SuperOz

Not showing here, Michelle. Can you reupload your pic?


S.

I took this picture some time ago when I was thinking about retiring this character, and it seems apt that I should use it again now should he be retired for different reasons. Burnum is/was an Australian Aboriginal creation deity reduced to humanoid form, and had earth powers as well as being a Superstrength/Invulnerability Tank. I thought being in this place would be particularly fitting for him.....



What are you waiting for, Father of Stone? What calls to you in the space between dreams? What waits for you, traveller of forever? What do you wait for?

I can't think of a better way for him to say goodbye, really.




S.

Based on what Posi himself said about the DRS-03 Mark II, I decided I'd pop onto Beta with all the parts I had available and mock up a look for it. It's worth noting on the Paragonwiki page there's a picture of what Posi's design was circa 1991, and I tried to incorporate elements of that into the design. I kept the green/blue color scheme, and I'm going to forward this as a PM to Posi as well for inspiration, perhaps.

Here it is:



I'm pretty sure most people will recognise the parts, though the spine is from the Cybertech set that's on Beta. I thought about some Tech Knight stuff, but this seems to suit the heavier, more 90's design for the armor. What does everyone think?


S.

So....we'd be semi-omnipotent beings with the power to step into the CoH reality and inform them that their entire reality might be just wiped out?

Isn't that just a bit masochistic? I don't want to tell anyone everything they know is probably going to cease to exist. It's like telling someone they have terminal cancer with no chance of a cure. I'm happy to let my folks continue on in their reality, because whereas City of Heroes is NCSoft and Paragon's game, my characters are mine, and they'll never go away.


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I saw that on Amazon too, but until pre-orders are confirmed as not being honored on the date originally advertised, then it's still going ahead.


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Don't believe everything you read; I spoke to a store that put a pre-order on Amazon for me, and that order has not been cancelled. This close to the date, the items have yet to be fully put together, let alone distributed to anyone. EW has it grossly wrong here; no retailers have them a month out from release. Disney can't send a notice for something that hasn't happened yet.

And does anyone seriously believe that Disney aren't just going to settle this out of court to hit the release date? Yes, they may've slipped up in not getting the licensing right to use the case design, but consider two facts:

1) If Disney bails on this and doesn't pay, it makes them look like misers (this being the company that produced the highest grossing movie of all time) and it also makes the German company involved radioactive to do any business with as far as product placement is concerned.

2) There's no official word 16 days out. This is coming directly from a business owner who needs to know these things with pre-orders sitting out there that are worth a lot of money to Disney, especially on a Collector's Edition with limited numbers.

Disney will make this right; there'll either be a generous cheque involved, or negotiations will be rammed through to make this happen. But delaying the release of a limited edition set of the hottest movie of the summer, let alone the last five years?

You tell me if Disney would pass that up.




S.

I have to highly recommend Guild Wars 2, to be perfectly honest. I'm not holding any personal bias or blame towards NCSoft, and ArenaNet's doing some groundbreaking and forward-thinking stuff in the MMO space. There's an excellent half-hour long review by Angry Joe on Youtube (you can find the link in the General Discussions forum) that covers the major points far better than I could.

But if you look at the entirely organic way this MMO flows, the ease of picking up skills, the lack of boring mechanics (levelling, repairing, defeats, travel and tiered abilities are almost invisible) and the constant incentive to just be involved, you may come away thinking as I have along with a number of people I've spoken to that if there was going to be a sequel/successor to City, a lot of what's being done here should definitely be employed.


S.

I read all four pages of this and I must admit to scratching my head a bit at the vehement treatment of an exceptionally fine game (at least in my opinion).

I have zero contempt for NCSoft or ArenaNet, simply because it is and has been standard practice for these businesses to do these things. And isn't it just mildly hypocritical to boycott or otherwise demonise NCSoft for their practices because it affects this game, but not boycott when they've done similar things in the past, up to and including the very nasty situation with Richard Garriot?

The business is not a person. I'm very sad for Paragon Studios, the community of the game and the game itself, but I can't in good conscience demonise ArenaNet for doing business with NCSoft. That's guilt by association, and ArenaNet are bending over backwards to provide a compelling, funny, thrilling and overall fun experience.

I'm playing the game (and happily so, I won't be boycotting NCSoft; that's like saying I'll boycott my local hospital because the administration (who I'd never meet) makes bad decisions their employees have to abide by) and find it's doing things that are specifically not grindy.

I get experience for everything, and I mean everything. I get XP for fighting monsters. I get XP if I join in an area quest (which aren't mandatory); I get XP for gathering materials. I get XP for exploring. I get XP for healing other characters. So very grindy, how could I cope?

I don't have to pay to train to use my abilities; I pick up what's at hand and I can use it. Only if I get properly beaten do I have to repair my stuff, and even then the cost is minimal. And when I do get defeated, I not only can come back from the brink with emergency abilities, but other people can help me! Not even City of Heroes does that, and I bet we wish it could!

Honestly, I could go on....but there's a lot of hyperbole being thrown around about what this game is supposedly not and very precious little about what it is. If you don't like fantasy, if you don't like public questing and you do like the style of City of Heroes, fine. Noone here on these forums is going to demonise you for that.

But please don't take your personal bias, your personal prefences and most importantly, your personal hatreds or peeves out on a game that's just started. Because I bet this game got that and more. GW2 is doing a lot of stuff right that games before it did wrong. And it's even borrowed from this game and ensured that the journey is something you can enjoy with your friends at any point during it. Remember that. They didn't pluck that out of nowhere.

Respect it on its own merits, not some other games'.



S.

Sounds interesting....did you have a concept or perhaps some pictures of what the DRS-03 Mk. II might look like?


S.

Wow. I go out to do grocery shopping, and the sheer momentum of the campaign to save the game is honestly breathtaking.

I really do mean that.

Btw, flash mobs seem to get all sorts of media attention....



S.

I'm more than cautiously optimistic, and that's simply based on facts. We know NCSoft was willing to cut the game to save costs. We also know that Paragon Studios is committed and passionate about the game. Thirdly, we know that we the playerbase are loyal to not only this game but the studio generally.

These three things suggest a studio confident enough to go independent, have an almost guaranteed audience to go with them, and ideally, an IP that they could own outright and not be told what to do with. Cryptic rolled the dice on that with Champions and although they got sold off, they got sold to a company that was willing to support them. But most importantly, they got to keep their game. PWE doesn't own, they do.

Presuming in the best case that Paragon earns the right to take the CoH IP with them (and from all accounts, I think NCSoft/Nexon would be happy to cut itself loose somewhat from the North American market and a game that doesn't really fit their current profile), then the challenge becomes getting a new backer. I've already heard some better than average talk that such backers do exist should this transpire. I'm not going to say anything until these things are stated as facts by people more in the know than I, but safe to say I don't think these are pipe dreams.

An Australian saying about people who are spiteful is 'they'd cut their nose off to spite their face,' and I don't think NCSoft are necessarily being spiteful, and in the right negotiating conditions, they may well give over the rights. Clearly they parted company with Cryptic on very affable terms, and if a strong enough case in terms of player interest, profit for NCSoft and good relations with NCSoft can be presented, I can see this going very well.

In the event that NCSoft is going to be intractable on the point of the IP, we may well still get an independent Paragon Studios that then has total freedom to create what they want and shop it around. This is not a bad thing. The studio already has a track record for consistently maintaining a profitable MMO in a profit downturn environment. If I were investing in a developer studio, that would be enormously comforting to know these people can perform and over a consistently long period of time.

And that's just thinking it through logically, folks.




S.

I have no problem with the IP of this game going to SOE or anyone else (my personal bet? Funcom would eye off this game as an independent developer themselves that favors unique IPs and development teams, even in the light of their recent statements about moving out of the MMO environment).

Why do I say this? Because being completely practical, this is about money. And SOE or any other company would be envious at the player retention numbers for this game, and know that making it part of a stable would have the potential to raise the revenue stream.

From NCSoft's point of view, selling the game is the last viable way to make money from it. That's a bottom line fact, because profit is the whole reason it was axed. The argument would be 'but wasn't CoH the lowest profit earner?' and the answer to that is 'yes, but selling the property is positive earnings.' And that is the black and white, accounting-driven, bare bones of the matter.

I can't see NCSoft turning this down, and if SOE and at least one other company have already made offers for the game, then they see potential in them where NCSoft does not. And being an independent IP, there's no undue presure on the game and its developers to follow particular mandates as has happened to both Star Wars games.

I do expect that an updating of the engine would be mandatory, that even some elements of the gameplay would be changed to make it more 'actiony' and accessable for a broader audience, but as has been noted, SOE is surprisingly hands-off if there's no outside influences going on.

Lastly, I'd be surprised if SOE didn't hire on necessary Paragon Studios people just simply because of familiarity with the engine. The sooner you can get a game up and running again, the sooner you make money. Just straight up and down thinking.

I'll be curious to see what happens.



S.

I can honestly say all the time and effort and cursing and re-cursing making the Official Sister Flame Action Figure (tm!) was worth it for her reactions and having gotten to meet and team with her once, I felt completely justified and proud to have known her.

Just as much as I was very impressed and proud of you as a dad who not only let her play, but encouraged her when she demonstrate all the positive things you commented on in your ongoing tales of her time in the game.

I sincerely hope she finds another gaming home, or perhaps just becomes a passionate, intelligent, courteous gamer because of her experiences here. No gamer, no parent, I think, could ask for more.

Bravo, sir.



S.

Now that is timing. New list goes up, I get top of the list! Woohoo! Thanks Hit Streak!


S.

Cool. I shall continue on!

....ow, my fingers. I sure hope being in Australia isn't just condemning me to not getting anything. I must've done nearly two dozen without any luck.


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Going to assume these are all gone....if anyone can confirm that, let me know. But I'll give it a go anyways.


S.

No, you got the order right there...those two things we do for fun.

S.

....wasn't this about Superman and Wonder Woman hooking up and not about whether comic book superheroes and their ability to reproduce?

Take a step back for a moment, explain the implausability of defying gravity by being able to fly, and then we can move onto this subject.

Until then, I'm finding this just a silly idea in a raft of silly ideas that DC is having lately. There's no real contrast in Clark and Diana to play off of to make it an interesting relationship, as they're both morally very similar. At least in the one Batman/Wonder Woman pairing we saw in the Justice League cartoon, you had one woman that Bruce really didn't have to fear getting hurt by knowing him being a balance to his wanting to keep people at arms' length.

Lois serves a similar purpose by keeping Clark anchored to the world around him and preventing him from really getting a true god complex. This isn't rocket science, it's just good writing.


S.

I read this news today and an image with it made me cry.

I'll miss you, count.

Four! Four words of missing the Count! HA HA HA!

Everyone join in. I think he'd like that.



S.

I got into that same fight with Mako just yesterday around the time I'm posting this now. Claws/SR Scrapper vs. Mako. It's hard to imagine a better opponent outside of Bobcat, really.

It was a great back and forth affair, and the animations paired wonderfully to look like blocked blows from both sides. And I have to say I love fighting Malta, even the Sappers. There's something about those guys in their paramilitary gear that reminds me of modern action films with the 'shadowy government agents' that the heroes tangle with.

I took down Mako, and it did get tight, I had to pop my Tier Nine to counteract his damage, and then I was all Spider-Man. 'I've fought Lord Recluse! I've fought Praetorians! And on your best day you couldn't lay a hand on me!' Cue lots of me imagining bouncing all over the place, laying hits on him.....


S.

LOL. Anyways....I'd still really like to hear people's ideas.


S.

Oh. I've tested some of the new arcs for i24 on Beta. Alas, it is far more than singed.


S.