Samuel_Tow
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Posts
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Quote:I'm not trying to stamp out suggestions here. Honest! I've just seen the idea of going the WoW model of the dolly body so much recently it's actually starting to scare me. The way you suggest it, it has the potential to look... Interesting, but again - there are no patterns, no reusable ones, at least. Each animation is unique unto itself, and while it's possible to retweak them all to match the patterns you're suggesting, that's basically redoing all powers in the game, something that the developers have historically been unwilling to do.Originally Posted by Charcoal_EU
I understand this might require too much effort to be practical despite the potentially huge increases in customization that would result, so I am only asking David/other devs to look into this with a "can we do this?" check, as opposed to suggesting that it must be done.
I can actually see what you're suggesting upon clarification, but it just seems... I don't know. Unlikely? I want to say I like it, but I'm actually running out of imagination on this one, so I can't really go for it without some proof of concept, at least, which for animations is notoriously difficult to make mock-ups. -
Quote:Actually, "winning" as defined here is not as impossible as it seems, ignoring the fact that a certain small percentage of people will complain regardless of what happens. The way David has been handling his request threads is probably the easiest way to "win" at this. Ask players for their feedback, communicate with them to narrow down workable suggestions, then simply say you accept them and make no promises. Everybody wins.Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
- If they say nothing before a feature is totally tested and ready to roll, they get slammed for not soliciting our feedback, not advertising the game, and allowing rampant speculation to rule. Not to mention various threats to quit because they obviously are doing nothing but swimming in their money vaults.
- If they give partial information, then what they say is misinterpreted, wildly speculated upon, judged to be misleading or considered teasing and being mean.
- If they give complete information along with frequent updates, they are called liars when something is wrong or is changed, accused of prioritizing the wrong things, accused of catering to the vocal minority, and accused of working too slow or doing too little. Not to mention incurring the wrath of the Black Pebble
That way, you make no commitments to do anything in particular at any particular time, so people who don't get what they suggested don't get to call disappointment, you get to communicate with people so those of us who were worried we were not being heard are now content that action such as we want it may take place at some point in some fashion, and when a pack does roll out, you know what people have been asking for and you have a good way of satisfying statistically more people.
Telling people exactly what's coming is a good way to build anticipation and a great way to breed PROFOUND disappointment. Vaguely hinting to people at what might be coming at some point is pretty much public relations suicide. I dare say it's one reason why people involved in Closed Betas are forbidden from talking about them even in vague terms. -
Quote:I don't keep copies of developer posts I've read, and I'm not about to go trawling through records, if that even still exists. You are well within your right to doubt my memory, but please understand that I am well within my right to trust my own recollection over your own. Again, I have no problem with that.Originally Posted by Hallowed
I'm not questioning that you actually think you read a post, but I am questioning whether it even actually happened. The fact that you can't even recall if he said he "hated" furries or just had a "strong dislike" further weakens the credibility of your argument.
And again, my "argument" is merely a statement of how I feel. It's an impression that's pretty easy to disprove by developer action. If and when that happens, I'll get back to you. -
I actually DO have a general direction I was looking to go in, which is kind of what bridged the gap between this orphaned scene and the rest of an actual story, but I don't want to go into too much detail on that outside the narrative. It's incredibly vague, though, and open to details and interpretation. Nothing is set in stone.
Quote:Yeah, I know I'm not breaking new ground with this oneThe dragon's part of this tale seems fairly common for many stories of dragonkind 
But I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. I'll try to rely on the narrative and especially the conversations to carry this through. One big thing, in fact, is that I'm trying to segregate conversation from narrative completely, hence the --- notation. I REALLY don't want to have a narrator explain character reactions over their own lines. I'll just have to rely on the strength of the people's expressions to convey feeling. We'll see how that goes.
Huh... That's not actually something I accounted for, not consciously, anyway, but you make a good point. That IS more or less how I pictured the stranger, though I guess I could emphasise this a little more and make more of a point out of it in the future.Quote:This story also has a "park ranger" type feel to it as the mysterious stranger is roaming about the world, attempting to free all these imprisoned, mythological beasts.
You know... That's not a bad idea!Quote:There's also the possibility, since the dragon has been ensorcelled for 500 years, that certain creatures would still be cursed, yet now be dead carcasses, or worse yet, undead servants of this evil, dark lord. Lots of options you can take with this route. I've been thinking kind of one-dimensionally on this one, overfocusing on the dragon and the stranger as centres of the story, but you're right. Dragons have (at least in my head) abnormally long life spans, so he may have survived long enough, but what of the other creatures who would have just died of old age under the effect of the curse. I like this idea a lot! I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but it's definitely on my radar. Thanks!
I have the BAD habit of second-guessing everything I write if I start going through it, and eventually changing it for the worse, so I actually try to expose my original product to people before I make any changes. The bad part of this is it leaves a few typos that Word doesn't catch in, and that always irks me, but it also retains the original flow of thought as I had it at the time, without me interjecting over myself and making the narrative more choppy. I'll usually do a proof-read for the thing before I post the following chapter, and now that the City of Heroes forums give me an unlimited edit timer, I should be able to update as things develop and typos are cleared up.Quote:You might want to take the underlining out if you decide to make the proper editing changes. Also, not gonna sit here and point out all the typos; just saying there are some, they're not many and can be quickly changed with a read-through on your part.
I honestly wouldn't want to impose. I tend to write long stretches of text at a time and have the urge to post them quickly in the hope of getting a few responses in. Of course, if you're willing to proof-read, I'd very much appreciate that, because as I said - I tend to post before I proof-read for fear of second-guessing my work. And I wouldn't worry about levels of English. It's not even my native language, so you ought to be better than that just by defaultQuote:Also: If you want, I'm always available to proofread stuff before you, or anyone else wants to post a story. I'm no English teacher, but damn am I good at spotting errors.
*edit*
THANK YOU for taking the time to leave me a comment
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Quote:Assuming you mean other players, then I have a policy of not measuring myself up to other people. If others choose to make their characters out-of-scale to me, then that is their choice and I simply ignore them.Originally Posted by StormSurvivor
That's all fine and dandy if you're going to be spending all of your in-game time surrounded by the same kinds of mob. The second you stand next to somebody else, you're going to seem tiny or huge again.
If you mean other NPCs, then I should note that, Council notwithstanding, most "normal human" enemies are all roughly the same size. Some are slightly bigger than others, true, but not by much. The Freakshow do tend to be bigger than most, but they get a miracle excuse. All the rest, as far as I've seen, seem to be about on par with each other. -
Quote:Fair enough. I have no evidence, so if you choose to doubt my memory, you have every right to. I freely admit I may be mis-remembering, but the memory of seeing a post like this will not leave me regardless. Can't really argue with you there.Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
in that case sam, i question your memory
"Non-human" is a distinctly different and much broader concept than "animalistic," however. The pack could have had robotic parts and they would still have been non-human, but that was never the point. Because of Developer commentary to the effect of "Wait for the Mutant pack!" when asked about tails and developer commentary to the effect of "It's coming!" when asked about animal parts, an expectation was bred in those of us who wanted to believe animal parts would be coming for a change.Quote:furthermore, the mutant pack does have nonhuman looking pieces
I fully admit this was largely my own fault for building up wrong expectations, but I lay much blame on official comments, who managed to be badly misleading in their attempts to be cryptic. I agree with what someone else said before in the thread - as long as we know something is coming and when it's coming, then there's no point being cryptic about it. If you want to be cryptic, then just don't say anything and let people discover the truth when the pack comes out. This attempt to have our cake and eat it, too led to completely the wrong expectations.
Considering I've yet to blow my top or go off on a rant in this thread, I dare say I've been approaching this thread and your comments in particular as rationally a can be expected. I don't know what you were aiming for, as South Park doesn't air on TV in my country, but what you ended up using is pretty blunt snark. Considering I have practically zero tolerance for snark, I consider my response to it more reserved than it had any reason to be.Quote:and no, i am not insulting your intelligence, i was doing a south park reference, i am questioning your sense of humor, as well as your ability to retain rational perspective in a discussion.
There is nothing rational or logical in a sense of humour. That's what makes it fun. Some things are funny to some people. Some things are distinctly NOT funny to some, regardless of how they were intended. -
Quote:I don't enjoy the fact that Commons were designed as loot. They're the answer to SOs for people who hate how the SO system is designed, and their actual final strength is not THAT much greater than SOs in general. They are, to my eyes at least, how enhancements should have been done from the get-go, hence enhancements done right. The only appeal SOs have right now over Inventions is the fact that they're cheaper and available from NPC vendors. Hence, again, enhancements done right.Originally Posted by Decorum
So you're irritated that something that was designed as loot is presented as loot? And that an intentionally supply-and-demand market system is fluctuating? And you view enhancements with special features such as not running down as "done right" instead of "done better"?
You seem to read me as saying the system is not working as designed. It is. I just don't like how it was designed to work, and not wanting to give this exact explanation multiple times is why I tried to make a statement without having to explain myself.
I would prefer it if I could get ready-made Commons for a fixed price. That's all it comes down to. -
Quote:I don't see why my not bothering to read tags on threads should bother you, though. I'm immune to being convinced of the the virtue of tags like city of furrys ftl, and I'm doubly immune to being convinced in the virtue of "good-natured ribbing," as I don't acknowledge the existence of such a thing.Originally Posted by Decorum
Pull the stick out, Sam. Low brow insults are just a form of humor to many many people. Depends a lot on how one is with one's friends and family. I, for example, grew up in a family where cutting each other crap was a form of affection. Most of my friends are the same way. Don't take it so seriously. They're mostly throw-away gags.
In the end, all it means is that tags are useless in the function that tags were designed to do and are only useful in the function of cheap humour, which a humourless person like me is inherently incapable of appreciating. Hence, they have no use for me, hence I don't read them and keep forgetting they exist.
Again, just like rep comments. -
Quote:I mean, why not let male and female models start off at the same height and then let players choose if they want to make their women shorter than their men. Having it mandated is... Odd, to say the least, considering our context of ultimate customization.Originally Posted by Decorum
They had to put the endpoints somewhere, and women are generally smaller then men. **shrugs**
Scaling down JUST the civilians won't really make too much of a difference, other than making THEM seem tiny. Scaling down the civilians AND all other NPCs that don't make sense to be giant (like the Skulls and Hellions), however, would leave our characters towering over everybody when they may have been meant to be average height.Quote:Originally Posted by Decorum
How does scaling down the civilians do anything but make them match our environment? So a lot of players would be bigger than the civilians. That's as should be. They gave you a scale that matches the environment. Making your character, you should take that as a guide. Your method of matching yourself up to the poorly sized civilians isn't a good work around, it's compounding an already existing mistake. -
Chieftain: So you'll help us, then?
Stranger: If there is indeed a dragon in that cave, then yes, I will.
Chieftain: And you'll do it for free, as hear it. Why?
Stranger: I have little use for your gold. The supplies I require cannot be purchased.
Chieftain: Bah! You mystics and your weirdness! Fine! If you can get rid of the dragon and I never have to deal with it again, then I don't care why you do it. Just make sure you get the job done, OK?
Stranger: It will be done.
Chieftain: I'll have someone show you the way to the cave tomorrow morning. But I have to warn you - there is a monster in there. None who have ever gone inside have come out alive. I know I'm not paying you anything, but I don't need another death on the official record. Last thing I want is the governor taking notice of our problems.
Stranger: I appreciate your concern, Chief, but I would like to visit the cave tonight, if that is possible.
Governor: Tonight? But the creature comes out on the prowl at night! Bah! If you want to get yourself killed, then go right ahead, but my men will not travel in the dragon's land at night. I can have them escort you only as high up as the Three Way Pass. From there, you will have to find your own way to the cave.
Stranger: That should be enough.
Chieftain: You're either very brave or very foolish, stranger. Speak with William at the barracks. His men will lead you to the mountain.
Stranger: Very well.
---
There is an old legend in Gatun Village. It speaks of an ancient beast of great power who has lived inside the mountain since time immemorial. The mountaintops have always been seen as unholy ground, full of danger and peril, and so people rarely ventured there. There was nothing to be found in that accursed land but death and rocks. However, several years ago a ragged, wounded man descended from the mountain. He had suffered grave wounds and horrible burns, but on his death bed, he spoke of great treasure of gold and gemstone hidden in a cave, guarded by a dragon. Few believed him, for he was delirious, and fewer still dared face whatever had harmed the man so.
But in time, the people of the village grew curious and greedy. Famine ravaged the land, and the king's taxes grew heavier and heavier, until the allure of the dead man's tale of untold riches got the better of some. People went into the mountains and searched, finding only rocks, ash and the charred bones of men and beasts. But there was no treasure. As more and more adventurers climbed the mountain, a cave was discovered, dark and foreboding like no natural cave should be. Arrogance drove the men inside, and they awoke something ancient, something fierce and unforgiving.
The monster fell upon the scavengers defiling its land and slaughtered them with massive talons, crushing jaws and fire hotter than the infernal pits of the underworld itself. No weapon could harm the beast, no spell had any effect on it, and no creature was spared its aggression. Many died in a single day, and what few survivors staggered down the mountainside had all the same tale to tell - a dragon had slain everyone. Tall like the mountain itself, black like the dead of night and fierce like no creature should ever be.
Stories of dragons have appeared throughout the world from time to time, and few believed this one in particular. But this monster was real, and the treasure it guarded in its cave had proved to be real, as well. Piles of gold coins, chests full of silver bullion, ornate artefacts adorned with pearl and emerald jewellery. A treasure that even the king himself would be envious of. So the village Chieftain decided to offer an alluring reward to any adventurer who could slay the dragon and free the cave form its presence. The reward? A large part of the treasure hidden within.
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At the break of midnight, the stranger arrived at the cave in question. A cavernous void cut deep into the mountain stood before him - the ideal home for a titanic beast. He ventured into the darkness with an air of unsettling confidence, navigating the many tunnels until he came to a great hall of worked stone and towering pillars. In the distance, shimmering glitter could be seen as his light reflected from the shiny treasure therein. But gold and jewels were not on his mind, for the presence of something ancient could be felt in the darkness.
With a powerful gust of wind, the massive creature flew into the air and circled around the darkness in its great hall, surveying the unexpectedly bold intruder, until it approached him directly. With a thunderous crash it landed on the cavern floor, but the stranger did not panic or flee. The creature roared in towering fury straight into his face, but the stranger did not flinch. Instead, he stared the monster dead in its glowing yellow eye with such calm and presence that it surprised the monster completely.
Instinctively, it approached the stranger, whether to get a better look at him, to smell his scent or out of sheer curiosity, it was never clear. But this man had an unusually strong aura, and the creature knew it. The stranger mumbled a few inaudible words, performed a few elaborate gestures and placed his hand on the creatures snarling mouth. Instantly a light flashed just beneath its skin, as if in its mouth. This ball of magic light then travelled down its throat and affixed itself in the creature's neck, glowing through the skin.
Seemingly in pain and discomfort, the monster recoiled. It thrashed about, pounding the ground to ease the pain. Eventually, its mouth opened and a revolting mass of bile and human bones flowed onto the ground into an evil-smelling, foul pile. Confused and angry, the creature turned to the stranger, but it did not attack. Instead, it spoke. "You!" A deep, booming voice that came from within the core of the massive beast reverberated in the darkness of the great hall.
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Dragon: Who are you, human!?!
Stranger: I'm just a sorcerer.
Dragon: Do not insult me! You just lifted a curse placed on me by the Lord of Darkness, himself! No mere sorcerer is powerful enough to do this so easily!
Stranger: Yes, the Curse of Silence. It was common practice for Lord Mordrog to place this on the creatures he enslaved. I take it you used to be in his service?
Dragon: Argh! The fiend took me from my people, bound me to his will and imprisoned me inside this mountain! I would tear his worthless hide to pieces if I could just break this infernal curse! Are you one of his servants, himan?
Stranger: Mordrog is dead. He has been dead for the last five hundred years He has no hold over the land or its people any longer.
Dragon: What? Accursed warlock! Even with him dead, I was still trapped in here for all these years! And why are you here? Did those villagers send you to kill me? I killed all the rest of their champions, human. Do not think for a second that I would hesitate to kill you just because you broke my curse.
Stranger: I spoke with the Gatun Village Chieftain, that much is true, and he did attempt to recruit me to kill you. But I merely needed his directions and his information in confirming that this was indeed a genuine dragon sighting. I am glad to know my suspicions were correct.
Dragon: Do not play games with me, human! Did you or did you not come to kill me?
Stranger: I did not.
Dragon: No? Then why have you come? Why did you choose to lift my Curse of Silence?
Stranger: When the last great war ended, Mordrog's evil left many creatures trapped in indentured servitude to a dead master, possibly forever. Their fate was badly undeserved, and it was only right to find them and free them. You are one such creature.
Dragon: I do not remember asking for your charity!
Stranger: I do not do this out of obligation, dragon. I do this because I feel it is the right thing to do. You may not appreciate my gift, that is your right, but you have to appreciate the choice you now have.
Dragon: Choice? Are you trying to mock me, human? Do you think I stay here by choice? I was cursed and bound to this repugnant rock, to protect a mad tyrant's megalomaniacal interests! I do not want to be here! I want to return to my home and rejoin my people in our natural lives. I knew Princess Ellion was wrong to deal with your kind openly. You bring us nothing but trouble.
Stranger: Oh, my. You did not know, did you?
Dragon: Quite possibly. As you may imagine, I am in no position to receive news on world events. What it is that I did not know?
Stranger: Your kind is extinct.
Dragon: What are you talking about?
Stranger: The dragons of the world have all been dead for centuries, and the old dragon cities lie in ruins and decay.
Dragon: This is not possible! You will pay for your lies, human!
Stranger: I do not lie. But if you do not believe me, then feel free to see for yourself. Visit the old empire and see your cities as nature has left them.
Dragon: I cannot leave this cave, human! Did you not understand me when I said this before? I am bound to this location and I cannot travel far from it!
Stranger: Yes, you can.
Dragon: *growl*
Stranger: Allow me to explain. You were bound to this cave, but you can leave it now. The key reason that Mordrog cursed all of his slaves with silence was to prevent them from unravelling their own enchantments. When he took away your voice, he took away your will to fight your own fate along with it. But you have your voice now. If you can say that you want to leave, then you will be able to leave. It is that simple.
Dragon: If it were as simple as that, I would have broken that curse centuries ago.
Stranger: It is that simple if you have your voice. But if you do not believe me, then try it for yourself. Do you want to leave?
Dragon: Yes!
Stranger: Then say it.
Dragon: I want to leave this cave and never return!
Stranger: Now leave it.
Dragon: You infuriate me! Nothing has changed!
Stranger: Search your feelings, dragon. Search for that old compulsion which made your heart quiver when you entertained the thought of leaving. Search for the inescapable desire to stay. Search for those, and when you discover they no longer exist, you will be able to leave.
Dragon: This is nonsense! I... I can't... I can't feel those old feelings. How did you... No, I feel nothing for this place any more. Nothing at all. I can leave. I can leave! After all these years, I can finally leave this accursed place! Ha! Thank you, stranger. Keep the treasure if you want it. It no longer means anything to me.
Stranger: Think nothing of it. The treasure is not why I came here.
Dragon: Oh, that's right. Why DID you come here? It is clearly not to try to kill me, but then why else would you come? And please, do not insult my intelligence with vague answers and lies.
Stranger: My reason is quite simple - justice. What happened to you was unfair and undeserved. If I could undo at least part of that injustice, then I feel it is my responsibility to do so.
Dragon: So you did this out of the goodness of your heart? Please, do not take me for a fool. No-one does anything from pure altruism in this world, and neither do you.
Stranger: Do not consider my involvement here and unambiguous gift, dragon. I free you into a world which has changed much since you have last seen it. Worry not about my motivation, but about your own fate. I free you from bondage, but all this does is put your fate in your own hands.
Dragon: Then this is farewell, human. I thank you for your "gift," even if I doubt your motivation, and indeed your information. The dragon kingdoms could not fall so completely as you describe, but the possibility is chilling, and one I must check for myself.
Stranger: If this is what you wish to do, then you are now free to do so. Farewell, Dragon.
Dragon: I have a name, human. It is Zane of Terrenor. I am not the mindless monster that Mordrog's curse reduced me to. Remember my name and use it.
Stranger: Farewell, Zane. May you find your way.
Dragon: Farewell, Human. May you find the path to greater honestly. *fly off*
Stranger: Would that I could...
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With a powerful gust from its titanic wings, the massive black dragon lifted its body off the ground and flew off into the night sky. He flew East into the star sky, towards the dark silhouettes of Dragon Mountain and the old lands of the dragons. East, where the human kingdoms ended at the foot of towering mountains and harsh, unforgiving terrain where even the toughest men could not survive. The old kingdoms of the dragon kind lay at the end of his journey, but what would he find?
Zane, the black dragon, free now for the first time in five centuries. Free, but in a world much different than the one he left behind when he was bound to the mountain. Humans fled in fear of his presence. They had forgotten that his kind ever existed, thought them only myth and superstition to scare little children. And his kind, once prominent in the lands of humans and assisting the local governors in their tasks, were now nowhere to be seen. The magic of the world, too, seemed to have vanished, taking along with it the spirits of the land and the mystical creatures that used to inhabit it. What was the meaning of this? There had to be answers, somewhere in the East, where men dared not tread.
And as for our mysterious stranger, he returned to his quest of finding the cursed creatures, left as relics of wars long past, and freeing them from needless imprisonment. But fate would not permit him to return to the monotony of old habits, for the dragon he had freed would be more than just another wildlife rescue. Their tale is far from over. -
Here's something very spur-of-the-moment. I've had a few ideas bouncing around in my head for years, and I finally decided to put one of them down into writing, producing this fragment of a story. It's nothing really dramatic or high-brow. Just "figure it out as you go" writing that I think came out pretty good for the time it took me to make it, and it looks like it might be interesting to expand on.
I've posted this in a few locations, though I expect to get fewer responses than the post I made talking about it. It's not very City of Heroes related at the moment, largely because I just thought it up, but I'm liable to bring characters from it into City of Heroes if I end up liking them enough.
Once again - this is not high literature. It's just a thought experiment on my part, trying to figure out if I can just sit down and create a story from the random disembodied ideas I had floating around. So far, I like the result, but please let me know what you think.
P.S. As I'm writing this as I go, very little is set in stone. If anyone has the unexpected desire to have input on the story, I'm open to suggestions. -
Quote:Badges? Lower price? Isn't that why people craft them right now, as opposed to buying them off the Market? I mean, I can't have crafted more than ten enhancements in this past month, and I've kitted out a few characters in commons in that time.Originally Posted by Decorum
I think it goes against a Crafting system to have the stuff you're supposed to be crafting simply available for purchase. Why would anyone craft them any more?
What I'm asking for is a higher-priced but stable alternative to the fluctuating Marker. Ideally, I'd still try to get them off the Market, but if I found that certain enhancements simply weren't being sold or that the salvage for them cost millions, I'd take the fixed-priced option.
Considering Common Inventions are "enhancements done right," it KILLS me that they're being presented as loot. Sets are what look should be like. Commons as loot just turns them into needless busywork. -
Quote:That's kind of why it's suggested as a booster pack. For instance, I've always wanted to see an alternate version for Sniper Blast that was a big honkin' Kamehamehadouken fireball that landed in a loud explosion, justifying its greater damage, but my chances of getting this are somewhere between zip and nil. It doesn't seem to be what the developers have in mind for the basis of the power an the visual thematic of the game in general. It bugs me, but I can't do anything about it. But if this were a paid addition completely unrelated to the actual "intended" expansion of power customization, YOU BET I would get my credit card details out in a microsecond.Originally Posted by Decorum
There are folks that would like the big, flashy, anime style powers (I know Sam has mentioned it, too), but I'm skeptical. I think most of that stuff would be too big and would look kind of ridiculous in a lot of the close-quarters situations we tend to work in. I don't see huge plumes of water, for example, working well in an office corridor, unless they went to the vastly more expensive and time consuming effort to make the water bounce off the walls, etc.
There are lot of powers I feel should be more flashy, in the Final Fantasy 7 sense of the word. I've always felt that Inferno should be a towering pillar of fire and brimstone shooting up into the sky above the skyline and that Nova should be a HUGE explosion with an opaque expanding shockwave, and that Full Auto should sound much more like an autocannon than like a low-calibre submachine gun. The list goes on and on. I know I won't get that, because other things will always take priority.
Booster packs, as they are advertised, seem to be developed OUTSIDE of the normal development cycle, and as such shouldn't take away from free game development time. As such, unorthodox concepts make sense to be reserved for Boosters whereas the free expansions focused more on what most people will be able to use. -
Personally, I WOULD love that. I consider it really bad form to take other people's glowies on their own mission, but far too many people don't share my sentiment, and quite a few ignore my requests to let me grab them even when I remember to ask them. Having an option that force-locked glowies to the mission owner only would be pretty cool.
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Quote:Thank you!Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
If it makes you feel better, I liked your costume a lot better.
I was mostly joking, though. I know asking for praise is generally considered bad form. -
Quote:Far too many of them are low-brow insults done with the double-anonymity of not leaving a name behind for me to really bother to read them, especially when it gets to the various hate groups. I'm not saying yours are, but tags in general are far more often insulting than they are interesting to read, just like rep comments used to be.Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Tags are a fun forum game.
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Quote:Well, I'm not sure about that. I haven't worked retail, but going off the Internet, a lot of the most self-entitled jerks aren't actually kids. I used to think they were, up until a forum thread comes about where we share our age, and some of the most belligerent people end up being 40 or 50 or so.Originally Posted by Smurch
A sense of entitlement spans generations for some people
(former retail veteran here).
Its a personality trait moreso than a generational thing. That said, I think it's safe to say that there's alot of belligerently stupid kids on the internet who comprise a very vocal majority of the belligerently stupid demographic.
It has been my experience that adults of all ages are very easily capable of acting more juvenile than the actual juveniles, and not in separate occasions, mind you. I used to travel by bus a lot before, and by FAR the most "scenes" were being made by senior citizens who felt they shouldn't HAVE to show their free travel cards because they're so obviously senior and bothered with the process and felt that you HAD to get out of your seat and offer it to them even if you hadn't seen them and there's an empty seat right behind yours. I guess it's more satisfying when you take it from someone else.
But again - it's not an age thing, it's a personality disposition thing. The archetypal grumpy old man isn't grumpy because he's old, he's grumpy because that's just how he is. I'm barely 24 and I'm already grumpy enough to be 60. The kind of arrogant self-entitlement is just how some people are, I guess, but I keep wondering how so many retain that kind of attitude for so long. -
Quote:That is a LOT of work with potentially disconcerting consequences. Rescaling civilians to match the ruler should be easy. There are something like 20 models for them, and all civilian-exclusive. Everything else, however, features SO many models it's probably not economical to do so. And that's AFTER deciding who should be how tall. I mean, how tall should a Blood Brother Chopper be? He doesn't have any reason to be giant, but he could be a short guy or a tall guy, so 5-7 feet, maybe? Should the Freakshow be bigger? Should the Nemesis army soldiers? The Vanguard are already tiny, because they were made to scale, but should Malta soldiers be big?Originally Posted by Kyasubaru
- Adjust the scaling of civilian NPCs, pedestrians, and contact NPCs to accurately reflect a normalized height in relation to player characters.
- Obviously, some NPCs would remain large because they're supposed to be.
And even supposing all of that is changed, what we're left with is a world where our heroes one day wake up and are GIANT compared to everyone else. This means rescaling each and every costume's height to match the new environment, which is not only a lot of busywork, but actually requires a paid-for booster pack that many claimed wasn't worth the buy, so presumably many don't have.
Don't take me the wrong way - I WANT to see this. I want to see either the ruler adjusted to fit the in-game reality or the in-game reality changed to fit the world's actual scale. Or maybe we could have the world upscaled somewhat to fit the NPCs? I don't know. I'd like to know that normal people are actually normal unless they have a reason to be huge, but I'm not sure that's feasible to do at this point. -
Quote:Thing is, going 6'5'' doesn't make you "larger than life," but rather makes you "equal to life" because 6'5'' is how tall civilians are. To be larger than life, you need to go above that still. And if you're playing a female character, you actually need to go a full foot UP just to match the WOMEN civilians, let alone wanting to match the males. I never got why that was. Why are women short-capped to always be shorter than men?Originally Posted by Decorum
Probably a misguided attempt to make that an average super-hero as opposed to an average human. Average height in the U.S. is only a hair over 5' 9" for males and a bit over 5' 4" for females, but super-heroes are traditionally "larger than life". In American comics, they're generally drawn out of proportion to their heads as well. I believe it's 7 3/4 heads as opposed to the real 6 1/2 or so (I may be off a little on the numbers, but suffice it to say super-heroes are "stretched" vertically somewhat more than humans).
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Quote:That's not surprising. We condition ourselves to recognise certain important sounds among a cacophony of background noise, and when we're exposed to station where we expect them, it's not uncommon to get many false positives. For instance, I keep thinking that I heard the doorbell ring, but most often it's nothing.Originally Posted by Fire Lilly
That's nothing. I hear the beep at completely random locations... Repeatedly. I ALWAYS look around when I do.
In City of Heroes, there are many sound effects that have a little chirp that's very close to the Tell sound, often in player powers. You generally don't hear them within the cacophony of other sounds, but when you're by yourself and thinking "Boy, I wish one of my friends were online!" it's not unimaginable that you'd catch a few false positives here and there. It's a case of being oversensitive to certain sounds.
Then again, that's also the reason why I can hear my phone ringing through two closed doors and a hallway. -
Quote:Um... I think of Broadsword, actually.Originally Posted by Steelclaw
* You hear someone use the abbreviation "B.S." and immediately think Boresight.
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Quote:Actually, the comment very much was posted here and I read it. We may be speaking of two different comments, but unless you want to question my memory, I saw him say this. I'm not making things up, I'm not relying on other people's hearsay. This is what I saw, this is what was said.Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
oh @#$$%%ing hell. what did we get in issue 17 again? animated tails? look, sam, the reasoning that a person is guilty until proven innocent against claims that cannot even be produced is a witch hunt, not a reasonable stance. Look Sam, i am not asking you to be reasonable, but i am asking that on the most basic possible concept of open communication, you do not assume things to be true without evidence. Correlation is NOT CAUSATION! gyah.
as i said, zek IS a usually reliable poster, but since she did not transcribe the comment, nor give the exact context we cannot hold something against the guy, that is insane. you do not know the quote, as you show, because it was never posted here, the whole comment is heresay, you can be more rational than that, right sam?
Secondly, I reserve the right to draw my own conclusions, and as long as I'm not forcing them on you, I don't appreciate you berating me for them. I don't recall sending Jay angry e-mails or calling him names, so I don't believe I've made a mess of it, but this is what I believe, and I hardly see what business my beliefs are of yours. You're not going to change how I feel by arguing about it, because this is not scientific evidence based on scientific fact. This is my belief and my feeling on the matter, and it's not going to change via argument. It can only ever change via action, the kind that I am starting to see only just now.
As far as animated tails go, yes, I took this to be a good sign. However, the animated tails we got are merely animated versions of the static tails we had before, and animation is BABs' territory. It's useless to argue that he can't model, because he can. The the smaller tech shield without glowing parts is one he made when he was working on Shields, with Jay making the larger glowing one later in Beta.
I want to be wrong. Trust me, I really, REALLY want to be wrong and believe the guy has simply been overworked and it's management cutting off his creative freedom. We already saw David pussyfooting around the issue of animal parts, opening with "devil's advocate" testing questions, so there's evidence for that. I looked to the Mutant pack to prove me wrong conclusively, because both David and Positron have been dropping pretty heavy hints that apparently I and many others simply misread. I was looking at the mutant pack to prove me wrong, but all it did was seemingly prove me right.
I don't want to be right. It hurts me when I'm right about these things, and I still want to be proven wrong. The wolf/fox tail is a very good start and it keeps me hopeful, but after the disappointment of the Mutant pack, I'm not going to believe this until I see it. I used to say the same about the 5th Column coming back, and I'm glad I was proven wrong. The game is all the better for it.
And then there's this. I assure you - the way to my heart most certainly does not go through insulting my intelligence. If you want to question the validity of my information, then question it. If you want to question my conclusions, then question them. But please try to avoid questioning my ability to draw conclusions to begin with.Quote:Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
then sam would be absolutely convinced that one time he totally said he hated steam-punk costume bits and hates steampunkers, citing the twin damning pieces of evidence that there have been no new steampunk bits AND, that chewbacca was a wookie and not an ewok,i didnt quite catch the whole of his second point, to be honest.
As I've said numerous times in this thread, I know what Jay said, because I saw it with my own eyes. I don't know if Jay was serious when he said it, because nothing that man says is ever straightforward. I have a hard time accepting he got a box of hammers in the mail which he believes are meant for merrymaking, so I assume he was joking when he talked about the hammers, and it's not just possible but quite probable that he was joking about his hatred of furries, too. That's his style of posting, and while it is amusing to read, it is badly uninformative.
However, events since then tend to point to a grim possibility, and unless you have a problem with what I think and feel, that's the possibility I find to be most likely. Unless my opinion on the matter starts mattering some day, I would advise you against trying to change it. It's not worth your time, and you won't succeed anyway. -
Quote:I know this isn't the place for this, but if we ever get alternate movement modes, I'd really like to be able to make my wings extend when I walk. Wing-related emotes would be cool, as well.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Ahh. Oh well, an emote to spread wings woulda been awesome
Yet no compliment for mine? I'm hurt!Quote:I really love that outfit too, Bass, came out awesome. -
Quote:I am aware. However, what I asked for is Common Inventions ENHANCEMENTS, which are not available for fixed prices. Furthermore, even though I could buy the recipes themselves off vendors, I cannot buy the salvage needed to make them, and with salvage prices as... Unreasonable as they are now, I end up spending more just for the salvage than I would for a ready-made enhancement off the Market.Originally Posted by Bocus_King
Are you aware that common inventions recipes can be purchased at inventon work tables at fixed prices?
I just don't consider Commons to be loot, so their drop-limited/player-limited availability is probably one of THE largest irritations I have left in the game. I wouldn't mind paying exuberant prices for them, as long as I was guaranteed a steady supply and a non-fluctuating price.
But again, I didn't elaborate on this because I doubt anyone cares, and I really don't need to be told how easy they are to get off the Market. -
Quote:Yeah, that's kind of the problem - there's no good way to figure this out other than trial and error, and even then it's not always clear what the error was. I actually didn't pay attention to the ruler when I created my first character way back when (just didn't pay attention, I guess) and made him slightly taller than what was suggested. After that, in a time before the Science Booster Pack, I pretty much had to measure all my new characters by him, so they all went off centre. The few I later made by the ruler were... Wrong, and very obviously so, namely my giant Troll woman, whom I didn't want to make eight feet tall, but ended up having to, anyway.Originally Posted by StormSurvivor
I agree with Samuel that a good workaround is to ignore the height chart entirely, but that's what I feel is the issue: it's a workaround. Only players who have experience understand that this workaround is necessary if you want more appropriate scaling, whereas many new players are going to innocently use the chart and end up with something that doesn't quite fit right.
Ignoring the chart and going by experience definitely works. I just don't feel it should be necessary.
The worst part of it all is that the ruler is scaled to the world, but the NPCs in the world are not. If you're of average height on the ruler, you're to-scale with cars, doors and buildings, but tiny compared to even basic civilians. If you're average as to what looks normal, you're to-scale with the various civilians, villains and (most) other NPCs, but you're HUGE compared to buildings and cars. So it's not a simple matter of fixing the ruler, because the ruler is actually right. It's EVERYONE ELSE in-game that's wrong, and re-sizing all the NPCs at this point is just out of the question. Too much work and too many people left with unintentionally huge characters.
And why does the male slider default to 6'5'', anyway?