goldbricker

[ QUOTE ]

The LR encounter is hard. He loves to drop a lev54 boss every 10 seconds. So when you have team mates dying, rezing and coming back into the fight via Recall friend, its quite easy to get 10 or 20 of these things up. And they get buffed from the towers. And then 1 shotting everything including the invuln tank that was with us.


[/ QUOTE ]

I heard secondhand (so credibility is shaky, but still) that the towers at first had a limited range, and by pulling LR outside of that range the encounter was more manageable. And the devs reacted to that tactic by buffing the tower range to relative-infinity.

I find that idea somewhat distressingly laughable, in that it parallels a sequence of events around the original Hami encounter that in part led it to so much of a mess that the devs felt they had to throw it out and redo Hami from scratch for i9. Also at first, the Hami mitos were designed with a limited range, which the players found to be something they could leverage to help mitigate how ridiculous the encounter was. And in the face of that behavior from the players, the devs also buffed the mito ranges to relative infinity.

Now, (and I'm still assuming my secondhand credibility holds), this pattern of dev behavior suggests to me that they still haven't addressed their glaring weakness in designing any mechanic or encounter that is based on precise global positioning. Anything that is meant to crucially depend on range checks, or knockback/repel effects, or even line of sight issues, has been being implemented far too weakly to have any meaningful appeal to players. As such, it's not surprising that things like range enhancements or tactical knockback have trended towards near zero value to players.

In any case, I hope the devs are taking the time every so often to improve their skills and shoring up their weaknesses as they progress with developing the game further.

Hmm... I could go 2 ways with a reply...

1) Be consoling, point out to Juggy that he's proven dozens (and grosses) of times over by now that he's a kind and generous guy, that the credit he was asking for was quite reasonable and well earned, and that it's even a little flattering that people like his art so much that they want to emulate him that desparately.

2) Be inflammatory, provoke Juggy to maintain this new angry energy in the hopes that it opens up a yet-untapped creative flow for his talents. This could be a spark to a great 'red period' of Juggertha art. That would potentially be a very interesting direction to watch unfold.

Hmm.... I'm not quite sure which way to go on this... I'll have to think some more about it.

Grab a magazine or book or comic with human figures doing dynamic stuff, put it in some good light with a light piece of paper and start tracing.

You won't get great results at first, but it will be far from a total loss, and all the while you'll start picking up an instinct for basics of anatomy and form. Once you get enough of an instinct for a drawing groove, pick up some basic books that talk about concepts like deconstructing subjects into basic forms (spheres, cubes, rods, etc.), perspective, light and shadow, and so on. Keep applying the new concepts as you develop your instincts further.

So long as you can stay motivated as your talent and technique slowly builds this way, you should get somewhere pretty cool with it.

[ QUOTE ]

The one I was working on for the commission is
this one.


[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly this piece shares the same facial qualities that lead to a blank expression, but since this is a broad kinetic scene instead of a tight facial portrait there's tons of room to convey expression through setting and pose without having to lean exclusively on the face.

The only real problem I see with this piece is that there isn't enough contrast between the monks and the demon given that by all the visual clues they're both aware of each other's presence. They all look kind of blah about the fact they're all together in the same scene.

So I'd suggest either make them appear more confrontational towards each other, or add visual cues that suggest the monks are unaware of the demon's impending presence. Like a shrouding veil of smoke around the demon's body or some dizziness to the monks heads that suggest they're experiencing an illusion of normalcy. I think I prefer the smoke idea because creative smokiness is more fun to draw and eliminates the need to draw some of the seemingly-irrelevant background on the left side of the page.

[ QUOTE ]

I drew this head study just to practice a slightly different linework approach with this figure. It's not a real serious piece or anything.


[/ QUOTE ]

It shows talent and inspiration. I tend to take that seriously.

[ QUOTE ]
what don't you like about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's gotta be the general blankness of expression being conveyed. There's nothing wrong in the technique or style.

Wraith's really in a corner though on conveying a catchy expression given that a) the mouth is covered up, b) there is no pupil feature to the eyes, and c) the facial tattoo pattern interferes with (hairless incidentally) eyebrow definition. If you look closely you can see there's an attempt to make a specific placement of the left brow muscle, but it's obscured by the need for too much overlapping detail. The end result is that there's simply no clear and natural visual cue for the audience's subconscious to latch onto to derive what the subjects emotional expression is supposed to be. Well... except for the devilish horns of course.

In fact, audience members experienced with anime will tend to misinterpret blank eyes as suggesting a hollow soulless shell like a zombie. It seems unlikely this is what Wraith is going for.

Is there any way to get more of the body into the perspective Wraith? A more dynamic pose (like one of those crazy Spider-man contortions) and/or a more extreme fisheye-like perspective (like one of the recent pieces featuring Juggertha as a subject) might give you more of a canvas to get the right expression across to the audience.

Other than that, you might have to consider dropping the cowl to expose the mouth. If that's still undesirable, you might have to put in the cartoony gimmick of little burst lines near the left eye to indicate a surprised or otherwise immediate and abnormal emotional reaction to something off-camera.

I'm sure there are lots of other ways that can work, but they're all going to be hard to pull off if you don't have the brilliant stroke of insight on how to best use the skill set you have for this problem.

I keep the bare minimum. On the couch. In front of the tv. No direct light. Anatomy book multitasks as a lapdesk/reference/portfolio case. Same mechanical pencil and push up eraser I've had since school, both in my right hand. One sheet of computer printer paper as the canvas.

Horrible setup, but hypothetically I'm trying to maximize portability in an effort to make it as easy as possible to pick it up and go. I barely get in 4 hours of drawing a year as it is.

Wow, that's just an incredible piece, outside of your comfort zone too. Props to ST's kid for such a complete concept and to ST for keep him focused on completing it.

Hmm... Interesting. Sorta horrible a bit but not really that bad.

It seems like you've managed to mix in some advanced techniques (the coloring of the power bursts for example) in with some very raw techniques, (proportions and relative perspective of the boots). I don't know if it's coincidental or not, but this mix of advanced stuff and raw stuff is looking pretty appealing. It's almost a comprehensive art style of its own if you can manage to pull off similar advanced/raw mixes with a series of subjects.

In any case, it seems like you've got some interesting talent (stronger in color combinations and emotional framing) and there's stuff that can get better with training and practice (anatomical detailing, foreshortening and other 3d illusions).

Keep it up.

[ QUOTE ]

What is your greatest weakness in the game?

Heh, shooting my mouth off in PinnacleBadges, I'm just not politicly correct like everyone else.


[/ QUOTE ]

True. But lots of politically correct people make people cringe too (Bush/Obama/Clinton for example). I imagine you could be every bit as good as Bush if you worked on it.

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It would be great if some/all of the artists in here could make it here:
ComicCon 2007

I keep harrassing the COH people to come up as well!


[/ QUOTE ]

Heh... "Drawing Babes with Adam Hughes". Tempting...

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* This makes 4 pools from which recipe rewards can come from. Pool A is enemies, Pool B is Story Arcs, Pool C is Task Forces, and Pool D is Trials.


[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system. I've had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well.


[/ QUOTE ]

I myself am persuaded the story arc idea is fine. However, it occurred to me that maybe reconcentrating the story arc pool more directly on the contacts instead would address some of the issues people are having. After all story arcs are inherently tied to the contacts anyway.

How about adding drops missions to contacts in this way: Each normal contact in a player's contact list has a one-week base timer, and when that timer expires, that contact is willing for the next half-hour to hand out a timed door mission that features a recipe-related Pool B drop. Once the half-hour window is up the one-week timer resets. The one-week base timer can be reduced (say up to 20% less) based on the quality of the player's current relationship with that particular contact. The mission should probably feature mob types related to the contact, and should probably auto-exemp the hero and team down to an appropriate level once they enter the door.

This approach seems to have some good qualities in that: these drops would be reasonably available to everyone who would naturally play the game anyway, these drops discourage camping behavior and encourage grouping up to maximize the chance that there's an open drop mission within the team at any time, the autoexemping would encourage builds that are evenly planned for viability at every level range as opposed to all the 50-centric builds that are the majority these days, and, most of all, tying it directly to contacts would help refresh them in the game where up till now they've generally been treated as mostly disposable and irrelevant.

It's just an idea. One of many I'm sure.

[ QUOTE ]

How much is too much?


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How much collected art is too much? Given that you love collecting art? That's entirely up to who you are. If you're an artwhore-redefiner, then I imagine you've got a wide berth yet to be filled.

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Lately I have had alot of "Bah he has enough pics of his character, he doesn't need anymore" replies when I inquire about art on some level.


[/ QUOTE ]

How much expression of pride (gloating) is too much? That depends on the people who are feeling like they're getting gloated on.

There are a lot of people on this board who are frankly jealous (in an innocent way if that makes sense) of the amazing stuff people are getting. For my part, I see a great TA piece, and part of me wists on what could have been if only I had worked harder to slip in my character subject instead.

No one's doing anything wrong (TA or the artists or the enthusiasts), it's just that a build up of such subtle junkiness is just a thing every community has to live with, and it can be hard. So, you'll get some reactions like that from time to time. At least in this case it's nowhere near a full-blown frustration-fueled hate by any means.

Also tragic is that by the time these odd reactions pop up, it's usually too late to do or say anything to change their minds. But being prepared to take these reactions in stride and with respect in my experience tends to help calm down the underlying frustrations for the future, (at least when the community involved is willing to be open minded some).

It's not unfair that you have art because you've seized opportunities more strongly than others who don't have art. But still that logic doesn't help quell the instinct to be frowny on the art gap between you and them. Human nature.

Should you retreat from who you are in an attempt to appease? No. Should you emphasize respect for others when expressing who you are? Yes.

Or I suppose you could do what Lord Recluse would do and crush them all.

Sometimes it's worthwhile checking up on what genius is being created by our counterparts, (even if it's sometimes tough to understand what they're saying):


UK/EU Creative board
(UK/EU Creative Genius monthly winners)

FR Creative board

DE Creative board

KR FanArt board

[ QUOTE ]

I was just wondering if anyone could help me with books about human antinomy.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry about the late post, was mostly out of action over the holiday.

I noticed Anatomy for Fantasy Artists in the bookstore the other day. Could only glance through it since I had to go right away, but it looked like it had some promise. Basic anatomy discussion, followed up with how to distort the basics into template forms found in fantasy settings, (hulks, cherubs, sveltes, etc.).

It also discussed extreme posing (such as exaggerated punches and so on), and I think it might've had a section devoted to showing photographs of real-life models demonstrating extreme posing as a reference guide. Hard to recall exactly though.

I'll probably look at picking it up sometime, but that bookstore was out of town, so I'll have to track it down locally all over again.

As for how I developed my art skills, (such as they are), I pretty much went with How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and Dynamic Anatomy (the old 60's version, as the new revised version hadn't been released before I got started into drawing). There was also a small book discussing tv-cartoon-style animation that had some good points to make, though the book's name I've long since forgotten.

I also recall picking up some bodybuilding magazines at about the same time, figuring I wanted to give serious training a try, but that impulse only lasted a couple of months. However, those mags had decent lasting value as anatomy references too.

Hope that helps.

I gotta say I'm a bit jealous about TA's stash of really great art pieces on his characters. Sometimes I say to myself I'm going to try to push the great artists around here to do some work for me, but then I just can't bring myself to bother them when they're already so busy.

So I went to plan b, drawing him myself.
Gold with cape concept (photo, don't have a scanner)

Now I'm hyperhypersensitive on any criticism or even praise on my art. I pretty much know what level my skills are and where my weaknesses lie. If I blatantly ignore any comments made on it please don't take it personally. I just figure this is an apt forum to put up this art that others might enjoy.

Here are a couple I made for some friends:
Zombie & Heidi
Pyro & Goddess

[ QUOTE ]

all I could conclude was that there was just too much stacked against me to overcome.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've tried my second even-level safeguard mish now and pretty much that's the right conclusion. This is not a mish for even-level non-uber-AT-and-build soloers. This is a mish for a high-dps, self-healing, efficiently-mobile protagonist (whether team or solo).

I don't mind that the game adds team-centric and dps-centric challenge missions. I'm not sure the bonus mission at the end of a police band mish sequence is the most appropriate place for it, but it does have various places in the game. The rsf is like the most extreme version of such a mission.

I'm a bit more concerned though that it seems like nearly every mish is dps-centric. And there is nothing that rewards other build styles. What about missions that are geared towards being relatively vulnerable to stealth tactics? What about missions that are geared towards being relatively vulnerable to controls? What about missions that are geared towards being relatively vulnerable to consistent minor advantages (which is basically how defenders solo)? What about missions that are geared towards being relatively vulnerable to taunting schemes?

I think maybe it's time now for CoX to introduce alternate means of defeating enemies other than just pure damage vs. health. It seems like what instead is needed is to replace the health bar with more of a tap-out bar, (tap-out more as in a ultimate fighting championship sense, where when a combatant has had enough he taps his hand on the ground to indicate that he gives up).

If the tap-out bar represents more a toon's will to continue fighting, (or resisting arrest), then different mobs can be made more vulnerable to certain types of tactics. Regen rates then become more of a resistance-type buff vs dps tactics. Mez tactics would no longer require an artificial damage component to them. Attacks from stealth could be merged into a category of fear tactics, (and so could -recharge effects that leave a mob or player with more than 5 or 6 powers still recharging, or perhaps with no powers left at the ready). Being overwhelmed by numbers of opponents (MMs) or sheer intimidation (Tanks/Brutes) could be categorized into intimidation tactics. Then there are pure turtling combat styles that can score tap-out points by attempting to prove as much as possible that any incoming enemy attacks are (relatively) pointless.

If all of these categories were balanced towards the behaviour of the tap-out bar, then differen mobs and missions could be rebalanced to have vulnerabilities to different tactical categories, and it would be interesting for teams to try to rebalance themselves for each next encounter. Every AT would have the ability to solo parts of the game, without losing team value. And then a safeguard mission that is balanced to require strong dps tactics becomes understandable for everyone.

That's my take anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
Try the same exact thing with Stealth instead, the results should be identical. Why? Because the power hasn't been changed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I too had the thought pop into my head last night that Stealth wasn't quite working as expected. I was trying to run some police band missions, and even with stealth on sometimes I was getting aggro from range by non-perception-special minions. At the time I quickly dismissed the idea as just not having much experience with Stealth lately as I had been running Invis instead in my build for most of the year. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I was getting more aggro than I would have expected with Stealth on.

I've also noticed over the year since I6 was released that there seems to be weird holes in toggled -perception effects. While running my stalker I tend to set my Build Up to auto pop and as the year progressed I encountered more and more situations where I would move with Hide into aggro range of a mob, stand there for a while without problem, then Build Up would pop, and suddenly the mob is attacking. It was never a consistent behavior, but several times when I was taking Hide for granted I would die so it was concerning.

I wonder if there isn't some sort of lag-susceptbile race condition for a mob's aggro ai, between aggroing on an in-range player and calculating -perception toggles, during every game tick. Issue 8 has definitely introduced more quantity of and more complex lag, so any such race problem would have become amplified. The power itself would not have had to be changed for more symptoms to be noticeable now.

From the article:

[ QUOTE ]

Finally, for our most veteran players who have been playing City of Heroes since its launch in April of 2004, we just had to offer pets. For our 36 month reward this coming April, players will be able to select from five non-combat pets; a small Demon, a renegade Clockwork, a docile Red Cap, a domesticated Rikti Monkey, and a refurbished Robot. It will be fun to see which pets are most popular with the players.


[/ QUOTE ]

All of these pets skew to the 'evil' side of the game. So I'd think the bias in that will undermine the 'fun' of tracking the pet population. I'm not really interested in any of them for my hero, but I guess the clockwork is the lesser of them all.

I'm surprised there weren't any 'cute' style pets like on some female costume shoulders (although I could see the devs insisting that any such pet had to reuse an existing model for resource reasons). It would be no popularity contest had a simple kitten and/or puppy been added as a pet choice.

If I were allowed to pick any existing character model in the game for my pet, I might pick a miniature light-form kheldian. Or maybe a hamidon bud (would be nice to see how one animates its globbiness at a normal frame rate for once). Or maybe a toy sky skiff.

My first attempt at a Safeguard was very humiliating.

All of my friends were busy with villain side rsfs, so I decide to 2box between my 50 ff/psi def badge hunter and a midlevel ill/storm controller that could use some skxp. I have my 50 pick up the police band contact for the first time, ghost as much as I can through about 8 cave missions in a row (didn't keep close count). And I get a call to go safeguard in PI.

My duo enters the mish, and right away we encounter some Malta laying waste to a parking lot. I was tempted to leave them, but I wasn't confident enough that safeguards aren't set up to not punish heroes who let too much vandalism happen, so we engaged. I didn't handle the encounter too well, and the controller got out of sk range and died.

This wasn't so bad though, as I could vengeance and get some vigilance benefit. So once the Malta were done I flew down to the bank door and entered.

As I was tp'ing my dead sk into the lobby, the main villains started running past me and out the door! I thought I had had several minutes yet but I guess not, so I started scrambling, trying to throw my single target crowd controls on various guys still in the lobby, then running out the door myself.

Outside there was an extra Arachnos ambush right at the door. So I'm trying to scramble to catch up with a 51 boss and a handful of lts and minions fleeing to the escape copter, while trying to fend off -fly spiders and critical strike guys and psi girls and nearby-aggroing sappers and turrets and gunslingers. I start missing (control) attack after (control) attack despite running tactics (I didn't think there was a night widow around but I didn't have a good grasp of what was around me in the chaos). I die quick.

I dejectedly click to go to hospital, and find I get spawned in the middle of a street somewhere. Disoriented, I check my map and notice that the escape copter is lit, so I fly to it, and then start flying down the street towards the bank. Half a block away I encounter the first bankfleeing mob, and I start whittling on him, and soon he's joined by the main boss and others, and some Malta too. I'm behind on my toggles and I can't fend them off for long again. 10 seconds later the mission failed and my 2 guys are dumped unceremoniously at the feet of a random hero who laughed at me.

Now, I imagine we did look kind of funny, but I was definitely not in much of a mood to deal with that. I wasn't much in a mood to deal with other heroes who came by willing to rez us either.

I didn't say anything to any of them. I was just trying to think of what I could've done better, but going over it in my mind all I could conclude was that there was just too much stacked against me to overcome. Primarily, dps for a ff/psi is too weak for the haste on the (lvl 51 on heroic?) bank robbers, and 2boxed crowd control is too thin to handle bosses and ambushes and adds all at once.

I could try it solo to hopefully drop the boss to a lt and thin out more of the spawns, which would help make the encounter fit more with my control powers, but I'm still low on dps for how quick they are and I'd have to sacrifice playtime my controller is hurting for.

I could try to get more of a team to help take on the mission, but lately I've been having trouble with that... I haven't managed to log on at a time before my friends are committed to other endeavors, and I haven't had much interest from random heroes on the search list with whom I've tried chatting.

I suppose I could start the mish, leave my controller in to hold it open and then switch my main to my regen scrapper, and just own the map. But that's silly and doesn't get my def anywhere.

Which leaves me maybe with trying to keep the controller alive better, and either blindly rushing to the bank, or camping the escape helicopter, (maybe clearing the area a bit). I can probably get somewhere with either approach, but I just can't see how it'll be more than a marginal improvement.

I don't know what to suggest really. Maybe the devs can double check that the bank robbers aren't jumping the gun on fleeing? But it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with the intended design, there's nothing that can be fixed, it just doesn't work for me. It just seems like I'm being denied the content of a safeguard mission solely because I'm the wrong AT or the wrong build. Much like the sense of being denied the content of rsfs because my stalker is the wrong AT, or being denied the content of the isolator badge because I'm the wrong build (as in I timestamped my build too early).

I imagine in general safeguards are fun, I just fall into the humiliated minority I guess.

[ QUOTE ]
Spade colored


[/ QUOTE ]

I like the color scheme, and how the grey of the cape provides a complimentary background for the coincidental layout of blue in the foreground costume.

For that power-haze effect around the hands, could you describe your airbrush technique a bit more?

I chose the storyline, but that's not really accurate. What I like most about CoX is the game.

I mean... I can log in at any level, and right away there are ample instances of free-range spawns and/or 'dungeons' I can solo without getting crowded on anyone. There's a lot of content (albeit in tiny bites) that I can set myself up to experience if I want to lay back more in my session. And there's a range of power playing I can do with friends or PUGs or sg's for any size from a group of 2 to 200 if I'm in the mood for that.

I mean... the game is basically a flashy beat-em-up (a flash-em-up?). And I enjoy that. Stuff like roleplaying and badges and content and costume creation and pvp and bases (and AT balance even) are peripherals, and have been wisely designed to not get in the way of the core game. Things like excessive travel and low-level pointlessness that tends to frustrate on other MMOs have been neatly sidestepped here. And the genre of the game allows for a modern-day relatability unlike excessive fantasy or sci-fi settings.

It also helps that the boards are kept up so well, so that people get a decent chance to express themselves without excessive blowback. The result has been a wealth of shared information that has really helped me figure out how to play the game.

I played EQ for two years, and although it too was a flashy beat-em-up I enjoyed, so many things in the game kept getting in the way of playing the game that my sessions ended up becoming fights against my own instinctive acrimony. By the end I was losing too many of those fights.

I'm starting to close in on 3 years of CoH now and I still feel no hint of any bitterness. At most I can say that CoH is feeling a little stale, and I'm still somewhat convinced that CoH will likely be shut down in a year in favor of the Cryptic/Marvel MMO when the latter is ready to launch (I mean, that's the kind of 'it's just business' move that happens no matter how many denials lead up to it).

But it doesn't matter. CoH has given me 3 years of solid value for my entertainment dollar (including the half-year I spent anxiously and hopefully anticipating it's release). Even if the devs start tanking the game from here I'll still always be a fan for what they've accomplished to date. Anything more they do for me is bonus.

First, I'll admit, I'm taking the following quote slightly out of context:

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But costumes don’t provide ANY gameplay function – and people care a WHOLE lot about them? My point: bases cost too much for what players think they deliver. What they currently deliver is the ability to create a social space for Super Groups that’s potentially customizable to the group’s theme/background/etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

I would argue that the space that bases deliver is not actually a 'social' space. It's just a restricted space. Sure a group can decorate the space, but there's nothing that inspires interacting with the space socially. A person makes a trophy item and puts it on the wall, and then all that happens is that a player might recognize there's a weird object on the wall, but has no reason to, or any idea how to, interact with it for social value. (Should they /em dance with the trophy?)

Compare with Pocket D. Now that's a social space. An excellent and tight theme, with interactive elements (bartenders, djs, interesting guests, occasional special events) and automated variety that go far beyond anything in the base-building toolset. Yet even Pocket D, least restrictive and most interesting social space of all, is usually very underpopular.

The last part of that quote makes reference to a group's theme. I'd suggest that it is a flaw to make any assumption that any group actually has a theme. Yes, many groups have made plans to settle on themes, but executing on them and maintaining them is a daily battle against individuality and divisive circumstances. I'd suggest group themes are illusory. The best you can hope for is that the ideal of a theme sometimes helps inspire a group's individuals to be willing to bring together differences of opinion into cooperating.

If group themes are illusory, then setting up a process (base building toolset) where significant effort is expected to be spent to expand on and complicate what is essentially a fragile illusion (group themes that aren't necessarily more than tolerated among all grouped individuals) tends to overwhelm, or at least put a lot of pressure on, the group structure.

I'm guessing that what CoX players need from a base building toolset, isn't a dollhouse system, but more of a laboratory system. Statesman seems to recognize the differences between a dollhouse system and a laboratory system, and he recognizes several flaws in a dollhouse system. However, he seems to be still trying to maintain a grip on the idea that players want dollhouses for bases, on the theory that players like having dressup-able dolls for toons.

I'd suggest players only want to play with dolls if a) they don't have to negotiate with or get approval from anyone else (even friends) about how they dress up their doll, and b) they can just spend a half hour with the dressing up once and then have the option to just leave it forever, (as opposed to having to keep up with monthly rents for example). If a player has to deal with any threat of disapproval or maintenance during this process, then the doll system doesn't work.

Now, costumes-as-dollclothes works with both tenets, but bases-as-dollhouses breaks both. Any change one person makes has a potential impact to everyone in the group, so a lot of negotiation is often obligated, (and people don't usually deal with that obligation well). And most changes that can be made often require significant monthly work to maintain each of them, so they just can't be left alone.

Hopefully Statesman can let go of the dollhouse concept, because I think the base system has now cornered itself into a structure that cannot be made to support how a dollhouse can work. I'd argue he'd have more success with designing a couple (not too many) of tight zones like Pocket D to emphasize social spacing, and leaving bases to be primarily laboratories of creating gaming functionality as a group decides it needs them.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd come here and ask for your thoughts about things you would like to see happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to see some loosening of the rules as it pertains to CoX fan art. I understand that legal eagles need to feel like they have the power to trump anything, but it seems to me that CoX enthusiasts who are generating content CoX would never have imagined (many of whom are also quite willing to share), those enthusiasts should be given some respect too when they want to build on their CoX concepts beyond just the game's domain.

I'd like to see CoX be more lenient when it comes to such things as making or commissioning a t-shirt featuring a pic of a player-created character. I'd also like to see CoX become more graceful, adaptable, and forgiving in dealing with situations like Gill's portrait of CuppaJo.

Is it possible perhaps to create an accessible and inexpensive licensing scheme that players find is easy and convenient to purchase so that they can expect more of an agreed-upon 'right' to expand their personal play experiences more into other domains?

CoX has been cool with artists in many cases. But there's still more that can be done. The state of affairs can be better.

[ QUOTE ]

So I'm wondering, just to get a general 'feel' on what the community thinks at large.

...

Would it be polite to ask the artist's permission first or just go ahead and do it?


[/ QUOTE ]

I tend to think this comes down to artist's rights vs. 'rights' of culture.

Yes it is always polite to ask the artist for permission. However, and this is the tricky part, once a person has adopted a piece of art into his or her personal culture, there is a strange form of 'ownership' over that piece of art that comes into play, an ownership that can feel perfectly self-justified without permission.

I might argue that legal definitions of ownership simply cannot reach into the jurisdiction of a person's brain or soul or whatever a person uses to store all the cultural cues from which he or she derives a personal identity. Certainly legal definitions can be brought to bear on a person to claim 'fair' damages after the fact, but they simply cannot themselves force a person to relinquish that strange ownership.

It seems to me that the phenomenon of fans slipping into the behavior where they think they have the right to expect actors of their fan-favorite characters to be always 'on' in the fans' presences, is basically a natural result of confusing this strange ownership for legal, or at least righteous, ownership. This phenomenon applies not only in acting, but in music and literature and sports and politics and law and science and CoX; in fact any field where people can rise above the average and flirt with stardom.

I also tend to consider that this artist right vs. cultural right paradox is what drove the whole Napster rise/collapse chaos. People loved music they heard, and really built a lot of their own identities into it and from it, and many came to feel like they owned their own personal versions of them, so they felt like they had the right to just get the music in the most direct form it was available and the law had no jurisdiction to say otherwise. Should artists be paid for their works accessed in this manner? Not by the consumers supposedly because they already owned that music.

Now... Part of this confusion comes down to the way new pieces of art tend to be released into general culture. New art and new music tends to be fashioned to be appealing, to be expressive in such a way as to encourage people to be pleased with it. This is pretty natural, but success means thrusting the art dangerously close to the line separating what the audience considers external influences and personal influences. It can be very easy for the audience to confuse whether an artist means 'look at this but don't touch' or 'please please touch all you want if that'll make you at least look'.

I know that last point hints at a claim that perhaps artists are guilty of complicity when they want to claim that an audience has stolen their work. I would rather substitute a more intentional hint that artists can very well do more to ensure their audiences grasp intended limits-of-use on their works, but artists should likely not be required to do so. It doesn't seem fair to insist a person should be forced to be a click-EULA lawyer as a requirement before engaging in any personal or artistic expression. It also puts artists in a terrible position of trying to do things that naturally alienates art audiences (like plugging analog holes) just so that they can present things to which they hope an art audience will bring open minds (like plucking analog strings over a reverberating hole).

So basically, there's no real solution, except for the paradox of artist with/versus culture to just keep chaotically coexisting. Arguably both artist and culture own the same art. Just make the best choices you can from whatever side of the paradox you find yourself. Find the biggest nerf bat you can find if that's the choice you want to make and start swinging as hard as you can, but in general those choices come too far after the fact.

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But how would you feel if someone didn't ask and went ahead and put that up ?


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Personally... I guess potentially I'd let them and move on, on the theory of trying to respect their freedom to choose, but I'd be depressed for a while.

But what about the complimentary question? How does culture feel when an artist tries to deny, or rip out, already-completely-integrated art?

Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner. Make your choice. I'll trust you as much as I can.

My understanding is that the theory of drawing a punch pose is that you either set the pose at beginning of full windup, moment of impact or end of follow-through. Those are the most dramatic moments of the punch sequence, and usually it's the end of follow-through that offers the most drama.

In your pose you appear to have the puncher at complete follow-through but the receiver is at moment of impact, so the end result seems like the punch only connected at the end of the follow-through where power is commonly interpreted as relatively weak.

If you move the head of the receiver more towards the middle of the swoosh of the punch arc, and twist it away from the arc a little more, you'd probably get a better feeling of thunderous impact from the resulting layout.