Samuel_Tow

Yeah, anything that doesn't force me to interact with large masses of people I don't like and anything that doesn't lag my machine into a slideshow. And I've been saying the same thing since I10, so this shouldn't be surprising.

*edit*
And I will say it again: I would sooner pay for costume pieces than have to unlock them. And you can take that to the bank.

VS

I seem to remember disagreeing with you on that point for God knows what reason, and if I did, I will fully admit I was wrong. In a lot of ways, certain things don't seem to make sense to me when explained, but make a LOT more sense when I actually see them used. In this case, "a large gauntlet" for a shield option is something I would very, very much like to have. That's basically what War uses to block with (you'd think he'd use that bigass sword, but no - he guards with his left hand), and actually seeing it in action, I am in full agreement, possibly in the face of my previous arguments. Make it so!

I probably disagreed with you on that part, too, but again Darksiders changes my mind. I don't have any shots of it as it's a purchasable weapon, but War does indeed have a gigantic scythe as a weapon. Stood up, it's around twice War's height (and he's a pretty big guy already), with a giant curved blade. The old problem as I remember it was the impossibility to stab with a scythe as one might with a spear, but War gets around that by... Not stabbing with it. He has, in fact, I think on the order of five attacks with it: Two horizontal swings, one attach where he throws it forward, spinning rapidly and one attack where he throws it in a circle around himself, spinning rapidly. As it's a big weapon, it's designed to hit multiple foes on every attack, and it looks pretty dang good doing just that.

Having a scythe or another large, two-handed weapon powerset would, in fact, be something I would look forward to very much. I don't much care WHAT it is at this point, as long as it's big.

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Now, I find myself having to address this again, but I keep seeing people saying "No! Don't want that here!" Why? I understand not liking the concept, but why not have the choice? Honest question here: Do you enjoy and use every costume piece currently in the editor? Do you enjoy every costume that could possibly be made? Do a quick test: go into the editor and hit Random seven times, then tell me if you liked all seven costumes, and if being on a team with seven people who had those exact costumes would not ruin your mood. Because I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the this would bug most people. Much as I like Random as a concept, the editor has the tendency to produce the most hideous, ugly characters I have ever seen in any medium ever.

So why don't I just go play Lineage or WoW or Aion or something? Um... Because those games suck, not to put too fine a point on it. Believe me, if they weren't so horrible, I'd probably play them, but they fail AS GAMES, and I wouldn't pay money just for a character editor. I like City of Heroes, and I want to make characters like that here, for the most part because I feel the settings can accommodate that. I mean, think about it - the Freakshow already have those giant cloven arms and everyone seems OK with that, but the moment I ask that I have one, many people balk and tell me it doesn't fit the setting. I ask for a big sword, and I'm told that it wouldn't fit, despite the fact that Rularuu's Bane is already a pretty big sword (as big as the character, in fact), and Shadow Spider's sword is about as big (but unavailable to players) already. We have big swords in the game, we have big gauntlets, we have big shoulders (check out Romulus Augustulus). But we have so very few of them.

If I want a big sword now, I need to go with Rularuu's Bane. Not only is that a pain to unlock early, but it's always black and largely uncolourable. If I want a big sword that ISN'T Rularuu's Bane, I'm SOL. Granted, something that's TOO ludicrously big, like a car on a stick, would indeed be silly as a persistent weapon, but come now. We're super strong here, aren't we? How is it OK for Super Man to swing a lamp post but not for the Ultimate Warrior to swing a lamp-post-sized sword, just as a random thought?

BABs, Jay, David and the others have already proven that they can design costume pieces that fit within the visual style of the game even when they break away from what the game previously offered. I've no reason to doubt their talent in making big weapons work. In fact, once upon a time BABs said that they were scaling weapons down at the time, but he wasn't opposed to designing big weapons which were meant to be big from the ground up. Aside from the Rularuu sword and possibly the Rularuu axe, this hasn't happened yet. And I'm all the sadder for it.

Your mistake is to assume this would have been added for free had it not been put in this booster. I can practically guarantee you that if it weren't added in this one, it would have been bundled together with whatever animal/monster Booster that they're designing. Either or, you're not getting it for free. Your choice is between forcing Jay away from his other projects to make it NOW, possibly delaying something else, or letting him do his job and getting around to it when we get actually decent monster costumes. They chose now instead of later, but those who paid $10 just for the wolf tail would have paid $10 for it anyway, just at a later time, which strikes me as a worse situation.

Wow, I typically try to stay out of these threads because I usually hate the names, but this one I LIKE! If you guys don't use it, I might

That's the primary reason I really didn't want to bring it up. It's a complicated question that's subject to interpretation, which nevertheless manges to get me insulted for my efforts. It's also kind of besides the point, since I agree with the powersets, whether or not they are "natural." To argue this point will simply derail the thread into that discussion and drown out the actual suggestions, which are good.

I want to see unlockable costumes become entirely and completely trivial to unlock. That's the extent of it. Once they're trivial to unlock, I will no longer care about having to unlock them and just go from there. And who knows? Maybe somewhere along the line the triviality will be noticed and the locks will be outright removed.

I forget who it was, but someone was ranting about how costume recipes were so common they may as well be sold in shops at this point. That's the attitude I'm trying to foster.

BABs only kept facepalming because he had to explain it about a million times. He always explained, however, that he would really want to do this, but can't do it due to resource restrictions. None of the developers have expressed desire to make an underwater zone. Ever. BABs went on the record as highly disliking the idea, in fact. That's not the same situation.

You know, I said "ignore it," but if you feel like insulting me with your crass language, then I hope you don't value this thread. What do you hope to achieve with posting crap like this?

I.e reward people for ruining their fun with horrible events (basically all of them) instead of paying for it? No, thank you. I'd rather not put myself through the pain and torture that is public events if I can help it.

If you want to reward people for participating in events, reward them with something else, like experience, money, rare drops, buffs or what have you. But NOT costumes.

In fact, I have made it a point that I will pay for any costume piece added to the game, rather than having to bust my *** to unlock them for every single character every single time. If, at some later point, you feel like complaining about every new costume piece is becoming a booster pack, you have only yourself to blame for making people like me fed up enough with "capes at 20" that we will sooner pay through the nose than be stuck unlocking still more costumes. If this nonsense had died way back in I2, I would never have supported costume booster packs. EVER. However, I know that if they are indeed put into the game, they'll be put behind some kind of assinie unlock requirement.

Screw this. I would sooner pay for costume pieces than have to unlock them, and I intend to continue to do so until I get the ability to have all costume items at character creation.

Well... Yes and no. In a few sparing instances, he does slam the sword on the ground and cause camera shake (specifically in the cinematic the sword pic is from), but for the most part, he swings that thing with more speed and finesse than I'm actually able to visually follow. War, I suppose, is super-strong, and as such doesn't really seem to display any weight swinging around a sword bigger than most monsters. War actually wields that thing one-handed the entire game and I'm not sure if he even HAS any two-handed animations at all. Maybe one baseball-style heavy swing, but that's about it.

The dude, of course, is strong enough to chuck cars with his left hand, punch out giant robots (seriously) and with the Tremor Gauntlet, actually punch entire train cars with great speed. War is kind of like Soul Reaver's Raziel, in that he's stronger than he looks, only Raziel was able to pick up puzzle blocks, instead.

All of that is to say that I agree with BABs in principle - a heavy weapon set with actual slow, heavy animations would be great. I fully agree, in fact. However, I realise that this is NOT going to happen. Ever. Not in this game. What I don't necessarily agree with is that such weapons in current sets would look silly. In fact, Broadsword (and, by extension, Battle Axe and War Mace) already have pretty heavy-looking animation, heavy enough, in fact, that I cannot play the sets with small, short weapons or they just look weird. To my eyes, having a Buster Sword, just to pull a random example, would indeed make much sense in there, as would a non-scaled-down Nemesis Staff for War Mace, come to think of it.

I just disagree on how bad it can look even with light animations, for the simple fact that War is fast, agile and extremely light on his feet with that huge lump of metal in one hand, and having played the game over twice (twice in four days, in fact), I can safely say that he looks very good with them.

On the one hand, I agree that this is weird. On the other hand, our game is currently so far down that rabbit hole I'd forgotten it was ever any other way. Even just looking at basic NPCs, certain questions are unavoidable. Why does a large revolve hurt less than a wooden baseball bat? Why can I sustain high explosive rockets to the face, but knives and tire irons really hurt me? If a Fake Nemesis is taller at the waist than most people are at the head, why doesn't it just stomp on me? Why does a GUN do measurably less direct damage than a bow and arrows? And that's just picking obvious examples.

To go a little more obscure, Dual Blades can range from "barely there" daggers like the Main Gauche/Dorte, to... Tell you what - load up the editor with a Dual Blades anything and pick the two Organic Armour Blades from the Mutant Booster Pack. The way those things scale, at least on women, they are about 2/3 of the character's height, and I can fight with two of them. Not only am I not any slower than a guy with two Swiss army knife blades, but he doesn't do any less damage than my big honkin' lumps of steel and biomass.

What I'm saying is that this already exists in the game, and I personally feel that this is one instance where player's discretion needs to be trusted a little more. For me, just as an example, a Sword Scrapper feels like he (or she, as the case may be) is dealing a LOT more damage when using a big sword. I know the numbers are the same, I know there is no difference, but visually seeing a much bigger sword swung around make me smile a LOT more than seeing, say, the Valkyrie Sword swung around. I'm almost sorry we asked for it to be ported to Broadsword, but that's neither here no there.

I want to bring up an argument we had with David before (and about muscular females, no less ), in that the current editor already allows you to do hideous, immersion-breaking things. I don't care what you say about comic books, but Rainbow Cow and Evil Channey do not fit as far as I'm concerned, yet people are perfectly free to make those. Trying to restrict the editor such that people can't make stupid stuff (even if we assumed that's a good idea to begin with) would just leave us with not much choice at all. The best part about costume piece additions is that you don't have to use the ones you don't like. I know I'll never use the mini-katana, the bone or the rusty blade. EVER! But I still recognise the need for them to exist.

And, yes, I realise it might seem off if your Golden Age Whizzer happened to team with War and Cloud Strife, but in a medium which has featured squirrels with guns, I at least tend to relegate that to "weird people today."

This really is where opinion comes into play, but for myself, being able to play a big brute who's considerably larger than even the larger of his enemies has always been an alluring prospect. It has also been an elusive prospect, since very few games are designed like this. Darksiders, luckily, IS designed like this. As I mentioned, War is a big guy, and not just in terms of physical size, though he does tend to thud when he steps. More he's the classic big guy character - always confident, always fearless, always stylishly cool (in the "cool guys don't look at explosions" sense). A big giant demon offers "Maybe we can make a deal?" to which he replies "You won't like my terms." in that he needs her "still-beating heart," as per Samael.

What I like about War is a concept hinted at throughout the entire game - that being a Horseman of the Apocalypse, he mostly likely will, and most probably can, stand against the combined armies of heaven and hell... Alone! That's one of the prospects that thrills me so much about the game - that this guy is less a character and more a force of nature. He's not just some guy called War. He IS war, the practical concept. Can he fight alone against everyone and every thing? Hell yes! He's WAR! It's what he does!

I know some people find playing a character who's stronger and bigger than his enemies to feel like they're being a bully. Now, if you're playing a villain, isn't that kind of par for the course? A legitimate character concept? But that aside, I find a certain allure to be found in a very powerful hero who does not bargain, does not sneak around and is not cautious. A hero so strong that the bad guys really have no way to even cheat. In a way, I am basically a wimp in real life, facing problems of many kinds every day. Sometimes, I just want to read a book, watch a movie or play a game where the hero not only doesn't falter at these problems, but is in fact so awesome they aren't problems for him.

Here's how Darksiders does it: The game starts with War falling from the sky and landing in a huge explosion. We then quickly realise that fire doesn't burn him, falling any distance doesn't hurt him, he can't drown because he doesn't breath, he isn't afraid of anything even when he should be and he's perfectly willing to walk into obvious traps and still win in the end hands down. I am safe in the knowledge that any enemy I face when playing as War, I can kill. If not now, then eventually. Even when I'm warned to stay way from these GIANT sand worms (yeah, the game has sand worms, too), I eventually find a way to shoot them in the mouth... Pretty much literally. The whole game is pretty much a vessel for the awesomeness that is War, and I like it for that.

Now, I realise more grounded characters are to some people's tastes, as I found out last time to ample evidence, and that being bigger, badder and meaner than all your enemies does not make for a very grounded, very believable character. I get that. But on the other hand, the opposite is also true - over-the-top unrealistic and exaggerated characters are just as appealing for different reasons, the feeling of power, impregnability and confidence being some of the ones I'd pick. For me, playing a weak, easily killed, small character just doesn't feel as impactful, because I FEEL weak. Even if I may be able to actually win hands-down due to skill or speed or what have you, I would instinctively still pick the bigger, stronger character that I have to screw up to get killed. At least when I have a choice.

War, I found, with enough collectables collected, turns into a veritable boss monster that's pretty much borderline cheating right towards the end, at least the way I played him. And that's intentional design when the guy ends up having 11 health bars - I'm dead serious here - plus a special armour, plus a level 4 stone skin that reduces damage taken, increased damage dealt and stuns and hurts enemies who hit you. At some point, I started just toying around with the various hellspawn, just as revenge for pissing me off so much earlier in the game, and then again just because I could.

Now, of course, I couldn't ask for actual GAMEPLAY to unbalance itself and turn on god mode for me (appropriate as that may be within this context), but a large enough character, large enough weapons and big enough effects can go more than half of the way there.

My problem is that while big items and big weapons exist, there are only a handful of them. Broadsword, for instance, has a ton of esoteric weapon choices like the Kopesh and that curved sword and so on, but it really only has ONE truly big blade, and that's Rularuu's Bane. AND YOU CAN'T COLOUR IT! Well, almost at all. Or how about shoulder pads? We've had Medieval and Gladiator since creation, but then what else? Zilch. Well, OK, the Valkyrie shoulders are pretty big, I will admit, but that's still three out of how many. Big gloves we have one set of - Large Robotc. Enforcer come kind of close, but not really, and they clip pretty bad in combat mode, and that's about it. All the other even moderately big ones are bug at the forearm, but not at the hand.

Big boots are even worse. For the longest time, Enforcer boots were literally THE ONLY option, and now they share that spot with the PPD boots. And worse still, most people actually hate the Enforcer boots, and the way they're designed, they clash with almost everything, as well.

But we have no big guns, we have one big sword, we have one TANGIBLY big axe, no big enough hammers, no big rifles... Not even big fists, and you'd think that would be obvious. Hand size remains fairly small even with big gloves. Our character size is also limited fairly low, to boot. Yes, Fake Nemesis do clip in offices somewhat, but that doesn't stop them from going through small doors just fine.

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I know it may seem frivolous to make that kind of requests, as it's probably unpopular to do so, but that's kind of what I want to find out. Yes, I'm aware that some people hate bigness, but I'm also aware that some people hate characters who don't wear tights. I want to know how many people are really bothered by this for whatever reason, as well as how many are like me and will always jump at the chance to be even bigger.

So you can only ever earn them for a week out of the year and never ever again? I'd sooner pay money than have more unlockable crap that's unlockable only once in a blue moon, to boot.

Actually, you shouldn't be so sure. Some of us start from the standpoint of not really caring or even specifically disliking underwater environments, and looking for a convincing argument that would make us change our minds. Such has, to this day, not been given.

What's more, games have historically made me hate underwater environments with all their restrictions and the awkward way people moved in them. I side with BABs here - should never happen.

That right there is sig worth, Tech

That animation, in my eyes, was pretty much a direct rip of the GDI Ion Cannon, only in yellow and on a smaller scale. Hell, it's the same right down to the identical targeting reticle! That doesn't make it bad, it just raises an eyebrow.

The Final Fantasy 7 music helps. A lot

My worry is that it didn't look like it had much range, more Particle Cannon than Ion Cannon, as it were. I'd prefer to see a beam and blast, rather than just a continuous beam. Think the battle satellite from Akira. But I'd still take something like that, ESPECIALLY over Time Bomb, because it does indeed look good in concept.

Speaking of Final Fantasy 7, can someone find or make a decent video of Barret's Satellite Beam? That's less of a single big impact and more of a barrage of beams, which would also work quite well.

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The more I hear about Champions Online's complicated build system, the more glad I am I never bothered.

OK, I'm an idiot. I don't know why I said Castle, maybe because he's the standby on powers now. However, yes, that was Statesman's comment from, like, five years ago.