World of heroes=CoX 2?

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What troubles me is the job posting that Paragon Studios has that is looking for a producer "for our next MMO". I don't want to see a Cryptic-style brain drain where 3/4 of the resources are shifted to a new MMO title with just a skeleton crew left on this one. We've been there, done that.

Finally, people seem to have odd ideas about how much time and effort it takes to create a new MMO. It's pretty normal to take 3 years to bring something to market.

[/ QUOTE ]It's possible that their 'next MMO' could be non-super hero themed (i.e. different market), but be designed in a way to share the engine with CoX... meaning they'd be able to pool a lot of their resources, sharing improvements and bug fixes.

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I'd love it if the Developers reworked the engine from scratch. Made it their own but fully compatible with the characters we've already got, and the one day just -slipped- it in.

Massive update, however, with likely several days of downloading when you log off City before the new engine launches. But when it does WOOOOOOOOOO!

Such is my dream. *sighs*
-Rachel-

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If they dropped in a new engine, it'd probably go best with a boxed expansion to make it slightly less painful.

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The least painful way would be just revamp a piece at a time (engines aren't monolithic!), pushing them out as they finish. And for the billionth time, they've been doing that

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The least painful way would be just revamp a piece at a time (engines aren't monolithic!), pushing them out as they finish. And for the billionth time, they've been doing that

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Aye. Well, it's obvious to someone like me, anyway... this isn't the same engine I remember at launch/early days/etc. I went back through my old videos/gameplay notes/etc. before deciding to go full bore again seven-eight weeks ago. Oro missions even allowed me to compare the *same* mission between my old video and the current flavor.
(pre-doll deaths and everythin')

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Explorer: 93%. Achiever: 40%. Socializer: 40%. Killer 33%.
Current Heroes and Villains (altitis holding at 50 currents)
To all the devs, past, present, (and may there be) future: /salute
To NCSoft: Understand that you reap what you plant, and you cannot gain what you throw away.

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Upgrading CoX? Yeah, I'm all for that.

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That's what SHE said.

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Giggity Giggity....Giggity Goo...


We'll be right back...

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The point being that it's better to develop that new engine and incorporate it into the existing game than it is to launch a "sequel".

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I'm not sure that's how it works. Even assuming you can "incorporate" a new engine into an existing game, that won't make it look any better.

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That depends upon the developers and their implementation. To draw on a real-life example: When Everquest introduced the Shadows of Luclin expansion, they also provided a new graphics engine for the game. Most players purchased the expansion and so acquired the new engine in that fashion. Players who didn't purchase it had it patched down to them.

As you say, this would not have changed the appearance of the world all by itself. As part of the upgrade, SOE created a whole set of new models that took advantage of the enhanced graphical capability of the new engine. For the sake of the players running on low-end machines, they also included a toggle-switch that allowed a player to continue to use the old models if the new ones proved too lag-inducing because their graphics card couldn't handle it. (We're talking DirectX v3 or v4 timeframe, IIRC, just for reference.)

These days, our machines are capable enough that we wouldn't need to worry overly much about providing such a toggle in the case of an engine upgrade.

As for making the world look better, I'm not convinced that a graphics engine upgrade would be inspired by a need to "look better". It looks fine now. I'm not sure how it COULD look better short of looking more "realistic". The improvements would be in the areas we've already seen - particle effects, water/shadow rendering, Physx, that kind of thing.

Oh, and character customization.

I may be a bit of a Luddite, but I've never found that the putty-faced "realistic" features in many of the newer games to be all that desirable. I actually LIKE the artistic sensibilities of games like CoX and WoW and Free Realms. A new game engine will happen, IMO, because of what it offers "under the hood" rather than because it's got a lot shiny new chrome attached. That sort of upgrade can happen at any time.

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A new game engine will happen, IMO, because of what it offers "under the hood" rather than because it's got a lot shiny new chrome attached. That sort of upgrade can happen at any time.

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Physics. The next true quantum leap in this genre will be a massive application of gameworld physics. When a superhero MMO allows for proper physics mini games with a range of goals and objectives, similar to the plethora of 2d flash physics games from the past couple years, then we'll be looking at something worth a new engine and a new title.

When ice powers can actually freeze some elements, fire powers burn, magnetic powers attract and repel materials tagged as metal, gravity lift and crush objects--and not for vanity sake--but in a meaningful way that differentiates each power type, even if just in instances, then we are talking something new.

A good look at the source material reveals story after story of superheroes utilizing parts of the environment to prevent disaster. Forget the rather simpleminded approach of "weaponizable environments." In good comics, not all battles are fought with fists and lamposts-[censored]-baseball-bats. The villains more often than not seek to wreak chaos on the world causing things to spill and tumble while the heroes intervene in a race against the time it takes an object (or person!) to fall and try to create the best possible outcome sparing lives and if possible even injury.

How you scale that to an MMO on today's or tomorrow's mid level machines is the question. But IMO it is THE direction for the genre to head in. CoX nailed character customization. But what I describe above is what would nail the rest of the comic book experience.

Get the physics working: be able to catch, grapple, grab, freeze, thaw, melt, burn, explode, topple, prop up, buttress, glue, bend, and grow multiple dynamic objects and characters in an environment. Get a few dozen folks kicking around together in such a sandbox like environment. Tell them to play with eachother, try and invent little games--like kids on a playground with a kickball or two--and see what emerges. Then from there, you can shrink wrap a few restrictions and formal rewards around the system. But yeah, I agree, it is new gameplay and what is under the hood that warrants new engines.

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Given what's been confirmed for I16 as well as mention of a major graphics upgrade in Going Rogue, I'm not sure CoX2 is going to be needed any time soon.

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"Scrappers don't want the bit of dignity that Brutes left them taken away by (lol)Stalkers." -Delta_Strider, on Stalker buffs.

Current Project: Hard Goodbye, StJ/Nin
Retired: Blitzwulf, Claws/Nin (50); Perdition's Blade, Night Widow (50)

So this is an assumption on the fact that NCSoft might own the name "World of Heroes?". Well, Activision owns the names Band Hero, Drum Hero, and DJ Hero. Only one of which is getting used. The other two are more or less to keep people from making similar games that would try to use their name recognition.

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I didn't read the whole thread, but I agree that Stamina should be inherent in World Of Heroes (aka CoX2).

--NT

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They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!

If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville

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Given what's been confirmed for I16 as well as mention of a major graphics upgrade in Going Rogue, I'm not sure CoX2 is going to be needed any time soon.

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I'd tend to agree with you to a point. If we assume(gonna be a lot of that in this post)that Rogue launches this time next year, and also that it's an upgrade comparable to the CoV upgrade, I think they can reasonably expect a four to five year life extension for CoX. Which would mean they would need to begin work on CoX 2 right after the Rogue launch given traditional development cycles.

Of course we know nothing about the guts of Rogue. It could include a complete engine rebuild slanting toward a continuing modular upgrade path that would extend the life of the game for the next five to eight years with additional, non-expansion based upgrades dropping once a year or so. This would give us a 'new' game while not splitting the player base.

Obviously this would require a massive patch for those that don't buy the expansion, and it would probably require what amounts to a re-install of the game as nearly everything is replaced. But if it were me, this is definitely the way I would go.

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"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln

The other way the game engine could be expanded is to rewrite the code for Critters, so they use the same wireframes (and costume pieces, and animations) as Players. Add to that some nice scripting, that allows those Critters to interact, and you open up more cutscene possibilities: bring Dr. Smith to the lab, and he is confronted by Dr. Evil Guy, who shoots him. That kind of thing.

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Here's what I think a sequel should do:

* Import characters and zones from CoH
* Greater variety of zones, not just graphically, but in purpose (for example, more zones where the player can influence what happens in the zone, some combinded PVP/PVE zones)
* World of Heroes is a good idea, to get beyond Rhode Island
* Non-combat uses for powers
* Support both an open power system and archetypes (perhaps there could be an AT that is simply the open power system AT)
* Interactive scenery
* More interesting AI
* Completely get away from the villains=Arachnos nonsense, and minimize the role of Statesman and Recluse in new content. NPCs that are dramatically stronger than a player can be should be monsters and non-humanoids like Rularuu, not unbalanced versions of player-style toons like Statesman

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A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!

Important in a sequel should it ever come out:
*infinite alt slots. :-S (I'll take 255. Per server. Erm. at least fifteen servers, if the 255 slots is the option we get.)

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Explorer: 93%. Achiever: 40%. Socializer: 40%. Killer 33%.
Current Heroes and Villains (altitis holding at 50 currents)
To all the devs, past, present, (and may there be) future: /salute
To NCSoft: Understand that you reap what you plant, and you cannot gain what you throw away.