Samuel_Tow
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Quote:I could, but that'd defeat the purpose of trying to pinch slots from itOriginally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Or you could slot the bejeezus out of it for knockback and have fun playing Hellion Golf.
That said, is it just me, or are Siege's minions really overpowered? I took care of Battle Maiden's minions no problem but these guys feel like they have all of Energy Blast on each and every one. -
Quote:Yeah, I have no problems with knockback. I know Hover isn't a real substitute, but the difficulty I play at makes this less of a problem than getting killed via direct damageOriginally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If not that, one accuracy and maybe an end reduction should do fine. Damage isn't the point of Power Thrust, though you can use it to kill a minion with a sliver of health and save your bigger attacks for the LT breathing down your neck. In that regard, Repulsion Bomb as supplement AoE might help a lot more.
Thing is, I'm not actually losing on much of a performance shift by slotting Power Thrust for damage. Basically, I'm losing some speed in flight and a bunch of endurance reduction. I want my flight speed, though, because it's to concept, and for lack of Stamina, I need to watch my endurance consumption closely.
Luckily, I was able to drop a couple of defence buff slots from Personal Force Field (Lord knows why I put them there to begin with) and I should be losing a LOT of cost with the removal of Repulsion Field, too.
I guess you're right. Stick to using the power for Knockback and slot my real performers more. Thanks
*edit*
Well, the build seems to have come out just fine without Power Thrust. I don't get too many big targets that need large combos at this difficulty setting, so I'm not using Power Thrust much anyway. And this one STILL does better than my Dual Pistols Blaster
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Here's a bit of a dilemma I'm facing right now. I'm respeccing an old Energy Blaster I haven't messed with for years and I'm trying to sort of rework her build to Include Repulsion Bomb instead of Repulsion Field. That has made me sort of strapped for slots, and I was wondering if I couldn't just rob the three damage slots I have in Power Thrust.
Here's the thing with Power Thrust - it does rather a bit of damage, but it's... Not actually very good when you look at its numbers. It burns a lot of endurance for little damage, its DPS is crap and it costs rather a lot. About the only saving grace it has is that it has decent DPA, but even that is sub par, especially compared to something like Energy Punch or Bone Smasher. So I was thinking, why not just scrap my three slots that I had in there and up a few other things?
So, what do you think? Will I lose out if I don't have Power Thrust as an attack? -
Quote:That's only one side of what immersion can be, though. In its very basic sense, immersion is the state of mind where the boundary between the real and imaginary blur and our minds can let go of the nagging reality check constantly reminding us that this is a game and isn't real. The creative freedom to craft your own story as you go along is certainly a very good way to do this, but it is far from the only way.Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
I feel immersion when a game inspires me to add to the storyline with fiction of my own. Ironically, every game I have ever played for the last 20 years has engendered that sort of immersion in me. At least on the internet. However, console games generally don't. Knights of the Old Republic was a great game, but it was not an immersive game. There was nothing particularly different about your jedi from any other jedi who might be walking through this story. Mass Effect was the same. Great game. Had loads of fun. But it never became more than 'a game,' which is what to me defines immersion.
Once a game becomes a storytelling experience and inspires me to write my own stories to add to the universe, then I am immersed. You cannot do that with the linear, console rpgs because essentially there is only one story to add to and the developers have already written it from beginning to end.
Quite on the flip side, being presented a fairly uninteractive environment that is crafted in such a way that it becomes both enthralling and mesmerising is another very good way. I need go no further than Aquaria to explain this approach, as that is a game which is practically all about diving into the scenery and falling into a dream-like state through its beauty and atmosphere. In terms of gameplay and story, it's a rather mediocre game, but I've not seen many that can beat it in terms of the sheer power of the experience.
Further still, a game can enthral with dramatic story and engaging gameplay just the same. Even if the characters are not mine, I can still find inspiration in them, and if they are crafted well, I find myself caring about them, their fates and their adventures. Mass Effect is an excellent example of this, as it presents me with a whole plethora of powerful characters that, like in real life, I will like some of and others not care about. But when a character I care about gets involved in a dramatic moment, that matters, and I am immersed for the simple fact that I don't care if this is a game or not. I care about this character. I know it's not real, but the power of the experience is worth ignoring that fact on a basic, instinctive level.
Gameplay, finally, can itself inspire immersion, as the plot-light Prince of Persia: Sands of Time game well demonstrates. When gameplay is fun, engaging, intuitive and immersive to the point where you fall into a state of flow, that's a good game. I'd go through the tutorial, fight a few fights and without realising it, I'm instinctively looking for ledges, planning jumps, timing sword swings and generally wrapping my subconscious mind around the ability of the nameless prince in a way not too different than the mentality required to move my own body. Just as I don't think about which muscle must contract by how much to let me press a button, I don't think about which button combination to press in what sequence to perform a wall run followed by a long jump. I just think "wall run," then "jump." That is immersion on a different level still.
All of this is not to discount your preference and opinion, of course, merely to explain that immersion can work on many levels. Sadly, not all of them are appropriate for an MMO. -
Quote:Yes, we have this. It's the sort of thing everyone wishes we could skip, but we can't, because our cutscenes are horrible. In general, cutscenes are not a good way to make a game more immersive, because the actual game flows in and out of them with a very audible clunk, where it's almost like you're shifting between two completely incompatible things. That's why games like Half-Life and F.E.A.R. (well, F.E.A.R. 2, anyway) manage to be as immersive - because they tell the majority of their storyline in real time as you're commanding your character without yanking control away from you so you can sit and watch a cinematic, all the time thinking "Man, I wish I could be having this much fun right now!"Originally Posted by Prime_Nighthawk
Okay, I thought of a simple example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. I don't ever recall two NPC's talking back and forth (text) during a mission. This happens in instances in LOTRO all the time. The game freezes everyone in place and the npc's will blab at each other for a bit. Then you kill them :P
Read the texts and follow the stories. You don't have one single character-long story, but if you pay attention to the plot, you'll notice there are several extremely long storylines, some of them starting as hints and rumours. The Circle of Thorns storyline, for instance, unfolds over pretty much the whole game, until finally being fully revealed in the 30-40 range. Crey's story unfolds pretty much all the way from 30-45. CoV-side, several plotlines are left dangling, only for you to pick them back up at the end. Mako picks up where the Cult of the Shaper leaves off and Scirocco expands on Maros' "building of the tower" storyline. And, heck, even Grillo manages to pick up on the Snakes 40 levels down the line.Quote:For example, one of the epic story quests in LOTRO has you tracking down one of the Nazgul after they were washed away at the river outside of Rivendell. You find him at Helegrod which is an ancient Dwarf fortress in the Misty Mountains. The Nazgul and his servants are performing a ritual where they infuse fell spirits into the rotten corpse of the dragon Thorog who had taken over the fortress but was killed long ago. When you come upon them, they are in the middle of the ritual. You interupt them halfway through it, and Thorog flies off before coming fully under their control (killing him was a raid later in the game). Anyway it's a very cool scene.
As far as voice acting goes, this has MANY problems. For one, it's incredibly expensive and resource-intensive, more so the more text you have in your game. Something like Soul Reaver could be as great as it is because it has a whole constellation of voice acting stars, but that game has relatively little text to work with. And call me a prude, but I DO NOT WANT to see a redux of Fallout and Baldur's Gate where most of the people spoke in text and only a select few had dialogue. It made the game feel even more awkward than if it'd been just text.
And, really, voice actors don't help when the bulk of your game is narration. A narrator gets boring really fast, as Mass Effect 2's Codex dump at the start of the game quickly demonstrates. Voice actors work for movies and they work for games that have more dialogue, less narration, because it brings the characters to life. We don't HAVE dialogue in City of Heroes, so it really wouldn't work. In fact, going from Dragon Age to Mass Effect, having a talking protagonist who engages in active, real-time conversation with people, as opposed to monologue trades, is what makes voice acting really shine. That really doesn't work here.
And again - Champions Online. Just that. Hammy, corny voice acting narrating absurd text just doesn't do a game good.
Immersion in an MMO does not happen the same way it does in a single-player game, for the simple fact that single-player games are played as we watch movies, whereas MMOs are played as we write stories. For an MMO to be immersive, it needs to give you enough breadth for your imagination to get enthralled into its own story. As such, City of Heroes goes a LONG way, but our limited responses to contacts' requests are probably the BIGGEST stumbling block, and Going Rogue looks like it'll try to fix that a fair bit. -
Quote:Granted, arc rewards tend to be very serious, at least CoH-side, but considering the really big ones are rewarded for 20+ mission arcs, which I personally tend to spread around at least two or three days, more if I don't have much free time, so their net benefit is less than it feels. It IS a psychological boost, I agree, but there most of the newer arcs don't actually have that, being barely three missions long.Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
This may be technically true. I've never tested rate of progress trying to solo street sweep versus solo story arcing. What I will say is that it is a huge psychological boost when you receive 2-3 bubbles of experience as an arc completion reward.
Now, I know that many arcs have street sweeping components to them, but I'd wager that if you do nothing other than story arcs versus nothing other than street sweeping, doing nothing other than story arcs is going to get you your level a lot faster.
But again, I highly doubt you'll be able to goad people outside with rewards. The convenience of indoor missions is just too great. -
Quote:The Shadow Shard Reflections are not native to the Shadow Shard. They are a construct of one of the Aspects of Rularuu for reasons that have never been explained on account of him not being in the game, but they are not the mirror images of our own world so much as they're the constructs of an aspect of the mind of a godlike creature, done in the image of what he sees from our own world.Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Yet it's still full of Reflections...
For instance, the Evil Statesman from Evil Earth would be a mirror of the Evil Statesman from Primal Earth (you know he is!), but the robot double of the now-dead Ambivalent Statesman from Ambivalent Earth would not be a mirror of the Evil Statesman from Primal Earth. He would be an in-world construct that just happens to resemble a mirror image. -
Quote:If you want to be immersed in City of Heroes, you need to treat it more like a book. Yes, there's lots of text that you can just skip past, just as you can leaf through a book, have a look at the last page and ask what the big deal was. Lacking voice acting and cutscenes (that are not incredibly annoying), the game really does play out like a textual story that you basically fight your way through. If you don't read the text, there's really nothing to immerse you in the game.Originally Posted by Prime_Nighthawk
I'm curious about what kind of content COH has to offer. The basic combat is fun, and I've enjoyed leveling up my toons. I've blown through mission after mission. Usually I don't read too much of the text, and I realize I probably miss out on some of the story and background for the various heroes and factions. It just seems that COX doesn't do a good job of letting you know what you should pay attention to and what you can just mindlessly blow through.
Personally, I wouldn't look for the same kind of "immersive" content a single-player game takes you through. Those games are largely scripted and rely on predictable player paths, mood music, scripted dialogues, cutscenes, briefings and so on. They're also usually 10-20 hours long. An MMO in general is going to have a much more loose interpretation of immersion and will basically tell you a story for your character to play through, which you have to read. There's no way around that.
There are fights against iconic characters, obviously, as well as fights with iconic character fighting on your side, there are a few scripted sequences and a few special missions, but by and large, that's the most you can expect out of an MMO. Even the the-called epic content just constitutes more fighting, just against bigger bosses, possibly with more elaborate techniques required to defeat them. But if you don't read the text, that still leads to the "Who the hell is Kel'Tuzzad?" problem. You're fighting a big thing at the end, but you have no idea why, who that big thing is, what it did to deserve being killed, or even what the hell a "Naxramas" even is. And that can be rather embarrassing. -
Quote:Nor is Wizard, but I was going for comedic value more so than for factological accuracy. I think it's a fair tradeoff.Originally Posted by Scythus
Just to point out, the term "witch" is not limited to gender.
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Quote:Really, the voice in the Arachnos loop isn't bad, but it's too heavily filtered to make it EEEVIL. Picking someone with a naturally deeper voice would be much more plausible. I can't really think of anyone off-hand, though.Originally Posted by vulpish_one
That's exactly why I think it might be a good idea to give Recluse a deep, monsterous tone, like Fred Tatasciore's ("The Beasts" from MGS4, for instance). Might go a step toward redeeming Recluse.
Problem is, that's all I've ever heard him as. Obviously, Kain is the defining character, but aside from him, he's played Dr. Doom, Admiral Whatever in Mass Effect, that somewhat OK guy mercenary in Knights of the old Republic and things like that, overall. If you want someone more appropriate, you may want to look at his colleague from Soul Reaver, Michael Bell. Aside from Raziel, he's also played Ezekiel Rage in The New Adventures of Johnny Quest, where he was basically an extreme religious fanatic, and Enorum from Advent Rising, where he played an outwardly reserved, but truly very passionate alien commander. Seems like the right guy to me.Quote:Oddly enough, your description of Bale is exactly how I see Simon Templeman. I was thinking more "snarky," though, less "I am Kain, emporer of all I see."
I honestly think Ghost Widow needs to be less emotionless and more cautiously reserved. She hasn't lost her emotions or her restraint, she is merely stuck where she was at the time of her death, and over time has had to adapt to her mind not necessarily being in a state she is comfortable with. That would require a portrayal that is not in the slightest dispassionate, but rather simply calculating and resigned, in a sad way. That's why I offered Hynden, as she has proven to be an actress that does a good job balancing hammy overacting drama with an almost introvert performance.Quote:I finally thought of my Ghost Widow. How about Laura Bailey (Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist)? Quiet, cold, and always just on the verge of actually--God forbid--emoting. I still wouldn't mind hearing Jennifer Hale take a crack at it, though. I like to hear my favorite VAs branching out.
I'm sure Jennifer Hale could do a good job of it, as well, but again, that's cheating. She has done self-controlled dramatic roles in Iron Man's Spider Woman and Bastilla San from Knights of the Old Republic, and she has done extroverts in a few games, including Mercenaries 2. Her portrayal of Black Cat/Felicia Hardy in the 90s Fox cartoon Spider-Man is very much on the ball for what she'd need to do here.
But again, that's cheating. It's like getting Tom Kenny or Charles Addler to play... Practically anyone you pick
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Quote:I just caught that, but it occurs to me that the original Japanese voice actor for Naruto's Orochimaru would actually fit that one quite well. I know he's not an English-speaking voice actor, but his whizzing voice and sinister mannerisms would really fit the character.Originally Posted by Nova Knight
Dr. Vahzilok - Colin Clive: the original Dr. Frankenstein; just imagine him saying, "It's alive!"
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Quote:Maybe he was thinking of War Wizard?Originally Posted by DarkGob
I don't really see the distinction aside from what it's called. Also, War Witch is female.
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Quote:Being an actual foreign guy, that one comes to me naturallyOriginally Posted by Attache
Foreign Guy - my accented voice that always sounds the same regardless of the imitated's gender or national origin.
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Quote:So have I, but I can't say I share your view on this particular subject.Originally Posted by Westley
So do I.... the Nostalgia Chick was so sexy in it....
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...man, I've been single for too long... -
Quote:I was actually making fun of the character, since he is the personification of everything that's wrong with City of Villains' settings and storyline. I WANT to take the guy seriously, because he does have some dastardly plans afoot, but seeing how CoV was designed to make a point, rather than be a believable world, I just can't help but see him as the ultimate expression the Dork Age of comic books pretty much defining an entire game.Originally Posted by vulpish_one
"Now... Face the mighty Bison!" Seriously, though, with the clip that plays on the Grandville speakers, I'd go with Fred Tatasciore, if budget weren't a concern.
[quote]Excise most of Simon Templeman's British accent, and you've got a good Manticore.[quote]
Manticore always struck me as more of a Christian Bale's Batman. Maybe I haven't read enough comic books about him, but the character strikes me as the typical brooding, angsty "woe is me" dark knight who just doesn't benefit from Simon's authoritative voice. And, call me crazy, but after seeing his performance as Dr. Doom in one of the Fantastic Four series, I'd definitely stick Simon Tempelman as Nemesis. The accent would add to the character and the way he can speak with both utter superior contempt and authority at the same time is just invaluable
True, but she does have a specific subset of characters that she does really well, typically either strong but emotional women or badass mercenaries who end up getting writer's cramp from taking so many names.Quote:Someone upthread mentioned Jennifer Hale, but she can already do almost anything; that's a bit of a cop-out.
On that note, though, I'm reminded of Hynden Walch who did Starfire for Teen Titans. More importantly, she did Velina in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! which I think demonstrates the breadth of her talent. Somewhere between Velina and Starfire would be the perfect combination for Ghost Widow, I should think. -
Quote:I was actually shooting for Ping Girl Blue Boy, which just so happens to have the Nostalgia Chick's quote up top anywayOriginally Posted by Westley
The one I ended up referencing, though, was accidentally more appropriate, in that Colour Coded for Your Convenience actually deals with a lot of the same problems we're seeing here - which colours are evil and how can you tell who is evil and who isn't based on how they look.
I really want to see the Smurfette Principle again, now that you mention it
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*sigh* I figure I might as well give this one a shot and put in a bit of work towards making my character look cool. Here's what I have so far:
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Quote:Nothing of the sort. We have plenty of cool items that NPCs don't use, but because we have them, we take them for granted. This is kind of like the tale of the goose that laid the golden eggs. We have many cool costume pieces to use, but we ant THEIRS for no reason other than because we can't have them.Originally Posted by Primantiss
It seems to be an unfortunate rule in MMO's that all the really cool stuff is limited to NPCs..
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Quote:It's not even a question of veteran status when it comes down to "Epic" ATs. A long-time veteran is in no way guaranteed to have hit 50 already, and a new player with a lot of time on his hands is all but guaranteed to have struck one if he really wants to.Originally Posted by McCharraigin
My opinion as a 33 month Vet is "Villain Epic unlocking when you get a villain to level 20??? Yes please."
And, Mornediel, I love your name. . .. it has a ring to it.
Lisa.
And as far as I'm concerned, I'd do a little dance and throw a little party if veteran rewards were unlocked to the general public, and this is coming from a 63 month veteran. -
Quote:Arachnos Widows do indeed start out as a Blood Widow and can dual-class to either Night Widow or Seer of the Fortunata. In the same way, Arachnos Soldiers start out as Wolf Spiders and can then dual-class to Crab Spider or Bane Spider. Personally, I'm more than a little saddened that Wold Spiders can't just dual-class with themselves and keep being Wolf Spiders without having to disregard half their build, but that's just me, I guess.Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
Is it really? I honestly didn't know that. To be fair, I mostly play blueside, and only go red when Ana pleads with me to.
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Eh, I don't tend to read text in "voices," for the simple fact that I don't tend to think in voices, more so in concepts, and I read text how I think.
That said, after some deliberation, I'd assume Lord Recluse would sound like Street Fighter's M. Bison because he wants to, you guessed it: take over the workd. Of course! -
Quote:That's actually a classic fallacy you're sporting there. Just because all mirror universes are alternate universes does not mean that all alternate universes are mirror universes. The relation does not go both ways. The Shadow Shard, for instance, is an alternate universe without being a mirror universe in the slightest.Originally Posted by falloutsurvivor
mirror universe or alternative universe is globally the same thing.
because a mirror universe IS an alternative universe.
alternative is the umbrella term.
edit: oh and ** -
A "nerf" to outdoor experience has never occurred. In fact, in-door missions don't really have that much higher an experience gain at all. End of mission experience is a boss' worth of experience, if that. The real experience gained from missions comes from enemy defeats. Debt IS a factor, but a very small one. In fact, the myth that people do indoor missions because of some inherent buff to indoor experience vs. outdoor experience is just that - a myth.
People prefer indoor missions because of control, availability and convenience. And with the new difficulty settings, you WILL NOT get people out of missions come hell or high water. The overworld's difficulty just doesn't match what people want to fight.
Originally, people hunted outside because indoor missions didn't let them take on +10 enemies. The purple patch put an end to that, yet indoor missions would still only provide even con enemies, and people wanted to fight +2 and more. Then the difficulty settings kicked in, people could go to Invincible and fight the enemies they wanted to fight on demand. That ended any need to fight outside at all. Originally, the outside game offered high levels and large spawns, but at the cost of having to look for them and their being of unpredictable composition and enemy group. Inside a mission, you can pick what enemies you want to fight and, with the new difficulty settings, how many of what level and what composition you want to oppose. You can, in a sense, fight EXACTLY what you want in EXACTLY the way you want to fight it. You can't do that outside.
People run indoor missions out of sheer convenience. Until difficulty settings start affecting the overworld (and they won't), you're not going to be able to lure people outside in the streets again, even with large rewards. The staggering inconvenience of simple hunting as opposed to indoor missions, coupled with the problem of spawncamping which fuelled the drive to improve indoor missions to begin with, just won't let you do that in any way that won't be gamebreaking. For instance, I enjoy playing at -1x3 with no bosses. I used to hunt outdoors with my Scrappers because I couldn't get that in missions, but I couldn't do it with my Blasters because spawns of this size always held two bosses. Now I CAN do it, because I can boost spawn sizes, but turn off bosses. In effect, I face a severe penalty for hunting outside because real bosses are too dangerous. I haven't built for them, and I don't want to fight them.
Events, as well, won't get people out, either. Rikti invasions get people out occasionally, because they're rare, but once they start happening every day, people stop coming very quickly. Just the outdoor experience isn't going to get people out, either, as my outdoor experience is from games where I'm constantly competing with people for spawns and mission objectives. Damn Champions Online for making me queue up for 15 minutes just to rescue one guy that kept being rescued by late comers!
But I'm somewhat biassed. I hated outdoor hunting with a passion back in the day when it was popular, and I have not missed it one iota since then. In fact, it bugs me greatly when I get an outdoor hunt mission, because I know I'll spend bloody ages looking for enemies of the right level and still end up grinding greys anyway, because I don't feel like wasting my time flying around for nothing. And I'll probably get killed, because the only spawns my level will have two bosses, four lieutenants and a dozen minions in them.
Indoor missions are convenience. Rewards and gimmicks will not trump that. -
Quote:I just want to snip-quote Linkara here from his review of Countdow, expositing on the stupidity of Mary Marvel turning "evil" when she takes the Black Atom's powers:Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
Whether a character is evil or not depends on the character's personality and his or her history, not the origin of his powers or how he is designed.
"What they're basically saying here is that evil isn't caused by people making choices, it's because the power itself makes them evil. [...] They are, in fact, ruining two characters at the same time with this nonsense!"
And I have to agree with that. I've never been a fan of the notion of EEEVIL powers, because they kill all dramatic storytelling that deals with morality and ethics. This isn't a planet of hats where every super fills out a form and is issued an alignment here. They don't go "Hmm... Dresses in black, uses the powers of darkness, has dark in his name. OK, Steve, this one's a villain. Ship him over to the Rogue Isles. Next!" What makes characters good or evil is the choices they make and the way in which they use their powers.
Granted, having a world where society expects people of certain powers to have a certain alignment can make for a really good story as it explores the morality of a character who doesn't fit this preconception and manages to be hypocritically evil with good powers, or good with evil powers despite being hated. Hell, Desdemona herself is an example of a person of evil powers being a hero, and she's the public face of Going Rogue, and her story is actually very interesting.
Evil powers for evil people is right there with blue boys and pink girls in terms of children's cartoons clichés that have no business in entertainment aimed at adults, or even teenagers. At this point, I'd rather see game lore give me the facts and let me form an opinion of who's good and who's evil, rather than trying to colour-code things for my convenience. -
Quote:This has happened a few times, yes, and each time people have panicked. I imagine not having a 50 to log in would be even worse.Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
That's certainly how it's supposed to work. But it's possible for your account to get bugged that it thinks you don't own any lv50 characters, and the only way to fix the bug is to log in to a lv50.
As far as the topic goes, I find imaginary prestige to be a bad reason to hold back beneficial changes. Besides, getting to 50 is not a praise-worthy event, since it requires time, not any specific skillset, other than the ability to use a mouse and keyboard, and possibly the need to have functioning eyes. New people are going to aw and gawk at anything less new than they are. I've had people gasp at my ability to fly, but that doesn't really do much for me. I'm much more satisfied when people gasp at my ability to recall most game information and details off-hand.
Basically, this is for the greater good of the game. If a few people's egos get caught in the door, then that's a small price to pay. Which would be really funny to anyone who sees this as the euphemism it was supposed to be.