karilis

A quick search on google for open source, freeware, or free, game engine, will lead you to a number of premade engines, I actually own one adventure engine, that licenses itself for commercial use for either 10,000 dollars, or a %age of sales of the product, but it's intended for single player first person shooters, I didn't like it much.

The only thing close to what you mentioned that I have stumbled across recently is Neo-Steam... and you're right, the world is missing a creatively anachronistic/mad science MMORPG... hell, it's missing that in terms of single player RPGs as well.

I've got C and C+, RPG, and COBOl programming experience, as well as VB, and I started taking a free course in VB.net before I graduated college... none of these really taught me coding structures that I would find very efficient for an MMO. I can visualize some of the ways to create effective modules and procedures to call, but just thinking about it makes me want to believe that anything less than a multi-hundred thousand dollar server would be severely crippled by the amount of code and processor requirements I'd be capable of delivering on a daily basis.

I only took tech school training for programming, and I'm wishing I had more solid video game design experience and college education, because I'm certain there's stuff out there far better than what I used to build cheap GUI Apps for faux companies and case studies, and web sites.

I would love to get in on the ground floor of something like this, but I also think in a few years when I've saved enough into my long term retirement fund, that I can go back to college, I'm kind of lazy and will probably just go for library sciences, but there's the option to go to a place like Pentech in canada, which specializes in Nintendo based programming, using their proprietary, and non proprietary software design techniques.

On the other hand, if you get an actual coder with experience, my greatest skills are in debugging and analyzing. I was the go-to debugger in my classes in college, and I still carry the mindset of finding out where why and how something isn't working as expected, no matter the language, if there's an example somewhere of how code is supposed to work, I'll be able to find all the examples where it shouldn't be working as intended.

Edited:

Hmm, Timeshadow is a similarly experienced (or perhaps moreso) coder, coincidence.

Most of my Villains are goody two shoes, so I'd be willing to switch them... but I've done so much of the content hero side, that it just bores me to tears, so I think I'll stick with villains... I still haven't finished Rikti Warzone, or done anything at all in Cimerora though, and I'm missing a few more story arcs on my main scrapper in the Ouroboros completion list.

However, I'd love to get in and bugtest this in a beta, and perhaps land that coveted bugfinder badge? Hmm? That would be sweet, though at the same time, I have faith in the dev team that by now, they won't really have any major bugs that slip past Q&A that they'd feel like awarding the badge for.

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Teleport Melee. Very much want. We get a couple of these now, which I applaud, but I want a whole set of it. Some sort of Speed Melee set would be a good place, actually, could have some teleport strikes in there with regular hits and kicks.


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So very much yes, I plan on moving to Champions online if I can design a full on teleport melee set, I'm not just talking teleport punch teleport kick teleport roundhouse... I want *Bamf* Ride the lightning, *Bamf* Sulfur burn, *Bamf* netheworld freezing exposure... ie: Everytime I open a portal somewhere to teleport somewhere else, while in range of a mob, or come through a portal at least, I unleash some of the element of whatever plane I traveled through with me...

Also, if I can design other travel-power powersets, like swing-melee (Probably very spider-man biased...) and Speed-melee, and jump/stomp melee... I guess those are Spidey, Flash, and Hulk in order heh, not on purpose, and certainly not the character concepts I want for those powersets.

Another one:

I want the following to be condensed into one set, with the "Weapon" selected, be simply an ultra dense particle effect, that either surrounds the hands, arms, or shoulders. Could you imagine a Predator's shoulder canon popping up over your shoulder? (Who cares about clipping)

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Arm Cannon, because Blasters and Corrs and Dominators need more weapon customization. A LEFT handed costume option like Shields.. possibly one that is always visible. Because you don't draw a cannon that stays on your arm all the time. (And cause there are only two states for a custom weapon, right? More on the second state later.)
The blasting cannon on your arm could be from your awesome techie suit, or it could be a mutant biological weapon you turned your arm into, or it could be a symbiotic plant that lives on your arm! So many costume options!
Mostly Energy attacks, with maybe a little Fire, Smashing, or even Cold mixed in. The nifty unique perk of this set would be its "Overdrive" form, which increased ToHit, beefed up the damage of some attacks and added debuffs and mezzes to others (using code like DB's combo system- "If state is Overdrive, this effect goes off too").
Overdrive would ideally make your Arm Cannon change appearance to an awesome form- Panels on your tech cannon move outward and a powerful glow seeps from the cracks.. the plant on your arm opens its petals/leaves into a very threatening open flower cannon.. that sorta thing.

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and

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I want shoulder pets as missle weapons.

I absolutely love when the redcaps get thrown at you and land on your shoulders. I want to be able to do the same thing with kittens and pandas!

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plus
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Overcharge: Ground Targeted AoE, High Damage, Fire/Smash/Energy.

You shoot the ground wherever you put the cursor (like when you summon caltrops) with a high powered beam that causes the earth to superheat and then explode, sending chunks of rock/concrete/dirt/whateverwasinthedirtthere flying at everything nearby.

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The great thing about doing this as a particle effect, or "aura" is that it shouldn't require any 'new' costume slots or changes to the UI for us to select the weapon, we'd simply probably not be allowed an aura on that toon, until we're allowed to have both combat, and non combat auras.


Some things I would like? Grapple, staff, spear, (Hell, add staff and spear graphics to both mace, and broadsword, I don't really care if the animations look specific to staff and spear fighting, same with tonfas, add them to dual blades.)

More 'energy and elemental based' sets, mix and match things, and toss in a few unique powers, perhaps give scrappers a support-heavy, knockback heavy set, 5 low damage knockback powers, 2 high damage knock down powers, and one ranged AoE knockdown, or... one stun, one disorient, one hold, 2 knockbacks, 2 knockdowns, and a ranged immobilize, themed with either fire, energy, radiation, cold, or some other such. Stone/smashing works even, Spines/lethal/toxic too.

Oh, even better, toxic sets for everyone. Blasters, poison needles (like widows) Defenders, poison emission/spore emission, controllers, spore emission/fungus control, Brutes... poison smash? 0.o heh, perhaps a claw based set running off of toxic/lethal, with lots of different side effects. Dominators and corruptors, similar to defenders blasters or controllers, masterminds already have a 'poison' set, tankers could have the same as scrappers and brutes...

I'd love to see some really non-standard looking primaries, things with a ranged attack or two for scrappers and tanks (Love my spines/* scrappers) especially if one takes place of one of the tier 1s, and then a ranged immobilize, or PBAoE immobilize, or toggle immobilize, or other abnormal power to melee sets, or giving them radiation melee with lots of -regen...

Total power proliferation? :P Well okay, no, this last one was a joke, but radiation melee, with glowie green, plus explosive looks, plus puking enemies, would be kinda... RAD.. heh

Were Kheldians even introduced before ED? I can't recall...

If they were, then I could see this being one of the earliest bugs, but then... was Hamidon even raidable pre ED?

Back then, I'm sure there was no "no one hit kills" code...

If either of those are untrue, then there's simply no way that adding 30 or so slots to a power, and slamming damage enhancements in it, would do enough of anything. It would have to have literally been someone could add "infinite' slots to a power, and infinite diminishing return damage enhancements.. until they got bored.

Please don't let this drop, I also used that map in one of my arcs, has anyone PM'ed a community rep about this?

Hi guys,

Premise: I think MA should return an error if you have no enemies with a ranged attack power, in at least the minion section of a custom group if you feed a custom group as the mission population. I believe that this should be a 'soft error' and only when a mission is published with this 'soft error' in place, should any enemies in the mission be given standardized ranged attacks. If even one enemy out of X, has a ranged attack available to them, in the minion and/or lieutenant group of custom enemies, I believe that the MA should accept the custom group with no soft error, and thus not force these ranged attacks onto anyone.

Some anecdotal information:


I'm creating a zombiepocalypse arc, I've got about a dozen zombies so far, and a fairly equivalent ranged+ melee, and melee+melee, and melee + defensive set of zombies so far, making more when I don't feel like playing my newest brute. I also have some necromancer type boss level creatures, to fuel the feeling of 'continuous onslaught.'

I have a gripe about the standard ranged attacks. Firstly, they're pretty powerful, like a "Hah, the mission designer tried not to have a ranged attack on every enemy in this enemy group, so you die now!" level of powerful.

Secondly: I have enemies with ranged attacks in my custom group, and THIS is what the MA should look for, and error out if there aren't any. "Standard ranged power" should be an additional selector as an option, only if necessary.

For example, if someone creates a group and feeds it 6 styles of minions, 3 lieutenants, and one or two boss types, say two for ease.

If I make 2-3 of those minions ranged, or defender or controller types, and one or two of the lieutenants the same, and one boss, a ranged type... Why the heck should my other custom enemies require a standard ranged attack? They should be the ones that charge in, and get defeated on the front line if there's a melee character to protect the squishies in a group. Or, if a squishy is soloing, with a flight power, those are the ones that should be safe to ignore for a short time, using, I dunno, strategy? to take out the ranged baddies first.

I've been one shotted by custom lieutenants on corruptors, dominators, defenders, blasters, and recently, a brute, so I know there's inherently a level of difficulty that presents a challenge, which is cool and all, but giving out standard attacks that can 3 and 5 shot the lower health archetypes? The spawns don't even need to commit a horrible alpha strike on a character, just cycle their standard ranged attack.

Was someone about to say: 'Easily fixed, just make sure to give all your characters a ranged powerset'? May I propose, 'no'? There's no hostility here, and I don't mind working a little harder to deliver my arc the way I intend it, it's kind of a 'you probably shouldn't live through this' arc anyway, but I don't want people unable to have at least a little zombie bashing fun before dropping.

I like to have a melee/buff, or melee/defense, or support/debuff character or two in a custom group. They shouldn't be whipping out an attack that removes the strategy of beating them at range, or beating them with control before they get in range to attack.

I know I'll get over it, and I'll live, but a lot of my missions, the custom enemies are no longer what I envisioned, and... when an enemy AI plays out a full attack chain, and then tosses in a standardized ranged attack to finish you off, it feels like salt in the wounds.

The worst thing I've encountered in a while, other than these new attacks, are: I recently ran into a level 52 radiation longbow commander, and it had all the powers of http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Longbow#...Warden_.288.29 as well as a screenshake power, which I assume was atomic blast.

Needless to say, the fight was going poorly enough before it dropped the big AoE radiation bomb on me that initiated screenshake. I encountered two of them, running cape/aura arcs, as well as one similar custom critter, running the dev choice arc, do-it-yourself laser moonbase, the radiation powersets are kind of evil, but at least they were on bosses/elite bosses, so I didn't mind the death or two per.

However, I took a couple of facefaults taking on some custom lieutenants that were obviously built as melee/defense. As an electric/willpower brute with high S/L/Psy resist, I was thoroughly 0.o 'ing.


Oh, hey, can we get a 'Deaths limit' option or something, maximum deaths per player, with a selectable checkbox, for mission failure? Or at least a "maximum trips to the hospital per player" Obviously a mission in which it's the 'end of the world' and one dies... there's no popping an awaken, well, there might be an awaken, but the hospital isn't functioning, so if you leave that way, the mission is a failure.

Aye, the destructible objects themselves weren't providing experience, I just thought there was an environmental damage code, that reduced experience on things damaged some % by however much damage was dealt environmentally.

Hmm, so I guess it's working as intended? Just, someone could leverage the anomaly to provide a statistical long term advantage, by providing an area in which they're capable of doing enough overall harm that a box explosion finishes an attack chain or something. That might be exploitation, and if so, will probably end up being removed.

Frankly, I'd rather have there be an experience drawback, and keep the explodeys available, because it's kinda fun to make a big crowd of trolls go boom when they're carrying bombs and stuff, especially when playing a character with few to no area effect attacks, like an early dark/invuln scrapper.

Hi all,

I don't know if this has been reported at all,

A mission I created some weeks ago, that was high on destructible explosive objects, I never bothered destroying them on my play testing, as they were meant to be a 'trap' to lure an almost invincible archvillain (Storm/gravity I think) but I was actually able to take it on without the trap.

However, last night I got into a team, or perhaps it was the night before last, this work week has been hell... anyway, I got into an AE team, and realized, even though I was doing good Area Effect damage, and single target damage, sometimes I or one of my teammates would blow up one of the explodables near, or in the middle of a spawn of enemies, and it would finish off the pack of enemies for us.

Nothing wrong with this really, kind of fun and all, but: We weren't getting reduced experience for the damage done by the explosion, we were getting credit as if we did 100% to the mobs we were arresting.

This isn't a huge deal, as often we'd leave the explosives alone and pull the enemies away, and the explosives had more health themselves than the enemies, so it would take plenty of damage to crack one (or crits or scourges, which were going off left and right), but I kept watching my experience window, expecting variance, and the numbers kept being the same. I thought (perhaps I'm wrong) that any environmental damage, or, damage done by confused foes, or falling damage, was supposed to shave off experience equal to the % of damage dealt by non-PC sources?

Or is it normal? I think I remember confusing embalmed vahzilok a long time ago, so that their explosions wouldn't hurt me, but I don't recall if I got exp for the explosions they did or not.... actually, perhaps I did? Can anyone confirm that confused embalmed cadavers provide experience outside of mission architect, either themselves, or by blowing up other Vahz?

If so, then I guess it wasn't a bug.

I think the damage numbers show up extremely low, as I've had level 1-20 done in AE a lot lately, and it says I'm doing from 1-27 damage with attacks that do... 1 to 27 damage at the level I'm using them at, yet the enemies are dropping in a few cycles as I would expect them to if they were doing appropriately scaled damage.

PLover, actually, all prices have dropped significantly on Wentworth's, because of most recipes being sold at rock bottom prices for people to empty out their inventory and try their hand at another two dozen recipe rolls.

The prices are down on -everything- purchasable with tickets... and frankly, you can run a few arcs in the mission architect, story only, not even optimized farms, and be able to afford DOs, SOs, or random recipe rolls, for very cheap amounts of tickets. Don't have the 2 million in influence it'll take you to get the rare salvages for a recipe or two? team once or twice in the MA and buy them for a little over a thousand tickets.

Or if you don't want to touch the mission architect at all, do the usual, sell good recipes and salvage that you get while patroling, or doing radio missions, or whatever it is you like to do.

As to everyone else? What's the hangup? Twenty or so 'threatening' responses to an amazing content pack, that you want to quit now, or are sorry you resubscribed. How ungrateful is that?

I clicked six month subscription right off the bat when I heard about the mission architect's release, and I've never been happier with an MMORPG, I've played CoH off and on for years, but Everquest was my main addiction, I still have two years subscription over two accounts to Everquest, and I haven't logged in in weeks, I've been too busy trying out every possible concept I've had for characters, and actually getting them up to 20, where I can see if they're viably fun!

Economy woes? Unable to find teams? For criminy's sakes, it's like you've never played an MMORPG before. Let me talk about the typical Everquester's experience: Never able to make enough platinum to buy current content gear, log in and spend ~30 minutes to an hour looking for a group unless you have made friends on the game, hunt for a while until bored, dink around in a horribly overpriced market place, looking for one good deal that will increase the survivability of your character, or his/her DPS by ~.01 -.2 %, that doesn't cost your entire life savings...

Unless of course you're a solo heavy class, or a raid geared person, either of which means you probably have access to better things than logging in and waiting an hour to find or form a group..


City of Heroes, I've never waited more than a few minutes for a team, ever, mostly because I play ATs or playstyles of ATs, that can solo, and if I don't see one in broadcast, or have a random invite, I'm probably already off soloing, but seriously, groups are not hard to find, I was playing on three of the lowest population servers last night, and was able to find at least a duo partner most of the time, and one time, I had eight people running with me for a while. Often on medium population servers, I'll get an invite, or random tell, while I'm in the middle of a story arc "want to join radio missions in PI?" or 'Want to join a fun MA arc?" or "Care for a high inf/exp farm?" It usually dies down after I've been logged in for a while, or perhaps I just don't notice it because I never pay attention to my chat window, I'm usually too busy having fun facing off against foes.

The AE is convenient, it allows people who like an action packed hunt, to get out and do it, without slogging around finding contacts and missions, without having to purchase and slot up a travel power, without having to do some of the most annoying things about regular PvE content.

Frankly I only regret that not everyone on the team gets to experience the fun, sometimes hilarious, sometimes very wonderfully put together, story information, from the contacts.

And honestly, if you can't find non-farms, you're really not trying at all. Try inputting random fantasy terms "gremlin" "goblin" "Zombie" "dragon" 'angel' 'devil' 'demon' 'fae' ... ... or 'cyborg' 'cybernetic' 'spec ops' 'android' 'praetorian' 'statesman' 'freedom phalanx' 'arachnos'

Honestly, I don't think I could ever play all the arcs with those searches in them. People could put in gang, or mafia, or capo, or whatever, but I dislike such piddly, non super-seeming foes. Mafiosos and Gangs are police duties, super heroes should focus on super enemies in my opinion, and with AE, there's plenty of those to go around.

If you can't tell a farm by looking at its description, you haven't played enough, and really, it only takes one load, and about three seconds, to survey an arc to see if it's worthwhile at all, and you can quit the mission arc, without rating it poorly, if you don't want to play a farm.

People have mentioned sliders, and I've never noticed one while building missions, which I've made a lot of, and a lot of custom bosses, am I just being blind, or by slider, do you mean the "normal, hard, extreme" that grants access to powers in the powersets?

Or do you mean the easy, medium, hard, single, that just dictates what kind of pack of minions a boss will have around it?

Seems like it's a tanker/scrapsassin defensive set AI problem. Repeatedly activating toggles rather than doing attacks.

I remember pet AI complaints, by the devs, that there is no way to diversify what powers a pet uses, that part of the reason they pet recharge nerf had to be made, was, when other powers are recharging faster, AI will always use the power that just came back up. So if you give your ally a set with a toggle power or activatable power that recharges faster than attacks, expect 70% of the time to not see any attacks.

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Are you kidding?

The Architect is still doing that thing where if you dare try to use it for too long it sucks up all your memory and you're left staring at a still image. I could barely get out of the editor, I couldn't even quit out of the game. I could barely even end it in the Task Manager! Nothing like that ever happened to me until Open Beta started. Near as I can figure, this is largely due to the fact that the Mission Architect isn't a separate screen like everything else in the game, but rather a resizeable window that hovers over the screen.

Maybe I'll just edit my arcs by hand in Notepad...

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I also noticed that ever since I14 went live, merely logging in, my RAM usage will if I simply stand still, slowly climb, or if I move around, it'll shoot through the roof, and never come down, and if I use the mission architect, heaven forbid I load any custom characters, or put in more than a couple boss fights or rescues, because it seems to want to take up all my system processing and memory resources, per item I add to a mission...

Basically Mission Architect seems very unoptimized for middle end PCs: (Current specs are 2.33 Gigahertz processor, single core in an asus board that supports multi core, but I don't have the cash for more, 512 meg GEForce 7xxx series video card, and 3 gigs of RAM) it's an amazing tool, and I've been having tremendous fun with it, but most of my missions have to be watered down a lot because I have to save them, purposely end-task my city of heroes client, go back in, do a few more changes, save and crash myself again to get my RAM back...

Any way to optimize all of this, like defaulting the 'character preview' window to no animation, or stick figure, or off, and let it be turned on? It seems that even with all of the bosses or other such things minimized on opening, the thing nearly wants to crash my system.