Starsman

I hope they are holding them due to potentially positive news.

I don't want to put words on Arcanaille's mouth but I think the goal specified was a full combat system with all it's dependencies (rooting included, that's a feature of the combat engine not the animation system), user input and enemy AI, not just a combat loop.

Start the clock at the first time you actually start doing something?

Important to note: walking in circles, shaking head to think, going to the kitchen to get a drink while still thinking, thats all part of it. It counts towards the hours. If you only count the time you push keys into the keyboard, it's easy to say it took 2 hours to make a 16 hours worth of production.

Nobody is paying you so there is no overtime to count for here.

(>.<)

I never managed to understand that frigging file...

If I was able to put in words how much I hate the fact that once you outlevel a contact, you can't fill that contact's relationship bar any further...

I thought Ouroborus would address this, but turned out advancement in Ouroborus never actually changes your contact relationship... so the bar always stays incomplete... it... grrr... *foams*

Exploits. If everyone can read the data easily, things like Hamiddon would have been defeated on day one.

CoD can show it if they wanted, but they would likely get in trouble with the devs, who would either attempt to take them down or obfuscate data in the client further.

Don't take this the wrong way; again it's not an insult to your capabilities. But there is one thing you can never learn by studies and can never be taught to you and that is how to do estimates.

Do this experiment: at random select 10 libraries/classes/whatever code files you are familiar with in one of those projects. Without opening them, guess how many lines of codes they have. Write it down. Then open them and count them. How many did you get right?

I am looking at a very simple piece of code right now, does nearly nothing. Its 112 lines of code. There is no optimization that can be done to it, it’s rather sleek code. Best I can do is making it hard to read by bumping code lines on top of each other and deleting comments. This just makes it harder to work with later, though.

The point is, you can have a perfectly clear idea of how to approach a coding task, you likely have what it takes to do so, but without enough years of experience you are nearly certainly going to understate how long it will take you.

Again: not doubting your ability to do the job we are talking about, I am doubting your ability to do the estimate on how long it will take you and how many lines of codes you will end up with.

Heck, after 16 years of coding for a living, I still often understate it! I made a habit of just padding it upwards because I KNOW I am getting it wrong.

BTW: I am not singling you out. I asked you because I am already familiar with Arcanaville's background. You will notice I also still asked her about her 3k hour estimate (for a MyBrute project) despite knowing that, though.

Oh one last thing: real time game development does not mean things won’t lag. "Real time game development" simply means the loops are aware of how long they take, and advance things appropriately. If a loop gets overloaded for any reason and is delayed, there will be lag, but time will not come to a halt. CoH server is real time in that sense. If something overloads and a loop hangs for 2 seconds instead of 0.125, you still will see 2 seconds pass in the recharge timer of all powers (for example) or enemies move 2 seconds worth of distance based off their last active speed, etc etc. [It also may mean the game is not turn based but that's not what I mean here.]

Yes, he had a lot of Disney inspiration. But that was then, this is now. Times changes and in the last couple of decades the asian market has been a bit protective of their art style.

In my case, I am arguing that the Asian market has a history of rejecting western art styles. The west, on the other hand, tends to be much more accepting of Asian styles. Non-Asian masses tend to be more open minded in this respect. So at least my arguments are about the high chance of Wildstar failing in Korea.

However, on the art discussed in this thread, I think the point is about that particular female's head, not just the Asian style. It just seems broken... perhaps it's just an example of a character creator allowing users to create abominable things, though.

Everything I see in the website screams American Saturday Morning Cartoon to me. Although I got t say, all background art scream World of Warcraft (and that scares me, the game may be a scifi skin on a fantasy MMO.)

Some. I think I heard a lot more anger when they introduced anime inspired pieces, about how a LOT of players hated them in the game, than I ever heard before or after about CoH not being animeish enough.

That's the interesting bit. If you fly around the game you will find that super-sized boobs are not as common as we may guess at first. Perhaps its because we have a lot of female gamers playing female characters, but we have a farily good mixture of player created characters in all spectrum of breast slider settings.

That also may be key to Warcraft's success. It's not offensive to most women because unlike most MMOs it does not go crazy in the skinemax fan-service.

I think almost every case of MMO cancelation in the past (outside NCSoft) can be traced to either economical losses (Asheron's Call 2) or licensing agreements (Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies.)

Hmm... last time I played WoW they didnt have any globals, but I quit that long ago and decided I would not touch it again the day they forced Battle.net accounts. Perhaps thats when they added that.

I still think that numbering system is retarded. Who is happy because they can be @Superman.9978 ???

That's what Diablo 3 should have been.

Another possibility is to give server owners a "DLC subscription" program. If they subscribe, they automatically get all new DLC, past and present.

Single player mode may also have a similar program. Basically, a low monthly fee not for server access, but as a content subscription.

I did not say "MMOs will die" I said MMOs "as we know them" will fade out. MMOs will continue, but I expect in the next two decades to see a return in the private server concept.

We are far from the MMO infancy. In fact we reached "adulthood" a while back. The MMO genre is 17 years old already. And darn have things gone a long way from the EverQuest launch to TOR and GW2's launch. There is room to grow, but we are far from the genre's infancy.

But what are those limitations? Every time I see some one attempt to enumerate them, I see items that fall in one of these categories:

Pipe dreams that cant exists even in single player games on high end computers. (example unlimited level of detail, smart AI that can create it's own stories with perfect human-like voice acting or complete control of the character to the movements of a pinky)

Mechanics that already exist, have been tested, and rejected by the public. Sandboxed control to do anything you want, player created cities, craft anything you can think off, players mold the world. This didnt sustain UO for against static content MMOs, failed for SWG and didnt seem to be any economical landmark success for Second Life Online.

I don't think they want to give up on the Western market, I think they want to give up on the western culture.

They want to make and present games the Korean core company understands.

Guild Wars 2 is such a game. It's very easy to see how that game will fit perfectly in Asia.

Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, Tabula Rassa and City of Heroes never fit there. Exteel... not sure what happened to that one. I would had figure that one would fit fine toward the Asian market.

Anyways, my prediction is that Wildstar will be a disappointment for them. The art direction of the game alone will be rejected in the Asian market, and the game will be lucky to live 3 to 4 years.