SuperOz

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  1. Honestly, I think Virtue would go to her, don't you think?


    S.
  2. Hi all.

    This question occurred to me leading up to the first Player Summit, where I felt a number of things were addressed and well at that, but alas something I was hoping for (although it's not a personal concern of mine) was not.

    That something was bases, and I had heard from reputable rednames that something was going to be done to overhaul the system. And this cheered me initially as I had seen Millenium City's version of housing and rather enjoyed the feeling of immersion I got from them.

    So I was disappointed to see no news, but then listened to the explanation of how bases were coded and how it's essentially a house of cards where the slightest change can make things not work for an extensive period (the latest bugs being proof of that). I asked some SG mates around this point if they were to get a totally revamped base system, would they give up what they had built already to achieve it.

    The answer was generally 'no'.

    Again, not being personally invested (I have no base of my own and don't feel very skilled or talented in that area), I wondered what I'd be willing to part with in the game to have it done better, given the acknowledgements of the game's code and ways of building. These are my personal conclusions.

    Costumes: I love making costumes of all sorts and types, and whilst I enjoy a good range of ability in making costumes, I would gladly give up my current ability to use a new skeleton with new anchor points and more layers.

    Powers: Given the option to do what I most want in a superhero game (interaction with the environment), I would sacrifice my powersets as designed to accomodate the new. I love the way new powersets are designed and look, and they have a dynamic feeling a lot of the old ones do not. I'm by no means advocating a 'action mmo' style with a gamepad here; what I would advocate is a feeling of interaction.

    The environment: Hand in hand with powers. Superhero fights damage their environment. You smash through walls, you break stuff. Even on instanced mission maps, I would take this option and give up pure aesthetics. Paragon Studios proved they can make gorgeous environments without taxing a game system. Maybe they could make more 'real' ones, too. Long have been the days where I've sighed at Mayhem missions and wanted them to exist outside a vacuum.

    And bases I more or less covered. Would things like this be too much for people to part with? Or is the comfort zone of the game 'as is' preferable? I open the question to you.


    S.
  3. I've had simliar problems where just after the patch I got errors such as faces and parts not showing up in the costume creator, names of parts showing as garbled, and even a face texture showing up on the tail of a trenchcoat I was wearing.

    Today I had a minor bug with the 'You have been defeated!' text garbled, and my framerate dropping through the floor to about five frames before picking up again.....and geometry missing in Perez Park. HOWEVER.

    I ran a file verification and discovered an interesting error message that said: 'The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open.' Logging into the prior problematic zone, it was all fixed.

    This relates to File Indexing on Windows 7. I've since made exceptions to the system for CoH and my other games to see what happens next. Beyond that, I suspect we got bugs into this patch (surprise surprise).


    S.
  4. Hey all.

    I noticed after patching Titan Weapons into the game that I had a number of small but concerning errors crop up. The first ones were in the costume creator where for a short while both Fingerless Gloves and the number 19 face were not displaying; that is to say they were invisible.

    Not long after that, I couldn't even open one of my costume slots to edit it...I ran a file verification and was given an error saying it couldn't do anything about 'user added files' (which made sense, I just copied the game folder across instead of a full reinstall to my new hard drive) but then got it to work thereafter.

    I also got a brief period of world shadows moving too fast on screen, but I've seen that before with dev intervention.

    The oddest glitch I had showed a face texture on the buttcape of my trenchcoat! It however went away after I did a zone transition.

    I should say after the file verification and repair, everything seems to be fine, though I am watching for any signs of problems.

    Some people say it's a sign of a video card starting to have trouble, whereas I think something borked generally in the game as at least one other person said the same thing in Help, and there's been a few reports of other glitches since it launched.

    Any thoughts?



    S.
  5. An actor with an incredibly long career and his resume would put most modern day actors to shame. You will be missed, sir.

    /salute


    S.
  6. I'm now getting odd interface bugs which were:

    Gloves (specifically the Fingerless Glove) showing as invisible;

    Face 19 showing as invisible;

    And the labels and listings for costume parts coming up as garbled text, or unreadable.

    Is this known as well? None of the costumes had trenchcoats attached to them.


    S.
  7. Interestingly, I do get the newsletters, but none of the images ever seem to download for some reason. So I get an advertisement but no graphics. Like ever.

    ...and clicking on the html link, I'm being told I can't find the page....

    S.
  8. SuperOz

    Is "Gratz" dead?

    I say it all the time. I like giving positive reinforcement, no matter how easy the curve may seem.


    S.
  9. If anyone can write a Who movie, it'd be Moffat...even though I'd ask RTD to co-write, because Davies does bigger than big better than a lot of writers. But I'm glad to see that any silly Hollywood-isation is being shot down now. And it only makes sense...the BBC isn't going to let their golden child be abused by anyone.

    Go the Moff!


    S.
  10. SuperOz

    Comic Relief

    I only just saw it in your Gender Equality thread, but I'd put a vote in for gender-reversed costumes.

    As soon as I saw Zapp Brannigan and his little tunic, I grinned enormously. I say encourage the smeg out of this. If you're going to be ludicrious, do it right, as the Pythons would say.

    Ludicrous knights with flower swords (and shrubberies!), the /coconut emote for that all important horse sound, and you're on the road to success (or at least the BBC). With all due respect to the Americans, few do ludicrous visuals quite better than the British.

    Any stereotype you can skewer deserves a run here.



    S.
  11. SuperOz

    Lusca Attacks

    They've been proven scientifically to be able to teach each other through observation with absolutely no familial relation. They had an experiment not dissimilar to the Seaworld experience where the object was to move through a series of spaces before opening a jar for food. The first octopus had worked out how to do so before, whilst the second was exposed to the environment for the first time and was not previously exposed to the other octopus.

    It was shown (and is recorded on video) that the younger smaller octopus (seperated by a pane of glass) watches and studies the first octopus and then successfully replicates the actions taken. That is demonstrable learning behavior that doesn't rely on any genetic knowledge. Complex actions such as moving through the spaces and opening the jar aren't muscle memory actions, they're set to an organised form of thinking.

    They can learn, and they don't need to be in social groups to do it. Individuals can show others how to do something, and so it goes.


    S.
  12. For me, Super Strength,and that's coming from two concept builds, the first being my first ever blueside character, which was a Hulk tribute.

    Every move in the set screams power, even if I disagree at times with the sounds that go with them. And Foot Stomp...who doesn't love Foot Stomp? When the alternate animations came in for the set, I was over the moon with happiness, because then you weren't just throwing a punch or stomping the ground, you could really mix and match. I do wish that its animations could work a little like Street Justice with a bit of movement and color, but not as much as I'd like to see Hurl draw animations from the environment so you could throw cars or trucks or well...anything.

    Even Stone tankers get bigger boulders than Super Strength folk. That sole lacking element of interacting with your environment (something that Super Strength is so closely associated with) makes me look at other superhero MMOs and how they do it with varying degrees of success, but then Super Strength has the full package, and still does.

    Maybe a suggestion to 'throw' random objects ala Controllers would get up someday....


    S.
  13. SuperOz

    Lusca Attacks

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater View Post
    PEACEFUL?!

    Did you see that crab it spit out when it was closest to the humans while on land? That was a warning.

    But yeah, octopi are neat. Cuttlefish, too.
    Nah it wasn't. It was most likely undigested. An aggressive species would put on a threat display to anything around it. It just went 'ptui! Glad I got rid of that' and went back into the water.


    S.
  14. SuperOz

    Lusca Attacks

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by starphoenix View Post
    You're giving us too much credit. It is not when we learn how to communicate with them, but when they learn how or feel like communicating with us.
    Heh, good point. Living in the largest mass on the planet while we silly humans try and fit on only a third of it....who's the dominant species again...?


    S.
  15. SuperOz

    Lusca Attacks

    Gotta love these guys....they've been scientifically proven to be adaptive learning creatures with significant intelligence and the capability to learn by empirical viewing.

    Any creature that when it's trapped knows it's trapped and waits for an opportunity to escape rather than continue to struggle shows intelligence. This was done putting an octopus into continually smaller containers until it was impossible to escape without doing injury to itself. Genuine self-awareness.

    And they're peaceful. Any human could handle an octopus fairly safely, if they allow themselves to be. Makes me look forward to their evolution or if we learn how to communicate with them.


    S.
  16. SuperOz

    Immortals?

    Saw it today, and whilst yet again it has only a passing resemblance to the actual mythology (I though there'd be some great tension if they actually showed who the Titans were instead of some crazy warrior gods...if they were that easy to kill, then why didn't they do that? But no, showing Cronus and his relationship to Zeus wouldnt've been a good counterpoint story to Theseus and Zeus at all....) it was far and away better than the craptacular Clash of the Titans remake.

    Yes, the 300 influences are still there (apparently to be a badass you have to wear some style of Spartan/Gladiator helmet) but Mickey Rourke just out-acted anyone on screen, yet Henry Caville is going to be a great Superman, he has the 'humble hero' thing down pat. And his fighting is just amazing to watch, the way he was throwing his whole body into the fight scenes. I hope he's allowed to do this some in Superman.

    Loved the gore, at least that is greek mythology. Plus, seeing gods fight reminds me how well superhero fights can be done.

    Gets a solid 7 out of 10 for me.



    S.
  17. Ah, it is so cool to see a new post in this thread.....

    I'm going to make it my mission to transfer over my level 50 tank (who, btw, has had his action figure posing with what I consider the 'Official' Sister Flame action figure) to meet and play with her, Wyll.

    Don't worry, I have never ever forgotten my promise to you either. I've had many many delays but I intend to keep my word to you and to her. Expect an early Christmas present, that's all I'll say.....



    S.
  18. As the title suggests, I've just installed Win7, and I made a copy of my CoH directory and installed the basic folders from my DVD of CoV. Copying across the copied folders I thought would allow me to get straight in, but no.

    Instead, the game is acting as if I'm downloading from the get go, and while it has a full list of my characters, it's trying to do the staged download. How can I get it to bypass this and also get it to recognise my copy of Test?

    Any and all help greatly accepted.



    S.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Noble Savage View Post
    It's often said that a hero is defined by his villains; the darker, scarier, and more powerful the foe, the greater the sense of accomplishment and heroism when the hero wins. Praetoria has some pretty dark and deadly enemies, and I certainly enjoy taking them down.



    So I wouldn've thought there'd be a limit too, but we're nowhere near it yet, as it turns out. For example, we're only beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in several keys areas: normal mapping, cube mapping, scrolling textures, glows, fx geo, and fx geo with animation. All of those offer a TON of possibilities for future releases.



    Yeah, that's not going to happen. Veteran players have made it clear that they want to keep the old stuff no matter what. Therefore, we'll introduce new things in parallel that offer similar design possibilities but with much better texture treatments. Personally, I'd rather upgrade and update on a 1-to-1 basis in the interest of keeping the game modern, but I want to make the players happy.



    That's why there's a so much interest in the 'base coat' kind of costume part right now. We've got plenty of detailed stuff to layer on top, so now we need more 'connective tissue' to mesh it all to together.

    Oh, I agree with you completely; the contrast between good and evil has to be painted pretty completely or else distinctions can't be made between them. It's quite ironic that I'm replying to your nom de plume who's in-game character is responsible for such a moment in First Ward. I have wondered though if Praetoria is a little more The Legion of Five Worlds material where there's a strong Silver Age feel yet moments of really strong adult material. I've had reservations about that kind of mix before because I feel graphic violence violates the feel of the Silver Age particularly. I guess I have a mixed feeling about First Ward because it does end on a down note, but it is at the same time my Empire Strikes Back, as it feels like the 'middle' part of a story.

    If I were to have any complaint about the story, it'd be that it felt like some decisions that were potentially morally questionable weren't able to be questioned or found an alternative to...a little more branching could've helped those trying to stay true to the higher path, perhaps.


    With regards to the techniques you can employ for costumes, there's some contradictions regarding asymmetry particularly. Is it a situation where it's going to create too much detail or animation to happen that'll prevent some forms of asymmetrical costumes?

    I think my confusion over that is that my knowledge of character models and art assets is pretty rudimentary. I see modern video games for instance and think 'oh, CoH could never run that' and then I see things like Brain in a Jar or the Celestial Set. It's clear you can bridge that divide in terms of quality...though presumably it'd be fair to say you couldn't do something as visually impressive as Aion's skins and details without major changes in the engine? I cite that game because it's obviously incorporating those things from the get-go yet keeping the system requirements significantly down.

    I'm on your side regarding costume part updates. I don't need to be reminded of something my old PC could render. I'm assuming though you'd want a window to do a big pass on a lot of older parts and go 'right, let's put out a chunk of new 'old' parts'?

    I like the thinking with the base coats. I'm no artist, but my filming eye always looks for the details, the things that help sell the illusion better. Of course, the more filmic the better...heh. Being the art lead, are you working with a particular theme like 'filmic' given what we've discussed already? I can particularly see back items being one of those 'connective tissues' you've mentioned, and not just backpacks.


    Oh, apologies for not quoting as you have; I have no idea of how to do that.



    S.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Noble Savage View Post
    A good point, and another good example. Blade surprised everyone with it's huge box office take, and I'd cite it as another case where the comic source material was muted a bit in order to make a very successful action/horror film.

    The fascinating thing for me is that Marvel's tried to relaunch the Blade comic several times since then, and it hasn't worked out. I wonder why? Is there some fundamental reason why a vampire story can't work in print? I'd say no, so it must be something else.
    Comic book Blade wasn't that interesting, ultimately, and it's bound up in other copyright (the van Helsings are involved, the Harkers...so there's that whole estate that may not be letting them have access). The closest they've gone to the supernatural route in a while has been with Morbius, so they may be avoiding the 'classic' Blade mythology until they can work that out. I had some thoughts about the movies also....


    1) First and foremost, Wesley Snipes. Casting him was a masterstroke, because he was able to combine his real-life martial arts with good acting to completely sell the character. Since then, he's been in jail and his reputation isn't the best. I personally think there isn't another actor who can embody Blade (I cite the incredibly short-lived tv show here), and despite talk of Blade IV, I can't see the movie moving ahead without Snipes or someone a lot like him.

    2)Where is there to go? We went from a plot to make a super-vampire to a breed of super-vampires to Dracula. Admittedly if they'd thought about Marvel's lore and looked at the antideluvian vampires (the supposed progenitor of the race is a being called Varnae), they could've delved more into that, but the instant they knocked off the vampiric council, they limited their options drastically.

    Underworld has done a much better job of maintaining its story because the central characters haven't overcome their nemeses yet. There's still something to work for, a story worth resolving. Plus, we're overwhelmed with the Twilight era and an overwhelming influx of vampire-related fiction in a number of mediums. I think any Blade reboot would be best served starting after the current cycle of popularity has begun to wane so it gets a clear run.


    S.
  21. Loving Kevin Smith on the Bionic Man. There's one new ability Steve Austin gets I went 'uhhh...that's a bit weird even for a story about a bionic man', though. The rest of it made sense to me. I don't think I'm giving anything away considering the covers that it's about the bionic surgery.

    Including the classic lines from the opening of the show got me into it, and showing Steve's strength of character and demeanor has me into this now.



    S.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
    FYI the thread is about 90% for laughs, but I probably would buy a Pug if there was one. Was kinda shocked when someone posted that picture from WoW. Didn't think a mainstream game would actually do it.
    Mainstream games will sell anything if they think there's a buck in it. My evidence? Micheal Bay and Transformers. Two things that shouldn't go together, but they equal explosions and G1 Optimus. Easy money.



    S.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
    Did you hear that WHOOSH sound?

    That was the point of the thread sailing over your head.

    It wasn't meant as a serious complaint. And of the people responding, it seems you were the only one who missed that.
    Are you sure about that? Look at the number of people automatically requesting pets and your own self speculating about a Mastermind-based pet set. In a supposed joke thread.

    These are the same forums that have seen nerdrage over costume parts and temp powers, after all....and even if it is a joke thread, some people are gonna go 'hey yeah, a Pug pet would be awesome!' So whether I missed the point or not, it still just opened the door for wishlists...you tell me if that's a joke or not.

    Way to strawman me there, bub.



    S.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
    If you're going to start with a dog, start with a cute dog.
    How about one I'm not worried about stepping on because it's SO SMALL? Seriously, mate...it's a dog. A cosmetic item. If it becomes popular, they might go 'hey, if they bought the Shepherd, they might buy the wolf, the daschund, the pug....'

    But someone going WHY ISN'T IT A PUG? Not so much.



    S.
  25. A movie could and should not be too closely associated with the tv show. It's one thing to do Star Trek, where you had a five-year show and then continued the story ten years later across six movies. It's entirely another to try and explain nearly thirty years of television, eleven actors, a few dozen companions, the Time Lords and the nature of time travel as it works in the show in a single movie.

    Doctor Who isn't as ingrained in mainstream culture to the point as Superman is, where you can ask virtually anyone who knows who the S-shield belongs to and they can give you the most pertinent facts about the character. That's why Superman: The Movie worked so well. People knew the story and didn't need too much explained to them. Doctor Who...at its worst, it's a mire of continuity and regeneration.

    Doing something standalone would be an entry point to the series ideally and I think ideally would work best around the Time War. That way you introduce the key concepts (Gallifrey, The Daleks, Time Lords), have lots of explosions and such and by the end you have what the show has primarily had: The Doctor alone in his TARDIS. Down note for the movie, but gets the story across.


    S.