COH2 predicted by Massively
By
Alvan,
Posted on: 2008-12-27 20:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
That's not to diss AMD or intel in anyway, but Intel have done just that same thing, released a new CPU line that needs a new board and memory. Technology moves on, it happens. new CPU slot types will continue as well because Intel and AMD are in cahoots with the motherboard manufacturers! Who's buy a new board if every new CPU was compatible?
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
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Doubt it's a sequal not with the Mac version still in Beta.
It'd be pointless to be developing both.
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Can't comment on any of the speculation, however you should recall that the Mac project has actually been in partnership with Transgaming and the impact on NCNC's ongoing work, of any sort, is minimal.
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I don't know what this post originally said, or if it differed in anyway but, from this I couldn't assume COH2 is on the cards. I loved Transgamings video.
I'd rather keep the characters and simply play on a newer engine.
I think when it comes to impact of any sort, I have to say that in terms of one sort.
I didn't PvP for certain reasons, changes have come, but it takes time with everything else going on to get into them. Somethings take time. If your into everything with only so much time then its likely that you can't do everything immediately. Most people have several alts on the go, as one character is never enough, I don't endorse living in game or needing to, so achieving A to get to B takes forever and so, no, not a lot of impact happens overnight.
I remember a time when you could log in and find people spread across many levels. A time when 70% of the playerbase weren't on a level 50 and 50% of them weren't on a controller farming away for objectives that would otherwise take forever.
Getting merits for completing arcs of your own missions only and not getting merits for other peoples missions too isn't helping. Different ATs could offer different reward bonuses to encourage diversity. 2 controllers shouldn't mean twice the number of rare salvage drops tho.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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... Of course, there's always the deep, dark fear I've nurtured ever since the mission architect was announced. With the ability to create your own content, and with possible attractive PvP features and minigames coming, it's possible that NCNC wish to make CoH a self-sustaining MMO, with the users providing all the new content. They can then focus on CoX 2. Of course, such thoughts really do fill me with dread.
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Not afraid of that. Lineage I still got updates and events despite li2 being its sequel.
I have to say, I think Massively is absolutely correct. A lot of things NCSoft have done make no sense unless CoX2 is in the works.
As for continuing support for CoX, remember there is a big difference between anouncing a sequal and launching it. Given that NorCal where still in the process of staffing up in late 2008, and a sequal that incorporates new tech would typically take at least two years to develop, it's unlikely that CoX2 would be out any time before late 2010.
There is also this "Coming Storm" affair, and the hint of major story developments in issue 15 and 16. This could be something of a retcon of the CoX universe to set up for a sequal.
I really should do something about this signature.
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... Of course, there's always the deep, dark fear I've nurtured ever since the mission architect was announced. With the ability to create your own content, and with possible attractive PvP features and minigames coming, it's possible that NCNC wish to make CoH a self-sustaining MMO, with the users providing all the new content. They can then focus on CoX 2. Of course, such thoughts really do fill me with dread.
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Not afraid of that. Lineage I still got updates and events despite li2 being its sequel.
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Yeah, I know. It's an irrational fear, but still a fear.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
I don't think we'll have COH2. I DO think that we'll get a paid-for expansion with a serious graphics engine upgrade. There's a series of interesting comments from Positron on New Years resolutions for COH (Source: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/...s-resolutions/ )
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Matt Miller, senior lead designer:
- To prove to the MMO world that we are the #1 superhero MMO, not because we are the ONLY one, but because we are the BEST one.
- To allow our players to customize their character in ways that have not been possible before.
- To allow our players to make their own missions and story arcs, and have the world play and rate them (Mission Architect).
- To continue upon the improvements weve made to the game as a whole in 2008, adding more cool stuff for our players to do.
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Of particular note is the "To allow our players to customize their character in ways that have not been possible before."
That to me has "Power customisation" written all over it. It's one of CO's selling points, and to be able to turn around and say "Yeah, so what! We can do that too, plus we have 5 years of content for players; not to mention players can build their own content too now! Nyah, Nyah!"
Power customisation, from past thread discussions, requires quite a serious change to the engine and Posi's always said it was too much hassle. Even the Valkyrie costume set is beginning to show what the current engine is actually capable of, the wings are gorgeous!
So, here's a noddy prediction... No COH2 in 09, I15 huge graphics update to compete with CO and DCUO (Although looking at the DCUO screenies, DCUO suffers from the same problem as Paragon, namely empty city and deserted streets) Power customisation, the final part of power proliferation, higher detail models with lots of new poses, and finally there'll be a big world event for the 5th anniversary. Although, please, can we just beat the snot out of the Rikti before the Shivans arrive? One invasion at a time? Or is it going to be a balls to the wall Rikti,Shivan,Zombie invasion fest? 
Union: @Ban-Sidhe
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Well, he's on the money about something brewing, but a completely separate and different MMO ain't it. The main thing about CoH that keeps it running is the high amount of subscriber retention. People play CoH a lot longer than any other MMO before moving on, and the subscriber base has floated between 100,000 and 150,000 since launch.
If NCNC offered up a brand new MMO and told you that was the future, then they would be forcing people to give up their existing CoH characters. If you do that, you may as well look at every MMO coming out equally, and if CO or DCO happens to be better, you go there. On the other hand, if this big update accommodates CoH veterans, either by revamping what's already there or transferring characters to the new game somehow, NC get to leverage the biggest strength of CoH - the community. Keep that intact and you start off with a really large boot in the door. Force the community to start over and you make the competition look like a valid choice.
A similar situation occurred in the world of PC hardware, almost three years ago now. AMD was in a position of dominance, and in its hubris, released a new socket that needed a new CPU and RAM, making all old systems obsolete. At the same time, Intel pushed out the AwesomeMcPants Core 2 Duo, which everyone still wants to own to this day. If AMD supported their old platform a bit more, they could have held on to more users, but instead they presented them with the need to completely switch platforms. And if you were going to switch, you wanted the best value, which was the Core 2. This... ritual suicide committed by AMD is a bleeding wound that they still haven't recovered from.
The lesson to learn is this: if a competitor comes swinging at you, don't alienate your fans. While that may be a REALLY horrible way to put the moral, you see my point. The community is the strongest thing about the game, I'd say more than any other MMO even, and NC need to keep it.
... Of course, there's always the deep, dark fear I've nurtured ever since the mission architect was announced. With the ability to create your own content, and with possible attractive PvP features and minigames coming, it's possible that NCNC wish to make CoH a self-sustaining MMO, with the users providing all the new content. They can then focus on CoX 2. Of course, such thoughts really do fill me with dread.
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I think thats the most reasoned, up together post of the year so far.
Totally agree there Londoner, plus Necro's earlier post regarding his views on a "unified" version of paragon and his musings regarding developers time spent over the last 6+ months, I have to say im leaning towards his way of thinking.
Regarding the mission architect I see Necro's fears but also on the opposite scale, I have worried that it may be a lot more basic than people (such as myself) are hoping for.
Although this I would doubt due to the time they are/have been spending on it since they pushed it back from its pegged i13 slot.
Seems there is a lot of speculation over the various tight lipped snippets of info that are being spoken by Posi/GR etc, but in any industry if you are working on something big and you know how it is going to affect your customer base, no matter how professional you may be, it is hard to not want to scream what you are up to from the rooftops. This is what I see is going on here..yes there is something good in the pipelines, yes in my opinion I believe it will usher in a breath of life for the game....what that is I have no real basis other than a collection of educated guesses....for now it seems that I like a lot of other folks out there am going to have to sit on my hands to stop me from biting my fingers off...time will tell I guess. 
Art of War Co-Leader - Union *Global@Warscythe*
"The box said Windows Vista or better - so I installed Linux"
I wonder if Transgaming can port a game from an old engine to a new one.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Has anyone considered the possibility they moved the mission architect to i14 because of lack of developed content to actually put into i14. This would suggest that they are working on something else in-line with CoX, CoX2 for example
Just a thought.
The above is only my opinion, please don't hate me for it
SG: Suicidal Maniacs @Aurealis
GhostRaptor: Server populations have been trending upwards since Issue 13 release. There are no current plans for any server mergers and we're looking forward to Issue 14 and the rest of the year.
They didn't move the MA to issue 14. They moved what they where working on for issue 14 to issue 15, and created a new issue 14.
Oh, and we know for a fact that NorCal are working on something else besides CoX. There have been jobs advertised for an "unanounced title" for one thing.
There are only two options: 1) CoX2; 2) A completely original MMO. Given NCSoft's record on realsing original IP MMOs, they would really be pretty stupid to try and push out yet another title that didn't have an established IP. What IP do we know NCSoft have reciently payed a lot of money for?
As for shoehorning a graphics upgrade into the current engine (which was amaturishly designed in the first instance and is now held together with spitballs and chewing gum), it would actully be easier to take a functioning game engine with decient graphics and shoehorn the CoX gameplay into that.
I really should do something about this signature.
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A similar situation occurred in the world of PC hardware, almost three years ago now. AMD was in a position of dominance, and in its hubris, released a new socket that needed a new CPU and RAM, making all old systems obsolete. At the same time, Intel pushed out the AwesomeMcPants Core 2 Duo, which everyone still wants to own to this day. If AMD supported their old platform a bit more, they could have held on to more users, but instead they presented them with the need to completely switch platforms. And if you were going to switch, you wanted the best value, which was the Core 2. This... ritual suicide committed by AMD is a bleeding wound that they still haven't recovered from.
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If NC gonna play like AMD brought the Phenom II, its gonna be a good one Its fast, cheap and most of all, backwards compatible (AM2+). In CoH terms, more better and without loosing your character 
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
strewth. So much praise on little ol' me.
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That's not to diss AMD or intel in anyway, but Intel have done just that same thing, released a new CPU line that needs a new board and memory. Technology moves on, it happens. new CPU slot types will continue as well because Intel and AMD are in cahoots with the motherboard manufacturers! Who's buy a new board if every new CPU was compatible?
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The difference is that Intel's hubris is well warranted. They have no competitor in that price range, and by the time there is, this new platform itself will be cemented in, with backwards compatibility as a feature.
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Matt Miller, senior lead designer:
- To prove to the MMO world that we are the #1 superhero MMO, not because we are the ONLY one, but because we are the BEST one.
- To allow our players to customize their character in ways that have not been possible before.
- To allow our players to make their own missions and story arcs, and have the world play and rate them (Mission Architect).
- To continue upon the improvements weve made to the game as a whole in 2008, adding more cool stuff for our players to do.
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Mmm. Tasty, juicy morsels to feast on. Nom nom nom. Power customisation is indeed the likely candidate. Either way, more options are incoming that we don't have already, which is good.
One thing I've been tossing around in my head is the possibility of completely new faces. NCNC could take all of the old faces, and create higher-resolution versions of them, to fit around a higher-poly face mesh. Think of this as the gap between old boots and Valkyrie boots. It's entirely possible that a graphics revamp may include this, as the faces are the one part of CoH characters that still look very 2004. This is very similar to what the devs did for Issue 7. Look at the second picture; it's barely the same wall. Or better yet, compare Valkyrie head detail wings with the existing head wings.
I say that existing faces should be used as a base because people can be... rather attached to their existing options.
And while you're at it, you could add an extension to the CoH skeleton consisting of facial bones (or you could use blend shapes) and get the faces animated. That's wild speculation, mind you, but not entirely impossible. Call it a wish.
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I think thats the most reasoned, up together post of the year so far.
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...aw, shucks. 
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Random thought here, but have you taken the time to look at the background of the new main site? Thinking of the bit under the main logo you have a view of the paragon skyline complete with building rooftops etc.
What with there being rumours of either an engine upgrade graphically or a sequel being announced, could this be a normal rendered picture to make the game look good, or could this be the dev's showing us subtly what the new graphics/game environment could look like?
Just a thought...
This was discussed briefly on the thread announcing the site relaunch and I think we came to the general consensus that it was probably just concept art.
I've had a close look at the building edges etc and it does look remarkably like a pc game screenshot because the edges aren't rounded... they're jutted like they are in the actual game.
So instead of it being a round circle its more like a hexagon...
if you also include the fact that NCSoft licenced the latest Unreal Engine for three titles I think it was. I'd guess Guild Wars 2, Lineage 3 and, erm, ahh, er, take a wild stab in the dark?
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
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Random thought here, but have you taken the time to look at the background of the new main site? Thinking of the bit under the main logo you have a view of the paragon skyline complete with building rooftops etc.
What with there being rumours of either an engine upgrade graphically or a sequel being announced, could this be a normal rendered picture to make the game look good, or could this be the dev's showing us subtly what the new graphics/game environment could look like?
Just a thought...
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Yep. It was the very first thing I noticed about the new website, and I've mentioned it a few times. Here is the full sized version.
I feel a rant coming on. Incoming wall of text. ...Again. Stop me if I'm embarrassing myself.
Let's assume that this is an ingame shot of CoX 2. I don't personally think it's likely, but it's awesome enough for me to hope for. If it's real, they have added a great deal of graphical upgrades.
Firstly, as pointed out in my (admittedly angrily written) wall of text shadow/fog rant, they have lifted the fog from CoH. You can clearly see buildings from a distance. I know that the horizon has been photoshopped in, but even the rest of it shows a much longer field of view. That makes it all the more breathtaking. Realistically they will have used another method to keep the framerates high, but as discussed in that big thread, the fog doesn't do that anyway.
Secondly, the shadows. Being as we have a night and day cycle, the shadows have to be dynamic. That would be Awesome with a capital A to behold, but is a complete mother to do. The new WoW expansion adds them in and I understand that the performance hit wasn't as large as expected, so it may not be inconceivable for them to add it to CoH. This gets rid of many bugbears I've had with the engine. I never liked how the faux-shadows we have right now worked.
A small point is that they seem to have used a form of ambient occlusion. For a good example of what AO looks like, go here. Notice the shadows in all the nooks and crannies, on corners, and in secluded areas. There are two ways this can be implemented in a game: pre-baked AO and screen space AO. Pre-baked AO puts the massive computers NCNC has to some hard work, calculating ambient occlusion and 'baking' it to a texture. All our PCs need to do is call up the texture; very little work is involved. This is a RAM issue more than anything. Screen space AO is used in Crysis, and as you'd expect for something out of that... thing, is quite an intensive process. It has the advantage of putting AO on the entire screen, even characters, but it isn't always correct and simply hammers the GPU. Personally, I feel it's pre-baked AO that they're using. With the average amount of RAM in computers going up, it may make sense to employ it. Characters won't get the benefit of it, but really, they're already lightyears ahead of the city they're in.
Hmm. A small point, but a big paragraph.
One other change I can see is the colour of everything. I don't know what's done, but everything looks richer. Shadows are deeper, shadowed walls darker, lit walls brighter and more colourful. It's a nice finishing touch.
What makes me think it could be an in-game shot is the aliasing in the photo. We all know antialiasing, I assume. If this was a production-quality render, as seen in the CG CoX trailers, then relatively high amounts of supersampling would be used. You just can't do that in a game, but for a movie, it's standard practice. But the photo is distinctly... aliased. It looks like the in-game 4xAA is being used. Look especially at the large building to the lower left, you can clearly see some 'jaggies' there. That isn't right. That looks like a game. Compare it to the CG renders of His Statesness and Recluse in the same image, who are simply immaculate.
Of course, maybe the images were thrown together quickly and supersampling was never applied. Who knows? But it does make you wonder.
I say again that I don't think it's likely that it's in-game. But it could be.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
The hithero 'undisclosed one'
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if you also include the fact that NCSoft licenced the latest Unreal Engine for three titles I think it was. I'd guess Guild Wars 2, Lineage 3 and, erm, ahh, er, take a wild stab in the dark?
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I believe it was "Blade and Soul" which is currently in development
*edit* According to the Wikipedia page for Lineage 3... it isnt using the Unreal 3 engine anymore, and instead they are developing their own.
On the NCSoft jobs page, the NorCal studio is looking to recruit a Sound Designer, with two of the required skills being voice recording and voice editing - and they're also looking to recruit a Powers Designer, Environment Artist, Graphics Programmer, Concept Artist, Game Engineer and so on - and considering what an awesome job they did with just 15 devs, all these extra recruits they're looking for will surely mean some totally amazing Issues to come.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Aie. I'm not getting into a debate about engines. I can talk about graphical features 'til I'm blue in the face, but if you ask me about changing engines while keeping the systems intact... I'm useless.
'Ey, Gangrel, last I saw you, you were drunk. I was the dude who got you a coffee at the Omega Sektor deal.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
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As for shoehorning a graphics upgrade into the current engine (which was amaturishly designed in the first instance and is now held together with spitballs and chewing gum), it would actully be easier to take a functioning game engine with decient graphics and shoehorn the CoX gameplay into that.
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The problem as I see it, is that then the game would look like the game engine, instead of looking like what it was wanted to be. Of course, practicality tends to spoil dreams. The reason why games tend to look too similar to my eye these days is because they share game engines.
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Regarding the mission architect I see Necro's fears but also on the opposite scale, I have worried that it may be a lot more basic than people (such as myself) are hoping for.
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Kind of like day jobs. Sorry, I had to say it
The devs have said the MA will not have every mission feature that the devs use themselves, as they still want to give us their own awesome content
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork