Samuel_Tow
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Quote:OK, then. So be it. But if that were the case, then they should have put less "stuff" in each zone. Mercy Island is about right. You have Fort Darwin and the lower ghetto and you have Fort Cerberus and Mercy City. That's all, and for what it is, it feels pretty spacious. The ghetto is large, Mercy City is pretty big, and while both forts are embarrassingly small, they're of decent size.Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
Although this is a legitimate point, there is also value to having zones that are smaller 'grid-wise' so that players encounter each other more often. This makes the area 'feel' populated so that the players aren't motivated to move to more populous servers or more populous games.
Cap is kind of OK, as well, as it's basically one part port district to two parts cityscape, with Villa Montrose fitting the cityscape look as well. I'd personally enjoy if more missions sent us in Port Hades, but the zone has enough land area to support three distinct districts.
It's Cap Au Diable where things start to feel cluttered. You have the lower slums and you have Aeon City. If that were all there was, that'd be fine, but no! You also have the warehouse district, the airport, the upscale slum of New Haven, the PTS mountains and that Circle of Thorns peninsula. The result is that everything is small and compact and nothing feels like a real human dwelling. If it were up to me, I'd axe New Haven and the CoT island entirely. New Haven should have been part of Aeon City and the CoT island should have been part of the PTS wilderness. I'd furthermore have put both ferries on the same port, with a cargo elevator leading straight up to Aeon City.
Sharkhead Island is... Just a mess. I'd axe Potter's Field, the Council base, the Sky Raider rig, the Freakshow fort and Villa Requin and just made a larger Port Recluse with a bigger dwelling and more impressive docks, as well as a bigger complex for the Hell Forge and Kirk Cage's fortress all rolled into one. I guess there'd still be room for Potter's Field since there's so much Circle storyline in there, but man... Sharkhead has too much.
Nerva Archipelago is almost exactly right. It has a lot going on between the Crey compound, Crimson Cove, the Longbow fort of Agincourt and not just one but TWO wilderness islands. However, because Nerva is so big, there's room for everything to exist and be sizeable, so I have no complaints whatsoever. I could probably see the Crey compound made a little bigger just because, but all in all, nothing feels "too small."
St. Martial Island is... An odd duck. On the one hand, it's far too varied, with a rich neighbourhood, a poor neighbourhood, a dock district, a dilapadated neighbourhood a destroyed neighbourhood, a forest, a circus, a HUGE Arachnos fort, the Golden Giza... But most of that is just cityscale, so it works pretty well. It's varied cityscape, of course, but it doesn't feel like the zone is cramming too many things together. Well, except the CoT forest and the Carnival circus. If I had my way, I'd axe the forest entirely and expand the circus over its land area. It's too small as it is, but it's be pretty cool with more land to work with. Maybe add in a ferris wheel or some such. Make it feel like a carnival.
And Grandville is... Pretty much like what I'd like to see, actually. I'd prefer it if Recluse's tower were a little bit bigger, though. It has a nice solid footprint, but it tapers HARSHLY towards the top, and I don't think it should. But the zone does what I've always wanted CoV zones to do - it gives me something on a scale that actually convinces me this could be a real city. Because it's segregated vertically, rather than horizontally, each "level" of the city gets to be HUGE!!! The gutter is massive, easily big enough to be a zone on its own. Spider City is equally as massive, sporting not just land and buildings, but a significant network of tunnels. The Web is a bit small-ish, but it feels exclusive and distant like it should.
And then we have the Fab. My GOD do I love that place. The Fab in City of Villains is easily one of THE most impressive locations in the entire game, easily on the same level as the Faultline Damn was before they flooded it, and on the same level as the Terra Volta reactor complex. This place is AMAZING! It's an entire city dug skyscraper height into the ground. Just that one pit feels like it's bigger than the hero tutorial, and it's INSIDE an underground building! This... This is what zones should be like. I LOVE Grandville for the Fab and for that impressive tower. This is the kind of use of space I want to see out of zones like Cap and Sharkhead. This is what makes a zone feel impressive, rather than like a collection children's toys. -
Quote:Well, if you're ever interested in seeing that, it's villain-side Pinnacle. Give me a ring and I'll take you on a tour of my one roomOriginally Posted by BBQ_Pork
*shrug* Well, there goes my evil plan to get my workshop remodeled for free.
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No, I do not hide from searches. Ever.
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Personally, it's exactly the tapering that really bugs me about these pictures. I cannot stand tiny legs and tiny feet, especially with a normal-sized torso. It just looks awkward to me. That's why Dexter's Mom always bugged me so much
Going back to the Tautha, I actually like their digitigrade legs the best of all that I've seen in the game. Yeah, it's a bit awkward to have their knee and heel at the same level, and it does look a bit off, but it's exactly this "offness" that makes me like them so much. Digitigrade legs on bipedal humanoids do not exist in real life, which is why the weirder they look in games and fiction, the more I like them.
The Tautha legs are honestly my favourite in the game by FAR. I should look for a few Council War Wolves to have a look at theirs, but I like them far, far more than those we have access to. If I could use those for my characters, I would.
Now, I'm not sure how those are rigged and if they work with player animations, but if they do... I want 'em!
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Quote:From nothing to something, yes. Currently, if I don't put functional items in my base, I don't have to pay rent, and since I don't want functional items, that's not a problem. But that also means I don't get to have control rooms or generator rooms, because those are functional items I can't use in a purely cosmetic context.Originally Posted by BBQ_Pork
Significantly, as in "Increased from Zero to a Real Number"?
I seem to remember you saying that you had no interest in base building until Rent was removed, with your unhappiness being based on the idea of having to work to maintain a virtual item in a game, as it would decay, in a fashion, if you didn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
But you are correct. I WILL NOT mess with anything which requires upkeep. This is not what I play games for. However, fixing the editor so I can use it with less than hours of time investment would make it much more likely for me to care to try.
As was mentioned, being a perfectionist is probably the biggest problem. I find it comforting to be limited by the medium, because I can just throw my hands and say "Welp... This is all I can do. It may not be perfect, but it's not getting any better, so let's roll with it." The current base editor just... Doesn't work like that. For instance, on the last base I worked on, I spent I think two hours neatly arranging 11 rows of benches, two columns wide, each bench consisting of three pieces - left, middle and right.Quote:It's kind of a shame, though. I've seen your attention to detail and you seem to have a perfectionist bent. I'd love to see what you could do with a base editor. I'm @BBQ_Pork ingame and if your schedule meshes with my very sporadic one, I'd give you free reign over a redside base on Virtue if you would be interested.
I had to count the free space in squares and calculate how much room would be on which side. I had to move the ******' things around a zillion times because I couldn't centre them along the podium access, I had to consider going three columns or two, I had to fit in pillars, I had to fin in stairs, I had to fit in lighting, and then I realised that most "lights" don't illuminate. I had to lay a double-width path of false tiles that ended up something like 30x2 tiles big, and each tile had to be centred so as not to jot out or overlap, I had to fix the podium with enough lights, flags and machines to make it look pretty, I had to put flags here and there, only there weren't any small wall-mounted flags...
All in all, that one single room took me a full work day. And don't get me wrong, it looks pretty. I'm very proud of it. But it taught me a valuable lesson - I DO NOT want to go through this ever again. No base is worth this. I can make good things with this editor. I can, I'm not denying this. I'm no saying "I can't, so neither should you!" I can. But I'm not going to, because it's far too much work for far too little benefit.
What I do as a hobby is I write stories. Nothing great, noting amazing, just for fun. The entire time I've been writing them, I've been looking for a format and writing style that best allows me to write with the flow of thought and which requires the least fiddly technical work and the least stopping to get the details straight. I would sooner take a lower-quality end product if making it is fun than an extremely high-quality end product if making it is blood pressure, swear and tears. -
Quote:This is pretty much the key problem of City of Villains. It has fewer zones, and though big in grid size, most of them is usually water. This leaves red-side with precious little land area to fill with anything, thus making everything feel vastly out of scale. For instance, what passes for Aeon "City" is, what? Three buildings? Four buildings? It's not a bad idea, bit the plateau is so small that I doubt it would be able to hold a single sky scraper, if their foundations were the proper size.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
So perhaps what should be done is the islands being expanded one. "Madness!" you might say, but indeed, many coastal, island, or bay cities and so forth used landfills as means of artificially expanding the land surface, and I don't see why the people of the Rogue Isles might not do the same.
Expanding the islands, updating their look, giving them a larger area for which things can be worked with, buildings can be spread out, oh, another thing that might be cool (though civil projects are WAY out of LR's character to have done) might include like an inter-island highway system and/or underground subway system (which could add EVEN MORE places to go, like underground slums and stuff)
Worse still, not only is the land area small, but they tried to stuff it full of different areas. For instance, Sharkhead has two Arachos forts, a dock, a civilian town, a factory, a prison compound, a Freakshow camp, a Council base, a large strip mine, a Sky Raider base, a cemetery and an upscale villa island. All of that crammed together into a map not much bigger than Skyway City. All of this leads to each of these areas being small, compact and feeling out of scale.
Take, for instance, the Freakshow camp in Crey's Folly. The zone itself is HUGE, and the compound takes between a third and a quarter of its total land area. It's gigantic! You can get lost in that maze of junk and ramparts, and it stretches on and on and on. In Sharkhead Island, the Freakshow camp is tiny and comprised of maybe two or three open courtyards with just messes of junk inbetween. It's just so very small, and how could it not be when it needs to make room for a zillion other things and all that dead space water.
I strongly believe that City of Villains zones try to do too much with too little space. They would have done much better if the entire zone was one or two things and we simply had more of them, like what we see in City of Heroes. City of Heroes has AN ENTIRE ZONE devoted to its largest industrial installation, the Terra Volta power plant. It's an entire zone's worth of industrial complex, and it is glorious. And the reactor complex itself is... AMAZING. Each one of those cooling towers dwarfs Lord Recluse's tower by quite a lot, and the station has two. To match, City of Villains has the Hell Forge. It's cool to look at, and it's a copy of Cryptic Studios' old logo, but it's really tiny by comparison.
You know, if we took the current land area of Sharkhead Island and removed the Council base, the Sky Raider rig, Moth Cemetery, the Freakshow fort and Villa Requin and just made the entire island one giant industrial port town with a "town" section that's more than six houses in two rows, I would actually be pretty happy with the zone. It wouldn't feel like it's cutting corners by making everything small. Then the factory could be bigger, the Pit could be bigger, the dock could be bigger and actually look like an industrial harbour rather than a small marina... Everything could be more impressive.
If/when they start adding new zones to City of Villains, I hope they make better use of land are and not try to cram too many themes into the same small place. -
You know, I hate to necro my own thread, but I figured that was still better than starting a new one. I won't recap everything that happened, but I will explain the following:
Currently, in-game digitigrade legs for players operate the same as normal legs do, bit with a lower leg swap, meaning the knee on Monster Legs is in the same place as the knee on normal legs. I went over options to alter this, such as to move the digitigrade knee up and place the digitigrade heel where the knee is right now, and people told me that wouldn't be workable in City of Heroes. Though I generally agreed, here's something I just spotted not 5 minutes ago:
Now, I don't know what it is about them and whether they have the wrong knee in the wrong place or such, but this is pretty much exactly what I had in mind earlier in the thread. Their legs look SO MUCH BETTER than ours I don't know what to say. Can we have legs like these?
*edit*
Crap... I probably should have posted this in the All Things Art thread... -
Zane: Are you serious? That is your idea?
Rasif: Trust me, Zane, it will work. I know you're pretty big, but I guarantee I can polymorph you into a horse, no problem. Sneaking into Waris like that should be easy!
Zane: My god... Do you even listen to yourself when you speak?
Rasif: Oh, what? Mr. Dragon too important to be turned into a beast of burden? Get over yourself.
Zane: I am immune to magic, you dolt! Did you learn sorcery from a cook book?
Sol: He didn't learn sorcery at all. Magic is innate to his spe...
Rasif: You're immune to magic?!? The... Wha... How does that make any sense?!?
Sol: The bodies of dragons are impervious to any and all magical effects that...
Rasif: What about Mordrog's curse, huh? Weren't you under his spell for, what? 500 years?
Zane: I don't know, I'm not a scholar, myself.
Sol: If you would let me finish, I can explain. ... Good. Dragons are magic incarnate. Their bodies are built from the essence of magical energies as they develop inside the egg, and they spend their entire lives accumulating more magical energy and transforming it into tangible matter. Spells which attempt to affect a dragon's body with magical energy directly are simply absorbed into the dragon's essence, actually making him stronger.
Zane: But that still doesn't explain how Mordrog was able to enchant me, Sol. I've always wondered about this, myself. Me and my kind are supposed to resist magic, yet we fell by the dozens to his insidious spells.
Sol: Your body is, in essence, a golem of artificial matter, but deep inside that shell resides a soul. That soul is a living being which can be affected by a high enough concentration of black magic. Your body cannot be enchanted, but your mind can, and through it your body affected.
Zane: Sol... Do you realise that what you just described is magic that no sorcerer in the world should know? That the very dragon scholars of old were not aware of? And you just explain this as though it is some off-hand curiosity?
Rasif: Yeah, starting to doubt him now, dragon boy? I'm telling you, there's something wrong about that guy, and no - I don't mind saying it to your face, Sol old buddy!
Zane: Sol, what is the meaning of this?!?
Sol: No human was supposed to know the secrets of the dragons, that much is true. But you are mistaken if you believe that the dragons themselves did not know. The dragon elders knew far more than you suspect, Zane. They shared these secrets with humans when they first taught magic to them, but those who learned from Uriel the teacher swore to take the secrets to their graves. Not all of them did.
Zane: What are you suggesting? That my king lied to me?
Sol: Not your king. Your elders. Those few ancient dragons who hid even from their own society and who advised the kings and queens of history. They held secrets far more powerful than this, and they shared much with Grandmaster Ulrich and his followers ten centuries ago. More than they should have. They shared secrets which could endanger their very species. They trusted the humans, and as you are probably aware by now, humans cannot be trusted.
Rasif: You're a human. Why are we trusting you, huh?
Sol: ...
Rasif: See? See? You still wanna' trust that guy?
Zane: Sol, look at me... No, do not look away! Look into my eye. Please, answer me this question: Can I trust you?
Sol: I made a promise to help you find out what happened to your people, Zane. I will not betray my word, and I will not betray you.
Zane: ... I believe you.
Rasif: What!?! What are you talking about? He just told you you shouldn't trust humans and you still trust him? He knows how to kill you if he wanted to! Why are you trusting him?
Zane: Because I do not wish to be like you! Because I do not wish to live in fear, do not wish to push away the only people I have. Even you, Rasif, though I cannot stand you, I still consider a friend.
Rasif: What, seriously? You trust me? I mean... Yeah, of course, friend! You can trust me!
Zane: I trust you to be your untrustworthy, insufferable self. I trust that deep down inside you, past the loud, insulting exterior, there is goodness. I know you would betray me if there were coin to be earned for it. I know you do not like me very much. But I also know that you trust me.
Rasif: I'm... Glad you feel that way.
Zane: You have been with us for how long now? Months? This entire time, you've known that I could simply turn around and bite your head off if I felt like it, yet you do not tremble in my presence, and you still have the gall to infuriate me, even intentionally, I suspect. I trust you as far as you trust me, Rasif. and I trust that you are a better person than you want to let yourself believe you are.
Rasif: Err... Come on, now, Zane. You're getting creepy on me. I'm only with you for her bounty.
Zane: What bounty?
Rasif: Ack, damn it! I mean, for her... Revenge! I'm only with you for revenge against Reinhard!
Sol: *sigh* Of course, I should have known. The king is offering a large bounty for Reinhardt's head, is he not?
Zane: You intend to kill that woman?
Rasif: What, no! Ok, first of all, no, I do not intend to kill her. The reward is specifically for bringing her in alive. Secondly, what difference does it make to you? I mean, we've already agreed that I'll accompany you only as far as Waris anyway. What's the problem? You get your info out of her, then I bubble her up and drop her off the nearest guard post and claim my reward. Everybody wins, right?
Sol: *head shake*
Zane: Surprisingly... This does not surprise me, Rasif. It is who you are, I suppose.
Rasif: Aw, geez! Now you're really getting creepy. Can you please be a little less understanding? I liked you better when you were angry all the time.
Zane: Well, there is still the problem of getting me inside the castle city. With Rasif's "brilliant" idea shot down...
Rasif: Hey! I'm standing right here!
Zane: ... we seem to be out of options. I? have to ask, however - do I really need to be inside the city? I am certain the two of you can get in with much less trouble if I just hit behind that hill over there and waited.
Rasif: You sure you want to let Sol out of your sight?
Zane: *roll eyes*
Sol: That would not be a good idea. I have been tracking Reinhardt to Waris for two weeks, which means she must have set up a large-scale mystical ward, possibly big enough to cover the entire plane all the way to the river. I can suppress her ability to detect magic - yours, in particular - but I can only do so if you are nearby, which means that we must travel together. And while I could hide with you, I expect you to agree with me that Rasif cannot be trusted to do this on his own.
Rasif: Yeah, so much for trusting your friends! Thanks a lot for the confidence, Sol!
Sol: You have done much to earn my confidence in you. But this is a job for which your magic alone would not be sufficient even if I were to trust you. I believe I may have a solution, however. It is a spell called "local invisibility."
Rasif: Let me guess. You want to make the dragon invisible and just fly him over the ramparts? Brilliant! Except for the fact that he's immune to magic. Or are you planning to mess with his soul now? I mean, you know how to and all.
Zane: Yes, I would like to know what you intend to do before you do it.
Sol: Dragons' bodies are immune to magic which seeks to affect them magically. They are not, however, immune to magic which creates physical effects, which then affect their bodies. Magic such as telekinesis or, in this case, light refraction, can still have their full effect. What local invisibility does is it creates a roughly form-fitting telekinetic field around an object, bending light around it such that the object becomes functionally invisible. It is complicated to explain in more detail, but it will work on Zane, and it will not harm him in any way.
Zane: This sounds clever. What shall I do, then? Just fly over the city walls and meet on the inside?
Sol: No. The spell is called local invisibility for a reason - the field's effect is only convincing at close range, 20 to 30 metres at most. If you take flight, then you will be within full view of all guard towers along the rampart. They may not see a dragon precisely, but they will see a large blurry shadow flying over. The illusion will only work at street level.
Rasif: Aha! So that's where I come in, then!
Zane: Pardon?
Rasif: If you can't fly over the wall, that means you need to take the main gate. It's the only entrance big enough for you to fit through. Ideally, we'll have to do this at night when there is no traffic and there are fewer officials to suspect foul play.
Zane: I assume you have a means of opening the gate, then?
Rasif: Yup! I know the captain of the guards here in Waris. I posed as a nobleman for about a year some time ago, and I spent a lot of time with Captain Cheng then. Well, until the real nobleman showed up and I got thrown in jail, but I spent some time with him even then. Enough time to be able to impersonate him, that's for sure.
Zane: Impersonate?
Rasif: Um, yeah! Shapeshifter, remember? I mean, I know I've been staying in this form for the entire time we've been together, but that's mostly because I like it. The loose skin of an old man feels so liberating. Besides, shifting forms hurts like you would believe.
Zane: I see. You will transform into the captain of the guards here and order the main gate opened just long enough for me to pass by. Are you certain the guards will believe you?
Rasif: Oh, they'll believe me! Captain Cheng runs a pretty tight shift around here. I've seen him execute a number of guards just for not following his orders immediately. One guy he stabbed in the throat just because he didn't hear him right. Cheng was funny like that. Anyway, the guards here are terrified of the guy. As long as I have his form, they will do whatever I say without even stopping to think about it.
Sol: This sounds like a good idea. It is certainly much easier than anything I had come up with. Go ahead and begin preparing for your transformation. Waris should be right over this hill, so we should camp here until night time.
Zane: Are we sure we can trust him to not call the guards on us?
Rasif: Hey, what happened to that "trust your friends" speech?
Zane: *laugh* I trust you to be you, Rasif.
Sol: We will be with him the entire time. There should be no danger.
Rasif: Yeah, thanks for the confidence, guys. Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it!
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And so our heroes reached their destination. Just over the hill, the castle city of Waris stood strong and tall. Its legendary ramparts towered high into the heavens, with its capitol tower seeming to reach up to the gods, themselves. Waris had been built by dragon labour in the war against Lord Mordrog and his thralls, made to serve as the human king's stronghold in the region. One of only a dozen such collaborative fortresses, the city was the pride of the entire province. Secure, impregnable, safe. Even a mighty dragon like Zane would not be able to storm this castle, for it had been built to withstand all the might of Lord Mordrog's armies of abominations.
But our heroes had a plan - they would impersonate Captain Cheng, the city's captain of the guards, and then use this advantage to bring Zane into the city quietly. As luck would have it, the captain was at the time out of the city on business, ironically investigating false dragon sightings in the neighbouring villages, so the city guard would have been expecting his return. Sometimes fate can be kind to the unfortunate, it seems.
But did our heroes truly trust each other as much as they seemed? Zane was adamant in proclaiming his trust for Sol, his mysterious saviour, but one has to wonder if he had not started to suspect his friend of something. This mere man had proven himself far too knowledgeable on subjects no human should, and in his haste to proclaim his trust, Zane had neglected to ask for details. How did Sol know these forbidden truths? He did not know. Rasift, on the other hand, was upfront about his distrust of Sol. That was how he operated. But was Rasif himself trustworthy? He had already tried to sell his friends for money once, and everything he had done since had been self-serving. There did seem to be plausible self-serving motivation for him to not betray Sol and Zane this time, but one never knows.
As darkness fell and the castle city of Waris went to sleep, our heroes put their plan into action. Distract the guards, bring Zane in along the dry moat, get the drawbridge lowered and the main gate opened, and leave before anyone grows suspicious. But would it work?
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Captain Cheng?: Guards!
Guard: Y-yes sir!
Captain Cheng?: Open this gate immediately!
Guard: B-but, sir, your orders were to...
Captain Cheng?: *scowl*
Guard: I-I mean, yes sir! I will... I will open the gate immediately! *walks towards the gate* Open the main gate and lower the drawbridge!
Another Guard: What? But Captain Cheng's orders were to keep the gate closed.
Guard: God damn it, Jenkins! Open this gate or I will have your head on a pike!
Another Guard: Yeah, so will the captain when he finds out.
Captain Cheng?: You are testing my patience!
Guard: I-I will have it done immediately, captain! *turns around* You idiot! The captain is right here! You open this gate or you can kiss your ten gold piece bonus goodbye!
Another guard: Bu-wha... No! Argh! Fine, but this is on your head!
Guard: T-the g-gate is op-pening, captain, sir!
Captain Cheng?: Good! Now fall in, all of you! I need to see your stances, so do not move and do not speak!
Yet Another Guard: Woah! Did you feel that?
Captain Cheng?: Do you have a problem hearing, soldier? Did you not hear me say to FALL IN and NOT MOVE?!? I gave you an order, now follow it!
Yet another guard: But sir! It felt like a giant beast walking on...
Captain Cheng?: FALL IN! Do not argue with me, do not try to explain yourself! Do as you are told and fall in! I don't feel anything. Do you feel anything? Does anyone feel anything? Does anyone here feel like arguing with me? Huh? Do you? I'm listening!
All Guards Together: Sir, no sir!
Captain Cheng:? Good! Now hold your god damn positions and don't move! There... Hmm... Feet together, soldier! You there! Shoulders up! You're not on a picnic here! Erm... Oh, you over there! Is that any way to hold a spear? Hold it upright, don't let it lean forward! You, soldier! Your uniform is dirty! Clean it up! And, er... Oh, that's enough for today, guards! I want you to close this gate behind me, and do not speak to anyone of my passing. Do you understand? I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!?
All Guards Together: Sir, yes sir!
Captain Cheng: Good! Now close the door.
Guard: ...
Another Guard: ...
Guard: ...
Another Guard: Dude, are you, OK? Your face is pale like a sheet.
Guard: Get your hands off me!!! *huf huf* God! My heart is in my throat. I... I need to sit down... Get me a chair. Someone get me a god damn chair! *breath* I... Really... Hate his inspections... *deep breaths*
Another guard: You can say that again.
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Zane: Wow, Rasif. That was an amazing performance.
Rasif: *wheeze* Ack! That really *cough* killed my voice. I'll have a *wheeze* sore throat for a week now. *choke*
Zane: I was certain the guards would spot me when I crossed that rickety drawbridge, but you really held it together. It was actually quite amusing to see them bounce around from my footsteps while you were yelling at them. They had that shell-shocked look on their faces that simply said "I hear nothing! I sense nothing!" while they are swaying around. *hearty laugh* That was amazing!
Sol: Quiet, you two. We are invisible, but not inaudible.
Zane: Sorry. But really, Rasif, I am impressed. I did not know shapeshifters could be this convincing. But did you not say shapeshifting was not something you liked doing?
Rasif: *wheeze* Yes? *cough* Why?
Zane: Well, I can see you have transformed back into your old man form. If it a burden to transform, why transform back?
Rasif: *wheeze* Can I *hack* explain later? *deep breaths*
Sol: I can explain for you. Krotites like Rasif have no "natural" form to speak of. When they are born, they take the shape of the parent they are born from, but with enough patience and work, they can alter their neutral state into something else. This neutral state is a state which takes no effort to maintain, whereas all of their transformations have to be consciously maintained, or they will fail. Thus, transforming away from his neutral state is difficult for Rasif, but transforming back into it is effortless. Does this answer your question.
Rasif: *hack* Thank you, Mr. *wheeze* Know-It-All! * cough*
Zane: Oh, here is another question for you, Sol. If we are invisible, how can we see each other?
Rasif: *cough* Do you really want another lecture?
Sol: It is both difficult and boring to explain. Suffice it to say that the ability to see other invisible people is part of the local invisibility spell. Do not worry about exposing yourself. Just try to step softer and keep your voice down. We should be fine then.
Rasif: *ahem* So where are we heading now? That transformation took a lot out of me and I can't follow my own tracking rune any more.
Sol: It feels like it is somewhere deeper in the city. Over... That way. It should be less than 500 metres or so.
Rasif: What do we do when we get there? I say we shoot Reinhardt in the back and go collect the reward.
Zane: Um... No? Could you think of someone other than yourself for five minutes?
Sol: We came here to find out what she wanted with the memory vault conduit and possibly who put her up to it, whether she has anything to do with the Seekers and generally all the information we can muster. This means that when we find her, we will observe her actions and if necessary question her.
Zane: In other words, we need her conscious and in a mood to speak. So no shooting magic missiles at her, Rasif!
Rasif: Geez! OK, fine! I'm just asking, is all! You guys are so touchy!
Sol: Quiet. We are getting near.
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And so our heroes made their way into the castle city of Waris. The soldiers at the main gate are far too shell-shocked to pose a threat, but they were never the worry. As our heroes approach the den of this Reinhardt the Necromancer, a whole slew of much more pressing dangers arise. But more importantly, real answers finally seem close at hand. What truths will our heroes uncover? -
Quote:The text editor in-game is ***. Some of the things it does include:Originally Posted by Decorum
Really? Is that common? I've never had any of that and I'm usually running really low end computers. Only problems I've ever had there was the "deletes blank lines" bug thing that was going around. Did they ever get that fixed? I've been scared to edit old ones for the longest time because I didn't want them "collapsing" on me.
*Not scrolling the screen down when your text goes past the bottom of the text field.
*Allows text to overflow the box width and come out of the box.
*Does not allow you to delete empty lines sometimes.
*Causes your cursor to jump back and forth when you delete symbols (when a word overflows out of the box)
*Spontaneously removes new lines when you aren't looking.
*Allows you to type past the symbol limit and then just auto-deletes symbols from the end.
*Counts new lines as four symbols: <br> causing you to have less symbols available than you think you should.
*Disrespects the Home and End key sometimes and disrespects Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End always.
*Disrespects attempts to position your cursor with the mouse. Click all you want, the cursor will pop up in random places.
And that's just from writing my latest bio. -
Quote:This is in every MMO ever made. If we're looking to add it here, I would very much like to have the choice to opt out of it. Was never a fan of it in other games, and it just reminds me too much of Lineage 2 and WoW and Aion and things like that. Can't really argue against it, but do not want.Originally Posted by Peacemoon
Character Selection:
i) I always thought it would be cool if our characters used a power or performed an emote when we selected them. I would also love it if the game remembered the order in which our characters are placed. If I go to a different server, the order is messed up.
Point: The Praetorian tutorial information has still not been announced to the community, so it's still technically under NDA.Quote:Character Creation:
i) Tab 1 should be devoted to just origians, going from left to right across the screen. Above it should be some text which states this is how your character acquired their powers. It should also state that origins, like gender, have no impact on your characters ability.
ii) Tab 2 can now be fully devoted to AT selection with a vertical list like currently used. To the right it should have a good description on what the AT can realistically excel at. Underneath this description should be the inherent power for that AT and what it does. Much like what you see in the new praetoria tutorial. I think it would fit better here when people are still selecting their character.
Beyond that, I have to ask "why?" I mean, is Origin important enough to devote a whole step in character creation to it? What is there to talk about that it requires a full screen just for that?
I guess if your point was to add in more details for AT and that that would require its own screen so Origin would have to be put somewhere else, I could see that. We can use a bit more info on ATs at character creation. But then why not just push Origin off until right at the end on the Hero/Villain ID Card?
Agreed. We generally need better references on when each power unlocks. I've been here for six years and I still don't remember. Be nice if each power were tagged with a level when it became available. Don't think there's a better way to handle Real Numbers, though. There's nowhere else to put them, and there's a LOT of stuff there, so a pop-up or tooltip wouldn't work.Quote:iii) Tab 3 + 4 can again be primary and secondary powersets, but it should also include the level which they are available from. The short description for powers is generally fine. I think a better way of looking at the 'detailed info' would be nice.
I agree with most everything here, except the "more shiny and modern" push. The basic interface looks good enough. No need to fix what ain't broke.Quote:iv) Character bio, again this whole interface could use a massive update so its much more shiny and modern. The way it lists powers should be improved because after the first 4 it becomes very noisy and unreadable. It would be nice to have the text editor fixed as well so it isn't so frustrating to use, its not as bad as it once was but I find it still eats letters, bounces the cursor around and generally makes it more taxing then it should be. You could add more fields which are devoted to the characters age etc, but that would require more feedback from others.
For the rest, though, yes, very much. Power listing is just BAAAD, with its untabbed messy list that runs out of its field, anyway. First of all, it shouldn't list inherent and tempermanent powers. There's really no need. Restrict it to just Powerset, Power Pool and Epic Pool powers. Secondly, go with power icons that show a tooltip when you mouse over them.
As for the text editor, I'd say "fix it" but at this time it looks like they should just junk the whole thing and either start from scratch or bite the bullet and grab someone else's more functional text editor. That thing is abominable. It's better than it used to be... Slightly, but it's still just BAD, and it keeps insisting on inserting text tags. This needs to improve.
Again, sure, why not? It's a good idea, and it'd be helpful.Quote:Ingame:
Lots of room for ideas here, but here are just a few off the top of my head:
i) Again, under power selection or when you train your character, it should tell you at what level powers become available.
I dunno... This doesn't really seem to be very useful. Feels like that'd just clutter the City Map quite a lot. Then again, it's not like the City Map has much use right now (it does to find out how to get to a zone, but people just never use it when they're lost O.o), so, eh. Why not? Be easier to find TF contacts, as well, which is always a pain, but then I feel that TF contacts should be on the map, anyway.Quote:ii) Update the city map so its much more interactive customizable. For Paragon City for example have a pulsing green and yellow line which shows what zones are connected. Make it so if you right click on a zone it tells you what level range it is, what task forces are available in that zone. If you left click on the zone it takes you to the zone map. Let it show you where teammates are in other zones (if possible?)
I'm pretty sure there are technical limitations on actually showing real-time maps of other zones, though. The game can't seem to pull detailed status off people who are not in your current zone, such that you can't even see their ATs until you meet. I don't know if it's an intentional limitation or a technical one, but it is something to consider.
I disagree. I don't mind tagging specific powers as "This is a power used for travelling, not combat!" but I don't believe in segregating their entire pools. There are no "travel power pools" outside the definition of "power pools that have a travel power in them." It would be a mistake to tag something like, say, Flight as a travel power pool, when only one power in it is for travelling and the rest are for combat. Hover, in fact, may well be one of the strongest protective powers, at least for ranged characters, and Air Superiority is a damn fine attack.Quote:iii) When you get to level 6 and can choose power pools, it should be much more flashy and informative. Power Pools should have to subgroups, "Travel" pools and "Utility" pools. I think with power pools, there should be much more description to them as well. Have the power pools listed vertically on the left side of the screen with a drop down revealing the powers contained within it. Then on the right taking up most of the screen should be a much more detailed description of what that individual power does.
I'm also not sure what more you need to know about the powers. None of them do very complicated things, not complicated enough to not fit in the description box, and for the ones that are a bit more tricky, there's always Real Numbers.
Can't you still get descriptions and Real Numbers off greyed-out powers? If not, then you should be able to. I'd rather just give them mouse-over response than specifically allow people to "false-pick" them. Be a lot more confusing.Quote:iv) When leveling up, allow you to select unavailable powers. A red tick instead of a green one, just to allow you to better check them out beforehand.
I'd rather give the Powers menu more functionality, but I guess that wouldn't hold pools you don't have. So... Yeah, why not? Give trainers an extra option that's kind of like Red Tomax's City of Data that lets you brows all powers for all powersets and pools. It would help plan things without needing third party resources.Quote:v) Allow you to look at your power options and power pool options at the trainer, even if you haven't leveled.
I'd be up for it, but that's not a UI thing. I don't know of many who slot Brawl, I'd like to see Rest with 0 recharge anyway, and I'm sure Sprint could be balanced at some meaningful level.Quote:vi) Slightly more controversial.. but perhaps disable brawl, sprint and rest from accepting enhancements. Lower the recharge for rest at the same time.
I disagree. Vehemently. Contact introductions set up a chain of progression that the game really needs, and I will never agree with just doing outlevelled stuff for the sake of it. If you're really adamant about doing old missions, then push to have ALL contact missions added to Ouro, not just arc and badge ones.Quote:vii) Sort contacts by zone. (Personal opinion here), Let you access all contacts when you arrive at a zone without being introducted to them, let you do old missions without visiting Ouro.
Don't see why you can't sort by rarity. That would help speed things up at the market. Be nice to sort by stack quantity, as well.Quote:viii) Sort Salvage by common, uncommon and rare. Get rid of the base tab, that doesn't exist anymore right? Improve the UI for the whole invention system so that it is so simple and easy even my mother could make a damage IO if I asked her nicely.
Not so hot on removing the Base salvage tab, however. Base salvage no longer drops, but I still have characters with base salvage in their inventories. It may not drop, but the pieces that were dropped before and not used still exist.
There's no need for more pointless flash, but having some way for all players to see mission briefings and, most of all, DEBRIEFINGS would be very welcome. When I end up having to cheat and crib off ParagonWiki as I'm playing a TF because the in-game tools for following the plot suck, there's a problem. But I do not need Positron's bald head in my nav bar.Quote:ix) When you join a task force, there should be some cool flash that tells you that you are now in a task force. The contacts face could automatically appear near the nav bar and pop up with the mission dialogue for -all- members of the task force to read. -
Quote:That's always been where the major disconnect between me and a lot of people who love bases seems to be. There's a belief that bases should be earned by the hard work of many people and so express their toil and achievement. But then that in itself makes bases useless for my purposes, as my purposes are creative expression, concept extension and the comfort that comes from having something in the game that's truly mine.Originally Posted by MrNotorion
And my response to that is - IN GOD'S NAME WHY? With but few, specific exceptions, the elements inside a base are as game-affecting as the color of your characters shoe soles and should therefore be as free, yet as loaded with possibility as designing your characters costume.
What items in a base could affect gameplay? Recipe crafting tables, enhancement and inspiration storage, teleporters, med bays? These can remain SG-purchasable items, or perhaps more preferrably items that must indeed be earned by hard work and playing. But adding a second floor? Adding an interior wall? MAKING room for the teleporters you've EARNED. Why are these things that must also be earned by hard work and playing?
I don't know what it says about my own mental state when I derive so much enjoyment from having things that are truly mine and nobody else's spirited away in some place safe and that I'd sooner have a little corner all mine than a large space shared with other people. But craziness aside, putting a steep price on the pieces effectively puts a boat anchor around the freedom of expression of the final product.
When I sit down to make a costume, I don't worry about what costs how much, which costume piece is the most prestigious or what I can afford. I tab through the options, I look for the best combination and I go with whatever catches my eye. The bigger the pool of available options, the greater the chance that I'll spot something which makes me go "This! This is what I was looking for! This pulls it all together!" is. If I were restricted to just a couple of pieces per category and had to work and toil for the rest, chances are I'd never come up with anything decent, and so never really be motivated to get much more.
Personally, what I'd like to see, and what I've suggested before, is the notion of a personal, cosmetic base. In this base, you could still put in teleporters and crafting tables and generators, but they don't do anything. They're just cosmetic. Your generator is just there to look cool, your storage racks just add ambience as shelves, your control room's computer just looks like a kickass computer. Such a base would have no utility, but would also have no rent and would be payable for out of your own pocket. Possibly be cheaper, too.
If this comes with ready-made rooms, then my likelyhood to make use of bases would go up SIGNIFICANTLY. -
Quote:Lowbrow snark notwithstanding, I CANNOT be bored of Galaxy City, because I don't start in it every time, and because it has five starting contacts, each of which seems to want to send me in different parts of the zone, as well as out-of-zone to Atlas Park. By Comparison, Mercy Island has four contacts total, and all of them send you to the same five locations - that large three-tunnel snake pit, the large building where the Infected hang out, One of three doors in Fort Darwin and one of, like, two or three places in uptown Mercy.Originally Posted by Bad_Dog
So.... You detest my idea because you are bored with the game. Perhaps you should look into Champions Online. It will be all shiney and new to you.
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You know this paragraph makes my head hurt. You claim to not want to redo the current zones because you've started in Galaxy for the last 6 years but you are saying you are so bored with running past the same building, the same enemies, etc. You are in effect, sir, making the case for redoing the starting zones instead of making new zones.
But at least Mercy Island is over quickly. If I hurry, I can be out of there in an hour or two, especially if I skedaddle at level 5. I CANNOT be out of Sharkhead quickly, because it's the only place which has missions 20-25, and 20-25 IS NOT a over in an hour and a half. The way I play and with the time I have to devote to the game, it's usually a few days, looking at the same damn sand and the same stupid slums. It FEELS like forever. Even in Nerva Archipelago, where I'm sick to death of Longbow soldiers, I can still just hop back over to Sharkhead or hop on over to St. Martial and escape the monotony, but in Sharkhead, I'm doomed. 20-25, I cannot go ANYWHERE else. And to make things even more fun, Sharkhead is when a Mayhem missions starts requiring five paper missions instead of three, so the grind feels even worse.
By the way, I would kindly ask that if you want extrapolate what you think I meant from what I actually said, then do it more carefully. I never said I was bored of "the game." I said I'm bored with Sharkhed Island and Cap Au Diable. I singled those two zones out specifically and purposely, and I believe I did it at least five times. I'm bored with them because I HAVE to spend 5-level stretches at a time in them without the ability to go anywhere else to break the monotony. Even Galaxy City that I prefer to start in is not this constricting, because it keeps sending me out-of-zone. Neither Cap nor Sharkhead do.
Villains need more zones. At the very least, they need two distinct, separate locations per level range. I can sort of forgive 1-5, but 5+ this HAS to happen.
I do not get bored hero-side, not even rerunning the starting content for the umpteenth time. If I'm bored of Galaxy City, I can go to Atlas park. I can go to the Hollows or to King's Row. I can stay in the Hollows, or I can go to Steel Canyon or to Skyway City, and then eventually even to Faultline. At almost every turn, I can run missions in three different zones, and my missions send me all over the city, so I'm not staring at the same same god damn scenery until I can draw it with my eyes closed.
City of Villains NEEDS MORE ZONES. They do not have enough. Even counting co-op zones they still don't have enough of them. City of heroes does not need new zones. It still has plenty of old Hazard zones that can be retro-fitted. -
Quote:That actually reminds me of another problem that's always eaten me, but I've always failed to put into words: bases are the result of cumulative character efforts. In essence, if I want a base that I'm not leeching off other people to fund, I have to make one myself, but that requires the cumulative effort of a lot of characters, and often not enough room in the base to give something to them all. Not to mention that not all of them make sense to share a communal space.Originally Posted by Peacemoon
To end on a positive though, my little SG on Virtue which is formed of me, my boyfriend and my brother has a very nice base. We always play in super group mode and have slowly been gathering enough prestige to expand it. Been a great pet project. I think the prestige rate is fine - if you want a big base play in a big SG or invest a lot of time.
Here's the thing - I have as many costume slots as I can get unlocked on all my characters, give or take the free one here and there, and they're all filled with something I've given thought to and put work into. Each costume for each character is a piece of work in itself, but because each character has many, I feel accomplished at the end of the day. A base is just one large entity, and often shared between not just one and two, but between MANY characters, both mine and other people's.
As far as I'm concerned, bases will be useless for my purposes unless I can make, fund and develop one by myself, with a single character. Call it personal housing, call it personal bases, call it what you will. If my character needs a one-room apartment at the top floor for him to look depressingly out the window, an underground bunker in a space with 20 other people will not do. If my character needs his cave of solitude where he can be emo all by himself because no-one understands him, then a bed in the super group ward will not cut it.
Bases are, in essence, meta-game. They're an achievement for the PLAYER, not for the CHARACTER. A costume is a character thing. I made it, but I made it FOR HIM, to express his personality, his story and possibly his powers. A base is a player thing. The design belongs to the architect, the property deed belongs to the leaders, the other members are credited, but any way you look at it, it's something made by players for players with the help of players. It's meta-game, and therefore inherently much less interesting. -
Personally, I'm getting a little sick of joke and pop culture references. It's gotten me so paranoid that every time I see a new name in this game, I try searching my memory for what it might be a reference to, and if I can't think of anything, I can't shake the feeling there's a reference there that I'm just not getting. At this point, content that is NOT referencing something is a valuable commodity.
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Quote:Updating old zones doesn't solve the problem that I'm SICK TO DEATH of Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Island. I don't want more things to do in them. I want another zone completely independent of those two. I don't care if you change buildings, I don't care if you move around contacts, I don't care if you add more stories. I do not want to see Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Island EVER AGAIN.Originally Posted by Bad_Dog
Updating the art/buildings and content/arcs in our existing zones is more bang for the buck in my opinion. Improve city layout or buildings - definately. Maybe remove some of the repition in these arcs by working in some newer maps or utilize any of the numerous enemy groups that have been brought into the game since launch. Missions from the original CoH contacts has never changed in over 6 years. In any case, it can take what we have done a thousand times and make it new, refeshing and look better.
There has been this inexplicable drive for "quality over quantity" in City of Heroes that's been around pretty much since CoV came out, where instead of adding new locations, old locations keep being reused and re-tweaked. Five years later, I know them by heart, and I'm sick to death of them. City of Villains has all of seven zones - Mercy Island, Port Oaks, Cap Au Diable, Sharkhead Island, Nerva Archipelago, St. Martial and Grandville. And I know ever square inch of those zones by heart. I do not want alternations to those zones. I want new zones that I've not seen before. I want more variety than just seeing the same five locations in the same two zones for 10 levels at a time.
For all the crap people give City of Heroes zones, at least there's so much sheer land area in there that I keep coming back to places and zones I haven't been to in ages. There is enough variety in City of Heroes that it's much harder to get burned out on the scenery. City of Villains has no variety at all. In the VERY RARE occasions that two zones overlap for content, the zone-locked stories nevertheless keep you locked in the same location, staring at the same God damn black sand and the same damnable brown brick buildings. If there's one point where I'm more likely to abandon a villain at than any other, it's 20-25. I HATE SHARKHEAD ISLAND!!!
No, thank you. I prefer to start in Galaxy City. It's where I started six years ago and it's where I prefer to start unless I have a particular conceptual reason to start elsewhere. I prefer to have enough variety to where I'm not looking at the same building with the same contacts and the same streets every single time I start a new character. I DO NOT WANT a redux of the CoV starting zone where irrespective of which contact you pick, you always come back to the same place, roam the same streets, fight the same enemies and generally go to the same locations. I want to have varied terrain that I don't instantly recognise from having run past that same damn building a hundred times in the past two weeks.Quote:This is just my own opinion, but I'd like to see Back Alley Brawler and the Galaxy starter contacts moved to Atlas Park and something new and more useful re-envisioned for Galaxy City, instead of it being a second starter zone. Maybe move the whole building somewhere in Atlas. By moving BABs to Atlas, all the low levels will be in the same zone and quite possibly all those Galaxy starter contacts that are not getting played may find a new audience.
We need more zones. Maybe not in City of Heroes, but in City of Villains most definitely. City of Villains feels like I've been locked in the same old room with the same old toys for six years. I've already played even with the toys I hate, I've already explored even behind the bookcases, and the view out the windows is so ingrained into the backs of my eyes you could project a negative if you shone a flashlight on my neck. The CoV world is far, far too small. It needs to be bigger, and by a LOT. -
Quote:I have no qualms about saying "I think I'll go now. I'm not contributing anything to this team." both to friends and strangers alike. I'm very rarely singularly more powerful than... Pretty much anyone on a team, so situations where I rush ahead and solo team spawns do not happen. However, when I do end up on a team of, say, two or three lower-level characters that end up underperforming because they're behind the eight-ball, my primary objective is to keep them alive. I'm responsible for them, regardless of how they may feel about it.Originally Posted by galadiman
I suppose the 'soloer' might take a new POV: What if these were HIS FRIENDS he was playing with? If he was playing with friends, and they didn't like him doing what he was doing, would he just disregard them, or would he choose to delay that particular form of gratification (pause) until another time, perhaps when he was soloing?
I will, however, never think twice about bringing the fight to the team if I'm convinced the team is ready and idling, be they friends, strangers or the gods of Olympus, themselves. If the team is ready, then there is no reason for the team to not be doing something. -
Quote:They did this to save themselves the time in having to fully reanimate all combat stances from scratch. There's nothing technically preventing Katana from having a right-foot-forward stance (other than being coded as a left-handed weapon, which WOULD be problematic, but is an artefact of the original design). It's just a question of a WHOLE LOT of transition animations, idle animations and reanimating basically the entire powerset.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
This is tragically impossible in the current engine to my knowledge, it was attempted when they gave katana its own animations, but it didn't work because ALL COMBAT STANCES IN THE GAME ARE LEFT SIDE FORWARD. I don't know why that's the case in the first place though...
What BABs commented on was the fact that they prefer to not have to make two-handed weapons because weapons are only bound to one hand, and each two-handed weapon animation takes a lot more work to make as you constantly make sure the weapon doesn't leave the off hand. It's not impossible, it's not even technically challenging. It's just a lot of pretty hard work. Harder than making unrestricted animations, in fact.Quote:This is, sadly, highly unlikely, as I believe BAB or Castle once commented that they don't like making two handed weapon animations and feel the reward is too small for such a large task.
It's not just hearsay, it's false. BABs, as a point of fact, never said this. I forgot who spoke about this, but the comment was that, at this stage of power customization, non-weapon powersets were given priority over weapon powersets because weapon powersets already have customization options. In an effort to stagger the workload between stages, they chose to not introduce options for ALL powersets, but only a specific subset, thus requiring less of a massive work commitment.Quote:Also, what is likely to further impede this from ever happening is that there's quite a few weapon customizations with the weapons you described that would only allow for one hand. I heard a second hand mention from someone that BAB's also stated you cannot have both Weapons Customization and Alternate Animations, but that's only hearsay.
To this day, we have no official confirmation that there's anything preventing custom weapons from having power customization options. As a matter of fact, weapons are coded as animated costume elements which are part of the costume system. Any effect the weapon produces, however, is part of the powers system, and these are handled completely separately from the weapon you have selected. That's why the Broadsword Build Up glow effect is the size and shape of the Legacy Broadsword regardless of which sword you're actually using, or why Assault Rifle muzzle flashes come out of the same distance from the hand regardless of your rifle of choice. The Redding Rail Rifle is interesting viewing in this respect.
All Assault Rifle animations as they are now were made over six years ago. In fact, if you watch the old 2001 City of Heroes trailer, I'm pretty sure you can spot some of the animations even there. Back in the day, most animations were created not with a sense of flair and interest in mind, but rather with the pressing concern of getting them all done on time. That's why so many of the old animations are stiff, boring, recycled or were horribly bugged. BABs had a field day tracking down animation rooting inconsistencies in War Mace back in the day. It wasn't until I2 or I3 when Katana and Martial Arts received their animations overhauls that animation coolness was even factored in, and even then it isn't until BABs took over that animations actually BECAME interesting.Quote:This might be possible, but I think the sad fact is, I believe the animators try for the most visually interesting and diverse ways to make a power, and there's only so many different ways you can fire a rifle, and apparently, firing from the hip was ruled as cooler unless it was a formal sniper shot.
Assault Rifle, therefore, suffers from rushed, basic, rudimentary animations. Just point and shoot. The same as Archery. You can't fire a rifle in many interesting ways, but then again, neither can you fire handguns in interesting ways, yet BABs managed to do it anyway. Assault Rifle is due for an animation overhaul, at least as alternate options. It's been due for an overhaul ever since it got its shorter animation times, and even since before that. -
Oh, yeah. I wouldn't dream of taking away people's access to the current levels of customizability. And that's not so much out of altruism, but simply because I know that would piss people off indescribably. I think I see one possible solution to make both sides happy:
Add a large set of pre-fab rooms for those of us who don't want to bother. If I want, say, a control room of "this" size, then I pick one from a list of, say, 10-15 ready-made control rooms that someone (developer or player) prepared earlier. I can always edit them by hand if I were so inclined, but I don't HAVE to. This is a major step up from what we have now, because right now if I buy a room it arrives bare and I HAVE to edit it. At least for cosmetic rooms (and that's all I want anyway), having pre-fab options would be swell.
When it comes to a "compound editor," which is something I envision being similar to how C&C games allow you to build bases, I foresee a much lower degree of customization, basically picking which buildings you want to set down and where you want to put them. I guess more customization could be added as to what's actually IN those buildings, but since this will never happen, that argument is pointless.
For myself, there is one particular aspect of computer gaming I enjoy far more than I do anything in the physical world - I like using a largely superficial editor and then delving in to explore what I have created in greater detail. I draw much more satisfaction from actually discovering how the computer has interpreted my instructions and what has come of it than I do actually making it. In the above-mentioned UFO base raids, one of the coolest aspects is knowing I made these bases and discovering what's what on the much smaller scale. I can see a hangar from afar, but when I'm actually in there, I can see the different barrels, the platforms, the pillars and so forth.
That's also why I LOVE seeing other people's artwork of my characters, but being too poor, I can never actually afford it
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It's bases like these that only serve to convince me that the base editor is completely broken as an aspect of a game. Those rooms are beautiful. They're gorgeous. But I know what kind of effort and fidgeting is required to pull this off, and at this point I may as well just fire up 3DS Max and go to town. The editor is hideously complicated, badly uncomfortable and requires so much honest-to-God WORK to put out anything decent it's just not worth the bother.
Years ago, they tried to sell us the base editor as the next step after the costume editor. This has NEVER been the case. I spent a good work day working on just one single room, and while it looked good at the end, that's still one room, done in, what... 3-4 hours? Probably more. I don't spend 3-4 hours working on my gloves, because I don't HAVE to. Even when I've no idea what I want, I can still put together an entire costume in half an hour to an hour. Less if I can get my mother (yes, seriously) to help out.
The bases people produce are always really cool, but that kind of effort is just unworkable, and not because of prestige costs, but because of man-hour costs. Yes, people with a lot of skill, a lot of imagination and A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HANDS can put together AMAZING things. But the rest of us ten-thumbed knuckle-draggers are basically locked out of the system, because it REQUIRES all of that stuff. Even Spore, a game that's basically ABOUT making things out of smaller things, doesn't have that kind of effort and skill requirements to work it. I can knock together a space ship or a three-legged monster or an impossible building in 15 minutes in Spore without having to spend a day refining every minute detail.
If anything ever happens to bases, I hope they introduce a modification to the editor that makes it easier to use for simpler people like me, or outright go into a compound editor that works like an RTS. In fact, you know what? I was just playing UFO Extraterrestrials, the X-Com knockoff of the 2000s, when aliens raided my base. I went about retaking it when I suddenly realised that... Hold the phone! I know this place! And then I remembered that, duh, I built this place! As in the original Enemy Unknown, bases here are built in large chunks of square facilities, but the actual arrangement of the facilities is still as I put it down. That's about enough customization for me, and I sincerely hope we get something simpler if bases are ever overhauled. -
Quote:I.E. the old leak that got posted on Live by someone who either didn't know he was in Beta or somehow mistook his Beta client for his Live client (it's an easy mistake to make, actually). It's probably a safe bet that we shouldn't talk about it considering it was deleted pretty short-order, and it spoke of a non-functional system, anyway.Originally Posted by Decorum
Just to note...nope. I'm not in the beta. What I saw was here (a post mistakenly on the wrong board) which was quickly removed. Just "fair play" NDA of my own.
I highly suspect that an auto-team feature like they have in WoW could only help the game. It would go a long way to shut people up that they can't find teams, and it might make the game feel much more populated if every time you went "I want to be on a team right about now!" the computer replied "OK! You're on a team right about now! Enjoy!" Ease of access and cutting out the middle man would help team-minded people a LOT.
Interestingly, it would help anti-social dicks like me, as well. I don't tend to join many teams in City of Heroes because if I play with people, I want to play with people, not mute bots who just need another set of hands at the keyboard. Teaming by person-to-person communication is personal, and as such I'm unlikely yo bother. Teaming via soulless auto-team robot, on the other hand, is impersonal, and I would be very much convinced to use it as a regular tool. If I join a team in such a way, I won't care much for socialising with my team-mates. I'll just worry about grabbing some experience and not getting dead.
It's a lot like teaming in your run-of-the-mill online FPS game, like Battlefield 2142 that I keep bringing up. In that game, I can team without a qualm, but I view the rest of my team as background noise. We try to work together, but we don't try to greet each other. That sort of system will make pick-up groups a LOT easier to run with, because they'll be a lot easier to swap in and out of. -
Quote:This already exists. Look at the top right of your map and you'll see two tabs. The one you're using is Zone. The one tagged "City" does pretty much what you describe.Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
Adding another zoom-out layer to the mini-map (like most mmorpgs do); that shows the entire PC or RI overview map and its relation to your current position or zone (or the zones' relative position to each other)? (A 'macro' map as opposed to a 'micro' map)
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The more I think about this, the more I remember something that pisses me off: stealthing missions. It's not the practice of stealthing itself that bothers me, it's the fact that when I get on a TF with a leader intent on stealthing every mission, I end up spending 90% of my time waiting to be teleported to the boss, fighting for 15 seconds, and then spending another 15 minutes waiting for the designated stealther to stealth some more.
And it's not like we're doing anything while we wait. Not even chat. It feels like people are off washing the dishes or ironing the cat or extinguishing the baby or something. I, myself, just swivel my chair and watch TV until the stealther wakes me up when he's ready to teleport. And I do not pay a subscription to an online game to be bored and watching uninteresting TV while I sit on my hands. This is BAD GAMING, people!
What I'll usually do is go "Screw it! While he's looking for the boss, let's all the rest of us kill stuff to pass the time!" Sometimes the team is game, but most of the time they're out of the house buying milk and cookies while they wait, so nothing happens. I mean, 8-1 people usually CAN handle 8-man spawns, and given how slow some stealthers are, we can usually go through an entire floor of an office complex by the time the stealther is done.
But you know what the most fun is? When there's no good place to teleport to, so the Stealther botches the teleport, we team-wipe and have to go back to the hospital and wait for him to stealth again. Ugh... You know, in that time, we could have gone through 3/4 of the way by force anyway, and we'd have gotten a lot more experience, inf and drops AND had more fun that we would have if we'd just picked our noses with our index fingers the entire time.
I don't mind slowing down and waiting if there's a legitimate reason for it, but when 4 out of 6 missions consist entirely of me sitting on my hands, then what's the point? What have I accomplished in that TF? Why did I do it in the first place? For the badge? I have it already. For the Merits? Don't care. For the drops? I can get those on my own. If I do a TF, it's because I want to have fun, and waiting for 15 minutes at a time IS NOT FUN. -
Quote:The problem is that even the "posh" areas in CoV still feel depressing. It feels like they were going for a Brazil motif where everything is hollow and depressing, and even the rich and powerful live empty, hopeless lives with filth and depression just outside of earshot.Originally Posted by SirFrederick
The funny thing about redside is that the posh areas are there, but they're kind of... out of the way. I mean, the typical villain will pass through fair-to-middling Mercy, and the expensive parts of St Martial, but a lot more could be done with, say, central/east New Haven. Having worked for Golden Roller, Dr Percey and Marshall Brass, I want to get into Langston Corp mansion and find out just who's behind the Brickers. And Villa Requin in Sharkhead? I'd seen it on the map, but I was flummoxed to see what was actually there! It deserves more exposure in gameplay and story!
I don't know if I'm biassed because I live in a former Soviet state where this is basically status quo, but this sort of attitude just... Doesn't work for me. I want to see good, affluent, high-class zones where the rich are not just as damned as the poor, which simply isn't the case. Kirk Cage's stronghold is basically an inside-out prison, Johnny Sonata's Golden Giza has a nice view of the devastated zone out back and Johnny is cursed and screwed, and the height of Arachnos conquest - Grandville - feels like a slum from top to bottom. It feels like frikkin Brazil, come to think of it!
A Praetoria-style clean zone that doesn't have the rich look out onto the slum from their windows would be great.
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You know... This reminds me of my old University building. It had the following views out the windows:
West: Grain silos, empty lots and uninhabited buildings.
North: Old, rusted-out, overgrown hangars, junkyards, abandoned buildings and a small town far into the distance.
East: A HUGE 20-year-old pooly-maintained Soviet-era hospital with old junker ambulances parked in front and lots of old sick people coming about, with a large wild overgrown forest in-between.
South: No windows in that direction, but the few terraces showed an overgrown, un-maintained courtayrd with bushes growing onto the paths a rusted-brown fence.
Talk about depressing. And it was a pretty good, modern building, too. It was just built in the asscrack of the city. -
Quote:That actually goes both ways. You can't have an entire team slowing you down if that's what the team prefers to do.Originally Posted by Acanous_Quietus
I'm a busy guy. I work full time, I'm trying to get a second full time job so I can get out of debt and marry my fiancee. I play this game for fun in my free time. If I'm not having fun, or wasting my time, why am I here?
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Quote:Guess we'll have to put the discussion off until Open Beta, then. Good to know we'll be able to discuss it at SOME point before next yearOriginally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Yes, it'd count as being public since the NDA would no longer apply. You could talk about how it had been working in beta. Not sure how you can say it'll be pretty much unchanged though, surely if that was the case there'd be no need to hold it back in the first place.