Official Thread: Response to Positron's Letter
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2006-09-27 11:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I see one major problem with a Marvel Super Heroes MMO. I don't see how they could ever balance it. If a game like this one has balance problems imagine a game like that. And how on earth do you account for multiple versions of the same marvel character? A team of four Wolverines? There is only one Wolverine? More than one would just feel lame.
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I would be shocked if they let you play as signature characters, really.
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I see one major problem with a Marvel Super Heroes MMO. I don't see how they could ever balance it. If a game like this one has balance problems imagine a game like that. And how on earth do you account for multiple versions of the same marvel character? A team of four Wolverines? There is only one Wolverine? More than one would just feel lame.
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I would be shocked if they let you play as signature characters, really.
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Agreed, I'm pretty much assuming all the major marvel characters will either be contacts or "Pets" that come along on missions.
COH/CoV - Virtue
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The Canadian Fist - Lev 50 Ice/EM Blaster
Omega Ghost - Lev 50 Robo/Dark MM
Ghostfall - Lev 50 Arachnos Crab Soldier
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I think the 5th will definitely return, but I kind of doubt that is the "common foe" to which Positron was referring.
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They said FAMILIAR enemy. Not common. Also how many other groups do you know have need of a new 'power base' than the currently leaderless 5th Column?
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The only thing that makes sense is the addition of Safeguard and Police band missions, but that hardly 'levels a playing field'.
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It does for those of us who give exactly 0 care for PvP, and are incredibly dissatisfied with the fact that it has been 13 months since a non-PvP update to City of Heroes.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
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I see one major problem with a Marvel Super Heroes MMO. I don't see how they could ever balance it. If a game like this one has balance problems imagine a game like that. And how on earth do you account for multiple versions of the same marvel character? A team of four Wolverines? There is only one Wolverine? More than one would just feel lame.
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I would be shocked if they let you play as signature characters, really.
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Agreed, I'm pretty much assuming all the major marvel characters will either be contacts or "Pets" that come along on missions.
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Matrix Online used to delete people who made copycat Morpheus and Neo characters. Starwars galaxies didn't like you making copies of their famous characters either. The fact is that if you can't control how your trademarks and copyrighted characters are used and percieved by others then you are infact in violation of the copyright and/or trademark laws since you're not working to protect the IP.
By allowing some 8yr old to make a character who is exactly like Spiderman and then go jumping around and cursing on broadcast while griefing people then it portrays a bad image of the person they look like. Thus you'll NEVER be allowed to make a character who is a copy or too similar to copyrighted/trademarked figures.
If the devs want some advice is this. People WANT to be Spiderman, Hulk or whatever. If they don't allow folks to do that then people will be disapointed. So here's a suggestion. Let people take control of these characters inside of instanced missions, let the AI take control of their character OR have them trying to save/rescue their character.
Imagine this. Your character is sent on a mission by Thor to stop a plot of Doctor Doom's to take over the world. You fight through the mission all fine and then in the final room you're face to face with Doc Doom while solo. He totally kicks you're characters butt. The scene switches and now you (the player) is taking control of Thor who is aware of your character being captured and is now going to have to save them from Doc Doom. This means you're not only inside an instanced mission so you're not going to grief someone else, you're in a contained environment and its very very cool because for a brief time you ARE Thor.
If this was a team mission something similar would happen except that you'd have a set of signiture heroes assigned to help Thor. So lets say the mission (when done by a team) allows all of the team to get captured and each member is taken to a selection screen showing what signiture heroes they can control for the 'rescue' part. They each select one person each and off they go with each player controlling a different signiture hero.
Sounds like it would work huh?
Balance... there is no such thing as Balance in the Marvel Uni... cuz you can't compare Spider-Man to the Hulk in any way... so in a game of that nature there can be no balance. Lets just hope...We as don't lose any of our City Of Developers...
"My life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely pretty and well preserved, but rather I will skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming...WOW...What a Ride"
1) An approximate or target date for I8 would have been nice
2) If the "big deal" for I8 is wings & costume pieces... thats sad
3) No mention of Kheldian sashes 
4) Need more info on I8
I'm not terribly worried about the Marvel deal. The fact that it's going to be made for a gaming console suggests it'll be a faster, shallower game than COH, optimized for a gamepad with what? Eight buttons? I'm pretty sure it'll cater to a different audience than COH either way.
Meanwhile, Cryptic has a big project to work on and train new people on and learn new stuff on etc. One that'll bring in a lump sum of money. One that associates it with 'big names' in the entertainment sector (though I'm not sure being associated with MS is a good thing). These are things that can be used as bargaining chips and credentials in future deals. Once that is done they'll likely go into a follow-up to COH and bring all that experience from the Marvel MMO into the field with them, but this time they have their own properties they can work with.
For Cryptic, I only see good news in this. For the hardcore COH fans, it won't be an issue. The only people who might mind are NCSoft.
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
I like this game.
From its onset, COV was the starting point. I at first didn't care much for the comic book, "Hero" thing, until my fix of COV was well into its year or so. With that being said, I do have my issues with the game, and have on numerous threds posted them. I've made recommendations, and as well they have been acted upon, so in my view, the Cryptic thing has nothing to do with me.
Ok, now witht hat out on the table, Positron, you've been more then happy enough to post the letter, but there are a few things under my skin that have been chaffing on the issue.
1. Genericing and its supposed reasoning, and the standards in which your compnay goes about it. ( as in you have none, and have given carte blanch to the process.)
2. With the hub bub over the Marvel lawsuit, etc. why would you go to bed with these flakes? Marvel has the preverbial touch of crap. Everything they get into is played out within a year, then they drop it like used socks. What guarentees do you give us that we won't even be playing a " Marvel" game in a year or two? Look at the games they have out thus far, do you honestly think that they are going to come out with some quality that is even going to be worth anyone's time? I tyell you, it had better be the king of corn to be something to get me to stop playing this game, COH, COV. And to that as well, what are you going to do if some of the games start to taper off, just think you can go make a new one and continue with something else? I think if you do, your going to end up infringing on your fan base, and start TELLING them " What they want". There is a point in time where this company has over saturated its market, and is now past the dumbed down version stage.
As a result, your going to end up peeing on your shoes, and either A. End up having to make decisions in detrement to your games, B. Start playing favoritism to your games, or C. Your really going to put on the show and knock our socks off.
I would really like your Marvel effort to be a continuation of COH/COV, whereas it would be able to caviot our already existing heros and villians into major American cities to wreck havock, and kick the crap out of the likes of HULK or SPIDERMAN, but only time will tell, and anything on the subject will be moot to discuss at this point.
Please be careful, dealing with Marvel. They have the best track record of turning other companies they deal with to garbage, and ending up trying to stay in court to recoupe thier losses to pay for thier companies product. As well as jacking up exhorbant prices on thier merchandise, Marvel has shown time and time again that they are in it for the doller, and nothing more. I will stand by and hope that I can deal with Marvels chump heros in my own special way, but I won't be the first one in line for thier dumbed down version of the X man version of PvP.
Good luck with your other endevors. And I wll be playing COH/COV. I'll still be here until you pull the plug on the game 
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hmm...
No real mention of new zones....
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They previously mentioned redoing Faultline. IMO, I think there are enough zones right now, but that's just me.
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I just want my moon zone.
[color=gold][b][size=5]♪ Sometimes you feel like a Tank, Sometimes you don't! ♪[/size][/color][/b]
[url=http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114726][color=black][b][size=5]Moon [color=red]Hazard [color=black]Zone![/size][/color][/color][/color][/b][/url]
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Balance... there is no such thing as Balance in the Marvel Uni...
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Sure there is balance. It's just all based on whose title you're in. Remember that time Punisher beat Doctor Doom?
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Are you taking resources away from CoH/CoV?
Cryptic has a team of programmers, artists, designers, and producers dedicated solely to creating and maintaining both products. The studio will continue to update both titles with new content, including a multi-year storyline, a new gameplay system that allows characters to craft Enhancements and Costume pieces, brand new missions, and much, much more.
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"...dedicated solely to creating and maintaining both products"
In other words, "Yes, we are".
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I think the 5th will definitely return, but I kind of doubt that is the "common foe" to which Positron was referring.
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They said FAMILIAR enemy. Not common. Also how many other groups do you know have need of a new 'power base' than the currently leaderless 5th Column?
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*sigh* Actually he did say it, but technically it was common "threat" rather then common "foe." But in any case, "common foe" doesn't mean commonplace foe...it means "foe in common," as in two groups having something in common, which in this case would be having an "enemy in common."
The exact quote was, "Heroes and Villains will find themselves banding together against a common threat." And I was also going by one of his recent interviews where he actually did say "common foe," which is basically the same thing as his "common threat" quote in the letter.
Frankly, I couldn't care less which villain group it is going to be. I was just speculating and giving the logic behind my guesses...just like everyone else.
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THought information is scarce about the system. All we know is it has long been put off because it couldnt be done correctly. My only fear now is that since they have been slow to get a "personal lair" idea up and running for our heroes and villians an invention system that is basicly a crafting system is likely to still require use of a SG base. First off requiring you to have COV in order to use it, since as was mentioned before all base stuff is a COV feature that requires both boxes in order to have it in COH, and what about people that dont join SGs?
My only hope would be two things, either finally getting the ability to make the "Qui-Cave" just for my own use, not rquiring hours upon hours of prestige farming to make it useful, or that some kinda of "Public" crafting tables come to pass so that using this ability doesnt require either joining a group you dont care to be in or spending to much time worrying about earning enough prestige to build that table for your SG.
Though they say not to worry i cant help but worry that all of our feature for the next few issues are going to be basicly testing how things will run best in the Marvel MMO. Seems like a huge conflict of intrest for one developer to have 2 competing MMOs in the market place, both dealing with similar content.
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Qui - the universities. While inventions will be crafting, the workshops will be in the universities. Heroside, at least. And there is at least one Uni villianside too.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Besides, by the time MUO comes out, I'll be more than ready for the switch, as I'm sure most of us will be.
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There's one. How many to follow?
Oooo look, the marvel MMO lets me do X, CoH/V doesn't. Oooo, the marvel one has better performance cuz it's written under the heavy guidance of MS and thus will be coded in D3D... heading out. Oooo, the marvel one let's me be a wolvie clone without getting the smackdown by the mods. 50K players exodus.
Sorry folks, not seeing an upside here.
Unless Cryptic intentionally makes the combat system completely different and uses the extra advertisement to gain more players.
Whatever. We'll see. For now, I'll maintain my pessimism.
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Oh my God. Akin to snow in Hell, I'd suggest running for the hills and repenting your sins. For the first time in my life I must admit... I agree with BillZBubba.
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Oooo, the marvel one let's me be a wolvie clone without getting the smackdown by the mods. 50K players exodus.
Sorry folks, not seeing an upside here.
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50K wolvie clones leaving the game, and you dont see an upside?!?
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Hahaha!
Who remembers Matt Miller's interview when he stated that the PPP will be more powerful than the EPP (APP) because we were going to be locked into them? What he meant to say is that he excluded PvP in that statement because we've all been let down in that regard. There will never be an equal playing field between the two games in PvP. All the people who enjoy PvP will just eventually leave. Then all the people who would like to see it go away will have their day.
Gratz on advertising PvP when CoV was being marketed and dropping the ball.
CoX will always be a fun game to log in for abit and mess around for a short time. But I would rather play some Tabula Rasa for that because of the faster paced action they are advertising.
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Im glad to hear that you are going to be keeping a team heavily involved with CoX.
I think a re-introduction of everyone on the team and what they do would be much appreciated.
Biohazard
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Signed, Bio. I'd like to know our CoX peeps too.
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
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Im glad to hear that you are going to be keeping a team heavily involved with CoX.
I think a re-introduction of everyone on the team and what they do would be much appreciated.
Biohazard
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Signed, Bio. I'd like to know our CoX peeps too.
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Signed
I am kind of disappointed that there isn't more emphasis on getting villain areas up to Heros levels. I mean there must be twice as many zones and areas for heros as there are for villains. Villains have fewer contact missions, no Shards, no Hollows, no Stringa and no Hazard zones at all.
So what is I8 about? Getting heros equal to villains. Heros have tons of missions and zones to explore compared to villains. So lets take the only thing villains had that heros didn't away from them, newpaper missions and mayhem missions.
That wouldn't bother me as much if they at least threw the villains a bone. But it doesn't sound like they really plan on balancing villains much, instead all they talk about is adding more to heros or to both. i.e. the Stateman taskforce and inventions.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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Heros have tons of missions and zones to explore compared to villains.
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Do you actually play CoH? Because if you did, I can't see how you'd believe hazard zones are anything special.
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So lets take the only thing villains had that heros didn't away from them, newpaper missions and mayhem missions.
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No, villains get to keep those. They aren't being taken away and given to the heroes. The heroes just get them too. Villains lose nothing.
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Are you taking resources away from CoH/CoV?
Cryptic has a team of programmers, artists, designers, and producers dedicated solely to creating and maintaining both products. The studio will continue to update both titles with new content, including a multi-year storyline, a new gameplay system that allows characters to craft Enhancements and Costume pieces, brand new missions, and much, much more.
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"...dedicated solely to creating and maintaining both products"
In other words, "Yes, we are".
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DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!
Nope, they're not hiring any new people. Nothing to see here.
I literally L'MAO. Thanks for the humor
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1) An approximate or target date for I8 would have been nice
2) If the "big deal" for I8 is wings & costume pieces... thats sad
3) No mention of Kheldian sashes
4) Need more info on I8
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1. The Euro CoH site lists November 2006, as does Cryptic's own website. Why the North American CoH website doesn't, I cannot say.
2. There's the revamped Faultline, police band missions and safeguard missions among the announced features, so it's not just wings and costume pieces.
3. True dat.
4. I concur! The I8 game update was nearly a month ago. Apart from Veteran Rewards, we've had nothing official released since.
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I am kind of disappointed that there isn't more emphasis on getting villain areas up to Heros levels. I mean there must be twice as many zones and areas for heros as there are for villains. Villains have fewer contact missions, no Shards, no Hollows, no Stringa and no Hazard zones at all.
So what is I8 about? Getting heros equal to villains. Heros have tons of missions and zones to explore compared to villains. So lets take the only thing villains had that heros didn't away from them, newpaper missions and mayhem missions.
That wouldn't bother me as much if they at least threw the villains a bone. But it doesn't sound like they really plan on balancing villains much, instead all they talk about is adding more to heros or to both. i.e. the Stateman taskforce and inventions.
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Many (if not most) of the CoH Hazard zones are continually empty and unwanted. They were a very bad idea about forced teaming, except that even teams don't want to do street hunting in the middle of the Abandoned Sewer Network.
I'm really hoping most hazard zones just go away.
Still here, even after all this time!
I see one major problem with a Marvel Super Heroes MMO. I don't see how they could ever balance it. If a game like this one has balance problems imagine a game like that. And how on earth do you account for multiple versions of the same marvel character? A team of four Wolverines? There is only one Wolverine? More than one would just feel lame.