Did you know... The unofficial history thread
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-03-23 01:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Did you know...
That the Nemesis Power used to be made permanent by farming the Staff mission repeatedly? One of the factors leading to this being changed was an All-Nemesis Staff raid on Hamidon taking down the jelly blob in almost record time.
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Didn't the Nemesis staff have a monstrously long range too? Or is it still capable of reaching things from (what seems) halfway across a zone?
Awesome thread folks. Haven't read all of it, but I will. Love this stuff!
....The preffered method of PL'ing was "wolves" missions, back when wolves couldn't jump vary high, had no ranged attacks, and tanks could aggro and hold aggro for nearly and entire zone. Then AoE blasters hovering above would let loose
...you could at one time TP to the resevoir zone attached to faultline.
...Faultline was at one time "The" place to level.
...at release scrappers were considered gimped
...at the end of beta I think at least 90% of players had flight.
....you used to have only 1 cotume, this made SG colours much more important than now.
...The Posi TF used to take upwards of 5 hours....oh wait nvm
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Did you know...
That the Nemesis Power used to be made permanent by farming the Staff mission repeatedly? One of the factors leading to this being changed was an All-Nemesis Staff raid on Hamidon taking down the jelly blob in almost record time.
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Didn't the Nemesis staff have a monstrously long range too? Or is it still capable of reaching things from (what seems) halfway across a zone?
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Not sure if it still does, but it used to have an ansiane range, for a time i could attack mobs i could no longer even see...
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-that Dr. Vahzilok is named after George Vasilakos, owner of Eden Studios (for whom I co-wrote several RPG books).
Yes, I knew this
-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said "Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?"
Knew that one too... LOVE that little show. 
-that the name "Cryptic Studios" was inspired in part by the first RPG book I co-authored, "Cryptozoology."
Didn't know this one.
-that Shane Hensely, a current designer, created Deadlands.
Ya, knew that. Played that once, was kinda fun.
-that Thomas Foss created a minis game Pirates!
Nope.
-that Statesman was a character created in several pen and paper super hero RPG's over a decade ago. Many former character names have found their way into the game.
So, did you use a nerf bat in those games too? 
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"I swear you could fling a man hole cover across the street and hit more notes than 90% of those idiots on American Idol" -Desmodos
"Every time you post I feel like I been hit with a fist full of smart! Thanks." - Volken re: Sucker Punch
Arc #36984 V'kta A'cha Vox'm
Did you know...
That Lord Recluse was not named after a spider, but in fact because he is terribly shy?
The Teleport travel power used to have momentum conservation. If you started to fall and you teleported, you would appear at your destination still falling. If you bounced off something and shot off sideways, you would still be travelling in that direction just as fast after your port. This made mis-teleporting even more hazardous than it currently is, though some people took advantage of it to build up massive speeds!
Kraken ---
Did you know the Abandoned Sewer trial was used for powerleveling? Kraken used to give INSANE amounts of XP. On a team of 8, a lvl 36 player would get 80K+ per Kraken, lvl 40 about 40K (IIRC). I skilled team could kill 5 Kraken in about 10 minutes and reform in the control room without failing the mission. Therefore, a single 1:30 mission could yield 6-9 runs of 5 Hydra each. It was not uncommon for a lvl 36 toon to enter the Sewers on Friday and come out on Sunday night at lvl 42. And that's being conservative. Now the XP per Kraken is roughly 1/10th of what it used to be.
JD
@Flower Power / @Buffer Flower
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Did you know...
That the Nemesis Power used to be made permanent by farming the Staff mission repeatedly? One of the factors leading to this being changed was an All-Nemesis Staff raid on Hamidon taking down the jelly blob in almost record time.
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Didn't the Nemesis staff have a monstrously long range too? Or is it still capable of reaching things from (what seems) halfway across a zone?
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Not sure if it still does, but it used to have an ansiane range, for a time i could attack mobs i could no longer even see...
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Just a little more detail on the Nemesis Staff...
You get the Staff from the "Find the source of Freak weapons" mission. Currently, the mission owner is awarded the staff at mission completion and it lasts for 5 days (120 real hours, not game time). It used to be awarded when you defeated one of the two objects (boxes) in the mission (not just glowies). The first box is "always" close to the entrance. If the Staff was awarded from that box, exit mission and reset...get a new team member and repeat. As long as you had the mission, you had access to a Nemesis Staff.
Now the Staff still has a nice long range. I don't think that was reduced in the nerf. The attack used to be AOE! I don't know an accurate Brawl Index for the power, but I recall it being approximately 12, doesn't take much END and recharges pretty fast.
It really was fun playing on 8 man teams where all members had the staffs.
JD
@Flower Power / @Buffer Flower
Did you know...
-that the game was originally announced for a May 2002 release? It was then delayed twice without exlanation until the new system (the one we know now) was introduced.
-that while Cryptic had no publisher, 3 forum members were the admins of the forum? It was Jazz, Geist and MacAllen, of whom only the first still plays (not sure about Geist though).
-Aura became the admin once NC took over.
-that we used to call Rick Dakan "Rick the pirate" because of a pic Statesman had posted of Rick in his Halloween costume.
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Did you know that Poison was the first "known" forumite to have his Toon made in CoH Chararcter creator. All marvel'd at how accurat you could make it.
[/ QUOTE ] This was at E3 2003. BizGhost, a former SG mate of mine, went to E3, created Poison and took pics which he later posted. I used those pics in my Crey Profile early on.
What you don't know thought is that above named Aura sent me an email once CoH beta started and asked me where I had the screenshots from, since it would have been a violation of the NDA.
-Teleport didn't use to have the short hover period and you kept crashing down constantly, which is why Hover was a must for teleporters?
Poison � Sabbath
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Did you know... More Real-Life Influences on Zone Names
King's Row is a real-life street located roughly 1/4 mile from the offices of Cryptic Studios. The nearest cross street to Cryptic's street address is East Gish Road. You might not realize it if you grew up mainly in The Hollows, but The Gish is one of the neighborhoods in central King's Row in City of Heroes.
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This isn't right exactly.
The first (to my knowledge) location for Cryptic Studios was actually ON a street named Kings Row. I've seen the building and talked to Devs about it: apparently it was as scary a place to work in as it looks, so they moved a bit away to another location.
They were at the second location when the game launched (if memory serves). I've seen this place too and it wasn't nearly as bad as the hole they were in on Kings Row. But it wasn't great either.
After release they moved to their current location. I have never been down to the new place so I can't comment on it. 
Ya, ya, more detail then anybody needed but, hey, I track devs what did you expect?
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-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said "Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?"
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Rikki Tikki Tavi is one of my favorite stories. Never would have guessed it inspired the Rikti.
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Temporary Invulnerability was once a click buff?
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Add to that that Tanks used to be able to get to 100% damage resists with it. Back Ally Brawler/Maurader appear to use the old power and rule, activating the power and then taking 0 damage per smash/lethal hit.
EveryNighters:
Tar Heel Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Knight of Purgatory Lvl 50 Fire/Ax Tank
Kilmainham Wall Lvl 50 Stone/Stone Tank
Re-Fridgerator Lvl 50 Ice/Ice Tank
Yankee Doodle Dandy Lvl 50 Will/Eng Tank
Teen Tar Heel Lvl 50 MA/SR Scrapper
EvilNighters:
Tar Heel Dead Lvl 50 DD Brute
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Did you know...
That back in the Beta for CoH, Statesman once sent a monster after a group that tried to grief him (Not realizing who it was they were teaming with...)?
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I read about that! I thought it was funny, but my husband thought he was an [censored] for it! It wouldn't surprise me if my hubby has one of thier RPG books lying around here somewhere. He has got quite a collection going!
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Since Galaxy didn't exist at the time, Kings Row connected to Perez Park! You can still see the spot where the old gate was. It's in the northeast part of High Park. You can't miss the lookout posts and the fenced in section.
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Well that explains that.
Did you know there are several additions to the game to stop Sidekick P/L exploits:
1. Auto AFK/Logout. People would park their hero in a safe place (usually the tram stations), side kick to a much higher hero and let that hero go street sweep, thus safely collecting xp.
2. 200 ft seperation check: If you are over 200 ft away from a teammate, you will not get xp for their kill. (This only happens in open zone hunting, not instanced missions.) However, you do get credit for the mob type kill when applied to a badge.
3. Level closeness check. You must be within 5 levels of your teammate to get xp for a kill. It used to be that a lvl 1 could team with a level 40 and get insane amounts of XP for a lvl 40 kill. You now must be within 5 levels (I think that's the limit) of the highest team member, can be done through side kicking.
4. XP ratio: this goes hand in hand with the above. When a higher level character kills a mob, you used to get xp based on the level of the mob. Now you get XP based on the level of the mob in relation to the level you are currently playing at.
I.e. playing a lvl 20 character and you are sked to lvl 40. (numbers made up for ease of explanation.) An orange mob at level 40 would give you 800 xp while an orange mob at lvl 20 would give you 150 xp. You used to get the full 800 xp. Now you get the 150 xp.
(The above statements may require some corrections, but that's the way I remember them...)
On a different note: DE Eminators used to spawn as Lieutenants, not pets.
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
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Did you know... More Real-Life Influences on Zone Names
King's Row is a real-life street located roughly 1/4 mile from the offices of Cryptic Studios. The nearest cross street to Cryptic's street address is East Gish Road. You might not realize it if you grew up mainly in The Hollows, but The Gish is one of the neighborhoods in central King's Row in City of Heroes.
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This isn't right exactly.
The first (to my knowledge) location for Cryptic Studios was actually ON a street named Kings Row. I've seen the building and talked to Devs about it: apparently it was as scary a place to work in as it looks, so they moved a bit away to another location.
They were at the second location when the game launched (if memory serves). I've seen this place too and it wasn't nearly as bad as the hole they were in on Kings Row. But it wasn't great either.
After release they moved to their current location. I have never been down to the new place so I can't comment on it.
Ya, ya, more detail then anybody needed but, hey, I stalk devs what did you expect?
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There you go, Saber. Fixed it for you! 
(It's a reference to when Sabercat met the devs at a Frye's store one time and posted the pics. Between that and the excellent dev tracker of his from beta, lots of jokes came out of it.)
Did you know that the devs' posts were originally tracked by a separate program designed by Sabercat and the results had their own separate thread in the pre-beta and CoH beta forums? (Just trying to keep the post on-topic.)
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There you go, Saber. Fixed it for you!
(It's a reference to when Sabercat met the devs at a Frye's store one time and posted the pics. Between that and the excellent dev tracker of his from beta, lots of jokes came out of it.)
Did you know that the devs' posts were originally tracked by a separate program designed by Sabercat and the results had their own separate thread in the pre-beta and CoH beta forums? (Just trying to keep the post on-topic.)
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lol, thanks TK!
Well, this must be a "Certified Old School Thread" now. Poison and I posted back-to-back and somebody brought up the DevTracker!
Here's a good one:
Did you know....
that one of the Devs has a website containing a bunch of stuff including a blog and a webcam from his office at Cryptic?
(No, I won't tell you who it is or give out the URL so don't bother PMing me. Yes, I realize that means my "Did you know" can't be confirmed. No, I don't care. I don't want the poor guy spammed with "Hey, fix this bug!" blog comments! )
Some post-beta "did you know?"
- Confuse used to give you no XP for any foe damaged by a confused target. This was changed so the damage was proportional to the amount done. There were still many complaints about Confuse until it was finally changed to give 75% of the XP for the damage your confused target did.
- Fear used to make foes flee. It was considered essentially useless until changed to the current implementation.
- Aim originally only boosted accuracy. Build Up only boosted damage. They were changed to be more "even" since Tankers and Scrappers only got Build Up, and Defenders only got Aim.
Some pre-beta "Did you know?"
- The most popular rallying cry of the pessimistic board members pre-beta was "This is going to be Everquest in tights", particularly after the archetype system was announced. You can still get a rise with that statement.
- The original seven Origins of the "open" system were (please correct this if it's wrong) Mutant, Magic, Talisman, Superior Human, Gadgetter, Cybernetics, and Science. Cybernetics and Gadgetter were folded together into Technology, (although I personally think part of Gadgeteer also went into Natural) while Talisman was combined with Magic. Note that Gadgets and Relics survive as Enhancements, which implies that Inventions, Focusing Devices, and Genetic Enhancement could be thought of as "sub-origins" as well.
- The original system divided abilities into two groups, "Powers" and "Skills". Mutants had the most Powers, while Superior Humans had the most Skills. The different origins could reach different maximum levels with their abilities, too, IIRC Mutants could reach the highest level but were limited in the number of Powers they could have, while Superior Humans had a broader range of abilities, but lower maximums with their skills and powers.
- Statesman's original list of "classes" for CoH, when he was developing the Archetype system, included such things as the Brick, the Martial Artist, the Detective, the Dark Knight, the Shaman, the Animal Totem, the Speedster and the Flier.
- Originally, the Blaster secondary was Melee. Blaster Melee sets had exactly the same powers as Scrappers and Tankers, but Taunt was replaced with the current first Secondary power, a single target immobilize. (like Ring of Fire)
- Blasters had access to the different weapon sets for their Secondary, like Broadsword, Battle Axe, and Mace. Those sets were eventually dropped and replaced with Devices. The first attack in all these sets was a Crossbow. (largely useless since the Blaster had plenty of ranged attacks)
- Originally, all melee weapon sets were actually united into two sets, Medieval Weapons, and Oriental Weapons. They were split up into separate sets with it was realized that constantly drawing different weapons was slowing down gameplay. Oriental Weapons was probably never implemented, since Katana was just a copy of Broadsword at release.
- Likewise, the all-in-one "Super Soaker" of Assault Rifle was originally a number of different weapons, each of which had to be drawn separately. (Note the power description for Sniper Rifle still implies it is a different weapon)
- Originally Assault Weapons was called Heavy Ordinance. There was a Light Ordinance set planned which never came to be. (Although it may become Pistols)
- The original names for Fiery Melee, Ice Melee and Dark Melee were Fiery Fray, Icy Onslaught, and Shadow Fighting.
- Claws' power Follow Up was originally named Feint, although it had the same basic effect. Fire and Ice had a "Follow Up". I don't know if it was similar to the current Follow Up or more like Build Up. It could also have increased accuracy like Aim. Feint was always a to hit/damage buff, even when Build Up only boosted damage.
- As mentioned previously, Force Field's Deflection and Insulation Shield were originally three bubbles, Refraction Shield getting the Energy portion of Insulation Shield, and Insulation just getting Elements. Refraction Shield was replaced with Detention Shield. However, I believe it still has the original icon.
- You could originally take Pool Powers in any order. Invisibility, Fly and Super Speed used to be the first power in their sets.
- Aim was originally called Build Up. (And boosted damage) So Blasters had access to Build Up twice. Electric Blasters didn't have Build Up (in their Primary), but had a second AoE attack called Lightning Field, which summoned a massive lightning bolt from the sky.
- There was a Power Pool called Tactics. It was not the same as Leadership. I have no idea what was in it.
Did you know
...that when The Hollows launched the Outcasts were transposed directly from Steel Canyon, they listed at levels 5-7 but were capable of powers approproate to level 15?
The giant monster Babbage is named after Charles Babbage the "Father of Computing"
Did you know...
that in the rikti crash site there was a hole that players with flight would go through for the appropriatly named journey to the moon/sun
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Temporary Invulnerability was once a click buff?
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Add to that that Tanks used to be able to get to 100% damage resists with it. Back Ally Brawler/Maurader appear to use the old power and rule, activating the power and then taking 0 damage per smash/lethal hit.
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AHHH... y'know, that answers a whole lotta questions. I always wondered why it was called temp invulnerability when, as a toggle, it's anything but temp.
And I was also baffled by Marauder's 100% resistance as well.
Did you know...
--At the last spawn of dev-played Heroes on Infiniti during the CoV End-of-Beta event, Statesman was the only hero who actively ran from the villains. Everyone else stood their ground and heroicly took the beat-down over and over. Statesman the coward, my lasting memory from the event. Muahahahahaaaaa.....
--That the contact Prof. Naylor opens up an arc is partially a tribute to the British Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf. Hence Professor "Grant" Naylor and many of the rescues being named after, and talking like, characters from the show. I've only done it once, but Lister, Rimmer ("Rimsey"), and a couple others were all there. And the dialog is all very British (including Naylor).
(One thing confuses me on the Naylor missions...my Bots/FF, Tech Origin, got the "Red Dwarf" missions, but my Claws/Ninjitsu, Magic Origin, didn't get the Red Dwarf missions from Naylor. Not sure why.)
CURRENT MAINS: Akero (V) | Polly Spark (V) | Project MALWARE (V) | Barium Bunny (VIP)
ACTIVE INCARNATES: Polly's Revenge (V) | Stygian Kitten (V) | Archon Abrasax (V) | Alpha Antares (V)
Felines | Wolves | Avians | Bovines | Griffons | Centaurs | Insects | Robots
What, you really think HUMANS are going to save the world? LOL!
Did you know...
That the Nemesis Power used to be made permanent by farming the Staff mission repeatedly? One of the factors leading to this being changed was an All-Nemesis Staff raid on Hamidon taking down the jelly blob in almost record time.