Presenting Issue 16: Power Spectrum!
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2009-07-16 15:30 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Live in August, perhaps? That'd give plenty of time for GR this year - maybe 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I think the no-color option won't be available because of PVP. You have to know who attacked and what he used; it would be odd to be hit by an invisible fireball.
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Why?
I've never understood the shout of "need to know" suerly not knowing what youe openent is coming at you with will add a bit more intrest to PvP?
Know you said there'ld be an EU beta for GR avatea but can you confirm/deny if theres going to be a closed beta for issue 16 too please? 
Thank you in advance
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
It does appear that you can make effects semi-invisible to at least some extent by using some combos of the Bright and Dark palettes, according to a poster who saw a preview at the Comic Con in the US.
Original Article
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Having had a chance to look at the (still under development) I16 changes at the NCSoft booth at the San Diego Comic-Con, I am looking forward even more eagerly to its release. What they are showing is the character-creation part of I16 -- it doesn't have any game connectivity.
The character design process looks exactly the same as it was, with two exceptions. After your costume design, the 'Next' button takes you to the Powers screen, where you can alter the colors of your powers. In addition, across the top of the screen are text labels for the segments of character creation -- Archetype, Origin, Primary, Secondary, Body Type, Costume, Powers, Name; clicking on one takes you to that section without losing progress, so you can jump around through character creation in any order.
The powers section has drop-down sections for Primary and Secondary powers -- I didn't see an entry for Epic or Patron powers, or for pool powers, and I'm going to have to ask them about that tomorrow -- similar to the Upper Body / Lower Body / Head sections for the costume creator. These open up into a list of all the powers for that powerset. The powerset has a color choice box -- 'Default', 'Custom', 'Bright [power]', and 'Dark [power]' (i.e., 'Bright Fire' and 'Dark Fire'). When you pick 'Bright', you get additive color changes -- the colors you pick brighten the power (i.e., the standard Energy Blast colors are 'Bright'), and when you pick 'Dark', you get subtractive color changes -- the colors you pick darken the power (i.e., the standard Pain Domination is 'Dark'). You have an "Apply colors over entire character' button that works for powers the same way the similar button does for costumes, and each power has the same options individually (except 'Custom', which appears for the powerset when you set colors individually for the powers).
Power customization will not be available for the MA when I16 goes live; they are still looking at the problem of the additional space that it would take up reducing what you can build due to the size limitation of an arc.
In the process of rebuilding the way powers are colored, they have managed to address one of the problems that was described as a major stumbling block -- with a very few exceptions, the customized power colors change, not only the color of the power as your character uses it, but the effect of the power on the target. If you change your Fire Control powers to blue or green, for example, the Fire Cages around mobs will be blue or green just like the animation visuals around your character. When you pick a specific power in the Powers section of the character creator, your character will continually repeat the animation for that power, showing both the character animation and the power effect (i.e., the Fire Imps power summons imps, etc.); the colors selection grid normally obscures a lot of this, but it can be rolled up out of the way for a better view. The powers that don't completely change colors are all ones that have 'fixed' visuals -- Smoke will animate with the colors you pick for the power, but the cloud of smoke around your target will still be black. I need to go back tomorrow and see how many powers are like this; I need to find out how many of the summoning powers (i.e., Controller and Mastermind powers) have customization, and to what degree.
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I wonder if power colours are universal for the character i.e. regardless of costume change or if you can specify different colours for different costumes?
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I wonder if power colours are universal for the character i.e. regardless of costume change or if you can specify different colours for different costumes?
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It's unclear US side. At first I thought because they were a seperate screen they were seperate from cossies altogether, but then I thought about it and decided that made no sense.
So I dunno. One would hope per cossie would be the most logical.
I am fairly optimistic that these things will be a fun piece of eye-candy, and as long as no-one takes it more seriously than that, that's OK. Personally I still think it's another portion of thin soup, but I'll have a lark for a while, at least, playing with them.
I share an earlier posted worry though: I anticipate heads melting in front of their monitors, like nazis before the Lost Ark, at the sight of a great many of the appalling combinations of fluorescent bad taste we'll no doubt be afflicted with. I would now like the assurance of a button to "kill" offensive patterns from other players. Otherwise I'm scared of what might happen to my screen...
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I wonder if power colours are universal for the character i.e. regardless of costume change or if you can specify different colours for different costumes?
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It's unclear US side. At first I thought because they were a seperate screen they were seperate from cossies altogether, but then I thought about it and decided that made no sense.
So I dunno. One would hope per cossie would be the most logical.
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Would make a set like Martial arts very appealing again. Two cossie slots and you got yourself two different sets of animations.
Edit: Woo least we finally get to see what powers look like before selecting them!
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
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Fun facts:
To date, power customization for Primary and Secondary player powers has involved
1,241 individual powers.
which use use 1,620 FX scripts
which reference 5,144 particle scripts.
(Yes, those 1,241 powers are from just the powersets listed in the Issue 16 overview page.)
I'm still trying to nail down an exact date for when we started working on this, but so far the earliest reference I can find is from a document created in March of 2008. I know there were some meetings before that document was made, but I can't find the date or meeting notes from the initial "Lets do this!" meeting, which I would consider the official start of this massive undertaking.
Unofficially, I've been trying to figure out ways to do it since around Issue 11, but every idea involved new tech and a tremendous amount of data parsing...two things that simply would have never happened back then with the size of our team.
Obviously, we haven't been working 100% on this since we started. A bit here, a bit there...time taken for other Issues, bug fixes, booster packs, etc. But we've been working on it pretty focused for the last 6-8 months.
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Oh! Does anyone expect any serious bugs?
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Fun facts:
To date, power customization for Primary and Secondary player powers has involved
1,241 individual powers.
which use use 1,620 FX scripts
which reference 5,144 particle scripts.
(Yes, those 1,241 powers are from just the powersets listed in the Issue 16 overview page.)
I'm still trying to nail down an exact date for when we started working on this, but so far the earliest reference I can find is from a document created in March of 2008. I know there were some meetings before that document was made, but I can't find the date or meeting notes from the initial "Lets do this!" meeting, which I would consider the official start of this massive undertaking.
Unofficially, I've been trying to figure out ways to do it since around Issue 11, but every idea involved new tech and a tremendous amount of data parsing...two things that simply would have never happened back then with the size of our team.
Obviously, we haven't been working 100% on this since we started. A bit here, a bit there...time taken for other Issues, bug fixes, booster packs, etc. But we've been working on it pretty focused for the last 6-8 months.
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Oh! Does anyone expect any serious bugs?
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Don't be silly. Closed Beta will squash them all.
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Oh! Does anyone expect any serious bugs?
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None at all! Worst that I can imagine happening is strange animations or no animations play.
Issues will likely come up more from the Powerset Proliferation.
Bring it on, looking forward to pretty much any issue. It's free, it's fun and brings something different. What's not to like.
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Another thing I'm wondering about - do you think that the revamped costume creator will have somewhere where you can view the powers and animations, to help with choosing the look you want?
The MA already incldues a little animation preview, so maybe they'll use something similar for previewing powers?
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What something like this?
Warning: Site sends off my SiteAdvisor but I was willing to take the risk.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Oh that just looks sweet.
"The Hamidon is a what what of what?" - Brian the mission guy.
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Another thing I'm wondering about - do you think that the revamped costume creator will have somewhere where you can view the powers and animations, to help with choosing the look you want?
The MA already incldues a little animation preview, so maybe they'll use something similar for previewing powers?
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What something like this?
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Yes, just like that
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Fun facts:
To date, power customization for Primary and Secondary player powers has involved
1,241 individual powers.
which use use 1,620 FX scripts
which reference 5,144 particle scripts.
(Yes, those 1,241 powers are from just the powersets listed in the Issue 16 overview page.)
I'm still trying to nail down an exact date for when we started working on this, but so far the earliest reference I can find is from a document created in March of 2008. I know there were some meetings before that document was made, but I can't find the date or meeting notes from the initial "Lets do this!" meeting, which I would consider the official start of this massive undertaking.
Unofficially, I've been trying to figure out ways to do it since around Issue 11, but every idea involved new tech and a tremendous amount of data parsing...two things that simply would have never happened back then with the size of our team.
Obviously, we haven't been working 100% on this since we started. A bit here, a bit there...time taken for other Issues, bug fixes, booster packs, etc. But we've been working on it pretty focused for the last 6-8 months.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh! Does anyone expect any serious bugs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't be silly. Closed Beta will squash them all.
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Well, I think most of the bugs will be pertty easy to spot this time 
MA closed beta was tougher, because it was hard to tell if something was a bug, or if it was just the author who'd left something out.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Another thing I'm wondering about - do you think that the revamped costume creator will have somewhere where you can view the powers and animations, to help with choosing the look you want?
The MA already incldues a little animation preview, so maybe they'll use something similar for previewing powers?
[/ QUOTE ]
What something like this?
Warning: Site sends off my SiteAdvisor but I was willing to take the risk.
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Pray look: whatever happened to the black-grey-white colour bubbles bar... oh, B/W, where art thou?
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
From what I've managed to gather from the conversations on the US boards, there's another panel of colours - they're divided by Light and Dark tints. If you look on the picture where Healing Flames is being tweaked, you'll see an entry for 'Bright Fire'. I'd imagine that can be changed to 'Dark Fire' and our blacks and dark colours will be under that. The whites are already on the Bright page.
Over the top, you can see the different page tabs too which seems to be how we'll be able to skip around the creation section without losing progress.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
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[ QUOTE ]
Fun facts:
To date, power customization for Primary and Secondary player powers has involved
1,241 individual powers.
which use use 1,620 FX scripts
which reference 5,144 particle scripts.
(Yes, those 1,241 powers are from just the powersets listed in the Issue 16 overview page.)
I'm still trying to nail down an exact date for when we started working on this, but so far the earliest reference I can find is from a document created in March of 2008. I know there were some meetings before that document was made, but I can't find the date or meeting notes from the initial "Lets do this!" meeting, which I would consider the official start of this massive undertaking.
Unofficially, I've been trying to figure out ways to do it since around Issue 11, but every idea involved new tech and a tremendous amount of data parsing...two things that simply would have never happened back then with the size of our team.
Obviously, we haven't been working 100% on this since we started. A bit here, a bit there...time taken for other Issues, bug fixes, booster packs, etc. But we've been working on it pretty focused for the last 6-8 months.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh! Does anyone expect any serious bugs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't be silly. Closed Beta will squash them all.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I think most of the bugs will be pertty easy to spot this time
MA closed beta was tougher, because it was hard to tell if something was a bug, or if it was just the author who'd left something out.
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But from the sounds of things this issue will have the longest beta since so many things need to be tested. Every power with every colour as a small example.
Does using the arachnos costume change [faultline] temp power make all powers go back to their default animations/colours?
Pratically most of the game will have to be tested just to see if anything affects this. Remember when you could slot insipirations with enhancements in i14 beta or the chosing "use cossie token" actually took your money still in icon?
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
A little bit more info from BAB:
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Powers can be individually customized per costume slot, but not supergroup mode.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
This is just getting better and better.
The M.A.D. Files - Me talking about games, films, games, life, games, internet and games
I'm not good at giving advice, can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?
@Lyrik
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This is just getting better and better.
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Yes - it's almost as if the devs have been going to insane lengths to please us
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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A little bit more info from BAB:
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Powers can be individually customized per costume slot, but not supergroup mode.
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So at a guess that would mean when in sg mode they either are the costumes colour selection or the supergroups colours?
Thats what i would've thought it had been anyway though to be honest. 
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
Closed Beta is starting after Comic-con.
... I know this is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but it sure would be nice if some EU players could get access to this.
And by some I mean me.
"The Hamidon is a what what of what?" - Brian the mission guy.