SpecialFX

Ladies and Gentlemen of NC Soft:
The support staff told me that posting to more threads will increase my odds of actually getting read somewhere. So I'm posting this everywhere I smell even a hint of a developer. Forgive me, but what's a kitty to do?
Are the developers listening at all? May I request some proof? It is my understanding of our relationship that we the players pay our $29 to $69 for the CoH or CoV box to play the game-forever, as with any other game of similar price. We pay our $15/month for the game's continuing maintenance and development, presumably along the lines of our requests and suggestions.
I play a Kheld from time to time and do enjoy their presence in the game now. But I site them as evidence that the developers are adding their own, unsolicited content to the game. Nobody could have possibly requested that. I challenge anybody to produce a player-generated suggestion for shape-shifting energy blasting squids and crabs that predates their introduction to the game. They're clearly an unsolicited developer acid trip.
Yet there is an entire forum here of player suggestions and requests for new game content that has clearly fallen on the floor in the mean time, despite the obvious cash flow that accompanies it. Granted 95% of it is maintenance programming: buff this, nerf that, but there has to be a wealth of new content ideas in there ripe for the developing that rot in that round file the suggestions forum has become.
I proclaim here and now that the developer's creativity is most welcome-but until that forum has been entirely addressed-only within the confines of player requests and suggestions. Only when the que of our demands have been dealt with or dismissed by popular vote do the developers get to work on any original ideas of their own.
Because that's what we're paying you for.
For example: I've heard that wings were long ago dismissed as cosmetic. Yet better than half the concept of an MMORG is looking good while you're doing it! Yes, absolutely! We must have more cosmetic things fixed about the game. Cosmetic additions must be given an even priority with actual gaming content in the developer's schedules and budgets. Done right, wings are a HUGE step towards "looking cool while we're doing it" for many of us and we've been dying to have them for 7 "issues" now! I for one will never let the issue die.
Another example: I can now choose exactly which of the 20 pimple-pop tunes my boom box will play, yet I can only dance to them at random. I've characters that should never be caught dead doing the 'monkey dance', and other characters who should do nothing but. Yet I cannot choose. It's the small, easy things like this that truly frustrate me about the developer's misplaced priorities. Who caress about what tune is playing! I haven't turned the sound on AT ALL since the 'glowies' stopped humming!
Humming glowies: another example of a good and useful thing we'd like to see back.
And can we have a decent feline face in CoH? CoV does. And us CoH'ers will be wanting CoV's barbed wire too. Pandora's box has been opened with CoV costumes in CoH. You can't close it now. We'll be wanting everything and so very much more. You shouldn't be allowed to release an "issue" without substantial costume option additions to both CoH and CoV. It should be a mandatory part of every update from now on.
Substantial costume option additions. Entire wardrobes, no less. Wings would be a good place to start in I7. Thank you. Wings should have been there in I3.
And these are just the few things I've submitted. I'm sure the hoard of us has a list of thousands more items I'm also excited to see you incorporate in the game.
Now I ask you, given all that: why are we going to Mars, or the moon again...exactly? Who requested that? And what wonderful entire new costume wardrobes will be coming with that issue? Issue 7?
Adding CoV costume options to CoH is about the right size of a wardrobe addition for each release. Thank you for including it in I7.
Yes. I think you need to rethink a few things.
Start with your priorities.
Take your time. Do it right. I can't wait to see how fantastic the wings you've been working on for two years now are going to be when they get here.

Thank you.
-White Paw.

Ladies and Gentlemen of NC Soft:
Are the developers listening at all? May I request some proof? It is my understanding of our relationship that we the players pay our $29 to $69 for the CoH or CoV box to play the game-forever, as with any other game of similar price. We pay our $15/month for the game's continuing maintenance and development, presumably along the lines of our requests and suggestions.
I play a Kheld from time to time and do enjoy their presence in the game now. But I site them as evidence that the developers are adding their own, unsolicited content to the game. Nobody could have possibly requested that. I challenge anybody to produce a player-generated suggestion for shape-shifting energy blasting squids and crabs that predates their introduction to the game. They're clearly an unsolicited developer acid trip.
Yet there is an entire forum here of player suggestions and requests for new game content that has clearly fallen on the floor in the mean time, despite the obvious cash flow that accompanies it. Granted 95% of it is maintenance programming: buff this, nerf that, but there has to be a wealth of new content ideas in there ripe for the developing that rot in that round file the suggestions forum has become.
I proclaim here and now that the developer's creativity is most welcome-but until that forum has been entirely addressed-only within the confines of player requests and suggestions. Only when the que of our demands have been dealt with or dismissed by popular vote do the developers get to work on any original ideas of their own.
Because that's what we're paying you for.
For example: I've heard that wings were long ago dismissed as cosmetic. Yet better than half the concept of an MMORG is looking good while you're doing it! Yes, absolutely! We must have more cosmetic things fixed and added too about the game! Cosmetic additions must be given an even priority with actual gaming content in the developer's schedules and budgets. Done right, wings are a HUGE step towards "looking cool while we're doing it" for many of us and we've been dying to have them for 7 "issues" now! I for one will never let the issue die.
Another example: I can now choose exactly which of the 20 pimple-pop tunes my boom box will play, yet I can only dance to them at random. I've characters that should never be caught dead doing the 'monkey dance', and other characters who should do nothing but. Yet I cannot choose. It's the small, easy things like this that truly frustrate me about the developer's misplaced priorities. Who caress about what tune is playing! I haven't turned the sound on AT ALL since the 'glowies' stopped humming!
Humming glowies: another example of a good and useful thing we'd like to see back.
And can we have a decent feline face in CoH? CoV does. And us CoH'ers will be wanting CoV's barbed wire too. Pandora's box has been opened with CoV costumes in CoH. You can't close it now. We'll be wanting everything and so very much more. You shouldn't be allowed to release an "issue" without substantial costume option additions to both CoH and CoV. It should be a mandatory part of every update from now on.
Substantial costume option additions. Entire wardrobes, no less. Wings would be a good place to start in I7. Thank you. Wings should have been there in I3.
And these are just the few things I've submitted. I'm sure the hoard of us has a list of thousands more items I'm also excited to see you incorporate in the game.
Now I ask you, given all that: why are we going to Mars, or the moon again...exactly? Who requested that? And what wonderful entire new costume wardrobes will be coming with that issue? Issue 7?
Adding CoV costume options to CoH is about the right size of a wardrobe addition for each release. Thank you for including it in I7.
Yes. I think you need to rethink a few things.
Start with your priorities.
Take your time. Do it right. I can't wait to see how fantastic the wings you've been working on for two years now are going to be when they get here.

Thank you.
-White Paw.

[ QUOTE ]
Here is the list of Developers (in order), that will be featured: Manticore, Geko,Positron,Capt. Mako,War Witch,Statesman,Lord Recluse

[/ QUOTE ]

Only 7 developers left for the umpteen thousand players posting here? No wonder the developers here seem like one raft of oar-less surviors in this infinite ocean of chop--hopelessly lost to any contact with anybody whom I'll ever meet will ever meet.

Here's my question: Where are the developers REALLY in this abyss of a forum? I feel like I might as well be flinging debris into infinite space when I post questions here like "It's been two years now, where are the wings? They're important to me" or "The /cov 1 icon bug is the best thing to happen to CoH in 5 issues, please test and keep it and continue to add more costume options to CoH".

Then again, unless these seven "developers" are really directors of entire departments of coders and artists, there's no hope of a staff that small affecting change on code this big. So why do we bother at all? Nobody important is ever listening to me here. Nobody important could possibly ever listen to anybody I know or anybody any of them will ever meet.

Here's a suggestion: You need a whole DEPARTMENT for suggestions like the White House has--a large staff to read every letter, and sort through them by catagory to be summed and passed up the chain for consideration. At least that way I'd feel like some human might have read this someday outside an archological dig thousands of years in the future when they're trying to figure out what all went wrong.

Thanks.
-WhitePaw

Normally, a lady like me wouldn't breathe a word of something like this out loud--ever...but...

Its just that I get SOOOooo many boys hittin' on me all the time: just a quick blanket public service/saftey anouncement. I know I'm domesticated, and declawed and look all nice girl and all...but I'm still quite a bit tiger, deep down.

Fellas, yeah, I like to tease and flirt.
Fellas, I'm pretty to look at perhaps,

but you might not want to touch.

Sorry.

-White Paw.

So, um...fellas? When's the cape get here? I ordered it weeks ago!

-White Paw

Hey, I do not have anger management issues!

-White Paw

Oh yeah... this one's for "Fret Boy" on guitar.
Yeah...I do play.

Now back to the show.

-White Paw

I'd like to tank all those who helped me get this far. Folks like GraviStarr, Dark Streak, Big Zoot, and a phone book of others. And thanks DM for the sketch. Kisses all around!

Ok, now hit the showers fellas, back on the job tomorrow!

-White Paw

Keep up the good pencilin! Surely better than I could do in my first 10 years of tryin. Practice, practice...and (ethem!) practice!

-SideFX

Another fistfull o' days o' ear-shattering silence later....

Ok, fine. I'll go first. Here's something I sneezed up on break today at lunch. It's a bit of a day dream of mine about my CoH character "White Tail" and her boyfriend "GraviStarr".
"Dark Alleys Episode 4"

And a little bit I wrote to suggest a new level of kwality to DC for one of their main product lines a couple of months before CoH hit the streets:
"Urban Legends 1: Tanker's Ball"

And a bit of a sketch of "White Paw" and "GraviStarr":
"Desperado Nights"

And a bit of poetry I wrote from a clock's perspective:
Clockwork's Lament
(that link might be goofy as PC's can't stomach any kind of file name with style).

Enjoy.

Alright, who among you lilly-livered varmits brave enough to belly-up to THIS bar?

Next!

-SideFX

Um...case in point (two DAYS of echoing silence later):

I stab things sharp: as I see 'em and brutally honest.

Gilg, its obvious to me by your efforts here (and lack thereof) y'all don't really intend for this to be the creative superhighway from the imaginative CoH gaming populace through to your artists, publishers, programmers and the like...that it could be. Nor has it really turned into much of a forum for us writing/drawing players to critique and enjoy each other's art.

Your staff is obviously too swamped with coding updates to seriously tackle the former, and likely you don't have the server space to spare for the latter. No hard feelings, just keep the game code crisply fresh, it's what we're really paying y'all at NC for (and please in your lust for high level epics, don't forget Atlas and Galaxy where all our second and after characters start--mostly bored by the repeats).

As for the rest of us rabbidly writing and speedily sketching fans, may I suggest we use the remains of this thread to post links to our own offshore fan sites and CoH-related materials (and our mutual praise thereof).

May the spammer's karma blacken over their own heads.

NC, lift and polish as you please, as per the license.

One out of two goals achieved ain't bad.

"Visualize Whirlled Peas"

-SideFX

Yes to feedback. Having submitted a sketch, a story, and a poem with zip zero nada--not even a "thanks we recieved your e-mail" in return...its starting to feel like an artwork graveyard in there.

-SideFX

My name isn't Stephen King--I'm better than that (I write my stories w/o the aid of grad English lit students). I've conjured galactic civilizations whole and raised them again in the same paragraph (just did). I'm a drunken master of Kung Fu English prose, THE savant of metaphor. Bit-bucket MY stories to your own depravity.

I suggest w/o humility that you judge stories as I do: accept any length. Read each as far as it can hold your eye to the page, then stop. If you've read to the end--it's good. Less and you've not wasted your time on deadwood.

My most flawless stories (of the 30 or so I've written) are between 2000 and 3000 words. Less and I'm deligating the true art of storytelling in favor of a barebones outline. I don't write outlines for you to mangle. I write epic short stories--whole.

Selah.

Triumph: Gradient Guy, White Paw.