SilverAgeFan
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Posts
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Joined
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Yup. Was really excited about those coming origin pools. If sorcery tickled you, don't you dare track down the in-development pools that some folks discovered whilst pigg diving. No. You don't want to know about Utility Belt and it's slottable [Freerunning].
This. The blaster changes. The pool customization. The bodysuit costume pack and the cybertech dreadlocks. When I think about these things I get both sad and angry about the decision to axe the game and the hardworking folks at the studio. i24 was going to be glorious IMO. -
Quote:And in addition to host a game server, like how some games permit you to now.Originally Posted by vulpish_one
In a heartbeat.
I'd even pay extra for the ability to connect my computer to my friends' and upload/download AE content. -
Quote:Originally Posted by JoshexDirad
anyways, if CoH and CoV are reinstated I will definitely supply the devs with the whip melee demo I've been working on.Live action!Quote:Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Is that an in-game demo, or something you put together in another program?
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Agreed. Logged in to blow off some steam tonight. First time I was in the mood to actually play the game since the big news dropped.
I enjoyed it. Also didn't give in to my usual completionist tendencies in this game. Just played. Badges and inventions and market stuff be damned. Just the old school game (+ having some IO partial sets slotted), like it was in the first few years.
At it's core it is still just a fun simple game. -
A couple metaphors I've used, in terms of relating this to people outside of gaming:
It's similar to visiting your favorite neighborhood park one afternoon to find several bulldozers there and a sign asserting that it will soon be closed to accommodate a new condo development.
Or it's similar to seeing your favorite indie bookstore or coffee shop shut down.
CoH is not just a game, it is a place where people come to relax, get to know eachother, participate in a community grown around common interests. -
Quote:IF we avert disaster, I want a damn badge out of all of this. Account wide.Originally Posted by Scythus
I know if we avert disaster, I'll definitely be making a new character in celebration.
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Quote:Not just any Golden Girl. A fully automatic Golden Girl android!Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Wait...!?!?! Golden Girl was the secret project?
I don't even...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Nb5apEK2E
edit: oh also too
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Thing is the game had a positive revenue of about $2m - $2.5m per quarter.
On it's own, it was in the black.
I don't think I'd pay more than my monthly plus the up to $200 in points I bought in the first year.
What I would do is drop money on a kickstarter type crowdfunding effort if it secured the property and Paragon studios in a way that the game could operate in perpetuity. For that, I'd easily kick in a few thousand. Maybe more. -
Congrats Liquid on your marriage.
Quote:And congrats on your anniversary!Originally Posted by Zwillinger
Congrats sir. Tis a lovely time to have an anniversary (mine is tonight).
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Quote:8 years on and I think I just fell in love with you finally. Especially you and all your guessing. Or was it guessing? Oh bugger.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm not explicitly talking about any one player here, but the truth is I hated players pretending to be insiders. But I rarely could out them without sounding like a coy-insider myself. Except when its obviously for humorous purposes, claiming insider knowledge and just making things up seems so counter-productive, because it simultaneously seems to make an enemy of players and developers alike.
For the record, I have never manufactured or exaggerated the level of knowledge and communication I had with the devs. If anything I downplayed it significantly. In fact, somewhat humorously I've dropped so many hints on the forums that the devs sometimes literally groaned out loud. The only reason I wasn't perma-banned for it is that for some weird reason no one ever seemed to take me seriously when I did, which sometimes completely bewildered some devs.
No one ever stopped to ask me why I suddenly shifted from talking about the dearth of in-game documentation to asking hypothetical questions about what sorts of power data players would be interested in seeing (because Real Numbers would be announced two months later). No one ever asked why I started making jokes about when players would ever need to know how long it took an NPC to eat a doughnut (because the devs were working on this secret project to allow players to create their own missions). No one asked me why I started talking out of the blue about weapon redraw, and the specific impact it had on weapon sets (because BaB was about to eliminate weapon redraw buffering).
I *tried* to simultaneously keep my promise not to release information before the devs were ready, and steer player conversations in the right direction so that when that information was released players had already been thinking about it without even knowing it. That I succeeded so often is actually a bit of a mystery, considering how paranoid the playerbase is when it comes to that sort of thing.
Oh yeah, and to come clean: when I said I was guessing, I was guessing. Whenever I said I was "guessing" that meant I knew something about it first hand. Whenever I said I was guessing that meant a dev told me point blank. It was a surprisingly effective code. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Zwillinger
The projects have been cancelled.Quote:Originally Posted by MishiiLove
Project X
It lives.
July 13th 2013
I am disappoint.
Seriously, I get now why people are really down on the coy faux-insider bit that Mishii has been pulling in other threads. On a normal day when we are talking upcoming powersets and someone with a good intuition making armchair predictions, that's one thing. But considering that there is a community working to find form here with a clock ticking, not sure what positive thing these remarks add at this moment.
Edit: And deepest condolences Zwill to you, the rest of community relations and the former devs for not being able to see their work come to launch. I imagine that none of you will ever be in the legal position to publicly state what those projects were going to be or even the general character (narrative or gameplay genres). -
From the ground up, what would I include that we don't have now, assuming it would be a very CoH-like game?
- Room for vehicles and vehicle aesthetic customization. I would include supergroup vehicles of at least 3 tiers of size in the design of supergroups and super base functionality. They would in theory function like the team transporter, but be more seamlessly integrated into the game. Perhaps they could offer things like in-zone storage and invention tables, or similar functionality in this hypothetical world.
- Include personal vehicles in the above, especially as a "premium pool" type thing. Make them fairly customizable, like a character costume. Anything we have now as a premium vanity travel power would/should be customizable.
- Room for FX sprite/particle expression customization for different types of fire/ice etc with power customization, not just casting animations and colors
- Player character sound fx customization. Simple library of footfalls grouped by character type: normal human, heavy, stealthy, metallic, elemental, mystical, etc. Second option to select your vocalization type which would cover grunts from damage dealt or jumping.
- Pet, drone & turret model customization.
- Stance customization. I liked this about CO--at least in concept.
- No war walls.
- Slightly less presence of standing army mobs--Arachnos and Longbow in particular.
- Dynamic contacts--not just folks that stand around but mini-interiors like a coffee shop where your contact comes and meets YOU at your table to give you a mission. Then you might meet them elsewhere later--down an alley?--where they come out of a mission door walk to you--dialogue starts. etc.
- Growth and shrinking. As premium pools. And an engine and maps that could handle this.
- 4 legged rig from launch.
- Kittens in a tree. Just because.
Were we starting from scratch scratch and diverging, I'd like to see environmental physics and material physics play a much larger role in strategy of the game. I'd like to see this then pushed with mini games and trials like "OMGSPEEDINGTRAINBRIDGEISOUT!!1!HOWDOWESAVEIT! ?!" (which coincidentally was one of my favorite games ever as a child.) Does the ice blaster fill the gap with new tracks? Does the gravity troller hold something in place? Do the muscle heroes attempt to slow the train by pulling from behind or pushing from in front? And not have these as scripted behaviors but much much more like some of the fledgling physics based never-the-same-game-twice type puzzler games that have come out a lot in the last few years. -
Quote:I agree. For better or worse, archetypes would be definitely be a point of contention. CO tried to do without them only to reintroduce them eventually.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Any spiritual successor that we tried to set up would have to follow the design goal of "CoH, but better" - it would need to offer all the things that players like about CoH, but with a more modern engine, and even small changes from the CoH template would need to be handled very carefully.
The reason that people are so passionate about CoH is because it's CoH - if we were going to try and start up a spiritualk successor, then it'd have to offer them the same experience.
In some ways, the AT-less premium powersets start making the formula more intriguing. It's a shame we all didn't get some miles under our collective belt with those options. (And I mean practical miles, realizing a range of concepts with all five of the pools not just Sorcery on beta.) -
Quote:But who would own the work already done on that unnamed property? MAYBE it was Paragon, but if NCSoft had the power to dissolve Paragon odds are all products in development under their roof also belong to NCSoft. All depends on the paperwork behind the scenes. But I highly doubt any of that material belongs to the developers who are free agents now. And I'm not familiar enough to even begin guessing how intellectual property and patent laws apply to code--i.e. does it require a non-compete clause for a coder not to just repeat what they helped write elsewhere or is that protected by something similar to a patent in terms of ownership?Originally Posted by Combat
Given what we know (see my thread here), it is probable that CoH2 was in development. So it may take months, instead of years to complete. It probably wouldn't have radically changed combat though.
But at the end, I'd presume it's the same as if you were a lab chemist and 3M laid you off. You'd have no legal right to take that formula for Adhesive-X and then go make millions off of it. So sadly all that work on the unnamed project, which was repeatedly asserted to be a new IP, will likely remain unseen regardless of how little or how much development it still needs before it's release ready. -
Quote:Not to dilute us too far, but between (or beyond?) the buyout, the rebuild and the spiritual successor, there is also the transplanted community becoming an open source environment.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
We'd have to be very careful about making changes form the current style of combat - it's one of the key elements that's often brought up when players say what they like best about CoH.
The design goal of any spirritual successor would have to be "CoH, but even better".
I know I've brought it up elsewhere since the news of the shutdown broke, but I feel the pre-alpha through beta (maybe even still live?) Minecraft community is a good example of a third direction to go. So very much has changed in gaming since CoH was even conceived.
What we have here, for all our social flaws, is a community of avid enthusiasts of this niche genre, several dozen dedicated souls, many of us seasoned with what does and what doesn't work about other games. Many of us have been inexplicably drawn back to CoH time and again after breaks when other games don't do that. And if you believe the Eulogies coming out since Friday in the gaming press, we are not alone in that special glow we feel for CoH.
Some traits that have vastly been improved or at least pioneered more, mostly by indie games, are: physics as meaningful gameplay elements, material traits as they relate to physics, and voxel based gaming. All of these in concert open avenues for what could be groundbreaking and exciting developments in gameplay, especially within the Supers genre.
Even if it's an all new engine meant to reproduce the feel of CoH, I would hope that along the way some space is left within the plans for room to evolve the gameplay beyond where we could with today's engine and components. (I see it like rehabbing an apartment really--while you've got the walls open, why not correct the plumbing?) -
Quote:I understand. It's just that even the title should say it all. In five or six words or less. And not in a poetic way, but direct. Bonus points if it is poetic.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Faith Manages was what I suggested as a title. The rest was background info for those who were curious.
If we had a COH equivalent in-game somewhere, I'd wholeheartedly recommend that instead.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
A press release is like an "elevator pitch." The header is the first (and for some the only) thing they will skim if it's not brought to them by a source or off the wire. I've been around press releases for decades now and seen ones that work and ones that don't. There is a lot of luck involved with getting a good press release to stick. But there are a lot of missteps that can sink one before it even has a chance. -
Quote:Don't draw direct comparisons. What it is is a story of a community of people putting forth a communal effort to govern their own destiny and save the international online community (don't call it virtual) of their favorite past times.Originally Posted by Zombieluvr
Speaking of Human Interest stories, I don't know for sure how/if it could be played, but what about some kind of comparison between the Paragon City situation vis a vis financial woes and the real life financial viability of many cities out there now (some of which that have had to declare bankruptcy)?
Again, I'm not sure how it could be framed- obviously, we don't want to minimize the real economic struggles of people- but in terms of paralleling the idea of being dispossessed from a community, maybe?
(Just spitballing.)
It will depend upon how deep the reportage goes at various outlets for what goes to press. It also will depend upon where the actual story goes as it really unfolds before us and which way the Titan Team steers our collective will.
But to continue with some spitballing, here are some existing threads in the zeitgeist that could in some way be connected to our story's "angle":
- Collective action
- Main Street vs. Wall Street
- Alternative ownership
- Online existence
- Crowdfunding
- Social media
- Open sourcing
- Corporate governance vs. little d democracy
- Super heroes, living mythology, and escapism in economically challenged times
- Disabled and alternate identities
- Returning veterans
Already, some of these topics have poked their way into a few of the articles we've seen come out thus far. -
Quote:Personally I disagree. A press release should be as tight and straightforward as possible, pared down to the bare minimum of necessary information.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
TonyV - if I make so bold... should this actually work?
The title of the press release should be "Faith Manages."
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
"On the one hand, it is a statement of hope to anyone else out there who has a dream, to follow it no matter who speaks against you, no matter the odds, no matter what they say to or about you, no matter what roadblocks they throw in your way. What matters is that you remain true to your vision.
On the other hand, for the reviewers and the pundits and the critics and the net-stalkers who have done nothing but rag on this show for five years straight, it is also a giant middle finger composed of red neon fifty stories tall, that will burn forever in the night."
- J Michael Straczynski, on the inclusion of a closing card that read "DEDICATED TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO PREDICTED THAT THE BABYLON PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN ITS MISSION. FAITH MANAGES.", after his 11th hour success in finding a backer for the last season of BABYLON 5
The title of the press release and the first paragraph should both be written in such a way that they tell the entire story in as few short sentences as possible. And it needs to be clear and concise enough that it could be reprinted verbatim should an outlet choose to do so or to quote it directly.
Remember, most the people reading this may not have ever even heard of CoH. Taglines like:
Everyday Heroes
International Online Community Fights to Save Their City
etc.
"Faith Manages," though touching and loaded with history for some misdirects the 15 seconds most people will give your press release.
Besides, we don't need to appeal to external validation such as Babylon 5. Hiding behind a "similar" effort to justify our collective efforts rarely makes for center stage publicity.
Short of it: Press release should be about the now growing effort to save City of Heroes. Nothing else. -
Quote:About 2/3rd the way down, past their article bullets and one google ad, above a bunch of other ads. It's a bit buried at the moment.Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
I don't see anywhere to comment on this one, but I'm a little blind. Am I missing something?
I did add a comment to the gamerzines article. -
Of realistic or teased changes:
I wish all of i24 could have been polished and made it to live.
I wish all the costume sets in production could have made it to live.
I wish we finally got proper domino masks.
I wish all 5 of the origin based pools made it to live.
I wish a 6th premium pool made it to live with some sort of guy wire/zip line/cable based travel power came out.
I wish all the power sets that pigg divers found had made it to live.
I was honestly not too excited by the primalist. Never been one for EATs of any sort.
I wish a whip power set with customizable whips (energy or otherwise) was possible and made it to live.
I wish a thrown weapons/signature weapons set with fully customizable sprite sets was possible, realized and made it to live. (Crystal skulls, derby hats, hand fans, throwing knives, playing cards, you name it.)
I wish double cape rigging was possible.
I wish 3 or 4 color costume parts were possible.
I wish a vanity motorcycle travel power made it to live (zone porter, mission porter or super speed type power). Same for super powered roller skates.
I wish all existing vanilla powersets got at least two full sets of alternate animations to increase the flavor.
I have other pie in the sky new engine type dreams, but that's about where I'll draw the line today on the wishing. This penny is wearing out the more I rub it. -
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Another article, no comments as of posting this:
http://www.gamenguide.com/articles/3...amers-make.htm -
Quote:Keep us apprised of your progress. Some people have stated that their subscription will not renew and that when the 30 day timer is done, they will be switched to Premium rather than VIP.Originally Posted by TonyV
As it's being developed now, you run the tool. You log in to your City of Heroes account and pick a character. Once you get in the city, you hit a button in our tool, and it takes a snapshot of that character and exports it. That file will contain data about your character's name, server, archetype, origin, powersets, slotting and slotted enhancements, inventory (salvage, inspirations, enhancements, influence/infamy/information, experience, etc.), a complete description of your costume including body type, scales, and customization options, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff I'm probably leaving out that Guy Perfect knows the innards of.
When it's done, you will have a file that has enough data in it to accurately recreate your character, including all of his or her stats, inventory, powers, slotting, costume, etc. on a different server. It will also include some kind of checksum and encrypted value to detect any tampering with the file, so that if the time comes when we import these characters back into a server's database, you won't be able to, for example, give us eight copies of the same character, each tweaked slightly. That could lead to jerk hacking, and the last thing we want is for people to be dupin rares because next thing you know, the game it well be gone to the Americans. I will try to talk Guy into making the file some sort of human-readable format, though, so that if you want you can print it out and reminisce.
To export 31 50s, you'll need to log in 31 times, once for each character, and click the button on the tool. Without access to the back-end database server, that's probably the best we can come up with.
So if we MUST log in a character to snapshot them, this may mean some loss of rosters for people in that unfortunate situation.
And will the tool grab stuff that is greyed out by premium status, like incarnate powers and inventions?
Just questions. (pretty sure under this model, my account will be VIP through mid November) -
Quote:Beyond the public shaming of NCSoft and more important in my opinion is simply getting word out there regarding the effort to save the game and an accurate sense of how broad our supportive base is. The more eyeballs this reaches, the more chances that it falls across the right "desk" of someone who can help before it's too late and we're building from scratch.Originally Posted by Technerdoc
Yes, this is right what we need: The press. E-Mails and letters will not have much effect, they will just delete them or throw them into the trash. It's not the first game they closed, so they know how the fans will react, but the world have to know what's going on here and how NC-Soft throws his customers out of the game.
A lot of people played this game, maybe not now but in the past and for someone it was the first online game (For me too), so this is really a chance to get the support we need and this is good in finding a new puplisher when they see how much people still like the game.
Now the right desk could be a persuasive and powered person of status, an executive or celebrity with a large amount of funding to lend, or simply a larger mass of "us"--people willing to help with a crowd funding effort to secure the IP and hopefully all else intact before the community and most the devs go elsewhere. Its hard to say how many former players have come and gone but have considered coming back who would kick in to a funding effort. So simply getting word out packaged with clear word about the effort that TonyV and company are spearheading is important right now.
And as I said elsewhere in the forums, as this effort progresses and the closer it comes to success, that's when it will become more of a broader human interest story. And we may be all quite surprised by the legs that this story grows then. In part because a fan-base buying out a service platform is currently the exception and not the rule in our economic culture. -
Quote:This is how the story will make its way into broader press. I'm talking to some contacts here and there as well. But the few obvious angles of this story in its present state do not fit their beats currently. Doesn't mean though that some of these folks don't talk with their colleagues or attend meetings. So we'll see.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I thought that a friend of mine that does stories for the BBC might be interested in whats happening to us. He agreed that it might be newsworthy so who knows...