Strange thought - Power customisation for i14
By
bluedarky,
Posted on: 2008-12-22 23:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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It can be done, the reason im thinking the devs said it was hard to do was because they were thinking of actual power fx changes not just colour, which would mean changing the entire animation, in which case i understand.
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Not so I'm afraid; the colours are as integral a part of a power's f/x as its shape, and as major a thing to modify - clicky.
Mods just swap the one and only instance of a power's f/x with another, changing the way every use of that power looks on the modded client. Doing this "properly" would mean allowing for different toons having different modifications, and makes it a far bigger job.
Edit: Fixed typo
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i mean surely it cant be hardcoded indefinately if it works client side.
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What does 'hardcoded indefinately' mean?
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If its coded into it then surely its possible to get an overwriting code that works similar to the mods and basically code it so that everytime it fires, its coded to follow the same rule as your personal view does.
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So, every time this power fires, the game has to go out and find out what colour it should be changing that blast to be. It then has to go through the data file and change the hardcoded value. And then it can fire the effect as normal.
If someone else uses the same power on you, it now has to go off and find out what colour they are using, change your data file, and fire the effect.
What do you think happens when two rad defenders with different colour schemes decide to have a battle?
Meanwhile, the current game has no technology for modifying effect files on the fly. If it did, there would be an extremely high probability that a few weeks of gameplay would be in danger of corrupting the effects file anyway.
And let's not forget game updates, which would need to be changed to ignore effect files, overwriting them at all times to ensure they are correct. Currently, I think, it checksums them.
No, there is a right way to do power customisation, and what you are proposing is not it.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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Yeah, but I believe those mods are only client side. YOU get to see purple Rad blasts, everybody else around you still sees green. Changing the powers in-game is much harder, because they have said that the colour is actually coded into the power.
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If its coded into it then surely its possible to get an overwriting code that works similar to the mods and basically code it so that everytime it fires, its coded to follow the same rule as your personal view does.
This sounds a little complicated here so il break it down, if i use power blast for instance and its set to work on a purple blast, the code could be changed so that the colour you have chosen client side effectively overwrites the original for your charecter server side, i mean surely it cant be hardcoded indefinately if it works client side. Thats already half the battle.
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no no no, knowing is half the battle. not sure what the other part is, but i always assumed it was fighting.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
I think it should be said, I would much rather the devs spent their time adding new content to the game, rather than make cosmetic changes like power customisation. I mean, they are going to want to make this game apealing in the light of its competators, and lets be honest, how much greater hold will power customisation have over cool new zones, missions and powers? As far as i'm concerned (and before any-one points it out I spend as much time in the tailor as anyone) no much.
Oh, and while I'm not convinced they will do another retail box, how about 'City of Conflict' or 'City of War'?
Keep the City of Heroes name - it's the thing that draws people in 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I would think the mission architect on it's own would be a mission impossible. Considering the almost insurmountable work that needs to go into making such a thing as user-friendly as possible, I'd be impressed if they even had the staff to work on power customisation.
Still, we can always cross our fingers for I16 eh?
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
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I would think the mission architect on it's own would be a mission impossible. Considering the almost insurmountable work that needs to go into making such a thing as user-friendly as possible, I'd be impressed if they even had the staff to work on power customisation.
Still, we can always cross our fingers for I16 eh?
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More likely I20
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From what your saying this would require a lot of image files that would increase the size of the game for no needed reason, you would have to have something like red_healingaura and green etc, but if it was to be coded in it would know how to change the colour of the effect without needing any extra image files.
I believe this is why it would take so long to do, it would require a lot of re-doing graphics just to beheld to colourise the power in the Character Editor.
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Yes it would need a hell of a lot of image files, but these could be stored like a .pigg file just specifically for it or whichever files the mod currently uses, then add the option to switch between them on costume creator by just picking a colour, which selects that file, which in turn effectively 'overwrites' the current information stored server side for that charecter.
It would be a long way around it compared to simply changing it server side but i think it should be possible.
Im not going to pretend im very good programming wise, i know the basics but generally this seems the logical thing to me rather than remaking every power in game with a different colour server side because its hardcoded into it.
Also mission architect is likely to increase the size of the files by a fairly large amount i would have thought but thats going ahead anyway.
Definately if they could code it server side it would be a lot better but since they said they cant do that easily i think my idea sounds like a possibility.