Shadow_Kitty
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Posts
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Joined
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Feh! Silly human.
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Quote:One thing: mission system and its interaction with teaming. It's not JUST the 8-person team rather than the industry-standard of 4-5. It's also:Originally Posted by Combat
A: What made CoH great, and how can we use those factors to make a new game even greater?
- mission scales to teams automatically
- sidekicking allows you to participate almost no matter what level the rest of the team is
- you get rewarded for teaming as if you had the mission yourself even if you don't have it
- the team leader can easily see what missions are available from the entire team and set focus on one
- the rest of the team sees the objectives clearly in the navigation window and on the map
That is CoHs greatest strength! Almost all other MMOs out there use the industry standard single-player-mission-with-a-share-button system, where you're screwed if you're on the wrong level or in the wrong place of the arc or the mission wasn't written to be shareable. Often, you have to wait for a spawn or object to reset and re-killed/clicked by you for you to get credit for something your team mate clicked on/defeated.
It's not the team limit that's the problem of the other games. It's the fact that their mission systems are single player CRPG mission systems with a chat and a Share button tacked on to it. -
Quote:None.Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
How many characters have you fully incarnated?
Seven.Quote:Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
How many characters have you incarnated?
None. The one that I intend to make Full Incarnate (some day, when the incarnate content doesn't need farming or about four years after the entire incarnate tree is released, whichever happens first) was rolled ages before the incarnate system was made.Quote:Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
How many characters have you rolled with the intention of making them Full Incarnates?
Quite a lot. I'd say about just about all except the seven.Quote:Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
Do you have any characters that you, for whatever reason, are not going to make Incarnates?
When farming is no longer necessary. Which means a less silly "solo" (i.e. "regular team size of 1 to 8 members"*) progression path, or a lot more content.Quote:Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
What all of this boils down to is how much content is going to be made that only VIP's can use and then how many of those VIP's are going to play it? There are many on these forums that screamed bloody murder when they couldn't solo their way to full incarnates. And now some of those same people are still saying "More solo content! I don't want to farm the same story ark over and over." I can understand this. But I ask you, when do we stop adding solo incarnate content?
* No, I really really really really really don't like leagues. The biggest reason is that I don't feel like a superhero and certainly not like godlike incarnate. I feel like a grunt. Cannon fodder. Cog in the machine. And I disappear completely in a cloud of effects and scripted instructions. -
Quote:Universes end. It's in their nature. If it isn't you, it's the cold death, or the big crunch. What matters is how miserable you make everybody's life until then.Originally Posted by FourSpeed
Actually, the most evil is ... ME!
When I ran the Villain Morality Mission, I destroyed the *entire* universe. -
I was surprised I got to keep @Shadow Kitty after the server list merge.
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Quote:The problem I have is not about abuse, but power balance. We're dealing with a genre that has people with bow, arrows and Robin Hood complex and nothing more fight side by side with men of steel, and still work pretty well and hold their ground to the galactic horrors that they defend the earth from.Originally Posted by synthozoic
I don't think that's a fair comparison. Basically any game system can be badly abused and unbalanced, and many newer systems (Not facing as much playtesting.) are badly designed in the first place. But even well designed and simple rules systems can be abused if a GM is not watchful.
And there is the problem of natural law simulation. They can't handle that span of powers without players at the end of the scale being useless. To just consider it a matter of GM fudging, you tend to focus a lot on compensating for these scale issues, rather than creating a good and entertaining story. I really don't want to be hindered by the rules I use. I have better things to do than fudging rules to compensate for something that they are not supposed to handle. I want rules that help me at GMing.
So when it comes to superhero roleplaying, I prefer systems that handles story than systems that handles natural laws. They are simply better suited to the genre and its conventions. -
Supers systems that I've tried:
- GURPS Supers
- Champions
- Aberrant
- Marvel Super Heroes
- Silver Age Sentinels
- The Supercrew
- Mutant City Blues
- Mutants&Masterminds
- Savage Worlds
With a little bit of shoehorning, add:
- Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (from Margaret Weiss Productions, haven't tried it yet)
- Panty Explosion Perfect (it has an X-Men hack (and a Star Wars hack and a WH40K hack... and a few others, but basically it's a game about Japanese schoolgirls)
- d6 Adventure (just lacks tights)
- Feng Shui (again, lacks tights)
- Apocalypse World (again, lacks tights)
Of all these, my favourite of the ones I've tried is The Supercrew, which is a superhero RPG posing as a superhero comic. It's smart, it's built around the superhero story rather than to try to simulate fictional (and unbalanced and broken) superheroic natural laws that only works because there's an author writing the script.
And it's fast and fun - and pretty easy to adapt to City of Heroes. (in practice: you define most of your primary set as your 2 power, the nova/kill-all power as your 3 power, and most of your secondary set and/or ancillary set as your 1 power).
Second on the list is Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, again because it's about the superhero story rather than simulating the fictional (and unbalanced and broken) natural laws. It has a key-based experience system (i.e. you get experience for completing story-arc based goals) and very flexible power system.
Third would be an Apocalypse World hack, because that game is one hundred percent awesome! It's one of the few games that really brings character interactions and relations into the game as a major element,
Pretty much all of the rest falls into the natural law simulation trap, which in my humble opinion is boring. The one exception is Mutant City Blues, which has a cool idea (whodunnit based rules and a scientific link between superpowers that can be explored in a very CSI-like way), but fails being a superhero game because it's rules are for sleuthing. Panty Explosion Perfect would perhaps work as well and avoids the natural law simulation trap, but I'm not best friends with the Perfect edition. -
A gimmick based on the "activate simultaneously" mechanism: the enemy has high res to just about anything, but a weakness to a combination of two kinds of attacks that happens just about simultaneously, and if no other attacks happen at the same time. The two attacks are picked randomly from the team's available attack power pools and hinted in text as the players enter the mission.
If the two kinds of attacks, for instance some kind of Mind Control at the same time as some kind of Claws scrapper (picked randomly from the available powers of the team), and the fire tank has his aura turned off, then the weakness combo hits and the enemy's res drops dramatically for a short time.
For solo players, it could be a combo of one of the player's attacks and one of the villain's attacks - if those happen at the same time, the enemy's res drops dramatically.
Add a timer to it, or something else that happens at regular intervals, and you have a real incentive to discover the weakness mechanism. -
After getting home from work last night, it was time to update the client. All went swimmingly and after about five minutes, the 503 Mb download was finished... or so I thought. Because after those five minutes, the launcher downloaded the 503 Mb again. And then it said Error 8.
Okay, not a problem, the nice guys in tech support said that it would work if I disabled the antivirus and ran as admin. So I did. The client downloaded 503 Mb again. And again.
Okay, how about repair? No avail - error 58 and 57 respectively.
Next, I opened the logs. And there it was, my old nemesis, the hash value. See, it was different from what expected. Every time.
Oh well, the night is young, and if this problem appears, it usually fixes itself, somehow, if I'm just persistent enough. I don't have that much to do anyway on a Tuesday night.
One Das Boot later, with intermittent retries, there's a slightly frustrated Shadow Kitty and no I22 anywhere near the client. And the hash value is different every time.
And since Das Boot is like 3:40 long, it's also rather late, so as a last step in the investigation, I decide to try a few more times, but now I take copies of the patch file. Because I have a cunning plan!
When I have a sample of patch files, I start to dig in why the hash value differs. So I take two random files and compare them. Lo and behold, there is a difference. Quite a lot of them. In one or the other, there are 16 byte fragments that differs. On one side, I find XML fragments, references to linux hosts, partial uris and the lot, that differs from the "noice hex values" on the other side. As if someone, somewhere, take a 16 byte long package meant for someone else and shuffles it to me, instead of the package I was supposed to get.
A deep mystery indeed, but at that time it was Wednesday.
Wednesday. New attempt, and a mystery! Who is the strange person that exchanges my packets for someone else's XML snippets? In order to be sure that it isn't me, I grab my old trusty laptop and install CoH on it. That proves a little bit difficult, as somehow the installer will not install the launcher, but fails at the download.
Instead, I get ze big USB memory stick, copies the launcher and the client to it from the stationary, and copies them onto the laptop. And then I try to patch the client there. That doesn't go well. Not surprisingly, really, as the laptop goes through the same router as the stationary, only via a wifi access point next to it. So most of the route is the same. If someone changes my packets somewhere, it could still be someone of me (specifically, the router or the VOIP box).
Easilly checked. I has a smart phone! One that can tether via the mobile network! So still using the laptop, I hook up the smart phone and disables the laptop's wifi, and try again.
...no luck. Patch still failed. But I could copy the patch file from the laptop and compare it to those on the stationary, and lo and behold, my old friend 16 bytes of strange XML fragments from a linux machine.
But now I'm darrned sure that it isn't me. Two tracert later and I find that the paths across the Atlantic don't merge until somewhere in Malmö. The mysterious linux machine is somewhere after that.
Armed with that information, I call my ISP, and they are darned sure it isn't them either, not even after the long scripted checklist that we run through together. And this is in the middle of the night CST (just before lunch here), so I can't chat to NC Soft's helpers either.
So I turn off the smart phone, re-enables the wifi, and just for the heck of it I try again.
And much to my surprise, the laptop completes patching. No errors.
Aha! Intermittent error was just intermittent (although very persistent)!
I don't want to play on the laptop. It's a Compaq 6510b that is slower than a hedgehog in yogurt, so I try again on the stationary. But no success. Error 8.
I find the working patch file on the laptop, copy that to the stationary, and it starts patching. But... there's something fishy with stage2c.pigg, so the update fails and the pigg has to be downloaded again. Aaaaand... fail. Errors 58 and 57.
Frustrated Kitty whips out ze big USB stick again and copies the entire client from the laptop back to the stationary.
And this time, it works. Finally I can log in, and to see the new pretty cossie parts and the new dark evil dark grimdark powers, I start to make a new character and play with the character generator for a bit.
But by then it is time to catch something to eat, so with a big smile brought on by the new pretty Imperial cossie pieces and dark evil darkdark darkness powers, Kitty logs off for the moment.
...and that is my initial impression of I22.
I never caught the mystery packet thief. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
But... they are just so WRONG!
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Quote:None at all.Originally Posted by KnightofKhonsu
And? Problem?
Except that your argument has been brought up about once per page by other people that only commented the original post without reading the thread. And argued against each time.
Usually the argument against your argument is that the thread is NOT about that it's out of character for my villainous character to save the world, but that it IS boring for me as a player of villainous characters to have coops TFs and trials that are actually heroic trials with the "allow bad guys too" switch in the ON position.
That argument is usually followed by a good examination of the rest of the villainous content, concluding that quite a lot of City of Villains rather is City of Misunderstood Mercenaries; and a request for a coop TF where the heroes have to do villainous deeds for the greater good, or just "common enemy" themes without the "save the world" gimmick.
Sometimes there's a deviation to the possibility that my character actually is an incarnation of the end of the world, and hence that she would rather participate on the other side to help destroy it, or simply stand aside and have you heroes fail.
But apart from that, no problem at all. -
Quote:I never said that I'm willing to ignore the story (actually, it's more like "I have to", rather than "I want to"). I'm just willing to ignore yours.Originally Posted by BrandX
And if you're willing to ignore the story and it doesn't matter to you, then how the devs write the story shouldn't matter to you, as you just make up your own anyways.
The devs write up a story and implement it in the form of mission content. I then experience that content from my point of view, and that content mixes with my experience into my story.
Same thing happens to you. That's your story, and that's the story I'm ignoring (except if the content happens to us at the same time in the same team). I suspect that you ignore mine anyway, so that just makes us even.
But back to the devs' story. That story behaves pretty much the same as any story: as soon as it escapes their minds onto paper (or in this case electrons), it isn't theirs anymore. It is experienced by the reader, shaped by that reader's experience and interpreted through his eyes, and out comes another story, somewhat unlike the one that the author had in his mind.
In an interactive medium, I have to be flexible when interpreting that content. I may not totally agree on the inflexions or even the specific wording that Commander Shephard uses, but besides that, I sort of control the story. Although originally conceived and written by the devs, I still shape it into my story about my Commander Shephard, and it will differ from yours.
In a multiplayer interactive medium, there are two solutions: either they write more or less single-player content, or they write multi-player content.
If they write multi-player content, it's basically that we take all permutations of the Commander Shephard story and put them into a many-worlds solution of the quantum equations. I have to be a little bit more flexible with the devs' content when making my story, especially if content is repeated. But it basically behaves like the single-player story above.
Sometimes, it's awfully good, like in that game that has glowing sticks that go bzhyuuuuum-bzhummm, where it is the story about how my character develops from a mere trainee to a master of glowing-stick-swinging, or in this game when Ghost Widow decides to test me to see if she's worthy of becoming my personal can opener (she actually says "you're good; if I'm to become your patron and give you access to my uber-cool powers, you have to get even better", but we all know what she really means).
Sometimes, it's not quite as good, as in every case where the story is really about someone else, or worse, just about me being hired to do a job. "Hello there, I have a problem with snakes, care to lend a hand?" We're required to insert a lot of "insert your story here" in the latter case, less so in the former, but still to a certain degree.
The alternative is that the concept of the "devs' story" will have to be abandoned almost completely. It then becomes our story that we make together in a story-less open-world sandbox, and the only story that the devs can introduce are meta-level stories or single events. This is what you had under the skirt of Galaxy Girl before it was meteored, or in Pocket D before the trials: lots of players creating a story together, completely on their own. Well, kind of - they all write their own story, but instead of being flexible towards the devs' story, they're flexible towards the other players, and the story is not pushed on them, it's grown organically by them.
And by the way, Darrin Wade haven't killed Statesman's impostor yet, since I haven't played that content. And if there's gonna be a replacement for Statesman's replacement, it should be me, since cats rule. -
Quote:Actually, I don't care what you did. Well, I do care a little bit if we teamed when you do it, but from my point of view, I killed Statesman ages ago before he nerfed himself, no matter what you did to him and when. Because this is my story, in which you are my sidekick at best (or, more likely, recipient of backstab, if our paths ever cross).Originally Posted by BrandX
Running through the content doesn't have to look like "You're a sidekick" or "You're a flunky" but at the same time, the story wouldn't work if they based it off players choices, as that's just to many variables to account for.
Player versus Silver Mantis (in the players perspective) can easily be...
1) We fought, I killed her, ate her soul, she's gone forever!
2) We fought, I defeated her, she wound up in the zig.
3) We fought, she kicked my butt!
4) We fought, ended up making out and...well...^_^ let's just say we got sticky!
5) Something else entirely!
To many variables for the writers to account for when trying to move the story along.
Now, could go the route of it's your character doing all this, but it loses something in the effect of being an MMO (at least imo) because it's then hundreds of other players saying "I did that too!" or "I did it, not you!"
But that means that what happened in my story is true, and what happened in your story is false, right?
Wrong. Your story is as true as mine. It's just not real, for me. Your story might differ, but since I can't look into your head or read your memories and I don't read any fanfic at all, I have no idea what you did to Statesman in your universe. But both stories are equally true, from an outside perspective. I'm just not bothered about yours.
Now, this may sound confusing as heck to you humans, but thanks to a professor Schrödinger, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics comes quite natural to us cats. -
Quote:No matter how you do, the story of the game is perceived from your point of view. Doesn't matter if the story is about Statesman, lord Recluse, Reichman, Emperor Cole or anyone else; nor does it matter if it is experienced solo, in small teams or in super large teams; it is still the story told from your perspective.Originally Posted by BrandX
How is a hundred heroes the MAIN protagonist of the universe?
Now, before you remind me of how Shadow Kitty is not the main protagonist of Captain America, please remember that comics and movies are not interactive. Even so, their main protagonist is actually your avatar, in their fixed-perspective of the media kind of way. You identify with them, and you share their adventures with them through them. I make an investment in those characters, and for a moment I allow those characters to be my projection into the story as a stand-in for myself as Shadow Kitty sadly can't enter the comics pages. (It would be infinitely better if it was possible, but that kinda goes without saying.)
Slight difference here. Here I am Shadow Kitty.
And as much as Captain America is not the main protagonist of Spider-Man or Daredevil even if they happen to share the same universe, Statesman is not the main protagonist of City of Heroes. As soon as I login into the game, even if on team or solo, I am the main protagonist of the game.
And so are you. -
Quote:Me.Originally Posted by Tocharon
I dont mean simply new members of the Freedom Phalanx, but who shall become for lack of a better term, the new lead hero in the Paragon Universe.
Which is quite natural when you think about it, because cats already rule. -
The update process stops at geom.pigg every time:
Quote:That file gets a different hash every time:Originally Posted by LauncherError Code: 58 (FileGroupApplicationErrorRollbackNotAttempted):
Errors occurred while applying the patch,
and a rollback was not attempted.
The product is likely in an inconsistent state and should be repaired or reinstalled.
The patch application errors are as follows:
Error Code: 57 (ErrorRepairingTargetFile):
File could not be repaired: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes\piggs\geom.pigg.
Any suggestions?Quote:Originally Posted by The logExpected hash: 2B11505850D260DC9F97C68701349CBD
Some actual hashes from various repair attempts:
1FBC87DFEB066A8DBABFE64C241A802B
9FD088BACF1CDD3EC68A59D753A87E6E
B2D0C43A53A132522C6AA1B0FDE59CB4
16695EF4EB45F8E6B34185C60963C78B
C42E56D5B83CD15165CF21D94ABC361A
E8C677623A7FDFA83A8A91CE8A441A6B -
Quote:That probably explained why I missed it.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
It was also mixed in with the Valentine's Day/Sister Psyche/Manticore wedding stuff too, so it was 100% nerdrage
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Quote:For my part, I hoped it would spur competition (and it did).Originally Posted by Lothic
To be fair this game has survived existential threats from other MMOs for years. For example there were many people claiming with absolute certainty that Champions Online was going to drive this game instantly out-of-business. Still waiting for that to happen...
But as for the result of Champions, being down and patched as much as it was in the first weeks, having a gameplay too much like the ten ton gorilla and too little like CoH, being released at least a year too early and then being nerfed so hard that the content barely got you to level cap probably helped a lot determining its outcome.
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Quote:Without a link to it, I just have to take your word for it. But I really can't remember it.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Wedding Pack thread was quite a bit longer
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Quote:That may be the case, I grant you that.Originally Posted by Lothic
I still believe you are overthinking/overhyping this issue a bit too much by applying open market thinking to what amounts to a bonus optional extra in a closed captive-audience system that has hundreds of other optional things to buy as well.
But I'm not sure that the audience is that captive. Granted, this is just anecdotes, but I see a bit too many supergroup mates migrating to the other game with glowing sticks that go bzhuum-whuuum to be really comfortable with the situation.
Well, the thing that worries me is that I don't remember any controversy about the earlier packs at all.Quote:Originally Posted by Lothic
As far as your worries about grabs for "short term profits" go one could easily make that argument about every Pack this game has ever sold for the last EIGHT YEARS.
Here, we have a 22 page long thread three days after the release, plus moaning in other threads, plus a lot of discussion about it on the beta boards. -
Quote:The job of marketing is essentially to know us, the customers, better than we do ourselves, and to sell us the product that we didn't knew we needed.Originally Posted by Lothic
Your points might make more sense if we were taking about having actual competition amongst competing brands of Super Packs that all would apply to this game.
In this case all Marketing has to care about is whether they've produced a product that the players of this game are buying. If what they are selling is selling at or above their expectations what motivation would they have to change that formula when they release Super Packs #2, #3 and so on?
Super pack 1 may be a success ("short term profit") but if they don't know why, they may very well make a mistake when releasing super pack 2. And conversely, if they know why super pack 1 was a success, they may improve on the concept to super pack 2. It's not just a matter of repeating the previous formula.
The expansions of the ten ton gorilla is one example. The first was immensely successful, so the producers thought it was a nice idea to make more. The second, not so successful. The third, less so. The fourth... well, it's already a controversy and it hasn't been released yet.
Remember that there are brands and products. The terms I mentioned earlier are used to describe your brands in order to decide on what products to market. City of Heroes is a brand, Super Packs is the product. The release of the wrong product may weaken the brand, even after an initial success - as was the case of New Coke back in the 80s.
Also, there is competition - not about super packs, but the CoH brand as a whole is basically competing about our time (and money) with a lot of other products out there. Most of them are not even superhero games or even MMOs.
The point is that a lot of others and WotC themselves tried to repeat the success using nearly identical formulas, but very few managed to survive. Just being a CCG is not enough to be a commercial success. On the contrary, most CCGs weren't.Quote:Originally Posted by Lothic
Sure WotC became the elephant in the room and pretty much survived as one of the "last men standing" in the CCG market. But that doesn't invalidate that they managed to use the generic CCG concept to build a highly successful business on.
You have to build on it and create a market of it (i.e. "marketing") - and to do that successfully, you must know your market or be extremely lucky. -
Quote:Actually, marketing is a lot more than the hit-or-miss tactic that you are describing. Terms like Insight, Competitive Framework, Target Audience, Key Brand Associations, Rational Benefit, Emotional Benefit, Performance Discriminator and Personality Discriminator are regularly used to decide the direction of marketing of a brand.Originally Posted by Lothic
If the marketing guy saw that the Super Packs were selling well the ONLY thing he/she would care about is that the company was doing something right for them to make money. The "distinction" you're trying to draw here is only something that a player might care about - the Devs couldn't care less. What does it matter to Paragon Studios if people are buying them because they like the generic random mechanic of the packs or because they feel obligated to in order to get something exclusive? Either way people are buying them.
If Marketing know their stuff, the reason why the consumers buy their products matters a lot, because that determines the direction they will market the brand into the future. In the very least, one of the things you do not want as marketing is alienating your customers, to make them feel that they can't identify with the brand anymore. That happens very easily if you go for short term profit, and it can very easily lead to long term loss.
Possibly. Because it also didn't work for Wizards of the Coast. It worked on that brand (you know which), but not on a whole bunch of other brands. And they were not the only ones. The majority of the trading card games were quietly dropped after at most a year. A few survived.Quote:Originally Posted by Lothic
It worked for Wizards of the Coast - it'll work for Paragon Studios as well. -
Quote:I miss one variation:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
But that's just me and mine. What do your villains want?
Beyond:
"He's so far beyond good and evil that he couldn't find it with a telescope on a clear night."
- Mr Croup
Which would be the case of Fimbulwinter. All things end, including the universe. And Fimbulwinter is the avatar of that end.
You could see it as a variant of Higher Purpose, but Higher Purpose seemed to hint that you were aware of it and didn't like it, but hey, it's not your responsibility. It's still within the good/evil dichotomy.
Fimbulwinter is beyond that. It's time to put up the chair, turn off the lights and close the door of this universe. -
Quote:What would be highest: level 50+270%, or level 51+270%?Originally Posted by BellaStrega
Would the level shift really matter if you could increase accuracy and damage both by 270%?
There's a slight difference between gradually nudging yourself up from pre-hami to post-hami, and getting what in effect is another level.
Yes, it is a form of progression to improve your stats. I give you that. But you don't get new attacks or powers from improving your stats. And not an entire new level.Quote:Originally Posted by BellaStrega
Also, as I recall, players did treat it as a form of progression. Hamidon enhancements lost some popularity after IOs, however, for good reason.
Epic gear doesn't give you level shifts, big honking super pets or big honking super splosions.Quote:Originally Posted by BellaStrega
No one's going to lock actual leveling mechanics behind required teaming. The incarnate slots are more like epic gear than true leveling.
Nor does it give you the ability to swoon or pant as if you're out of breath or get frozen in ice when you change gear. Cool powers wasn't the only thing hidden behind the raid only lock.
It does give you cool looks tho. For a given value of "cool". -
Quote:Hami-Os have no new levels (or level shifts) and no new powers. They are just a bit of refinement within the current level.Originally Posted by BellaStrega
And when HOs were stronger and there was no ED, there were characters that were entirely slotted out with HOs, who were significantly stronger than characters who weren't. What is the difference, exactly?
If Hamidon raids would have been the only way to go from level 48 to 50, I think that this parallel would work. But they weren't.