my head. I make characters with a consistent idea of what I want them to be, and I rarely change my mind on the matter. If I could start them with these costumes, then GREAT. If I can't start them with these costumes, then I don't want them. And that is the WORST thing one can do with costumes, is to put them in that kind of dilemma.
I mean, seriously, what is this hoping to achieve? Give people their "epic loot" look? Because that's what those look like. Like someone just came out of a raid with their brand new giant shoulder pads with fire burning out of them while skulls tied to chains float above. Who does it hurt to make those a global unlock?
Why must EVERY good addition to this game be ruined by an equally big BAD decision? -
Quote:Which is all that needed to be said and this whole mess would have been avoided. If I'd read the patch notes and seen, I'd have stopped to look what this "alt-friendly" option is, discovered what it took and been mildly bemused before moving on to the other things I actually cared about. However, when I read "solo" in there, my reaction was more: "Hold the phone! Solo option? Like, for real? I gotta' see this!" Only it turned out it's like Top Cat's free soda at 10 cents a bottle.Originally Posted by Mind_Over_Matter
The Voucher option is less "solo-friendly" and more "alt-friendly."
Seriously, if Marketing can avoid saying stupid things, we can avoid arguing about them on the forums, because no matter how stupid a thing shows up in official communication, SOMEONE will make it a point to defend it till the bitter end. Yet Marketing just couldn't resist, could they? Marketing, or whoever wrote that tripe.
It's not even the change I mind, personally. Tradable merits, whatever. It's what it was called that pisses me off, because it's a lie. -
Quote:Yup. I have no qualms with doing whatever (once) it takes to unlock them (once), but if they'll still be level-locked to 50, then who gives a toss? I don't spend 50 levels playing a character just to suddenly swap out to a completely different look once I'm "done." Leet loot, to the extent to which we need it, should remain purely functional. I don't want to see cosmetics as loot ever at all.Originally Posted by Jophiel
It seems like the biggest complaint is needing to be level 50 to use it.
If it sounds like I want the costume pieces at level 1 but I don't sound like I want them at all, it's because you can't "grade" costume pieces. There are no "better" costumes. The only worth a piece has is in how a player uses it, which means crappy old junk like the Medieval shoulders are often far more valuable to a costume than the fanciest new super-elite costume set simply because they fit a particular design better. And to this day, they still have no alternative, so I'm not pulling examples out of the air.
The only thing gating costumes accomplishes is to arbitrarily split the list down a random line. So I can make a medieval line from the start, but I have to wait several years to make a samurai and I have to wait until level 35 and do a TF to make a centurion. Because...? -
Quote:OK, I admit, even a grumpy as I am, I did not manage to spot THAT particular bit of paradox writing. Thank you, Lazarillo, for giving me the first smile since I saw that announcementOriginally Posted by Lazarillo
Unlocking the Alpha slot is the one part of the system that already has a legitimate solo path. So they're giving us a "solo option", which requires a League, and billing at as a viable solo alternative to something we can already solo.
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In other news, I still dismiss the "This is a multiplayer game! Ya havsta team!" mentality. No, it's a multiplayer game and I have to INTERACT with other people. Nowhere in that definition, however, is there a certain minimum number of people I have to interact with at any given time, nor is there only a specific method of interaction - teaming - given. I have a couple of examples to offer.
I have a friend in-game whom I always chat up as soon as I see him on. Luckily, we happen to share interests, philosophies and preferences for fiction, so we always have much to talk about. I've gone entire play sessions spanning several hours splitting my time half-and-half between beating things into a greasy spot and leading a conversation about the proper methodology towards describing the inner torment of a fictional character, taking far more pleasure in the conversation than the actual game. I consider this multiplayer by virtue of involving multiple people playing a game together. I don't recall ever teaming with this person more than perhaps one or two extraordinary times.
I have another friend who isn't much for in-depth discussions or idle chit-chat, but who enjoys playing the game greatly and luckily has agreed to expand on the servers where I play. We usually team up and run in a duo every time we're both on at the same time until one of us has to go to work, go to bed, go to dinner or falls asleep on the keyboard (as I have). It's usually only just a team of two, and we've levelled up quite a few characters almost together without levelling pacts or anything of the sort. I consider this multplayer by virtue of involving multiple people playing a game together.
But apparently THAT isn't social enough and teaming enough to qualify for the "solo" path. Doh! -
Quote:I was about to say the same thing. If we don't put our concerns in the public eye, then we have only ourselves to blame when the development team completely ignores our desires which we never shared with anyone. Now that I've put my concerns in the public eye, I can freely feel wronged when they completely ignore my desires anyway, but I guess that's just how it goes. You win some, you lose some.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
You realize that people who "emerged from the woodwork" for i20 to say "how much this game is horrible and the dev team should feel horrible" are probably the only reason you get Rikti, Nemesis and Rularuu pets, right? Do you really think the devs would have acknowledged that we don't all love Praetoria as much as they do if all of us whiny complaining doomcryers hadn't said so loudly and repeatedly?
Speaking of which, I just want to say one thing: It may have taken seven years, but I finally win the "Capes at 20" debate. In your face, Jack!
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Quote:Well, crap. Please understand that I mean you no ill will when I say this - I sincerely hope you read that wrong, because this would be such a dick move I can't even describe. Why?!? What is this, Lineag II? Even if the "Incarnate" costume pieces sure as hell look like they came out of that game, what use are they to level 50 characters only?Originally Posted by Zyphoid
I think the incarnate costumes unlock account wide, but are only usable by lvl 50 characters. Unless I read that wrong.
Jophiel makes a good point - by level 50, I've already established my character's look and theme long ago. Am I seriously expected to dump that in favour of looking like a WoW reject? Not that I mind that theme, really, but if I wanted that kind of character, I'd have made one all along. I refuse to make a character and then wait 50 levels to put on goofy costume parts.
Why does this feel more and more like your classic MMO? Raid grind, loot, and now the "epic" gear with the ridiculous huge pointy shoulders. Seriously, why are we making it more and more like every other MMO ever made? Because if I wanted every other MMO, there are better games out there. I play this one because it's NOT like them. -
Quote:If the costumes are for level 50 characters only, then that would suck horribly, and probably be one of the few things which could make me just leave the whole thing. I'm tired of going through the "Capes at 20" debate once a year. There's nothing I hate more in this game than gated costume pieces, and that includes forced teaming.Originally Posted by Zyphoid
I personally have long wanted hitting lvl 50 to be a bit more special. The idea that there is now special lvl 50 costume options adds to that for me. I know some will not feel the same way, and I respect that.
This is the primary reason why I've always been a fan of paid Booster Packs: Because I knew - I KNEW - that if the developers didn't put these things in Boosters, they'd stick them behind some asinine unlock criteria like having the Zookeepr badge or running 100 Tip missions or, as the case may be, hitting level 50. I would sooner pay real money for costume stuff than have to unlock them per character and be unable to use them until a certain arbitrary moment after creation. Failing that, I would do whatever it took to unlock these costumes for my entire account. Failing THAT, I don't want more unlockable garbage.
However, considering I can buy both capes and auras to be used at character creation, it would be... Bad if the costume sets were 50-only. -
Quote:I'm in a position to be covered either way. My job pays for my Microsoft products.Originally Posted by TonyV
Off-topic, but that's coming. In fact, before long, it's widely thought that most large software packages will be sold on a subscription basis. Some already are.
Tangential argument: While I don't question that the Incarnate system requires massive, costly amounts of hard work, I still see it as the easier option to develop. I've never believed that the development team stuff our dollars down their shirts and spend their entire work day playing crumpled paper basketball. That would be silly. However, the quintessential problem which delayed an "end game" system for close to seven years has not been solved - that it's far too expensive to produce new content brackets sizable enough for players to not run out of content before reaching the end that don't include horrible grind. The quote-unquote "simple" solution to this is to develop very little content in terms of volume, but instead focus on complex systems that incite players to replay said content over and over again.Quote:Originally Posted by TonyV
"Actively being developed in such as way as to alienate them" != "lack of development/content." The former is saying that they're trying and failing to please Player X. The latter is saying that they're not even trying, and that's insulting and uncalled for, especially given how many hours every day I'm certain the developers are working on this game.
There isn't a lack of development, but I would still argue that corners are getting cut nonetheless. I've always seen a PROPER end game as a task too heavy for even large studios, so I can't say I blame the team for cutting corners, but at the same time, I'm not going to look the other way when they do.
What surprises me is the outright dishonest publicity surrounding this system. I'm well aware that it will be a cold day in hell before Matt will allow me to get any meaningful Incarnate progress without being in the direct presence of a throng of other people. I get that. I don't like it, but I get it. But calling this system a "solo" one is just dishonest. Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining.Quote:Originally Posted by TonyV
I'm totally dumbfounded that this surprises you. People still seem to be confusing solo-friendly with solo-only. The former means that you'll still have to team up sometimes to get all of the shiny stuff you want. The latter is an unreasonable expectation for any MMORPG, including City of Heroes.
The "solo" system isn't. It's a resource sharing system. It's no different from people who own multiple accounts powerlevelling their alts or, in a broader sense, it's no different from people e-mailing stuff to themselves. It does nothing to save effort. All it does is redistribute it. I don't have to have a billion inf on THIS one character. So long as I have a billion inf across ALL of my characters, this one specific character can have all of it if I so desired. This does not make me likely to have gotten that inf in any more or less of a solo manner.
Just like e-mailing stuff to yourself, however, this "stuff" has to come from somewhere. You need to have gotten the drop you're e-mailing first before you can mail it. As such, this system is not solo IN THE SLIGHTEST, because it involves Incarnate resources, and for those, Trials are still the bottleneck. Whether a particular character of mine has to run the Trials or not is irrelevant, so long as I have to do them. And so long as I have to run the Trials, what difference does it make what character I do them with?
This "solo" solution actually reminds me of suggestions people have made for sharing experience between your characters. This doesn't mean you have to earn any less experience, it just makes it completely meaningless who you earn said experience with. The experience itself, however, still has to come from somewhere.
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This is not an option which should have "solo" attached to it. -
Quote:I don't recall having to subscribe to Microsoft Office via a monthly fee, however. When I purchase the software, I get access to all updates made to it pretty much until the end of the software's lifespan. I have had an XP rig pretty much since that came out, I paid for one copy and I'm still getting free updates for it, even at a time when I'd have honestly thought that XP would be deprecated. It still downloads and installs stuff.Originally Posted by TonyV
Have you ever been in the field of software development? Obviously not, if you look at everything that is being churned out of Paragon Studios and the timetable they keep. How often do you get major feature upgrades to, say, Microsoft Office? Every few months? Last time I checked, it was years between releases, and they have a team of dozens, maybe hundreds, of developers probably being paid a lot more than our devs are.
The resentment you see comes from players who feel that they are not just being ignored, but that the game is actively being developed in such a way as to alienate them, not out of malice but because "metrics" suggest that that's the most profitable direction to take. And I can certainly appreciate the kind of resentment that comes from paying a monthly subscription fee to a development team which appears to ignore you as a customer almost entirely.
Sure, not everyone gets what he wants with every update. That much is simple truth. But when updates start being made that claim to cater to specific types of players but actually doesn't, this becomes insulting. Not only does it fail to provide what players want, but it also suggests that these players will never get what they want, because a straw man will be added to the game instead, one which the studio can point to as a solution, but one which constitutes no solution at all.
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This "solo" solution is not solo at all. It should not have been called that and it should not have been presented as helping with a problem that it only serves to make worse. As public relations goofs go, this one is pretty damn bad. Call it an Incarnate Store and leave it at that. Calling it solo anything is just a bold-faced lie.