Samuel_Tow

I guess my resentment (yes, resentment) of people billing their games like this comes from the mediocre nature I assume games designed so "back-to-front" would have. It's like they said "OK, we made a game that's basically EQ or WoW, so to speak, but it looks kind of different. But it's the same game, we promise!" To me, a good way to design a game is to come up with something interesting and innovative and then try to build a game system around that, rather than taking an age-old game system and trying to shoehorn a game into it. "OK, we have a game in a modern setting that needs crafting. What can we craft? Err... GUNS!"

Frankly, I like your view of the evolutionary and revolutionary nature of MMOs, but... Well, suffice it to say that I'm still waiting for a real revolution. Whether City of Heroes is one or not I don't want to discuss, lest I get ranted to death, so let's go with WoW. WoW was, yes, a revolution, in that it took the old, tried model and used it almost as-is, but removed a lot of the pain and suffering from it. This is what brings the MMO world to the non-hardcore gamers who don't feel like torturing themselves by devoting their lives to a game. Up until they go raiding that is, but that's still comparatively less.

Generally, I just want to see SOMETHING new in the MMO world. Just rehashes of EQ are getting really tiresome, most of all because I don't think EQ and MMO are synonymous.

So have I. If you're jumping at a speed higher than what combat jumping allows, you snap back down to its regular speed. Try leaping off a Shadow Shard geyser and strafing with Combat Jumping on and off. Without it, you steer. With it, you drop into the void.

In fact, that's true with Super Jump, as well. Since the geysers shoot you at a speed faster than Super Jump provides, trying to steer with Super Jump on WILL cause you to slow down and come up short.

Are you positive about that? I've played with Super Jump a lot, and to my eye it seems to ascent at the same speed regardless of what it's slotted with, which is the same speed everything else short of Fly ascends at. Literally all jumping, and I've gotten quite a bit of jump height via combinations of Combat Jumping and Swift. What determines forward speed, then? I know friction only controls acceleration and deceleration, not maximum speed, so what controls that, then?

*edit*

OK, I'm seeing JumpHeight, SpeedJumping, MovementControl and MovementFriction. I'm assuming SpeedJump is the speed of ascent and MovementControl the lateral speed.

Really? Sprint also stacks with Instant Healing, and that has about as much to do with the discussion as what you mentioned.

Sprint "stacks" with Fly insomuch as Fly doesn't detoggle it, but Sprint does nothing for Fly. Literally nothing.

Sprint stacks with Super Jump, but the jump height increase in Sprint is negligible. And I'm not saying that to be facetious. It really is as good as no jump height increase at all. It does not help it AT ALL.

Sprint stacks with Super Speed, but Super Speed reaches its own run speed cap just by itself in the higher levels, and even in the lower levels, Sprint's contribution is negligible. Add to that the fact that everyone seems to have Swift as a gate to Stamina, which caps your run speed with Super Speed, and you can see how Sprint helps next to nothing.

Oh, right! And Sprint also stacks with Teleport. Now ain't that somethin'?

Sprint doesn't take Flight Speed enhancements, since it doesn't have a flight speed component. You're thinking of Swift. And maybe Quickness.

Err... How do you figure that? It's like me saying there are a proportional number of people asleep and awake at night in Las Vegas. My saying it doesn't make it true.

Perhaps you may want to quite these supposed "facts?" I've seen about as many people complain they can't find a team as I've seen people say they're teaming just fine, and I don't recall an officially-released piece of information stating this. I'm glad you feel vindicated in questioning my honesty, though, because that speaks volumes about your own credibility. I trust my eyes and I trust my ears and I trust my experience. And my experience does not show me a problem. But I'm open to evidence. Got any?

Also, what exodus are you talking about? Yes, I've heard of people moving to Freedom and Virtue. I've also heard of people moving OFF Freedom and Virtue. You know, back in the days when they used to lock people out? Yes, there is the occasional poster who complains their server is a ghost town. There is the occasional reply from people who play on the same server who say it's nothing of the sort. I can't tell who to believe, but I do know that my own experience does not show me a meaningful population problem.

If this is your "evidence" that the developers favour farming, then I don't know whether to laugh or to cry, so I'll just go with *rollingfacedesk* What are you thinking, man? First of all, Architect enemies have never had boosted experience, and certainly never anything like four times normal. In fact, custom enemies are currently slated to only ever give out full experience if they are Extreme/Extreme with all their powers, and give rapidly diminishing rewards the less powers they have. That's enemies who are HARDER than normal foes, yet give less experience. Furthermore, patrol experience does not apply to the Architect AND putting in factions with missing classes penalises your experience further.

But, really, if you managed to miss the complete and utter gutting of the architect in response to the exact complaint you had, then I don't know what to, other than get your facts straight. And that's facts, not "facts."

Furthermore, on what planet is SSK better for powerlevelling. Have you any concept what powerlevelling even is? The easiest way to powerlevel is to have a high-level character killing things while a low-level character racks up disproportionate rewards. This is no longer possible with SSK, because lower-level characters are not allowed to remain unSKd. This is, in fact, a major disruption to powerlevelling, and not the first of its kind, either. Earlier they narrowed the gap of levels that allowed experience to be gained and changed redistribution of rewards on teams, and then further cropped it at 5 levels below the highest level team member before we got this.

Any time you start a sentence with "you probably," just think twice and don't. You are wrong. I don't make my own teams, in part because I don't have to, and in part because I don't need or want to. Keeping an 8-man team of strangers is indeed a lot of hard work. Too much work for me, so I don't. I join other people's teams or *gasp* solo. Yeah, you can do that in the game, too. The problems you cite are exactly why I do this. I play on teams when I can and feel like it, and I solo the rest of the time.

You have no idea who or what the community is made up of, and I can quite it as a fact that plenty of people have spoken up and expressed opinions very much like mine over the years. I won't go as far as to say "most" people, but enough to convince me, at any rate. Cheap shots at my credibility do little to help yours.

Then you need to put on your reading glasses. Everyone is free to play however they damn want. That was the point all along. If you want to shoot to the top, you can put your back into it and do just that. If you want to slow down and smell the roses, you're free to do that, too. If you want to play on teams all the time, that's an option, despite what alarmists would have you believe. If you want to solo all the time, then there's nothing stopping you. Options and control of your own experience are the order of the day, and what's the most baffling is that people are arguing AGAINST these options.

The original argument was that new players were being suckered into levelling too fast and getting burned out on the game. From what I've seen, this used to be true during the Architect fiasco, but after the castration of the Architect and the advent of SSK and the new difficulty settings, this is no longer the case. The need for fillers and padders and midders is gone, so there is no reasons for farmers and powerlevellers to NEED other players, which is where the problem used to lie. But if you'll update your info on Architect Entertainment, that is no longer the case, hence the problem that caused the concern was solved by I16.

I'd actually not mind seeing the old Tops With Skin upgraded a little bit, to be honest, just not changed or repurposed. Their textures are rather low-res, misaligend in places and generally not very, err... Well done. Compare them to newer patterns like Sinister which have much sharper lines and you'll see the difference. So while I don't want to see them changed into something else, I WOULD like to see higher-res, better aligned textures (or rather, masks) for them.

Positron's origin, while narratively interesting, is a MESS when it comes to the game's origins systems. By his explanation (in the Origins of Power arc), he has the ability to create minute amounts of anti-matter, which do nothing more than create big explosions. So he's a mutant, purely technically speaking, making him Mutation. But because he's also a scientist and built his suit to harness and project the energy he can create, he can be said to be Technology. It's a fine line to tread, and Matt Miller has chosen to make him Technology. Given that origins don't make a lot of difference and are largely up to the player (and given that he's lead developer) his decision is very much final.

I can, however, easily spin that as Science just by shifting the focus of narrative. With a suit of power armour, he is very much tech. Altered into something like Dr. Aeon, who essentially has power gloves and not much else, the focus then shifts onto the power source with the focusing device being merely a tool, and suddenly we have a Science hero. That's part of what makes origins so cool - you can spin them a lot if you put your mind to it.

The problem is that this isn't actually true, and I keep trying to tell people but no-one ever listens. I tried the names people are failing to get now back in 2004. To no-one's surprise, they were taken back then, too. The "good" names got snatched on day 1, and by May 2004, they were already gone. Veterans are in now way, shape or form more fortunate than new players. Certainly a select few people luckied out, but there weren't more names back in 2004 than there are now. Believe me, I've tried.

Good names are not getting fewer and fewer. Good names went as soon as the game opened its doors. OBSCURE names are what's getting fewer and fewer, but there are so gosh-dang many of those left they aren't running out any time soon. True, even some blindingly obvious names could have slipped through the cracks (I got "Bodyshop" a couple of weeks ago, much to my amazement), but what slipped through hasn't really decreased much since then.

Finding a good name now is no easier than it was back in 2004. The people who claim it is would have had just as much trouble back then. That much I can guarantee.

And, yeah, the fortunate or creative can still stumble onto diamonds in the rough like that. There are lots of these obvious names that were apparently so obvious no-one expected them to be free

Even better since the actual like goes: "Everybody WAS kung fu fighting." Yeah, it bugs me every time I click on this thread.

Err... If by "yet" you mean by the time I posted, perhaps. By NOW, they have been given multiple times. And anyone has access to that information by typing [ninja run] in their chat line. You don't need to have the power to see its stats. As well, it IS a hell of a lot faster than Sprint partly because it STACKS with Sprint, which everyone has, and partly because it has twice the speed, something I listed way back in the beginning of the thread, myself.

And "don't he hatin'" just makes me laugh. Really, it does. I sat here for, like, 5 minutes straight trying to think of an answer to that and I can help but just chuckle, so I'm afraid that chuckle is going to have to do for a reply.

On the other hand, because they don't look like clothes, I can actually mix and match them a lot better, as well as just making wild designs with them. I keep hearing people complain about Tops with Skin, but frankly, I've used most of the options EXCEPT Metal, the corset and and the Wedding pack garments. I mean, I might have used them here or there to simulate real clothes, but they don't exactly go well with each other. An Angelic Plus top pretty much only goes with an Angelic Plus bottom or a pair of pants. It doesn't go with the hot pants, for instance, or the Savage bottom.

I was just joking about that But even if I were serious about human potential, even the humans fly around and shoot fireballs in that show. They're just constantly one power level lower than the aliens.

This is completely subjective, but I feel that stylistic simplicity has its place as a design choice just the same. Just as the choice between finely-detailed, intricate patters and simpler, large shapes, the choice between complexity of and novelty of design and the simplicity of design is one that comes down to preference. I personally have characters on both ends of the spectrum, and they each work for different concepts.

I can't say I agree with you completely on where the border between science and technology lies. I don't want to discuss existing characters, but let me put it like this - just the ability to remove the tech piece is not enough to serve as a distinction. Cybernetics are an extreme example, granted, but something as simple as an arm cannon sewn into your hand would still be Technology, because you're using technology to shoot things. Science, at least as presented in the game, is more genetic engineering, enforced mutations and so on. When you start grafting machines to the body, you're slipping into the realm of Technology.

And, of course, as with most origins-related discussions, this is just my opinion.

No, I most certainly don't see a reduction of players from when I'm standing. I team just as much these days as I did back in the day. More so, in fact. It's quite possible I don't see the full picture, but as far as I can see, things are more or less how they've always been. I don't see as many people in the streets as back in 2004, granted, but then with everybody in instances, what's the point in just hanging out in the streets? A server filled with 1000 copies of me would still seem mostly empty streets, since I largely just travel through them.

And how do you extrapolate that levelling speed has a negative effect on the game. Most of what I've heard is from people complaining debt was too high and the game was a grind, or that the 1-20 game was horribly boring and they wanted to skip past it. Including this thread, I've seen fewer people complaining about levelling speed being too high than I have fingers on one hand. And I assure you, both my hands have five fingers. Even if the servers are drying up, which I cannot confirm or deny, it's just as likely caused by the alignment of the stars as it's caused by too high levelling speed.

Furthermore, if you believe that once you've gotten to level 50, there is no further point in playing the game, then you show a profound lack of understanding of the point of the game, or indeed the design of MMOs in general. This game in particular emphasises replay value. You miss a lot of content on your way to 50 even if you don't hurry, the variety between characters is incredible and customization is very high. And indeed, even other MMOs are gradually speeding up their levelling speed. Levelling up in WoW, and indeed even gathering epic loot has been getting easier and easier all the time, yet I haven't seen their numbers wane. That really doesn't say whether levelling speed increases are good or bad, it merely says that the data we have is inconclusive.

So, again. I see no problem with the levelling speed of the game.

*edit*
Ugh... I think part of my brain died after reading this statement, and now my left hand is twitching. Thanks a lot!

The sheer ignorance of this paragraph is just baffling. Are you seriously, really seriously, suggesting that the developers actively and intentionally HELPED farming? That they sat down and said "Hmm... We could add more types of missions, but that would prevent people from farming, so let's let them make their own farms instead!" Seriously? This is... Look, they spent how many Issues patching up holes, slapping timers on farm missions, reducing experience, removing experience, altering content, introducing merits and overall busting their butts to keep people from farming and powerlevelling, and you say they were afraid of "offsetting" farming? That they actively created it? Are you even listening to yourself?

Really? That... That's all the stuff in an MMO? Just... Crafting and auction houses and mailboxes and... Levels and XP? That... That's an MMO? Seriously? I mean, the guy literally spends less than 30 seconds talking about the game before he drops that, like THAT is pretty much what the game is all about. And let me remind you - CrimeCraft (try to say that without laughing) is a game about crime and gang activity in the future, but because it's billed as an MMO it has to have all that crap? And that's it?

So let me repeat the question: What makes an MMO? Is it the crafting, the loot, the economy, the XP and levels? Is it? Really? I mean, I know that for a lot of MMOs, that's what they essentially are - just a skin over that. But is that really all that it comes down to? Isn't there... Shouldn't there be more to an MMORPG? Again, this is not a leading question - I honestly don't have a good answer to it. But, just... Every time I see a new MMO being made, it's always advertised like the exact same game, but in a different setting. Literally. If you manage to miss any talk about the game's setting (like I skipped in my quote), it might as well be EverQuest or some such, right down to the terminology used.

There has to be something more, right?

You'd be surprised. I like to play with people's sensitivities and decency, and pretty much whenever I've dropped hints of the concept, the reaction of most people has been the same. That's not just strangers, either. Friends of mine have the same reaction, even if they're a little too polite to say more than "Uh... Ooookayyy..."

I'd say calling it something else is prudent.

This is sort of a necropost, so let me just say that I agree with you, and I said pretty much the same thing somewhere in the thread back when it was still new. I very much agree with the substance of the idea, but calling it something else is very much a must, if only to avoid the "bat credit card" sort of twitch hate some people seem to feel towards the very concept.

On the one hand, we have precedent for this. We got wings as a veteran reward, and eventually they were put into the regular game. We also got, as mentioned, costume change emotes, and then got more of those in the regular game. On the other hand, we have precedent to the contrary. In the how many years since Trenchcoats were added into the game, we have not seen A SINGLE ONE added in addition to the ONE design that's in the veteran reward. We have a tuxedo with a coat tail, kind of, and the Magic Bolero has a similar technology, sort of, but that doesn't change the fact that we have ONE TRENCHCOAT. And then we have things like the Super Science "cosmetic surgeon" which I don't foresee ever making it into the game proper.

So I'm not sure what to say. About the only thing I can say is that I hope the ninja run is a precursor to either some kind of movement style customization, or at least to travel power customization, or AT LEAST to a new travel power that's sort of in that vein.

The problem occurs not because of what Natural means as an origin, but rather because there's a rather large gap between JUST Natural and Natural HUMAN. If you try to make a natural human and don't want to go into mysticism or the hidden power of the human spirit, you are highly restricted in terms of what you can do (in fact, most natural humans would break their ankles just from the height of a regular jump, landing as we do). That's really what causes the debate about travel powers - people want something that at least looks like an average person can do it, at least with enough training and dedication.

Personally, I like to go the "No! Jump good!" route of arguments, but Samurai Jack's ability to jump and roll is still far from human, especially in the episode in question, and while that's OK in the outlandish settings of post-Aku Earth, it's not something that would work for a Natural Human.

Well, because of all these limitations and because of the power levels inherent in the enemies we meet, I try to avoid natural humans as much as I can, personally.

No, actually, the only part that matters is that when BABs was asked for this, he said no. Since it's his call, his final word is all that counts.

*edit*
To avoid crediting him with something he may not have actually said, that's how I remember it. He could very well have left escape clauses, but as I remember it, we got the same "No. Won't happen." as we've gotten when asking for multiple cape rigs. Whether I'm wrong or right doesn't change the fact that his call is what ultimately matters.

Why does everyone think I'm complaining? That was a COMPLIMENT! I don't need to LIKE something in order for me to appreciate it and admit that it does exactly what it was intended to do. In fact, this was an argument AGAINST people who were complaining about the run not fitting their character concept because it was too much "like Naruto." Well DUH! It's a ninja run, and a very exaggerated one. That was the point. It wasn't intended to be anything else. If you can use it for something else, then great. But if you can't, well tough. It does what it was meant to quite well.

I'm continually amazed at people's blinding ignorance in believing that it is. Does anyone actually try to verify their idle impressions in anything beyond SomethingAwful? I'm getting a little tired of the misconception that "furry" means some fat dude who likes to dress up like a mascot when that's actually a rather minute aspect of the whole thing.

Antropomorphic animal costume parts are as essential to the game as tights and jeans, as comic books are riddled with ancient animal gods, animalistic aliens, inhuman monsters and so forth. Currently the only real non-human parts we have are all monstrous, and they don't have to be.

I'm not saying it looks ridiculous, I'm saying it looks intentionally exaggerated. It's not a question of liking it, because it's very specific to the concept, and for what its intended purpose is, it works quite well. The leg movement is too sharp, in my opinion, but that's exactly how it is when ninja are represented doing it, so, again, it works for what it's intended to do. It's only actually BAD if you try to apply it outside the ninja concept, which it really isn't geared for. It could work, but it may very well just look odd.

While I'm a fan of the STANCE of running with, say, a sword, I have to agree with you. Swinging that big sword around as you run is not ideal and not necessarily what I'd pick as my first choice. I'm not sure what I'd choose instead, but it's fair to say that it'd be something more akin to the Ninja Run than what we have now, which is ironically a lot like how Samurai Jack carries his sword when he runs. I agree with you completely - the Ninja Run's interaction with weapons is amazing for the most part.