Starsman

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Captain-Electric View Post
    On this point, I don't think you'll find many supporters
    I did not mean actually players, at least not any that is familiar with the game. I meant publishers. Despite doing well CoH never reached huge numbers and it ended up canceling. Heck, I think you may be able to walk to some publishers with a finished CoH2 and they may say "ok but that name got to change."

    But I do still think players that were never familiar with the game, players that only heard about it during it's cancelation coverage, are unlikely to remember anything other than, well... "it was that canceled MMO."

    Quote:
    I also think people here are underestimating the value of the IP.
    Maybe. I got to admit I never felt a huge love for the lore in the game. I loved playing every new story arc at least once. I loved to find out this or that tie-up, no mater how cliche or lame it may have been (for the exception of the origin of power, I still hate that one arc and grinned my teeth all the way trough.) But the heroes in the universe? Positron? Statesman? Never really saw them as much but filler, or near placeholders. Volatile replacements for Superman or Ironman (not literally.)

    My point is: I don't think the IP is as strong. I don't think the comic books did too well either, so that may be a point proving this.

    I'm not saying it has to be a strong IP to be a successful and loved game, heck I loved the hell out of it, but independent of the game I don't feel the IP packed much punch.


    Quote:
    I hold a pretty different suspicion than most of you (maybe all of you), regarding the likelihood that we'll see a COH 2 anytime [relatively] soon.
    I don't hold my breath for many reasons. The only way a game called "City of Heroes 2" will happen is if NCSoft develops it themselves. It CAN happen. The SaveCOH may have given them the idea there is potential in there for a new game, and a game done by them, their way, may be marketable in Asia. But it would hold zero resemblance to what we play today, not without the same lead team.
  2. Starsman

    Devs moving on

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy View Post
    who is left over, meaning that havent found another job already, that is able to do this new studio thing if they wanted to?
    Matt Miller is the key figure. I think he is the only one in the team (unless there are some non-public faces) that has been part of the team since launch until cancelation. He did not have his fingers on every bit of the game, but he has the closest thing to a "game vision" that you can get.

    Every other relevant position in the game has changed hands at least twice over the years, yet the game has always "felt" like home.

    Mind you: any new game, even if done by the entire same team, will not be liked the same way by the same people. My only hope is for a team lead by Matt to make a super hero mmo that is superior to DCUO and Champions. I don't expect a replacement, sequel or clone, just a better super hero MMO than the other two (even if it borrows ideas from the other two.)
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talionis View Post
    Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Matt finds backing that at some point someone buys the IP from NCSoft, so they can make CoH2. That maybe a totally different negotiation.

    They wouldn't have to start from scratch and they would be able to reconnect with a portion of the playerbase and a larger portion of players that know that Paragon Studios did a good job with CoH1.
    It is unfortunate but I think once the game shuts down, CoH 2 becomes even less plausible.

    There is always the "only a subset of the original will play it" thing, but now in addition a lot of the general market may also think "oh a sequel to a failed game." Most people out there will forever associate the City of Heroes label with failure.

    There is also the baggage that comes from restricting your lore in a way that it works as a sequel.

    At this point, buying the CoH IP solely in a way to make a brand new game may be a waste of money and an development encumbrance. Would be just better to start anew with a brand new IP, or with a license from another comic book publisher... I would LOVE to see a game based on the expanded Savage Dragon mini-verse

    Another idea is to make something way looser. Imagine the Minecraft of super hero gaming... the devs won’t work on creating new content, but instead give the player tools to create their content, content that is much better balance-restricted than the AH in coh but also much more organic (you place your content in the world, not a holo-deck.)

    The devs can spend most their development time creating new environments, themes, soundtracks, power sets (or frameworks or whatever) and character customization options. Maybe have a couple guys cranking content in the content creator just to have some stuff at launch day.

    On that note… imagine if instead of picking your gloves, you picked from chunks of gloves and were able to place them anywhere in the arm you wish… you want a glowing ball on the back of your fist, go for it. Want to push it to your wrist? Go for it. Middle of the arm? Sure why not. Rotate it so the stripe in the center is 45% degrees? Customizable power!

    Man... I just derrailed big time.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talionis View Post
    Oh this has a deadline, just like the NFL. One was the time before announcing the closure of CoH. The second deadline is December 1st. Once the lights are turned completely off it will be very hard to put the lights back on. They lose a lot fan base and bringing people back to the game will be very hard and probably largely unfruitful. The value of the CoH was greatly reduced at each of those spots. The quicker they announce a deal the more customers would likely be retained.
    Since the "we exhausted all options" bull****, I have held the mind there is zero hope for this game.

    My only hope today is Matt will find the financial backing to start up a new project. CoH was a great game but there were so many things that could be better, so many artificial barriers that can be removed only in an all-new title. So my hope is they will learn not only from CoH's downfalls, but also from the downfalls of Champions and DCuO (hopefully also from the advancements in Star Trek Online's race creator) and come up with a much better version that somehow retains enough of the feel from City of Heroes.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Codewalker View Post
    I would have invested in that, even if it meant scaling back for a while in order to pay for an IP buyout at a reasonable price (20 might be reasonable. 80 is not).
    Well, got to admit we are emotionally invested and that's never good in business, not as an economical investor.

    But yes, Paragon Studios like an independent development house would be in a good position to secure some VC money. It's a team of proven developers, with a money maker in the pocket to make sure any side project sees the light of light (eventually, under moderated budget) and potentially release a big splash. It more than complies with the VC logic of investing in high risk companies and expect less than 10% of them not to go bankrupt and then sell out for a few million once their products become a huge social hit.

    The problem with that type of investment is at some point in grouth VCs may actually force a sale and some one like Activision or EA ends up gublilng them up.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pebblebrook View Post
    As tinfoil hat theories go...
    If we are to go for farfetched tinfoil hat theories I'd go for the idea that some one with power at NCSoft always held a very strong grudge against Richard Carriot and everything that he brought to the table. City of Heroes came to be part of NCSoft thanks to him, who also served as executive producer of the initial game and executive manager of City of Villains.

    My other "farfetch" theory is they wanted to get rid of anythign that is not marketable in Asia, just a thing about image. Maybe some one (or a group of some ones) with power believed even sustaining a non-viable game made the company somehow look bad.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    In fact, its explicitly the (credible) talk of an insider buyout move that caused me to *reduce* my older estimates for the operational costs of the game from about $6-$8M down to $3-$5M. Because those are the only numbers that *allow* for a buyout of any kind, insider or otherwise.
    Correct me if I'm wrong but this is based off the entire Paragon Studios 80-man state.

    Saving CoH would not have necessarily meant saving Secret Project or its team. It may sound a bit harsh but the game would have been possible to be saved and sustained with the core CoH team alone, something that I guess may mean (pure guesswork) between 50% and 70% the team size and operational costs.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TrueGentleman View Post
    Incidentally, while MS did shutter Asheron's Call 2 after only three that's a lesson more about when and how to launch an MMORPG sequel than about doing the right thing by a gaming community, i.e. customers.
    AC2 suffered... many other issues.

    Main one being, I guess, zero ties to the original game. There were some lore references but overall it was an extremely different game. They also did some odd experiments, at least at launch the game had zero NPCs. Not sure if it evolved past that but the idea, I guess, was "let players build the world (even if we did not give them the tools to do it.)"

    EQ2 did the same, but not THAT drastically. They did keep at least the races familiar and managed to backpedal drastically on the 3rd expansion where they let players rediscover the ruins of Faydwer.

    I think AC2 would have been survived had it been named something else in addition to given players the tools (at launch) to build their own cities. I don't mean necessarily player housing or allowing anyone to create buildings, but imagine how amazing it would be if the game dynamically placed buildings with NPCs to serve players wherever they gather the most!

    Always was curious why Turbine did not save that one, though... was it so bad they were not able to buy it? was it due to the partial publishing partership with SOE? They were just not able to afford running both games?
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aisynia View Post
    That's exactly what MS tried back then. Turbine bought the game from them to save it, MS was gonna shut it down.
    That I did not know. I only saw the news of them buying it back from MS. I guess NCSoft does not have to learn from Turbine, they should learn from Microsoft instead.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TrueGentleman View Post
    Thank you for the link. It's encouraging that they decided to go the full native route, which should mean a more stable, less memory-hogging client than an emulated one. Since LotRO relies so much on DirectX (and it looks gorgeous with DirectX 10), I wonder how they're going to handle the graphics for OSX.
    My fear is the mac client may need so much work to sustain that eventually it may be abandoned. Sure, times have changed, but I recall the release of the native EverQuest 1 Mac edition. It launched with an expansion and never got any content upgrades (even was stuck in their own servers.)

    But as I said, times have changed. Apple is starting to take a noticeable chunk of the desktop market, especially among the youth and college students.
  11. Hmmm... always nice to see more Mac MMOs.

    I remember buying LotR Online when it launched, was never too big on it. Felt too slow (at least the solo experience) compared to City of Heroes insane combat.

    It also felt a bit low-fantasy and mundane, sort of fitting for the world portrayed in LotR, though. I both, appreciated that women had more practical armor (no bikini plate) and disliked that there was no super cool armor looks (that I noticed.) Say what you want but I sort of love the insanity found in high level WoW armors, specially helms and shoulderpads.

    At this point in time, though, I'm rather sick of fantasy. But who knows, maybe once I watch The Hobbit Episode 1/3rd I may get in the mood to give it a try.
  12. I remember the first day I saw the Strong & Pretty thread (not necesarely the first day it was around) I sent a PM to Castle, a joke mostly, asking him "how dare you buff Mace AND Energy Aura so amazingly?? You just make every other build in the game obsolete!!! Now everyone will play solely war mace and energy aura!" I think I made mentions of Mace being insane AoE and ST damage now, and that Energy Aura became unbillable.

    I can’t remember his exact reply and can't find the PM, but it was, perhaps, a smiley? Not sure, it was short and silly.

    I happened to do this the morning of the same day that the War Mace changes (where the AoE got boosted and Clobber became an insane attack) and Energy Aura changes (where Energy Drain started to heal) made it into the Beta server.

    When the buffs hit a few hours later I sent him another PM, telling him "What the... you realize that was only a joke and I had no clue this was happening, right?? What the!?"

    At that he replied that yea, he DID get puzzled and had to double check the news feed and make sure it was not out yet. Was a rather funny exchange.

    Mace DID become an insane AoE set, with very good single target. All the changes he implemented were changes I recomended in the past, down to the number (radius changes, exchanging target caps between the last two attacks, giving Clobber propper damage scale) but I never intended all changes to be done, my goal was always to do one or the other (buff ST or AoE.) In many ways, for it's time, War Mace ended being a bit OP but darn I loved it! I'm cure Acemace also loved the heck out of the changes.

    Sometime later I sent him suggestions on how to fix Fire Aura and he asked me "OK are you somehow getting into my email??" Among other things, i recommended Fire Embrace to somehow give every attack a fire damage proc.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy View Post
    Ok all of a sudden you know everything about me. Ok that is your opinion but I can clearly say that you are wrong because I know myself and I know what I know. Not sure where you get off all of a sudden telling me what I know and dont know, when you are not even me, and you dont even know me. You view it as you think that I dont have any knowledge on that subject but you cannot say in a definitive manner that you know. Do I go around telling you what you know and dont know? No I would appreciate if you dont do it to me like you been knowing me your entire life. You dont know me like that, ok?
    She has never said she knows everything about you. She simply said (in between the lines) that she is very well informed about the game's economical state at the time of cancelation, and anyone claiming the game was not profitable has no clue what they are talking about.

    I really doubt her statements comes from either opinion or guesswork. Arcanaville has been historically well connected to the dev team.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    My point was that was the stupidest thing I've read in weeks. Its stupid because:

    1. Pointing out that you can use other content when content access is revoked completely misses not just the point of Rangle's post, it fails to comprehend what the point of viewing content is. Human beings don't generally view content because they have a content viewing minimum they have to maintain, like calories or oxygen. If someone takes away my copy of The Avengers its not a trivial loss if I can just watch Halloween 5 instead. The loss of access to specific content is not replaceable with completely different content because content is not fungible.

    2. Pointing out that other forms of games do not have a revocation problem is missing the point of a discussion of what MMOs *should* be as opposed to what they currently are. That's comparable to saying that if you were opposed to Aparteid, rather than complain about it you should simply avoid countries that practice it.

    3. Speaking of analogies, analogizing the shutdown of an MMO to capricious and random ways of dying isn't stupid because of its extreme exaggeration, its stupid because it analogizes the shutdown of MMOs to other situations people would oppose and fight to prevent even more strongly. Which is a case of someone shooting themselves in their own foot, and having the bullet ricochet off the ground and blow a hole in their own forehead. Its implying the exact opposite of what was intended, in a manner worthy of ridicule besides.

    4. And it ends with an implied statement about the profitability of the game, a subject you have zero knowledge about and are as a result completely wrong about. The game was, in fact, very profitable, and not in any danger of being unprofitable for the foreseeable future. That's the primary reason the developers themselves were surprised by the shutdown; they are simply barred from commenting on the specific circumstances of the shutdown.

    Certainty in the face of ignorance, nonsense masquerading as logic, self-annihilating extreme exaggeration without irony, semantics without substance, all with the implication of the exact opposite of its vacuous extent.

    "Stupid" seemed to cover it colloquially, but I'm generally open to elucidation upon request.
    Said it before and say it again: Arcanaville, I will miss your special brand of burn.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pebblebrook View Post
    Sorry for late response...i somehow glossed over this for some reason.

    The part about circumvention was the authentication (account verification) system which all subscription games have including CoX.
    If I understand the case correctly, that's the summary of what they sued over, but the way they won was by proving the hackers broke copy protection systems built into the game.

    Due to the amount of hacking that goes on in WoW, they have implemented a lot of protection systems, things that scan the computer for memory scans and a bunch other anti-cheat protection. Stuff that had to be broken to achieve the emulation.

    CoH has no such protections.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast View Post
    Is the RISK of a lawsuit enough deterrent for Titan to abandon ALL affiliation with emulation if it means the future of Plan Z?? Too bad these boards will be gone in a few weeks; because I think that would be one helluva "I told you so."
    If Plan Z is what I understand (an all new game that just happens to take heavy inspiration from CoH) the risk for lawsuits (that actually make it to court) are zero (unless they go stupid and rip assets from CoH to use in their project.)

    Mind you, without game development experience, the chances of it ever being finished or being completed within a 4 year window are also near zero, not entirely zero. I would not discourage them from attempting it if thats what they want to spend their time doing.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pebblebrook View Post
    Heh, like i said in what you quoted...i didn't say you couldn't contest it.
    A copyright claim like this will likely be tossed out the court automatically (one that attempted to claim ownership of some one's IP just based on an ELUA.)

    Some people have a bit too much of a phobia to lawsuits, but not all lawsuits get to court. I'm not exactly sure who is in charge, or the exact process, but once you file most types of lawsuits some one will look over it and decide if there is a valid case.

    Even if some one contested it, this is one of those cases that would be so easy to win, you can safely say "bring it" and counter-sue for all court costs and lost time.

    Just to make this bit clear:

    I own Starsman, his concept, backstory (that has zero dependencies on the CoH universe) and general appearance.

    I can not, however, extract his 3D model and use that 3D model freely, that model is made with NCSoft owned art assets. I can do whatever I want with it in my computer, though. Just not distribute any material generated with those assets.

    I can, however, sit down in blender and model my own Starsman, or go to Champions and create the closest thing their tools allow me to create.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Codewalker View Post
    or would those resources be better utilized for something like Plan Z?
    What is Plan Z? Because if it's "Plan lets Pull a Zynga and just make a clone that stays in legal copyright grounds" I'd say tha't the best thing you should shoot for.

    Grab a Unity3D license, get some one good at networking code and get to work.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Something like an explosion would be an AoE attack. It would not be conventionally evadeable except by escaping the area of effect completely.

    So no. Evasion would be able to dodge directed attacks and (to a lesser degree) enveloping attacks. Not AoE attacks. A bullet (directed) can be dodged. A sweeping sword (enveloping) can be dodged, albeit it can be harder. An explosion (area) cannot be dodged.

    To evade an AoE, you have to not be in the area, or be in the area but break line of sight, if the attack requires line of sight. An explosion requires line of sight (to a first order approximation). A poison gas cloud does not.
    So you would have attacks that are impossible to avoid. Now, I will switch directions here for a bit but: you have been for a long time a proponent that should someone want to make a character that's entirely about "evasion" he should be able to, but at the same time you are extreme about fair balance.

    Where would you make the concession here? If it's possible for someone to have an acid cloud attack that can't be avoided, how you allow for a pure-evasion based build to exist without being unfairly penalized?

    Would you rethink the ability to evade the attacks or the ability to be purely evasion based?
  20. I have to echo some of Codewalker's points. The level of law ignorance here (on every side) is insane.

    There is only one thing that can be illegal and it is the redistribution of copyrighted material.

    I have software from NCSoft they distributed to me, I acquired it legally and never stole it. I also paid for access to their servers, but that's a separate matter.

    For all legal points: I can do anything I want with the software I got EXCEPT redistribute it. Many of the things I do with it CAN violate the contract of service, but the best this can do is give NCSoft a reason to cancel my account (and they are doing this Nov 30 either way.)

    Not that the "small" redistribution clause is huge. I can't give anyone else my data files. I can't host them in a website. I can’t install it in a hard drive and then sell the hard drive and claim ignorance.


    Now, on the entire Emulator thing that comes on too many threads and too many people that know nothing keep calling "illegal", it all depends what is done.

    Reverse engineering of the technical networking of the game is not protected by law. You can do an emulator that contacts the game and acts as a server.

    You can't have that server host copyright material, though. That may be a killer for an emulation project because for this game, content is king and all the content needs to also be hosted in the server for it to work properly.

    There may be ways to make a server work in a different way, somehow reading data from the clients. Another option would be to give up on the content and just recreate either the Architect or invent new content and a method to patch the clients to get the data needed for the new content to work. You can use the characters that are already in the game since you don't actually upload them nor even name them in the server side (or at least don't have to) you just call them via a handle.

    Anyways, I think an emulator that attempts to replicate the game 100% is not possible legally or technically, but it may be possible to make a combat emulator and a new content engine. That's something that can be perfectly legal and technically possible (although I would not expect to see results until a year or two from now, assuming heavy work on the volunteer team.)

    Once you get there, though, you are back at the point where only those that already have the data can legally use it. There can’t, legally, be a growing player base. Also to note is that even if the server was to hold copyrighted material, a player connecting to it would not be liable for it and for all cases I seen, would not be committing any crime. The ones hosting the server that holds copyright material, though, may be in trouble.

    Despite any legal or non-legal state of any approach that is taken, it’s very likely NCSoft will indeed threaten with legal action. It’s a default action any corporation takes, not because they are right but because they know threat of lawsuits and their cost alone are enough to get away with whatever they want.

    At the end of the day I think that effort is better spent creating something entirely new. A lot of feeling may be recaptured by reusing a few age old assets… many assets in the base game (mainly music and sounds) were licensed by Cryptic. You may have heard CoH distinctive music in TV Spots in the past.

    PS: This is assuming US laws. Other countries and regions may be very different.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Penetrating Enveloping attack with target cap N, dealing Physical damage.

    "Enveloping" might not be the best evocative description of the type, but this sort of attack affects an area but in a dodgeable way, therefore its Enveloping. In CoH, multiple attack types are handled in a certain way, but the way I wouldn't necessarily handle them the same way (as high match). "Penetrating, Enveloping" would be more what you would expect: Enveloping for the purpose of dodging, Penetrating for the purpose of checking against deflection, combined in a more synergistic fashion than override.
    If I understand this right... does this means you would use the same stat to determine if you dodge a wide sword swing that you would use to avoid damage in a grenade explosion?

    Actually that's a good one that may count: would you even allow for concepts like wide area explosions to be avoidable at all?
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Electric-Knight View Post
    Rarely are enough commas used; Too seldom do we find a semicolon.
    Yet you find a semicolon and go ahead and waste it now I cant find one to do this sentence right nor a comma not even punctuation there goes our last semicolon thank you for wasting it so warm day today dont you think
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cardiff_Giant View Post
    You know I had TR installed on my Computer for a LONG time after it was shutdown, just starting up the client & watching the intro was somehow comforting... Or maybe cathartic?
    Yea, that was a cool intro.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P40g1AEuLlY

    Although the ending.. pun? was a bit corny ("that is what we need... a fresh start... a clean slate")

    Also now that I see it again I notice how just at the time the narrator says "they were not able to take us all so they took those that could fight" they show a little girl holding hands with her mom. Odd standards on "who can fight"
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lock0n View Post
    Okay, so I get your explanations on the positional types down pretty well. But it's the damage types you lay out that confuse me a bit. Isn't it possible for a magic user to weild elemental attacks? Can't a Natural/tech person build a device that attunes itself to human brainwaves and launches psyonic bolts at targets? Or am I mixing your discussions of Origins in with Damage types here and alligning things up too literally?

    How do these all relate together? It sounds like the system you're making is one that doesn't make much use of archtypes or powersets in the same way we think of in City of Heroes (not necessarily a bad thing).
    I guess if some one wants to make a superhero that is the equivalent of Profesor X wearing Ironman's suit and The Mandarin's rings.

    But that's another reason why I incline to entirely remove typing entirely, no mater how you go at it, you will find a way to make things restrictive. Just give players the ability to make their powers look like fire or ice, whatever they prefer.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Penetrating attacks are my way of dealing with the Smash/Lethal distinction in a different way.
    OK,this and reading all the above, what would you do with this example:

    A wide targeted sword swing that can hit various targets?

    It sounds to be penetrating, area of effect and targeted. How would you deal with multiple overlaps? Do like we do here? Independent checks for each stat until the attack misses or runs out of stats to check against?

    Side note: this kind of discussions are the thing I will miss the most out of these forums.