New Year's Resolution or Pod People Invasion?
By
Alexio_DeAmore,
Posted on: 2006-01-11 18:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Damn. I tried.
You fail! now get back in your box and think about what you did *rubs your nose in it*
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Who else wished you a happy birthday?
*wanders around peering into windows*
I swore I heard me name bein' mentioned someplace....
WHO BROUGHT ME GIBBLETS! I demand a feast of horrible things for then we move and leave a trail of tears and sniffles of all the flowers sewn shut and taken for the endless gloom.
Some things were not meant to be, the rest we'll pick apart piece by piece until we have the secrets hidden within, set there by the giant fruit roll-ups of the olden days, filled with color and waxy goodness!
ALL HAIL THE INEBRIATED MUNCHKIN! For it will destroy you utterly if it but spies your malcontentiality!
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im soo lost with this thread. I looked over page 1..skipped to 5 and wow...I'm just sooo confused 
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That's what happens when you time-travel around, Ocarinaboy. If you'd just at through the thread like everyone else instead of abusing your time priviledges, you'd be perfectly caught up!
Choke on your birthday cake, time-traveller, YOU RUINED MY LIFE!
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Who else wished you a happy birthday?
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You tell me...since im hated enough on the boards anyways.
and Foo, You sit down and read mass pages of things that may not 100% interest ya. Time Travel FTW..in most cases
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Happy Birthday Generic_OoT!
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::A giant spaceship sucks up the whole thread.. then spits out everyone in it as a zombie cat-girl::
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You do NOT want to see me looking like a zombie catgirl. Trust me on this.
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::A giant spaceship sucks up the whole thread.. then spits out everyone in it as a zombie cat-girl::
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Well now I'm definitely not going to join this thread.
Oops, too late!
Ferrium - Inv/SS Tanker
Hyperforce - SS/Regen Brute
Member of V for Vengance (Exalted)
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Happy Birthday Generic_OoT!
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I tried to submit new character names as UpGeneric OoT, DownGeneric OoT, etc...actually but after a month or so the GMs replied back "Nono, you cant use Generic in your new names"
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Happy Birthday Generic_OoT!
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I tried to submit new character names as UpGeneric OoT, DownGeneric OoT, etc...actually but after a month or so the GMs replied back "Nono, you cant use Generic in your new names"
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So if I make a hero called "GenericHero171226" and you petition me, will they rename me "GenericHero47238" until I come up with a new name?
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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Most likely..as odd as it sounds 
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He wasted MySpace!
In any event, here's yet another tragedy of the human condition.
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I haven't laughed so hard since I saw Grandma's Boy 
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Puffy was a king among trolls. No one has yet to come close to his level.
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Was?
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o.O
Is...
*throws memory dust at thread and runs away*
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...That's Talcum powder.
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Wait wait wait... someone was a bigger troll than the Icarus_Factor?!
While I agreed with some of the things he said, the manner in which he said it had all the finesse of a habanero burrito fart.
I would have to rate him top troll overall, and definitely most eloquent troll ever.
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He wasn't a troll...he was like an early Pilcrow...
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Yeah I really like Icarus. He was just a logic spewing Dev supporter. Some people equate logical arguments with trolling though.
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Poster: The_Foo
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Understood. Pod people.
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(Teeheehee!)
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I would like to be the second to welcome the pod people.
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Does the Pod-States tank any better than the Nerf-States. Certainly couldn't be any worse... 
Good to see this kind of thing again. About time. 
"I never said thank you." - Lt. Gordon
"And you'll never have to." - the Dark Knight
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I do think, however, that the devs have some kind of office game where they all get together and see which comments they post get the most flames.
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It's more complicated than that. I know this other game...the head of Dev (guy responsible for making all the hard choices) is the guy that posts anything negative. And he leaves the posts that players will like to other Devs to pass along.
It's a good working system, all of the hate posts focused on the one fella, while a lot more work gets done by his (happier) people because they aren't getting flamed omgnerfzz!!!one1!!
Pretty much my definition of a good boss, takes the ***** jobs himself and gives the glory work to other people.
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Just an idea... maybe create a post that gets updated weekly, and put as a sticky on the Test Server forum, called "Soon..." which lists things like this that are in short or long term development?
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Good idea.. in theory.
In reality it would work out like this. The players see a change on the thread and one of two things is likely to occur.
1. Much [censored] and moaning done months and months before a change is even being considered truely being put in the game. We would hear complaining about nerfs when the devs are only "seeing what will happen" with no intention of putting it in the game.
2. "OMG! YOU PROMISED!" Something good shows up in the thread. Players rejoice, but months down the line it doesn't happen because of various technical issues and game limitations.. or just because it would be THAT hard to implement.
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People said the same thing when Turbine Entertainment did the same thing. There were people like yourself who foretold doom & gloom.
As it turned out, there was little of either. Turbine had several categories that they sorted things into and it was clearly stated that anything on there was subject to change and that as things moved into "next patch" status they became more reliable/likely to appear in-game. They still do this and it gives their palyerbase a roadmap of where things are heading and what's happening.
It works remarkably well. But then Cryptic will never know if it works for them until they try it. Given the lack of updates the "Known Issues" link gets, I'm not so certain it'll work here like it did for Turbine.
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But they DID try it. For much of 2004, we were given glimpses of what the next 6-12 months were like. Then, as Cryptic hired up to produce CoV, just about every ETA slipped to some degree as well as certain feature additions. Much gnashing of teeth ensued, much throwing about the word "lie" and "liar", and much more DOOM was predicted.
I'll agree that the 'Known Issues' list ought to be kept more current, but beyond that you've lost me.
I'll trust that when Cryptic hones a better production pipeline, they'll start letting players in on the map of the future. Personally, I prefer the current status quo until then. Expressions of ambiguous disappointment have proven to be more palatable than expressions of specific disappointment.
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NM: It was Revolution_Pr0/Backagain/Diva_Dauntless
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He was one of my faves. Miss him. 
He could be a clever monkey at times.
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ZOMG! He put me in his ignore list. OH NOES.
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Do you get a message or something when you get ignored? If thats the case, no one has ever ignored me. Which I find somewhat suprising.
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Villains
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Tarranos
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He and I would spar for days in a row and now I can't even recall why. About whether CoH was the worst grind ever probably.
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revolution_pr0's schtick was talking about it's SO easy to make new animations and that the devs are just too lazy to do them. He'd even go as far as to demand they let HIM do all the animations since he had "extensive animation knowledge" since he modded Quake skins.
Then he just kinda went insane, ranting for pages on end about how Matrix Online is everything CoH wished it could be and had CoH would be dead in 2 months with everyone flocking to Matrix Online. Then he got a kick out of replying to anyone who replied to him to tell them he /ignored them.
Good times.
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NM: It was Revolution_Pr0/Backagain/Diva_Dauntless
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He was one of my faves. Miss him. He could be a clever monkey at times.
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ZOMG! He put me in his ignore list. OH NOES.
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Do you get a message or something when you get ignored? If thats the case, no one has ever ignored me. Which I find somewhat suprising.
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No, he just claimed to put me on his ignore list, and when I try to send him PMs it says:[ QUOTE ]
This user is ignoring you. You cannot send them a message.
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Not that I'm seriously trying to send him PMs, I just found that it's the best way to determine if one is really being ignored.
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Interjecting on the subject of Animation:
Hi, I do modelling and animation for realtime applications for a living. Animation production as an asset is easy in theory. That is, if you just want to stick out a few quick keyframes. However, the resultant animation looks like... well it looks like something that was thrown together. The other consideration is the pipeline in which the animation is to be inserted, how that data is called, if there's a tweening setup for the bone heirarchies, etc. In the case of CoX you've got a single bone setup that runs any number of characters, and I'm assuming that QA gets to test any new animations against several different body types and costume setups to make sure there aren't any glaring visual issues.
Then you've got the "red tape" factor, essentially how many other people have their hands in the animator's creative process. In larger teams you've got a usual two step verification process that look something like:
Designer
Animation director
Animator
So once the designer in charge of the animation unit passes down the need for animation X, the animation director delineates that task to an animator or number of animators. Once this work is completed. it is submitted back to the AD, who looks it over and makes a decision as to whether or not it's fit for inclusion in to the larger pipeline. If so, it's given to the Designer in charge of the animation unit. Basically, once that motion file goes through at least two people THEN it gets to go through QA testing only AFTER the code unit has integrated the data into the pipeline. Depending on the engine setup, this can take either a few minutes, or a few days. Server-centric models like CoX usually ned up on the longer side, as you'll want a batch of updates to apply at the beginning or the end of the day while the QA test servers and client machines aren't actively being used.
So.. animation in itself isn't easy, and the general process for getting that motion data from the animator into the finished product consumes an equal or greater amount of time than it took for the animator to finish it in the first place.
This is all personal experience, and I can't be sure how Cryptic's pipeline is set up, but this process is essentially how a typical development team of 20+ handles things.
Now now now....
I have absolutely NO experience in animation and am therefore much more competant at telling anyone how the job is done than you, my good sir. Don't believe me? Roam around the world a bit more - the ignorant are always the best suited to tell you how it's done.
Having said that I can tell you that its not a question of effort or time or anything that you mentioned.
It's a question of money. The Devs are evil, greedy, corporate monkeys who fight tooth and nail for every single penny they can get. If that weren't true they'd hire ten dozen animators and we'd have all the moves to Flashdance available as an emote.
Greed is the reason we see no progress here. No new animations, no new costume options, nothing! The Devs sit around in their offices sipping drinks and reading the forums, not doing their bloody job.
That is why this game is sinking faster than the bloody Titantic - that is why the players are leaving in droves, that is why everything is falling apart.
Greed.
Corporate greed.
And laziness.
That's all.
See? I don't need to know anything about anything to answer the questions, and nothing anyone says will convince me I've got it wrong. I am a model forum poster.
Feel free to add me to your ignore list! Hah!
States sez:
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To be honest, almost all of these things have been in development WAY before New Year's. We started working on the Defense change back in October. But we really needed to test things and make sure our solution actually worked. That's pretty much the way of things.
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WHat the hecK!! it took him like 4 posts to repond to this thread, but i havnt seen this name on the blaster forum in a LLLOOONNNGGGG time. sheesh, quick to smack compliments, but hesitant to post about comments... o well, states is cool. ummm... GO FREEDOM CORPS.!!!!
~the poster formally known as GI_Shmo~
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thanks
and its OoT
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