Are All Good Things Meant for CoH Going to Aion?
By
Adelie,
Posted on: 2009-12-03 07:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I do hope that they are not diverting resources but I'm glad the ideas you list below are NOT part of and are hopefully not coming to City of Heroes.
1. Cross-Platform: Nothing ruins a PC game, and especially a MMO style of game, like hooking it up to the game machine market. That other recent superhero game is a case in point.
2. Underwater zone, especially with swimming abilities would flat out suck. And it would take up valuable resources as well. I much prefer the idea somebody on here made that we have windows on walls that makes it look like you are in a base and outside it's underwater.
3. Home spaces... really? That'd be even more useless than super group bases. At least in those there is a social reason to go there and hang out with your SG mates.
The last two are good ideas and already happening. So, in other words, if we're getting the good and passing the crap to so me other MMO, I'm happy to see it.
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The simple answer is because Aion's engine (both graphical and gameplay) makes dealing with the problems native to those features to be more easily overcome.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
And why are these features going to Aion first before City of Heroes?
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1. Cross-platform MMO (Yun suggests NCsoft never considered it before Aion which doesn't ring true) - The biggest problem here is that CoX's UI is, by it's very operation, not console friendly. By the time players are in their 30s, they've got more powers than a normal controller has buttons. Aion requires substantially less than CoX in the way of control complexity by the very nature of its combat system (linked combos, automated basic attacks, etc).
2. New underwater zone (plus swimming abilities) - Aion doesn't have to deal with quite the same diversity of player backgrounds and powers sources as CoX, not to mention that all players have, fundamentally, the same modes of transportation. The problems in developing an underwater zone for CoX aren't present in the ability to generate the zone. They exist in the need to plausibly incorporate the zone into the game universe while maintaining some level of verisimilitude and consistency with the rest of the game.
3. Purchaseable home spaces (we called them "apartments" back in the day) - There's no reason I can recall why this couldn't be done for CoX. Players can already create private SGs that amount to as much. All it would require to do so for everyone would be allowing players to have a private base and an SG base (which is just setting up another database and determining access and availability).
4. Visual enhancements - We're already getting this. Going Rogue is coming with the new "Ultra" graphics setting. Of course, CoX has already gotten a good deal of upgrades to the graphics engine over its lifetime, so I'm not sure why you think CoX is being left out.
New weapons sets
5.1. Whips - BABs has gone over the reasons why Whips are a bit unwieldy to operate with within the confines of CoX, though, apparently he's gotten past them since we're getting the Hellfire Whip with Demon Summoning in Going Rogue. If you're wanting more general Whip use, then it's not altogether out of the realm of possibility for one to be developed, though I'm rather sure that Castle has some other ideas he'd like to implement first (psychic melee please?).
5.2 - Crossbows - Depending on whether you think it should be its own powerset or simply a customization option for Trick Arrow and Archery, the question boils down to, is it really necessary? Not many super heroes use crossbows in the first place (I can think of at least 3 heroes that use bow and arrow off the top of my head but none that use crossbows), and it would require a great deal of effort to come up with a completely new suite of powers (one for each power for each body type for each transport mode = ~81 animations for a single powerset (if I got the numbers right)), not to mention requiring new models for the crossbows. For a medieval inspired game, especially one that uses substantially fewer animations for each specific action, it makes a lot more sense to add crossbows than it does for a superhero game.
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Personally I don't care if they ever come out with a PS2 or xbox version of the game.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
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This isn't going to happen as long as BaBs is here.
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I do believe at one time BAB's said there was no way in hell they would ever do any underwater features for CoHV.
I wouldn't want any cross platform mmo,the rate of popularity with console based games rises and fall so fast.A MMO trying to establish itself for a long operation period imo is doomed with consoles.
Visual effects=GR
Home spaces sounds useless and too much like Sims,I have an sg/vg with rooms.
Whips in GR,crossbows sounds sorta weak.I'd rather see different powersets get introduced than medievel weapons.
I don't think that stuff is the best we have asked for,I could think of alot of other requests that I have seen over the years that would be better.
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1) People having asked for stuff in no way indicates that said stuff was ever in development.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
I believe the last two items (excluding Crossbows) are covered in Going Rogue but what about the rest? Am I going crazy or didn't we request/discuss all these options for City of Heroes years ago? So why pretend that they're something new inspired by Aion? And why are these features going to Aion first before City of Heroes?
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2) City of Heroes is developed in the US, originally by Cryptic Studios, then by an in-house NCsoft team; Aion is developed in Korea, by a completely different in-house NCsoft team. As such, wondering if stuff originally intended for one is going to the other doesn't really make a ton of sense anyway. That'd be sort of like wondering if something you were expecting to be in a Sims 3 expansion pack wound up in Mass Effect 2 because of internal politics at EA.
1. Crossplatform sucks. Xbox turns games into epic fail. And I refuse to play an MMO if it becomes voice-chat required...it's just not gonna happen. I don't want to have to put up with all "you people" blathering away in my ear. I'll just give MMOs up when that happens.
2. Underwater zones are awesome. Gotta have a dev that loves the z axis and wants to make an epic cool area, though (Kedge Keep, I loved you so) otherwise it'll probably end up sorta meh. Babs don't want it, so it won't happen.
3. I miss Apartments. They're dying out of MMOs. In DAoC and EQ2 (and I presume Star Wars. Vanguard might've had 'em--I forget, that MMO was so bad I dumped it out of my brain) were great because you could go to a seller's house and purchase directly from there to save yourself the market's transaction cost. If you cared, you could make a nice showy apartment people could look around in...if you didn't care you had an empty house and the sales racks sitting in a big empty room. I liked to decorate and occasionally would get a random compliment about it. For high priced recipes and enhancements I could see going to a guy's apartment to buy from him, but from a superhero standpoint....going to a guy's cool secret hangout to do market transactions seems dumb. Batman doesn't invite random people into the batcave just because they want to buy some secret super weapon he invented, right? Plus, the market is cross-server and players aren't.
I'm reading your post as defining "proposed" content as anything from the suggestion and ideas thread. I'm not really sure I'd considered stuff from there as "proposed" in anything other than the literal sense.
I'm not really sure that content is zero-sum between Aion and CoX either, and while some of the things would be nice to have with an unlimited development budget, I guess - there is nothing on that list that would really improve the game (for me) in any substansive way, outside of what we're apparently getting with GR.
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This. Paragon Studios is a subsidiary of NCSoft. There's no more overlap between them and the Aion team than there is between Paragon Studios and, say, ArenaNet. In fact, as of 2008 NCSoft's western titles don't even report to NCSoft Korea, but to the North American branch, NCWest.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
2) City of Heroes is developed in the US, originally by Cryptic Studios, then by an in-house NCsoft team; Aion is developed in Korea, by a completely different in-house NCsoft team. As such, wondering if stuff originally intended for one is going to the other doesn't really make a ton of sense anyway. That'd be sort of like wondering if something you were expecting to be in a Sims 3 expansion pack wound up in Mass Effect 2 because of internal politics at EA.
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If there WERE overlap, I wish they would overlap Guild Wars' dance emotes to CoX 
Types of Swords
My Portfolio
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Actually, no. "Proposed" content stems from Dev interviews, announcements and Dev/Mod/Player discussions that occured over the past few years. At the time NCsoft bought CoH wholly and completely from Cryptic Studios, I remember Brian Clayton mentioning somewhere that they were looking at multiple COH-related projects outside of the current MMO realm which many speculated to mean that a console version was in the works (although Brian may have just been eluding to the Mac version of COH at the time). At this point, who really knows *what* he was hinting at?|
Originally Posted by tensionfade
I'm reading your post as defining "proposed" content as anything from the suggestion and ideas thread. I'm not really sure I'd considered stuff from there as "proposed" in anything other than the literal sense.
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As recently as April 2009 however, Positron himself fielded a Q&A question regarding a console version of COH however and had this to say:
We are always evaluating that possibility. Consoles bring with them a whole slew of advantages that MMOs can take advantage of: universal hardware, automated account set-ups, excellent graphics, and a massive audience. But with these advantages also comes some challenges like publishing timely fixes to client bugs, Standard Definition television resolutions, hard disk space and providing the same level and frequency of updates that PC users enjoy onto a console.
Not that these issues are insurmountable, but they do make MMO developers think twice about the product they are creating. In my opinion the console version of City of Heroes would be a different game with the same locales, enemies, and effects that the PC version has, but to a lot of people that just wouldn't be "City of Heroes."
Source Link: http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2009/180.html
Official quotes and interviews like this however appear to be "blink and you miss it" PR moments that are forever lost to time and foggy memory. Shame, really. But this is why I say the notion of a cross-console MMO for NCSoft didn't begin with Aion... it started with City of Heroes.
So what happened? And why all the revisionist history courtesy of NCsoft Korea's PR team?
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Originally Posted by Wonderslug
This. Paragon Studios is a subsidiary of NCSoft. There's no more overlap between them and the Aion team than there is between Paragon Studios and, say, ArenaNet. In fact, as of 2008 NCSoft's western titles don't even report to NCSoft Korea, but to the North American branch, NCWest.
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Make no mistake, there's definitely "like" technologies being shared between CoH and Aion (and Guild Wars 2, I'm sure) - but not all the advancements are being shared equally across every NCsoft IP (regardless of which IP originated the need/idea originally) - at least not yet.
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Yes.
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Originally Posted by Zyphoid
If there WERE overlap, I wish they would overlap Guild Wars' dance emotes to CoX
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strangely enough, the other day i was in the 2nd mission of the ITF (you know, the one with the cysts) and I got knocked into the water and under one of the bridges in a back cave. I was fully underwater and swimming around...I was actually able to move around and swim quite a bit. I don't think an underwater zone would be too much of a stretch. I think BABs is just a whiner.
I never liked BAB's response/position on the Underwater Zone issue.
I want fully underwater adventures---outer space, too. I don't care if it's hard to do or resource intensive or whatever else seems prohibitive. I wantsss it! I'm willing to wait on it, of course, but not completely abandon it.
As for the OP: the answer to your question is: NO. Ridiculous.
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I would like to fully realise my characters in CoX, like my MM having blaster level attacks and lots of them, my scrapper having Katana/SR/Regen and many others, oh and for Dual Pistols/Super Reflexes.|
Originally Posted by Calibre
I never liked BAB's response/position on the Underwater Zone issue.
I want fully underwater adventures---outer space, too. I don't care if it's hard to do or resource intensive or whatever else seems prohibitive. I wantsss it! I'm willing to wait on it, of course, but not completely abandon it. As for the OP: the answer to your question is: NO. Ridiculous. |
I also know it's not happening, and why it's not, and I enjoy the game as it is anyway.
BaBs has given his reasons for him why an underwater zone isn't happening, let alone any of the other Devs. Space? Maybe.
But they will need to start revamping Old Content at some point before New content, because it WILL get to the point where its no longer acceptable (not that it really is now, but GR takes massive priority right now, and thats just for me)
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Reasoning completely based in practicality rarely is liked but those are the breaks. You just have to consider how long it takes to develop a set like Dual Blades which actually had a large number of new animations, then make animations for various forms of movement, including flight, and then make all of them balanced within given time constraints and make them mesh between themselves. Then consider that to add a new form of movement, they have to do that for every set in the game.|
Originally Posted by Calibre
I never liked BAB's response/position on the Underwater Zone issue.
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And I still agree with BAB's assessment that Aquaman is lame.
As for outer space? Well, I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard to coat a moon base with a zone-wide movement buff (as though the zone were permanently located inside Hami). Explicit outer space would probably be a bit trickier and fall back to the problems associated with underwater zones.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
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Freaking signed. |
Originally Posted by Zyphoid
If there WERE overlap, I wish they would overlap Guild Wars' dance emotes to CoX
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But don't forget all their cute sit poses we don't get too.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Bah, I want crossbows so that I can have a spear/harpoon gun as an alternative model.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
5.2 - Crossbows - Depending on whether you think it should be its own powerset or simply a customization option for Trick Arrow and Archery, the question boils down to, is it really necessary? Not many super heroes use crossbows in the first place (I can think of at least 3 heroes that use bow and arrow off the top of my head but none that use crossbows), and it would require a great deal of effort to come up with a completely new suite of powers (one for each power for each body type for each transport mode = ~81 animations for a single powerset (if I got the numbers right)), not to mention requiring new models for the crossbows. For a medieval inspired game, especially one that uses substantially fewer animations for each specific action, it makes a lot more sense to add crossbows than it does for a superhero game.
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Branching Paragon Police Department Epic Archetype, please!
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You are ascribing far more coherent and intricate strategic planning to this process than I suspect is actually taking place. The Corporate Masters in Seoul are accountants, not technologists.
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Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Absolutely there's someone behind the scenes evaluating all the NCsoft IPs and deciding which of the best technology upgrades/proposed features should go into currently established IPs but not others (its all about investing wisely and where the most profit can be reaped after all).
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Ultimately, yes, but I think you are seriously overestimating the degree of direct control NCSoft exercises over its subsidiary studios. Paragon Studios does its own hiring, budgets its own time, and judging by the fact that booster pack sales funded the labor involved in getting VEATs into I12, they are at least to a significant degree self-financing. If you assume there is someone sitting in Korea issuing royal decrees to Brian Clayton to include (or more ridiculously not include) features in CoX you basically have to assume that every time someone from Paragon or ArenaNet or wherever tells us that NCSoft gives them a great deal of freedom they are flat-out lying through their teeth. And making that assumption goes so far into conspiracy nut territory that it doesn't matter what anyone says anyway (because sure, they'd say that, they'd have to say that, but I'm on to them nudge nudge wink wink).|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Keep in mind, NCWest answers to NCSoft Korea for quite a few things (including PR). Absolutely there's someone behind the scenes evaluating all the NCsoft IPs and deciding which of the best technology upgrades/proposed features should go into currently established IPs but not others (its all about investing wisely and where the most profit can be reaped after all).
Make no mistake, there's definitely "like" technologies being shared between CoH and Aion (and Guild Wars 2, I'm sure) - but not all the advancements are being shared equally across every NCsoft IP (regardless of which IP originated the need/idea originally) - at least not yet. |
Also, unless you define "technologies" so broadly that you basically mean "ideas someone had for a feature," that's a nonsense assertion. Those games cannot "share" technologies in the sense of actual code and systems, because they were built by different teams with different code for different engines and often with radically different game design elements. One game having implemented something or not has essentially zero bearing on the cost or feasibility or even desirability of implementing the same or similar features in a different game, because they are different games.
Guild Wars 2 will have a system similar to sidekicking in CoX, but it's not like they can use the same code for it; they have to build the system from scratch. Calling that "sharing" would be quite a stretch. Borrowing, adapting, stealing? Sure. But it's not much different than if they had borrowed the idea from SOE or Bethesda or Valve--would you consider it "sharing" then? The best you can say is that a dev team that borrows an idea from another game has the benefit of seeing in hindsight what did and didn't work about the original implementation. And that's true even if the element they adapt came from another game by another company in an entirely different genre.
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I'm sure no one who plays any other MMO has ever thought of these ideas before. Clearly, someone is putting their hands in the CoH S&I thread and stealing our ideas! |
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
I just came across this article this morning (http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/...g-console-mmo/) which includes comments from NC Soft PR team leader Jin-Won Yun. My concern is that a lot of what he's discussing for Aion was at some either flagged or requested for City of Heroes originally - including:
I believe the last two items (excluding Crossbows) are covered in Going Rogue but what about the rest? Am I going crazy or didn't we request/discuss all these options for City of Heroes years ago? So why pretend that they're something new inspired by Aion? And why are these features going to Aion first before City of Heroes? Sorry for all the questions - just kinda bummed to see our best "proposed" content going to another NCsoft project rather than this one. |
... Really?!? I mean, don't plenty of other MMOs have underwater zones, like DAoC for example? Don't other MMOs have player housing or apartments? Don't other MMOs also have whips and crossbows? Isn't FFXI already cross-platform, as will be FFXIV?
None of these are original ideas intrinsically tied to CoH suggestions. Rather, they've all been done before on other games, in some cases games that came out well before CoH. The only new tech I see are visual enhancements, by nature of Moore's Law. And we'll be getting those with GR anyhow.
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Yes, everything good in the world is going to Aion and there will be nothing left for any other games.
Next brilliant question, please!
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Originally Posted by SoilentGreen
strangely enough, the other day i was in the 2nd mission of the ITF (you know, the one with the cysts) and I got knocked into the water and under one of the bridges in a back cave. I was fully underwater and swimming around...I was actually able to move around and swim quite a bit. I don't think an underwater zone would be too much of a stretch. I think BABs is just a whiner.
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A: you aren't actually swimming. You have the same animation as if you were on top of the water, like a lake or a pool.
B: You have no control over the z-axis. You can't go up or down in this state. You can move over the geometry of the floor, but that's about it.
Players have been using both the Cimeroran Map, and the pool along Grandville's outside walls as proof that yes, underwater content could work. However, it misses the point that at some point the developers have at least tested the concept... and that the concept does not work. Quite simply, Back Alley Brawler knows what's he's talking about when it comes to animations, and he also has a handle over just how much work would be involved in such a project... and I have to agree.
My case in point is actually found in another game. Go pick up a copy of Kingdom Hearts 1, for the PS2. Go to the Little Mermaid world. Tell me that Sora, Donald, and Goofy don't look like complete nutters fighting underwater. The fighting was so bad, that when Square Enix did the second game, they just took it out. Yeah, you still went to Atlantica, and you still swam around, but on the second take, you no longer had to fight.
Now, Kingdom Hearts was a game that had loads of money, some of the best artists in the world, and they only had 1 playable avatar to animate, well, 3 if you count the AI controlled animations of Donald and Goofy. They just had to worry about one platform, and one graphics setting. They just had to worry about one resolution and one detail level. For just one player controlled character, and the next time around, they didn't even bother because the concept just didn't work out.
BaB's team would have to first off all worry about not just one flat skeletal structure for fighting animations. They'd also have to worry about 3 different skeletal structures, and the scaling of those skeletal structures. They'd have to worry about animating capes, trenchcoats, wedding bustles, and so on... for each of those skeletal structures and the scaling. They'd have to animate a wide range of attacks to account for being underwater, across buff, ranged, and melee sets. They'd have to work on the Z-targeting access and implement a non-fly animation for a flight fighting system.
The list goes on and on and on and on.
Now, when Square Enix did the first Kingdom Hearts they had a budget probably an order of magnitude larger than Paragon Studio's budget. They had far less to worry about when creating the scenarios. And it still didn't work..
That alone should be enough clues that fighting underwater... is probably a bad idea all round.
Now, if Aion does decide to implement an underwater fighting system, all the more power to them. I think at some point they're going to come to the same conclusion. It just isn't worth the development time or money.
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I wouldn't hate a place I could store all my toon's extra loot. Surely we could go to Super-IKEA and get some shelves to put all our recipes on? A wardrobe that could let us change back to costumes we've already used on that toon for a minimal fee? Maybe even the option to leave a key under the mat for our other toons to get in and access the stored items?|
Originally Posted by Adelie
3. Home spaces... really? That'd be even more useless than super group bases. At least in those there is a social reason to go there and hang out with your SG mates.
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edit: as to an underwater place, it could be fudged, by having an underwater base type area, with us just swimming there and then once inside, walking, running and fighting as normal. Of course, the last time I can think of seeing something like that, it had Gungans in it. Not disappointed in any way that we won't be getting that.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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You DO have control over the z-axis in the Midnighter's cave pools, you can move around the surface and then proceed under the bridges. However, as you stated for reasons that haven't been shared in detail the devs ditched the swimming idea. Most likely all the different fighting animation with underwater scenarios would be a nightmare. Just for instance, how would you animate a swimming stormer activating lightning storm underwater?
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Two things:
A: you aren't actually swimming. You have the same animation as if you were on top of the water, like a lake or a pool. B: You have no control over the z-axis. You can't go up or down in this state. You can move over the geometry of the floor, but that's about it. Players have been using both the Cimeroran Map, and the pool along Grandville's outside walls as proof that yes, underwater content could work. However, it misses the point that at some point the developers have at least tested the concept... and that the concept does not work. Quite simply, Back Alley Brawler knows what's he's talking about when it comes to animations, and he also has a handle over just how much work would be involved in such a project... and I have to agree. ... |
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I just came across this article this morning (http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/...g-console-mmo/) which includes comments from NC Soft PR team leader Jin-Won Yun. My concern is that a lot of what he's discussing for Aion was at some either flagged or requested for City of Heroes originally - including:
I believe the last two items (excluding Crossbows) are covered in Going Rogue but what about the rest? Am I going crazy or didn't we request/discuss all these options for City of Heroes years ago? So why pretend that they're something new inspired by Aion? And why are these features going to Aion first before City of Heroes?
Sorry for all the questions - just kinda bummed to see our best "proposed" content going to another NCsoft project rather than this one.