je_saist

Right off hand this would be related to a combination of refresh rate / resolution, so couple of questions:

What operating system are you using?

What Nvidia driver set are you using?

How are you physically connecting the computer to the monitor? (VGA, DVI, HDMI, Displayport?)

What is the actual pixel resolution of your monitor?

That would be because Intel doesn't know how to write graphics drivers...

Actually that's not entirely fair. Intel knows how to write graphics drivers.

Intel just chooses not to.

Anyways, Intel's policy is that driver updates for products are made by the vendors who sell the computer, such as HP, Gateway, or Dell.

While such vendors often employ software developers, they generally do not employ driver developers. Nor do these vendors issue timely driver updates. For most vendors their concern with providing up-to-date drivers ends as soon as the product they made ships from the factory.

While Intel still produces, and makes available for end-user download, reference drivers, these reference-driver updates are hidden behind one of the most incomprehensible download matrix's I've ever had the displeasure of clicking through. One of the primary differences between Intel's reference-drivers and the drivers a vendor ships is that Intel's drivers may not account for the specific hardware you have. So if you have something that's been tweaked by the vendor (Dell, HP, or Gateway), Intel's driver may not load for you.

What does all this mean to you?

Short version? Don't. Buy. Products. With. Intel. Graphics.

actually it was added before Issue 19, and it was not added by Paragon Studios.

Nvidia finally enabled SLI support for the game in their driver. Users were already seeing SLI improvements with absolutely no changes to the game's engine on the part of Paragon Studios when they updated their Nvidia driver sets.

Strike: The benefit of SLI is questionable depending on other components such as your processor and memory configuration.

While a second GTX 260 will indeed improve performance, you'd need to get an identical Evga model card for SLI to work. Good news is, you can, and they are only $200: http://www.pricewatch.com/search?q=E...96MB&gallery=1

Slight problem... that's also the price point for a new RadeonHD 6870: http://www.pricewatch.com/search?q=R...6870&gallery=1

Which won't have any problems what-so-ever dusting SLI'd GTX-260's.

The developers have explicitly stated in the past that the tool they use most often... is ParagonWiki. Why?

So all you really need to do is go check the Malta entry on Paragon Wiki: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Malta

If the information you seek is not there, then we have not been given that information.

why hasn't it been done?

Mostly because back during the Cryptic days there were no resources dedicated to such improvements.

When NCSoft / Paragon Studios started hiring for Going Rogue, all resources were tasked to Going Rogue development projects, so no resources available for this type of work.

With Going Rogue out, Paragon Studios now has both the time and if sales records were right, the financial resources to now tackle such projects. Granted the developers have been pretty stated that they really don't pay attention to threads in the "for fun" section of the forums, such as this thread. Rather the art-developers have their own official threads for suggestions, and they tally up requests made in the official threads.

For trenchcoats, the best way to communicate to the developers that we want such an update is to go and post in Nobel Savage's thread here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219809

or everyone could just go over the wall and wait for the event timer to count-down... you know... the timer that buries all of scripts that have to be loaded and initialized that are otherwise buried in the cut-scene.


Anyways, the thread is actually rather irrelevant. The developers have made it clear that the cut-scene system uses real-time placed models and locations, something that is a little more than obvious in the Mortimer Kal Strike Force cut-scene with Positron.

The method of cut-scene implementation is piggy-backed on-top of an engine that was never designed to do cut-scenes to begin with. The implementation the devs use is an effective "cheat"

Comparing this game, City of Heroes, to Guild Wars in the cut-scene isn't just asinine, it's outright idiotic. Fact is the Arena-Net developers planned on cut-scenes in their game early on in the initial development cycle. City of Heroes was not developed with cut-scenes in mind. The engines for both games are radically different, with Guild Wars utilizing a completely different method of rendering (they use the DirectX API for example). The capabilities of each engine are as radically different as their architecture.

Something else to consider is that Guild Wars also launched on 4-26-2005, literally a calendar year after the 4-27-2004 launch of City of Heroes. Arena-Net developers had basically another year of tech-advancements to work with their system, even though their minimum requirements were close to those for this game, City of Heroes.

Now, should the City of Heroes engine be reworked so that it can support full-service cut-scenes?

Probably.

Is it worth the development team's time to do so?

No.

Reality butting in here again, cut-scenes are attached to a vast minority of playable content. Outside of task-forces and trials there are only a couple of cut-scenes in villain missions, such as the Ace-McKnight Arc, and maybe 1 or two that I can think of available in hero-side missions.

Reality is, there are better things the developers could be doing with the engine, such as replacing the aging Novadex physics engine with one backed by OpenCL, which would more than likely take less time to implement than adding full-service cut-scene capabilities.

From what's been talked about with the Tips system, it is likely we will be seeing these sideline characters as the system expands.

It takes time to write and create content, and many of the original tips missions were written around players ongoing interactions with secondary characters such as Silent Blade, Desdemona, Polar Shift, Maelstrom, Flamboux, Blast Furnace. These sideline stories tend to "culminate" in the original alignment change missions.

Just because those were the original set of tips missions does not mean that is all the tips missions there will ever be. Same thing with the Incarnate-Trials. So many players are hung up on Baf and Lambda being the end-all / be-all of I-trials and claiming that the trials are "such a grind" because that is all there is... "now"


Something else to consider here is that players who repeat the tips content over and over and over for the rewards are going to find themselves, as you say:
Players who use the tips system to simply switch alignments... are not.

To go ahead and get the basic snarky comment out of the way, repeating tips missions over and over for rewards is no different than running a task force over and over for rewards. It is going to be repetitive, get used to it.


One of the other specific problems the developers and writers face with repetitive content is storyline cohesion. The tip mission drops are randomized so there is no real way to force players to follow any particular story-path.

If there are too many tips options available with too many characters involved, it becomes difficult to communicate that players are participating in an on-going story beyond their own character.

he's been trial-hopping to keep playing.

she could give Miss Liberty a break training new players in Atlas Park...

or she could let BaB's retire from Galaxy.

I'm sorry Beatstyle. I'm afraid I can't do that.

... so... the Tooth Fairy is a Demon-summoning Dominatrix who delights in whipping?

Actually this would explain a lot of things...

No. No it wouldn't.

As Hyperstrike already said... you bought a dual-core... not a quad-core.

"unlocking" cores not enabled on a processor is generally considered a BAD IDEA given one of two reasons:

Reason A: already cited by Hyperstrike, the cores probably didn't clear quality assurance and were disabled on purpose.

Reason B: those cores are not there. Later versions of a chip can use a different die-setup, so it's possible that your chip only HAS two cores to begin with.

Keep in mind the original supplies Phenom II X2 555 Black Editions hit the market well over a calender year ago ( January 25, 2010). The original supply of chips that had "fully functional" cores has likely already sold through. You probably won't be finding any modable 555's on the market now.

***

Oh, and before you state "but it's a BLACK EDITION!"

All Black Edition guarantees you is that the Clock Multiplier is unlocked, thus allowing you to change the clock-speed by using the clock-multiplier.

Black Edition processors do not, have not, and will not guarantee you extra processing - cores.

I'd be more terrified to hear "we lost everything after Issue 12"

Granted, C.Bruce is no longer with Paragon Studios, but his lack of current involvement does not change the physical work-load two-handed weapon sets would require. Now, as far as I'm aware, no developer has been "officially" introduced as a Lead Animator since C.Bruce's departure. I believe Nelson Tam holds that role, although I could be wrong. Nor am I aware how much say the animation department has in what they do. I don't know if David N. (Nobel Savage) has carte blanche to have the art and animation teams work on specific projects, or if resource management goes all the way back to War Witch and Second Measure.

Then there is the other unknown factor that is NCSoft. NCSoft has been known to step in and tell a studio there are somethings that the studio should not spend it's time or resources on. (cough, pvp in coh, cough) As demonstrated with Demon Summoning, Paragon Studio's method of operation is to bury the development costs of labor-intensive sets behind expansion packs.

Given that NCSoft is "profit minded" I really don't see NCSoft agreeing to the art-department making another labor-intensive power-set unless it was tied to a paid expansion.

Note: I'm not saying "booster pack"

My suspicion is that NCSoft and Paragon Studios will likely go for another expansion similar to Going Rogue. If that happens, I suspect two-handed weapons will likely be a prominent feature.

Yeah... this was my thought as well.

Vanden's got a reputation for whining about every little frivolous thing, and most of the player's started threads tend to generate a desire to post a face-palm picture. Granted there is a difference between Vanden and other whiners in that Vanden actually has logged in and spent time playing the game.

My gut reaction for this thread is also to post a face-palm picture.

Thing is, I play on a pretty lousy wireless connection right now. I try not to lead raids, teams, or TF's because I realize my net connection sucks. I deal with a lot of rubber-banding, enemies that suddenly vanish, powers that don't seem to have an effect, then suddenly massive bursts of damage as the system finally gets all the information back that yes I did actually hit the target.

For me, as a player, I have come to the terms with the reality that what I "cause" as a player may or may not have real-time "effect response"

I suspect, given the lack of whining about it on the forums, that large numbers of other players who also have less than desirable network connection speeds, have come to terms with lag effects as well.

So, go ahead, cry a river because lift / levitate damage doesn't synch up exactly to the animation and effect. Really, there was nothing else going on that was... you know... maybe more important? Are players really timing their attacks and button presses down to the point when they only do something when / if they see a visual effect for it?

Let me clear. This is the kind of change that you send a /bug report in game on.

This is the kind of change that you tap the powers guy (Black Scorpion as of right now) on the shoulder with a PM.

It is not a change that deserved an entire thread to itself.

*whampage Tackles Ali!*

Wait... something's wrong... Where's the latex? the Maids? the... ooo... ball gowns!

I think the devs got the hint that tying the badge to one-specific server was a bad idea.

An updated announcement is due tomorrow: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...69#post3625369

Sam and I rarely see eye to eye on anything... but here... we do.

The simple fact is that the conversion of an existing subscription game to a free-to-play model has only been "profitable" for one developer, and "semi-profitable" for another.

The first game in question is Lord of the Rings Online. LoTRO started as a subscription based game, and failed miserably. While it was a high quality MMO-RPG it was also entering into a saturated market. The LoTRO developers, Turbine, burned through their cash reserves, wound up shutting down an entire studio, laid off large numbers of employees, then sold themselves to Warner Brothers, THEN considered a Free-to-play model. The F2P model for Turbine, while profitable, is only profitable due to the companies diminished size.

While Time Warner does not break down the exact details of Warner Brother's Home Entertainment division, and subsequently the details of subsidiaries such as Turbine, it can be gathered that LoTRO is not a significant money maker for the company: http://ir.timewarner.com/phoenix.zht...972&p=irol-sec

The second game in question is Global Agenda. Global Agenda also launched with a subscription plan. However, Hi-Rez studios was quick enough to realize that their game was entering into a saturated market with little to separate itself from free-to-play competitors. Hi-Rez studios quickly switched to a Guild-Wars like business model, charging for the game but not charging for the online play: http://kotaku.com/#!5574443/the-fast...istory-of-mmos

Only recently Global Agenda took the game one step further and made the base client available under Global Agenda: Free Agent: http://store.steampowered.com/video/17020/80771

Unlike Turbine, Hi-Rez studios saw no major damages as they were able to change their business model in time. Actually, Hi-Rez saw growth as they secured the Tribes license and now have two Tribes games under development.

Given the lack of subscription games that have made successful free-to-play conversions, and given the conditions in which successful conversions have achieved their success's, there is no definable financial precedent to suggest that a conversion to a free-to-play model would, in any way, benefit City of Heroes.

To try and frame just the scale of the problem, consider the saturation factor. LoTRO faced competition from World of Warcraft, Everquest, Final Fantasy, WarHammer, and like it or not the still on-going Ultima Online. Global Agenda faced off against pretty much every other first-person / third-person shooter on the market.

For LoTRO a free-to-play mode was pretty much all it had to offer.

For Global Agenda a free-to-play mode was de rigueur.

City of Heroes has no competitors. There is no saturation in the market for somebody wanting to play City of Heroes. Ergo, there is no market competition forcing CoH to lower its prices or even look at a new business model.

Now, if Champions Online was more than a foot-note in the history of MMO games, and if DCUO wasn't a mish-mash of "what was SOE thinking?... then... yeah, the argument could be made that it was time for Paragon Studios and NCSoft to think about additional methods of enabling CoH access. The reality is both CO and DCUO were dismal failures. CO will likely never post a profit for Infogrames... and unfortunately for SOE, DCUO isn't looking to hot for the profit-minded either.

As such, there is no reason to look at either game for inspiration on what this game, City of Heroes, should do.

yep.

There is no billing system hooked up to the Training Server, so purchase anything you like from the in-game store.