SuperOz

I solved my issues with VEAT's by creating mine to look pretty much exactly like an Arbiter in the armor, and creating a VG called 'Recluse's Fist' in honor of Lord Vader.

I treat all my missions as going out and enforcing the Law of Recluse. Which means great amounts of gratuitous violence.


S.

Does anyone know if this is the entirety of the pack at all?


S.

I think I'll break my suggestions down into distinct parts as I think of them here.

1)Mix and match animations. As others have mentioned, there's a lot of in-game animations for costume changes or other powers that may well suit existing powers. The prestochango animation for teleport, for example. It seems relatively straightforward to my mind to pull together a list of those animations that have close animation times and then break them down by appropriate theme. This could just as well apply to powers. Nothing should be inappropriate and the list should only be comprised of those animations that make sense by theme.

2)Text-sensitive emotes? This at least exists in one game I play, Lord of the Rings Online where putting the name of the emote in a sentence will trigger the emote. I remember asking BaB about targetable emotes (where you will 'wave at <character>', and he said it couldn't be done, so I don't know if this would be the same.

3)More consistent social emotes. We have /teabag, but no /drinktea? There's /drink, but when you look at the animations, you have a mug versus a teacup. It's a bit jarring visually, and the switch of one object and one more emote line would clean this up a lot. Just a pass over the list wouldn't hurt to see if there's anything that looks 'off'. Gender also shouldn't be segregated.

4)Context-appropriate emotes. A good one is the Ouroboros portal. We have an animation (and sounds) to indicate a device being used to open the portal, but we see nothing other than the portal itself. Could we not see a small animated thingy to help indicate that? A good example is the Power Analyser crafted power...such a great animation, and it makes sense when you see it.

Those are all the ones I can think of right now. Thanks for putting this up on the boards, David.


S.

I saw this on tv, actually....the local WB kids show had one of the hosts dressed up as Robin as the official confirmation came through. The highlight for me was a guy dressed up very convincingly as Batman chastising said Robin for calling him 'Bats'.

Go Aussie heroes!


S.

For me, the time is 'now'. As in whatever point my character is at is the modern day. The storylines for the most part are static and so when my character comes across them, they're happening for the first time, at least to him/her.

Beyond that, I roleplay ignorance of the present. So I have a character at level 30 and whilst a level 50 may know what's happened to Hero 1 for example, the level 30 hasn't experienced it yet. Trying to stay static especially with characters who have experienced and taken that into their backgrounds doesn't work. So when it happens in game to that character, that's when it's real.


S.

It was indeed. It's on the initial page for people heading to the website.


S.

Hello everyone.

At my suggestion, my Supergroup, the coalition called the Golden Age Heroes on Virtue let me put together an old newsreel style video for our main homepage.

I have some minor quibbles with a shot at the beginning of this clip, but I thought I'd put up the link and invite comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPGiF...layer_embedded


S.

I have to agree with just about all the posters so far here, David.

The key things I'm seeing is diversity, character and detail. And I'll add to this by trying to elaborate on what I've seen so far.

First off, diversity: I think it's a given that Paragon City seems very 'samey' in a lot of zones, even though the names might suggest otherwise. As mentioned, Steel Canyon has a lot of highrise buildings, but it's not what you think of. The buildings tend to be more brick than skyscraping towers of glass and steel and tends to have more of a 1970's feel to the architecture. The zones need to have a character to draw you to them. Currently, Galaxy City is practically the same in design as Atlas, and I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out where the majority of people are starting out. The mention of the Faultline revamp is spot on; it's much more believable that people live there. Swimming pools, apartment blocks with balconies, eatery areas. This distinguishes Faultline and says 'people are living here, this why we look different'. Peregrine Island is superscience central and yet looks more suited for the most part to King's Row.

Character: This goes hand in hand with the above. Atlas Park is obviously the starting area and has City Hall in it, but that is really its only distinctive feature. The Galaxy City argument comes up again here...and the Freedom Corps building wins hands down in terms of a sense of impressiveness and size, but gets lost in the 'same as Atlas' generic feel of the zone. Architecture should vary (not radically, unless it's something brand new) and reflect its generation. For example, Dark Astoria should look older because it's been abandoned for so long whilst the surrounding areas have continued on and developed. Hand in hand with that should be elements of decay and disuse; ghosts don't need doors.

Detail: flows on nicely from character because this is the heart of the beast. The more visually distinctive you can make one building from another, even in the cleanness or crispness of line helps immensely with the visual impression you leave. Break up the texures and patterns for diverse neighbourhoods, turn the place into a patchwork quilt of roofs and streets. If a neighbourhood is a thriving residential area, add details to reflect it. And have buildings that make sense for the area. I understand that in the past religious buildings have been potentially problematic in terms of trying to represent the diversity of the playerbase, but a Catholic church here or a mosque there is all you need.

Shopping malls, fire departments, essential services...that fireman in Steel Canyon just doesn't teleport in! Having PPD precincts are great; you get a sense of a presence in the city and you can find their buildings. All I'd ask for is an expansion of that concept. Either commit to having buses for example animated to serve a preset route to the stops or eliminate them, because it's an art resource without any art purpose if nothing is happening around it. The illusion of a dynamic city is what the end result would be desired I imagine, and that's part of it to me. We generally know the 'feel' of a modern city and expect to see some of the more generally accepted norms of them.

The only other thing I'd add to that is social areas. Obviously Pocket D is meant to be heroes and villains to hang out, but on each side of the game, that's kind of...lacking. Yes, mobs inhabit places like Perez Park, but the parks don't really have benches or barbeques that I've seen. These are again those accepted norms when you say 'park' or 'city center' or 'downtown' or even 'shopping malls'.


These statements all equally apply to the Rogue Isles where potentials to enjoy the environment are lost. The Giza casino is just a big obstacle when just even a single interior room could be added for atmosphere and fun like the monkey cage areas in the D; if there's character already existing, exploit it I say.

I know that Going Rogue has gone deeper into the philosophy that door missions are fixed and have purpose, and the zones are full of individual character. I think the ideal for us as players is to see that carry on back over the original zones.


S.

I definitely will update people on this project as I go along; there's been some great ideas already and I'll be shopping around on the cheaper parts such as the mask and belt and checking out boots as I go!

I think the hardest parts are the most customised like the jacket, particularly....but it's a great start. Thanks again, folks! Will update ASAP.

Oh, I should say that unlike my character there, I'm lacking in the hair department so might be going a hoodie instead (as much as I don't want to).


S.

Hi....

I'm kind of hoping I'm in the right forum here for this, but I've had a challenge thrown down to me that I might be able to pull off; namely that of recreating one of my new favorite characters from the game. Here's a draft of a commission piece (the style I'd be aiming for is on the left):

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...n-Taipan-1.jpg

The obvious challenge is the coloring, especially with any leather items. I believe I can get the gloves, and could probably pay a tailor (I have no sewing skills to speak of) to do the 'Rocketeer' style jacket. I found a replica jacket online, but only the CoH style has the one-sided panel with buttons that I can find. Wrestling boots seem to be the right thing to get, now I just have to find some second-hand ones. New ones are 250 bucks!

I'd really appreciate any input, links or feedback from folks on this, and apologies if I've posted in the wrong forum.


S.

We need something for them to do in winter, else they hang around shopping malls, begging for coins to use as shurikens.


S.

I have to say I wasn't expecting such a vigorous debate over potential weather effects! I hope I haven't set people against each other over what I was hoping was a relatively simple question.

I guess I should refer to a game that I currently play (Lord of the Rings Online) that seems to handle multiple server weather events (including 'inside' neighbourhood housing instances) with system requirements that aren't that much higher than our own and with low video card requirements.

The maximum requirements there are: a Pentium 4 processor with 2.8GHz or equivalent (admittedly this is a little higher than CoH's 2.0) and a Nvidia/ATI card of 6800 or X850. Currently LotRo can lay down full blizzards in the mountains, thunderstorms complete with lightning and heavy rain and even rainbows on sunny periods.

Are we simply talking then the modernity of the programming between the games, given that one came out in 2008 over 2004? I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure, but that's the impression I'm getting.


S.

I realise that primarily the Ultra Mode graphics addition has been designed with reflectivity and shadows in mind, but as several people have mentioned, this could be the preparation for future graphical elements in the future, including any possible sequel to this game.

That being said, could weather effects (or more accurately, animations) be utilised by this technology? I'm certainly no coder or programmer, but my experience with weather effects in other games are primarily just visual. So if there's rain, it's animated rain. If it's snow, it's animated and slowly decreases my screen visibilty. These are advanced graphical effects which I presume at least are handled by the video card.

Would it be reasonable then to suggest that environmental effects (which in my mind goes hand in hand with environmental reflections, as weather has effects in them with related properties) could become an optional 'Ultra Mode' feature? It might obviously be confusing if a UM and non-UM user were in the same zone and one was chatting about how cool the rain looked, but such things haven't struck me as 'hard coded' zone events. As someone pointed out, we can get red and green deep cloud cover during zombie and Rikti invasion events, and animations for lightning and storms exist already.

So can those in the know attempt to address this? I'm very curious.


S.

To come back to this, I was in Steel Canyon the other day and saw some Tsoo and Warriors squaring off. Nothing unusual in itself, but one of the Tsoo were juggling a knife from hand to hand, and I was sure I hadn't seen that before. New or old?


S.

The one thing I have seen them doing more of myself is being more active. Now that sounds odd when describing street mobs, but my impression is that even Skulls and Hellions are engaged in doing stuff now, be it planning something or active vandalism or even congregating in what I'd call 'gang' numbers now instead of just ones and twos.

S.

Samuel,

You clearly have some very strong and very clear opinions about this topic, so this will be my last post for no other reason than to agree to disagree with you. I will do my best to respond to your points and then politely withdraw.

The point I had made and will continue to make is that this is a game for many many players and therefore the experience needs to be universally appealing (as such things can be) for the majority of players. Your personal experience means as much to the devs as it would for any other player, so noone can realistically expect that we are going to get an experience with our characters that are more directly meaningful to us. The recent villain arcs are proof to me that they are sufficiently written to have meaning to us should we choose to invest ourselves in them, just like any other story arc in the game.

I feel that your point is that because of primarily how City of Villains is written, there should be some major rewrite of missions in the game, and I did in fact agree with you and also agreed that a secondary faction as suggested by someone else to be led by the mercenaries.


As far as baggage is concerned, I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you there. CoH is known to write from a story bible which is a staple of any television show and would doubtless be necessary to continue a meta-narrative of the game's story. We have the Rikti, Coming Storm, Praetoria and potentially Incarnate meta-stories coming into play, and unlike comic books that can write a singular issue to explain them away, an MMO has fixed resources in play that aren't as easily erased. Examples abound in the game; the unfinished 'deconstruction' of the War Walls, the Coralax, any number of NPC groups.

All of these things are commitments by the developer team that would need serious consideration as I understand it to change or remove entirely, just as it would to add anything. The recognition you'd want would to be just be a simple case of writing (as I believe you yourself have said) and anything else would have to again be a commitment of resources.

I didn't quote you regarding 'total independent freedom', nor do I imply you did. I apologise if that was the case.

Seeing as for the most part there is a reason to disagree from the rest of your post, I think I might leave it there and respectfully agree to disagree with you.

My sincere apologies if anything I said was considered inflammatory, miscontrued, or misunderstood.


S.

This is a really interesting discussion to look in on, especially given how Going Rogue proposes to deal with things on a sliding scale of Hero-Vigilante-Rogue-Villain. This right there implies a degree of choice in your actions and consequences thereof.

There's something I've learned as a tabletop roleplayer of coming up on thirty years, and that is the illusion of free will. If anyone ran a tabletop game or made an MMO that was totally about players doing precisely as they felt like, the atmosphere, direction and overall enjoyment factor would drop dramatically in a very short time. Like it or not, players have to be guided in the right direction whilst being given the impression that what they decide is being done with no coercion, deception or misdirection.

Now that isn't to say that players have no say whatsoever; in fact, what they do in the context of a story may entirely change its direction to an unexpected conclusion with unexpected consequences. But that isn't as easily done in MMO's because of both the technology involved and the necessary progression of the character. It'd be very, very easy to have a story told in this game that was a continuous stream of dialogue and choice branching that wouldn't end. But they must because they should. But it's the illusion of free will that is the most crucial thing. The idea, plan or opinion presented must be one that seems reasonable to the person playing it, be they thinking in character or as themselves. Any time you have more than one option presented to you, there is an illusion of free will. I note that Bioware's Star Wars game is looking at a decidedly complex choice/consequence system and I hope that this is something that Going Rogue also does.

With regards to villainy, I agree totally that the writing for the most part in CoV is very comicbook-ish, but again we run into some constaints. The first is the T for Teen rating. You have to be careful about what you say and what you do. Secondly is the very nature of comicbook villainy.

I played the Marvel Superheroes tabletop game for many years and managed to do some very morally and ethically challenging stories, and villiany to me at least relies on being proactive. Heroes are very rarely proactive, and when they are, they're seen as vigilantes or in fact become villainous themselves. It wouldn't be an unreasonable argument to apply that to Emperor Cole, for instance. But we again come back to the illusion of free will.

Arachnos could be a wonderful in-game mechanic for players interested in being part of 'the machine'; I actually created a Villain Group comprised of all Soldiers of Arachnos with Arbiters training them to be an elite unit of 'law enforcement'. I was inspired by the Judge Dredd comic and the 501st division from Star Wars, Vader's Fist. For me it was a way to be proactive, give myself an illusion of free will (it was my character's decision to form the unit as he chose and had carte blanche in choosing members) whilst still 'serving Arachnos'. I don't regret that decision because in a sense I get the best of both worlds.

That being said, I understand that people want to be independent decision makers, answerable to noone but their own villianous desires. It's always going to be difficult when your game setting says 'here is the power structure and you either start on one side or the other or you get a choice to change sides.' There is no choice of your own to take here; it's a situation of absolutes, but if you were truly independent, would that mean there'd be another third faction called Rogues/Vigilantes with their own story arcs? I'm not going to presume Going Rogue is that in-depth, but to me it looks like a step in the right direction.

I agree also that branching dialogue, some system to recognise who you are and better writing would all make City of Villains a much stronger experience. The first part could conceivably be done by a form of reputation system? LotRo did this by tying your missions to a system of 'reputation points', so as you did more for them, the NPC's would speak to you more favorably and new tiers of contacts would be opened to you. Now, this is difficult as Arachnos is meant to be the only faction in the Rogue Isles, and I find myself coming back to Rogues and Vigilantes. I think the Loyalists and Resistance factions might do something with this, but that's just speculation.

Ultimately, I tend to look at these games as big sandboxes that I can play in. I do think we can all find something in the game we connect to and have a desire to run with; I think also if enough people express what that is and are heard collectively as a group, then the devs will at least hear them out (and they have had an excellent record in doing so thus far, at least in my opinion). I think the new villian arcs are in fact some proof of that.

That's my two villianous infamy's worth, anyways.


S.

....sorry, I'm missing what the 1960's Arachnos is referring to? And please indicate if there's spoilers involved....

Great video as always, D_R! As someone as I've said to you before who's just getting into this and has run into innumerable issues (not the least of which being that I lost my original copy of Adobe Premiere Pro, and have been really making do with Windows Movie Maker, which is a major step down, let me tell you), you're an inspiration.

Flat out.

This is the sort of stuff I aspire to and hope that I'll get the chance to take some proper cracks at in the future, so don't let life get too hellish, or take some time to beat it back with a heavy mace. I've found that works for me.

Great video again.

S.

Actually, it should come as no surprise that the parent company, NCSoft, having already put money into the title, would continue to nurture and develop the future of the game, up to and including a second title of the same name.

I'm personally not fussed either way as to whether it is or isn't true, but if you're on a good thing, you stick to it. CoH was worth NCSoft's money and renewed investment in their eyes and to me a second game would not be surprising in the least.

S.