Silver Gale

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  1. Well, we just had a UI upgrade for the tailor/character creation together with Freedom, so that probably will have to last a while. The base builder got Shift-dragging and Ctrl-dragging not long ago. I22 has the LFG tool expanded to include all the TFs/SFs in the game. So there is some stuff happening.

    As to the specific things you want, you should probably ask the Devs directly.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim View Post
    I didn't ask the devs to seek my approval. I made a suggestion relating to the villainside content.

    Is this really that hard to understand or is everyone just looking for a reason to puff up their chests in an argument? I'm not freaking asking the devs to drop everything and cater to me, I'm not asking to destroy the world and I'm sure as hell not asking for my signature to be required for every game change.
    I understand what you're asking for but I also think your standards are... higher than this game can provide?

    C'mon, you're saying that another villain group drawing your character's attention to something valuable by stealing it makes your character's subsequent stealing the thing from them be "reactive" villainy? You're saying that if Wade is specifically trying to kill your villain character and also coincidentally planing on doing something bad for the whole world, then beating him is your character being conned into "doing the right thing"?

    Sure, villainside and co-op content both have their problems, but I don't think you'd be satisfied until the writers went above and beyond to cater to you, specifically.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post
    Agreed completely for the main part. My only reason for pointing out that PVP was originally intended, is that many people tend to say it wasn't as a means to justify the devs largely ignoring it post I13. Something which I take to be absolutely ridiculous.
    They're not ignoring it! They're still giving PvP just as much thought as they always have been.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Venture View Post
    This is so going to get modsmacked sooner or later, but:

    The latter statement has no burden of proof because it asserts or denies nothing. The speaker is simply withholding provisional consent to an existential claim. The former statement, by contrast, is asserting that within the relevant domain of discourse there does not exist any entity that would satisfy the demands of being a member of the specified set. Given the domain of discourse, that's a pretty big claim.
    Actually both those claims are about the speaker's state of mind. If I hold a belief that say, Superman is a fictional character who has no power to act on the real world, I could say either "I believe Superman does not exist" or "I do not believe Superman exists" and be correct.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post
    My original statement, the one you're contesting, said this:

    "PVP was always intended for CoH. It was planned since pre-beta. As early as 2002."

    Let me change it slightly:

    "PVE was always intended for CoH. It was planned since pre-beta. As early as 2002."

    Do you disagree with this too? Does the fact that many PVE systems were badly implemented make the above statement false? Do design changes, or system changes prior to the game being released make the above statement false? Do any of your arguments outlined against PVP apply here also against PVE?

    No. They don't.

    You're confusing poor planning and poor implementation with zero intention and zero planning. Hence your completely irrelevant rant against my very simple point.
    Let's see. They had existing PvE content in pre-beta that testers could interact with. They were actively trying to figure out what was wrong with it and how to make it work. They were making changes trying to fix what they percieved to be the biggest problems. (The well-documented whole-system overhaul that introduced Archetypes and such.)

    Did they have any existing PvP content that testers could interact with? Were they actively trying to figure out how to make it work, and were they making changes to fix the problems they could see? There's not a lot of evidence (as Arcanaville noted, mostly in the fact that they were already pressed for time working on the PvE stuff) but what little there is points to the fact that no, they did not.

    So from this we can in fact conclude that "The amount of 'planning' that went into 'planning on including PvP' was considerably smaller than the amount of 'planning' that went into 'planning on including PvE'."

    Now, the original debate was on whether "they only bolted on PvP in response to every other MMO having it" or "they had been planning on including PvP all along". It would seem in this case, the truth is somewhere in the middle - "they had given some thought to including PvP in the game all along - but not very much thought."

    Which, really, is a good summary of how PvP has been treated throughout the course of this game.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim View Post
    I'd pay a ridiculous sum of Paragon Points to unlock a system like the one described by myself and Coyote_Seven. I really would. I'd pay 2500+ PP for it. Let US call the shots and let the enemy groups of the game try to ride OUR coat tails, not the other way around.
    I think if there was a system where every new villain story would be approved by you before being made, you would no longer be paying Paragon, they would be paying you. Because you would be working for them.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by _ACFU_ View Post
    • Sidekick / Exemplar system

    For me this is the biggest and best part of what makes COH so great. I can team up with anyone, at any level and not be penalized. I honestly don't know why this feature isn't in more games.
    An upcoming MMO from another developer under NCSoft yoinked this feature wholesale (including the whole team SSK'ing to team leader, and characters auto-exemping down in lower level zones). Absolutely nobody is complaining.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post
    Read the post. Haha.
    Okay:

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    That's a half truth, made a quarter truth by being a statement made before City of Heroes was refactored into the game it is now. Its essentially talking about a different game that happened to share the same name as ours, made by a developer that did not factor into the final design of our version of the game**.

    The truth is the devs always told themselves "one day, we'll add PvP" but they did absolutely nothing to ensure that the game could actually support it, either because they deliberately didn't bother, or because they didn't even realize you can't just trivially retrofit PvP into a game that isn't designed to support it.

    In other words, the devs statements that they always intended to add PvP have as much value as dev statements that they always intended to move the corporate headquarters to the Sun.

    The most accurate statement that can be made is that the original developers intended to *try* to add PvP at some future date. However, they had no idea what that would entail, or how they would go about doing it.

    The arena concept is just the setting for PvP: there was exactly zero thought put into whether the powerset and archetypes had any chance of being viable in a PvP setting. The unequivocal evidence for this fact comes from the fact that the devs made many radical PvE-based balancing decisions leading up to launch with no regard for whether the original powersets were proper for PvP, or the altered versions were proper for PvP.

    ** The game Rick Dakan is talking about never saw the light of day. Here's his answer to another question:

    That game, to the best of my knowledge, never existed. In many ways, the pre-Beta paper design of City of Heroes was the Battlecruiser of MMOs. It was a set of features that even a well-funded dev team with modern technology would have a hard time delivering in a coherent game today. People talk about wanting to see "City of Heroes 2" but I'd love to see City of Heroes 0. I'm just not sure any dev team in existence today could pull it off, anywhere.
    Nope, looks solid to me. It's all correct information, proper assumptions and logical reasoning as far as I can see. Perhaps you'd care to point out which specific points you disagree with, instead of countering everything with a blanket "prove it" and acting like you won the discussion.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan View Post
    As a professional developer myself, I had doubts about their reasoning behind why the City Vault was scrapped. There's just no way a simple SQL read query would affect game performance.
    They're not using SQL, they are using a custom-made database system created by the original devteam.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post
    I don't know where to start with this. There's just too much incorrect information, fallacial reasoning, and incorrect assumption.
    Prove it.
  11. The ones you published, or the ones you had saved but not published? If it's the ones you just had saved, have you changed computers or reinstalled CoH lately? Unless you publish an arc, it's only saved on your own computer in the CoH folder, and you have to make backups of it or you'll lose it all when you make a new CoH install.
  12. ...man. I've often noted, while browsing the forums, that whoever finds themselves arguing against Arcanaville should take a good long look at their position and ask themselves if they're sure it's worth defending.

    Hm. I suppose my position that "I don't like the Super Packs, nope, not one bit" is more of an emotional thing really. Which would make sense that I'm spending this much time arguing about it, because humans tend to get a lot more invested in arguments when they know they have no concrete evidence to back it up.

    Okay, introspection over, back to arguing on the Internet!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Are you saying you only grocery shop, or you always find yourself in a situation where you are allowed to buy what you want, and only what you want, in the specific manner you want?
    Either that, or the item I want is simply not available. I have never had to deal with merchants putting elaborate systems between me and the items I want.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazey View Post
    The items in the packs aren't food, they're entertainment.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
    I've never seen a midway park simply sell stuffed elephants. You always have to pay out money to play the (sometimes rigged) game to get the toy, and sometimes you end up paying out a lot more than the toy is worth.

    Sure, you can go to a store or online and buy that toy directly if you want to, but within the miniature universe of the midway, that option doesn't exist.
    See, here's the thing. You go to the midway to play games. You don't go there with the express purpose of getting a stuffed elephant. The stuffed elephant is nice to get, but just a little bonus extra.

    Since the midway wants yo to be entratained, they don't put blocks between you and the things you want to be entertained by. You can play the games you want, the ones you're good at, or the ones you enjoy. You don't give them money to be randomly directed to the dart-tossing or the basketball dunking or or the bouncy castle.

    CoH makes a big deal out of its costume creation, and I've always assumed that was supposed to be a major draw. I give them money, they let me create heroes, and run around with those heroes and fight crime. I give them more money and they give me additional clothing and powersets to use in creating my heroes.

    Now they want me to give them money for... the fun of turning over several mystery cards, apparently. And if I get a costume piece that I'd really like on my hero, then that's a nice bonus, but not really what I'm there for. And if I would like to avoid paying for the amusing little cards, then I will have to forget about getting that new stuff for my hero. Or I can swallow my pride and pour my money into the card-turning-over minigame, and hope the Sunken Cost Fallacy doesn't kick in. Either way, it leaves a sour taste.

    I don't like this. There is a new game on top of my old game, it is treated as more important than the old game, and it is causing me to make unpleasant choices that I have never had to make before.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Except that isn't even close to what's happening with the super packs. First, the exclusive items in the packs aren't presented to the players intermixed with other items, and only upon the player asking about it is it then revealed its not for sale directly. That item isn't presented for sale at all. Your example presents the situation as the player being totally surprised by the store's refusal to sell the item just like all others.
    If someone learns of the Elemental Order costume set first (say, by seeing one of the pieces on another character's costume), the fact that there isn't a single deterministic way of getting that particular piece, such as exist for every other costume piece in the game, is a surprise.

    Quote:
    Second, Paragon Studios isn't saying the offer is or is not gambling in the colloquial sense. They are not arguing with the customer. You're presented with an opportunity to participate or not. If you choose not to, you choose not to. If you demand to see someone to argue with them about the system, all the store officially tells you is they will explain again how it works.
    I just wanted to make it clear that I don't believe the packs are gambling, and my opposition to them has nothing to do with whether or not they are. If you want just one thing, it *feels* like you need to gamble.

    Quote:
    Its one thing to comment on the details: I think the Black Wolf is too rare a card myself. But to say the superpacks are bad *in principle* because the specific principle being violated is "not letting me buy what I want the way I want, directly, without spending more than the minimum possible amount of money" I wonder sometimes to what degree those principles exist outside of this setting. Taken to their logical conclusion, that would make someone almost non-functional in most of the industrialized world.
    Somehow I have been extremely lucky. I've never gone grocery shopping and found one of the items on my shopping list was only available if I bought the "random five products from the entire store" special.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazey View Post
    Only because, in the example you gave, the guy only wanted that one item.
    If someone came into the shop wanting any of the items, such a system would be good fun and a nice saving.
    So the shop would do well to also sell the items independently, maybe at a higher price, right? Not everyone wants "something cool for $1". Some people just want a certain thing at a known price.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan View Post
    Lol I'm not goimg anywhere nearer that topic than that.

    Super Packs:

    "Hello, Mr Customer. Here's a list of stuff. 5 of these things picked at random costs $X"
    "Hello Mr Shopkeeper. I would like to buy 5 things off that list. I don't care which things I get. Pick them randomly. Here's my $X."

    It's not gambling. I pay $X and in exchange I get exactly what I expect. If there was an option to get nothing, then it would be gambling.

    Eco
    "Hi mr Shopkeeper, how much for the doodad in the window?"

    "That is one of many Fun Prizes™ you can win in our shop's new Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! Tickets are just $1, every ticket is a winner!"

    "So I have to gamble to get the thing I want?"

    "Absolutely not, sir. Every ticket in the Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™ gives you one of hundreds of Fun Prizes™ of a $1 value or more. It is most definitely not gambling in any legal definition of the term."

    "I just want the one thing. I don't want any of your other items."

    "There is no limit on individual participation in the Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! If you don't enjoy your Fun Prize™ you can feel free to try again!"

    "So basically I can keep giving you money and wind up with large amounts of junk I don't want, and possibly not even get the one thing I do want, or I can just give up on getting the thing I want?"

    "We hope you enjoy our Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! We look forward to bringing you many more shopping-enhancing experiences in the future!"

    "Damnit, you're just trying to get me to pay more money than I intended, one dollar at a time!"

    "Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

    "I don't even want the stupid thing anymore. I'm leaving."

    "Thank you for visitng us, sir! Have a Lovely Day™!"

    Yeah, it's not gambling. It's still annoying.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by rsclark View Post
    So, he's human then?
    Being a straight male is the default human state now? <.<
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid View Post
    I'm still not sure if people talking here are ever really women, or just confused/attention seeking men.

    I'm a little more certain in real life, but here in Vegas we get some pretty freaky stuff.
    Here's one to keep you up at night: are the people responding in this thread as "men" actually men, or women who are trying a little *too* hard to blend in and avoid being called attention seekers?
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
    Technically speaking, the whining is about people defending the writing with the phrase "suspension of disbelief".

    As to whether the writing was good, bad, or indifferent, I'll just reiterate that I think they did the best they could with the tools at their disposal. The thing went down about the way I expected it to go down; whether or not I would have done it that way myself is something of a moot point.
    Suspension of disbelief is a very personal thing. If you enjoy the story for what it is, you have successfully suspended your disbelief. If the story demands more disbelief than you're willing to grant it, then the story has failed to work for you.

    Telling someone to "suspend their disbelief" is like telling them to "like romcoms more".
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperOz View Post
    Hey, I can cop to misunderstanding the origin of the phrase. I had it taught to me that it was French, but it's Latin. That's cool.

    Actually I can argue however that it was deus ex machina. Each chapter of this story is self-contained until such time as the next part of the story comes out. There is no 'to be continued' labelled on any of these and there is a distinct phase of beginning, middle and end to this chapter. The important point here is that there are direct elements being used here that are as you say, the god coming down from the heavens.

    Darrin Wade's sudden information on how to steal power from Incarnates. Darrin Wade's ability to harness that power that somehow the Thorns, the Mu and even the Midnighters have missed. And finally, the spell that works with no resistance and ends Statesman's life.

    If you want to argue this strictly on the semantics of when deus ex machina are concerned, I'll agree to disagree with you because in the literary sense, the actual 'mechanic' of the plot device is as used as much mid-story and even at the beginning of many modern stories. Just because that's how the term originated, doesn't mean that the principle hasn't been taken and applied out of tense to the story.

    And in this story, the principle of deus ex machina has been applied more than once (the obelisk, the repeated 'lateness' of player characters onto the scene by what...random chance? Hard to argue in a written story...) to the point where I believe it's entirely applicable in this case. If you would care to show me where the principle of elements beyond the story directly affecting it are not present, I'm happy to listen.
    An improbable plot device is not a deus ex machina. Using the wrong tense of a verb is a grammar error, not a spelling error. Both are wrong, but they are not the same error.

    A Deus Ex Machina is an ending where *all* the characters and actions so far are rendered meaningless, not just some or even most of them. If the ending of WWD5 would have been the same even if Wade, Statesman *and* the player character had all decided to just stay home, then it would be a Deus Ex Machina.

    Every story will have moments where something "just has to happen". The main characters in a romantic comedy have to run into each other somehow. The villain has to be a credible threat, and needs to have access to something that could well defeat the heroes.

    Comics and games are additionally hampered because they have to build stories on top of what came before. If you were writing a book that was entirely about a clever, ruthless small-time crook going after a seemingly invulnerable hero, you could take your time building the little clues into every mention of the hero's powers, so that when the crook springs the trap the readers would go "aha... so when they said this and this, that *also* could mean *this*! and that makes it possible to do this! *Clever*."

    But in game Statesman was never written with an eye towards having him eventually killed off by Wade, so the writers have to fudge a little. They do try to play it fair by introducting some of the elements - Wade's interest in Cimerora, his owning of a power-draining obelisk, his taking of Alex Cole's blood before killing her - in consecutive parts of the arc. But ultimately, as in many comic books that decide to kill off the main character, whatever kills Statesman *has* to come out of nowhere, because no previous writer had laid any groundwork for it.

    So, yes. There are plot devices in this plot that come out of nowhere. Not the same as a deus ex machina, but something writers should avoid if possible.

    While people in this thread have whine about "suspension of disbelief" being used as a shield for bad writing, in the end it's up to personal preference. If you enjoy seeing the leads of a romcom interact, you'll forgive the improbable accident that pushed them together in the first place. If you dislike them both, then you'll just see the clichees and the misunderstandings that only happen so the movie can run the alotted time.

    Either the story grabs you enough to forgive the "coincidences" it needs to work, or it doesn't.
  20. Pedantry aside... WWD5 actually got an emotional reaction from me. My character, who is usually cheerful, optimistic, and unyielding in the face of any evil, felt genuinely at a loss for the first time in her career. She has travelled time, faced gods, and unravelled the very fabric of reality, but this was just too *big* for her to process. Darrin Wade hasn't just killed a very strong hero, he's taken down the symbol of an entire era. She really isn't sure if there is anything to do that won't just be simple retribution.

    It's the first bit of official writing since Hero Tips that I actually want to integrate into the character's ongoing story and play out the reprecussions, instead of reading it, going "...moving on!" and pretending it never existed.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperOz View Post
    These are all things built into the story to ensure that certain events happen. Deus ex machina is 'ghost in the machine' in French. An unseen party that enables events to happen a particular way.
    First of all, it's not French, it's Latin. The concept comes from Greek theatre, where a playwright would set up characters, a situation and a conflict, and then resolve the conflict by having a god show up at the last minute and fix everything. On stage, this would be done by using a crane to show the deity descending from Olympus - a god from a machine.

    Deus Ex Machina is not just anything that "enables events to happen in a particular way". It is a specific sort of *ending* where the main conflict is resolved using an element that comes completely out of nowhere and invalidates everything else that's happened. If all the characters could have just gone home to watch TV after the first act and it would not change the ending in the least, you have a Deus Ex Machina.

    You have to remember that while the arcs are self-contained and each one does try to set up and resolve a plot, they are all part of a story, and the story is *about* Darrin Wade and his campaign against the Freedom Phalanx. Deus Ex Machina occurs at the *end* of a story. WWD5 is the middle of it, specifically the part where the antagonist is supposed to score a significant victory and things look bleak for our heroes. You can argue about how well it was pulled off, but you can't call it a Deus Ex Machina or the term becomes completely meaningless.

    If at the very end of WWD7, a character who was not seen or mentionned before suddenly shows up and stops Wade once and for all, *that* is a Deus Ex Machina. If Wade suddenly keels over from a previously-unmentionned shellfish allergy, that is a Deus Ex Machina. Darrin Wade having a previously-unmentionned Cimeroran ritual that can bind Statesman in WWD5 is not a Deus Ex Machina, especially with many references to Cimerora and Sister Arilia scattered throughout WWD2-4.
  22. Hey, he *asked* for sexist comments!
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
    I refuse to participate in this thread until some female posters come in to make sexist comments about us. Me, preferably.
    You admit to being a guy and you *want* women to shower you with attention? Clearly you are a mindless attention-seeker and have nothing interesting to contribute to the topic. You're probably unattractive in RL and desperately try to make up for it by getting attention from easily impressed 13-year-old females online. Men like you completely ruin my game experience.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by FlashToo View Post
    Personally, I hate the notion of the "girl gamer." I am a woman who plays video games. That's all. I'm not special or different for it, I'm not trying to be cool, I'm not trying to be one of the guys, and I'm frankly a little embarrassed that I do fall into almost all the stereotypes.
    Yeah, this sort of thing is often an excuse for someone to average out the answers and point out the differences between those and the average from male gamers (or from the playerbase as a whole) and use them to support the thesis that women are strange creatures from some other universe who will forever remain a mystery to man.

    My anwers also largely apply to the group I play with, which is almost entirely made up of guys (including my husband).

    What side do you pick more than others? Heroside is kind of the "default". Any character who is not specifically an evil git/a refugee from a totalitatrian regime will be heroside.
    What play style do you prefer? Support. I like to sit in the back and tip the odds further and further in our favor. Also Scrapper/Brute, for when I'm tired of always surveying the battlefield tactically and want to just run in and bash stuff.
    What power set(s) do you favor? Debuffs, especially slows! I love my Stormie main and I'm having great fun with my time Manipulation.
    What zones do you like the most? Hm... no particular preference. They're all kind of cool in their own way. I do find the Hollows awe-inspiring.
    Do you usually play as a male or female character? Female. I have a few male characters (including one I made specifically to get some use out of the male-only set in the Magic pack) but I can't seem to find a concept that I'll really stick with.
    Role Playing? Yes, a lot, all the time. It's the main attraction of this game for me.
    Servers? Virtue, with some alts on Infinity and a few lowbies here and there made to try out powersets.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man View Post
    Read the EULA sometime. Anything you create, say or do in game becomes their intellectual property.
    No it doesn't. You can't *give away* your IP rights. It's simply not an option. The EULA just says you "give them rights to the extent the law allows", and the law doesn't allow handing over rights without a specific signed agreement.

    In practice, they have a non-exclusive license to use anything you submit (without which they would not be legally allowed to say, send the image of your character and the text you type in to other people's computers).