One Reason People Get Bored: A History of Instance Palettes
By
Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2010-04-04 10:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Another historical note: "back in the day," back before City of Villains (issue 6), new player characters didn't even get to see all 8 of the instance palettes there were. You played your first 4 levels with nothing but offices, warehouses, sewers, and wet caves. It was a minor revelation when you saw your first dry tunnel at level 5, and a really big, mind-blowing deal when you saw your first Oranbegan cave at around level 12, your first tech lab at level 14 or 15, and your first Council lair at level 20.
I still distinctly remember trying hard not to be impressed the first time I saw Oranbega. And not even trying not to be impressed when I saw my first tech lab; after months of offices and warehouses and caves, that first high-tech lab (in my case, the Tsoo Rage lab) was The Coolest Thing I Had Ever Seen.
The old game was even duller than the game we play now, but it did have that sense of progression to it.
Okay.
Also, time before a the graphical look of the zones in the game are updated and an entire new 20-level starting area is in game: mere months.
The reason I get bored is not because the look inside a mission is the same - it's because the missions are the same.
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they have confirmed at least a couple new skins come GR - a Praetorian high-tech lab - from War Witch's recent interviews.
Of course, there's also the many unique maps that can be seen all over AE, since they aren't often seen in the game, they are often seen in many of the good AE arcs.
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Those aren't skins - they're a totally new tile set |
Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
they have confirmed at least a couple new skins come GR - a Praetorian high-tech lab - from War Witch's recent interviews.
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GR will bring the new Praetorian lab tile set, and the tunnels of the Underground tile set.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Technically, Issue 2 had Reactor interior.
Issue 6 definitely had Bank and Casino.
Issue 9 had University building, even though it's only used once.
Issue 12 had Midnighter Club, also used only once.
Those are the only other ones that are completely new, or significantly different from existing bits.
"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes."
You know, reading threads like this as a new(ish) player, it surprises me how different the game is now from how it seems to have been at the beginning. It's really come a long way.
my second quote in my sig is there for a reason.
when did we get aL's garage and the burning hellion office? I dont recall the hellion map being that way during issue 1, but later it was altered to be on fire and covered with hellion graffiti. also, do you count frostfire's frozen map as unique?
Yeah. See, that's kind of my point: for two years now, instead of giving us new instance maps, the art department has focused heavily on one-time-use only special instance maps that only appear at the very end of the newer story arcs, and here and there throughout task forces.
But this doesn't change the fact that by its very design, people spend most of their time and do most of their leveling in story arcs that re-use the same 18 instance palettes. I'm pretty sure that they think that's the best return on their dollar. But part of how they used to keep the game fresh for us was to beef up even the regular missions, to the tune of at least a couple of new instance tilesets per year.
Look, here's why this is on my mind. During the last re-activation weekend, I was at a party with the guy who first dragged me into City of Heroes back in 2005. There turned out to be another guy there who'd played the game heavily back then, who overheard when I asked if they'd been back at all for this reactivation weekend. And they both gave the same answers:
"I logged in for the last re-activation weekend. 5 minutes in, I saw the same (expletive deleted) warehouse, and logged back out." "Yeah, that was my reaction, too. I never want to see that warehouse again."
I'm still playing. But frankly, I do know how they feel.
Number 1 reason why i get bored?
I know the exact location of each spawn/ambush on most of the maps!
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yeah, i dont disagree entirely, but i also think you have to be fair that they have added a lot of art assets, just most have been character based(power customization, weapons, some very good new costume elements alternate animations). I mean yeah, i'd love lots of new maps, but i guess that if your buddy never wants to see a warehouse again, he wont like mmos. they are inherently repetitive, and the more instancing the worse it is. it is the disease of the genre. though i reiterate, i would love to see more tiles, I just think that you have to be pragmatic, i wanted polearms in oblivion too.
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You do have a point. I was just adding in a few that they did put in. I made a comment in another thread a little while back that they could at least use those assets that they have, particularly the bare bones of the Bank, Casino, and the University building, to make a lot of everyday buildings that one would find in a real city. Things like movie theater lobbies, restaurants, grocery stores and the like. |
Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
Yeah. See, that's kind of my point: for two years now, instead of giving us new instance maps, the art department has focused heavily on one-time-use only special instance maps that only appear at the very end of the newer story arcs, and here and there throughout task forces.
But this doesn't change the fact that by its very design, people spend most of their time and do most of their leveling in story arcs that re-use the same 18 instance palettes. I'm pretty sure that they think that's the best return on their dollar. But part of how they used to keep the game fresh for us was to beef up even the regular missions, to the tune of at least a couple of new instance tilesets per year. Look, here's why this is on my mind. During the last re-activation weekend, I was at a party with the guy who first dragged me into City of Heroes back in 2005. There turned out to be another guy there who'd played the game heavily back then, who overheard when I asked if they'd been back at all for this reactivation weekend. And they both gave the same answers: "I logged in for the last re-activation weekend. 5 minutes in, I saw the same (expletive deleted) warehouse, and logged back out." "Yeah, that was my reaction, too. I never want to see that warehouse again." I'm still playing. But frankly, I do know how they feel. |
One other that I forgot, and that is criminally underused, as far as heroes go, is Prison interior, and even Prison yard. There are a bunch of superhero stories, particularly Batman stories, where the hero has to go put down a prison riot or prevent an escape or something similar, but we only get an inkling of that in Brickstown, and it's just a few inmates milling about out there.
As far as seeing the same things goes, it's the same for every MMO, really. If I start a new character in <insert any other MMO name here> I will see mostly the exact same scenery that I did with the last character. That doesn't absolve the developers from ever making any new tilesets for us, of course, it's just a realistic look at the general problem with this whole game genre.
"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes."
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I think there'll be some in Praetoria for sure - it'd make sense for some missions, like "Investigate the Moustache Wax Warehouse".
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Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
I never want to see that warehouse again.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
I know they reworked the spawn locations to tighten them up, but there are whole areas now one never needs to check because nothing ever spawns there. You can tell who are the long-term players on a pug because one or two will go popping into the side room to look, just in case. Though I don't miss hunting that last guy hidden in the back corner of the broom closet, I do miss the small group spawns in the surprise locations. Except in caves.
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Number 1 reason why i get bored?
I know the exact location of each spawn/ambush on most of the maps! |
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If they're sensitive enough to give up on a game because they saw five minutes worth of content, they wouldn't have stuck around regardless of new textures.
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Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
"I logged in for the last re-activation weekend. 5 minutes in, I saw the same (expletive deleted) warehouse, and logged back out." "Yeah, that was my reaction, too. I never want to see that warehouse again."
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Exactly! And that's why I stay, and I know it. It wasn't for the quality of the game world, and it even more surely hasn't been for the quality of the writing, the last year. *shudder* It's been for the things that they did spend art asset money on.|
Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
... they have added a lot of art assets, just most have been character based(power customization, weapons, some very good new costume elements alternate animations). ...
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But when AE first came out, I expressed a desire that I still have: I wish that Paragon Studios had spent some of their newly-expanded payroll budget on hiring someone to be to regular instance tilesets, and to generic, reusable (not one-time-use specialized) custom instance maps, what SexyJay is to costumes and Back Alley Brawler is to animations. If anything, the comparison is stronger to Sexy Jay, who maintains an open thread asking us "what kind of costumes do you want to have that you don't have yet," who reads that thread, and who regularly goes above and beyond to deliver. I was hoping that there'd be some new red-name who'd ask the same question about instance maps: someone who'd maintain an ongoing thread asking "what kind of environments do you need to tell your stories that you don't currently have?", who'd read that thread, and who'd go as far above and beyond as Sexy Jay has to deliver us new generic, re-usuable instances.
When @Fearghas got assimilated into the collective and became Doctor Aeon, it became possible for me to sustain the hope that some day we may get this. But we sure haven't gotten it yet. And I think we don't just want it, we need it.
I agree with this.
But on top of this, I'd like to point out that not only is the number of palettes limited, but the number of maps constructed from those palettes is only a tiny fraction of the number of maps it would be possible to construct! It didn't take me long to realize, playing this game, that the palette items interlock in a tinker-toy fashion. At that point I assumed that, in the manner of Diablo II, instance maps were constructed on the fly using simple rules for which palette item could connect to which. It took me quite a bit longer to realize that, no, there actually were a finite (and very small!) set of pre-generated layouts using the available tile sets.
So, while I'd love for there to be a dev dedicated to generating new map tilesets, I'd also be pleased if developer effort went into either creating a system for on-the-fly tileset-based instance generation (which I fully admit may be a lot harder than it seems at first glance), or failing that just use the existing tilesets to manually create some new map layouts. Some new tiles for the existing tilesets wouldn't go amiss either.
Tileset maps are where a lot of this game is played, and sprucing them up would have a proportionately large effect on adding variety to the game experience.
@SPTrashcan
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I agree that new interior maps are needed.
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And you'll be getting two new Paretorian tile sets in GR |
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I agree that new interior maps are needed.
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Although, the Preatroian lab tileset might also show up outside the four new zones, if Tyrant starts setting up secret bases on Primal Earth ready for his invasion.
The tunnels of the underground tile set sounds like it'd have to only ever appear in the new zones.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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From speaking to Positron at the last SDCC, that's where they want to go with the maps, but the map creation is still ugly and painful. While the maps are built out of common tiles, the mechanism for linking the tiles together is still a manual and finicky process -- anyone who was around for the beta and launch of City of Villains will remember the 'black wall' bugs with the red/yellow office tileset; those were due to minor misalignment problems between adjacent map tiles.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
But on top of this, I'd like to point out that not only is the number of palettes limited, but the number of maps constructed from those palettes is only a tiny fraction of the number of maps it would be possible to construct! It didn't take me long to realize, playing this game, that the palette items interlock in a tinker-toy fashion. At that point I assumed that, in the manner of Diablo II, instance maps were constructed on the fly using simple rules for which palette item could connect to which. It took me quite a bit longer to realize that, no, there actually were a finite (and very small!) set of pre-generated layouts using the available tile sets.
So, while I'd love for there to be a dev dedicated to generating new map tilesets, I'd also be pleased if developer effort went into either creating a system for on-the-fly tileset-based instance generation (which I fully admit may be a lot harder than it seems at first glance), or failing that just use the existing tilesets to manually create some new map layouts. Some new tiles for the existing tilesets wouldn't go amiss either. |
From his account of the process, a player-accessible map editor (or an on-the-fly map creator) is about the same level of effort as power customization was, and while it's something that they are looking at, the amount of work involved in it means that it's taking a back burner to other development work. For myself, having the game generate a random map for most missions would eliminate the 'deja vu' feeling from having played the exact same map over and over again, sometimes back-to-back.
One thing that might be possible to do faster than reworking the maps to make them 'snap-together' is to break the lab and office maps apart -- as it stands now, you enter a multi-floor map and the pattern is fixed. If the office and lab maps were broken up into separate floor units, so you had 'entrance' floors that have the door from the zone, 'middle' floors that had both up and down elevators, and 'end' floors that have only a single elevator, you could randomize the layouts by selecting the floors when someone first enters the mission, rather than having the relationships between them fixed and immutable. That would at least give us four tilesets -- lab, original office, red/yellow office, and abandoned office -- that would have greatly-increased variability.
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Any player map editor will probbaly happen the same way as the misison creator - it'll start off as just something to make the development process for the devs easier, and then get rolled out to the players too.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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This. Very much of the game is spent on mission maps.
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
So, while I'd love for there to be a dev dedicated to generating new map tilesets, I'd also be pleased if developer effort went into either creating a system for on-the-fly tileset-based instance generation (which I fully admit may be a lot harder than it seems at first glance), or failing that just use the existing tilesets to manually create some new map layouts. Some new tiles for the existing tilesets wouldn't go amiss either.
Tileset maps are where a lot of this game is played, and sprucing them up would have a proportionately large effect on adding variety to the game experience. |
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This.|
Originally Posted by DarkEther
The reason I get bored is not because the look inside a mission is the same - it's because the missions are the same.
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You may think the tilesets are limited, but the mission types seem to be much more so. Basically every mission boils down to some combination of:
Defeat all.
Hunt X.
Defeat boss and guards.
Click/destroy/guard glowie.
Capture/rescue and lead to door/glowie.
Where to now?
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But isn't that the basic way all MMOs work?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
This.
You may think the tilesets are limited, but the mission types seem to be much more so. Basically every mission boils down to some combination of: Defeat all. Hunt X. Defeat boss and guards. Click/destroy/guard glowie. Capture/rescue and lead to door/glowie. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I agree but I also know it won't take us long to tire of those too.
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Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I agree that new interior maps are needed.
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total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Instance palettes at launch: 8
Instance palettes added 2004: 1
Instance palettes added 2005: 4
Instance palettes added 2006: 3
Instance palettes added 2007: 1
Instance palettes added 2008: 1
Instance palettes added 2009: 0
Instance palettes added 2010: none yet
Total added over 71 months: 10
Time since last instance palette was added: 23 months.
- - - - -
Issue 0: 4/27/04
* office (regular and abandoned)
* warehouse (regular and abandoned)
* sewer
* wet cave
* dry tunnel
* tech lab
* Council lair
* Oranbega
Issue 1: 6/29/04
* instanced outdoor
Issue 2: 9/16/04 - no new instance types
Issue 3: 1/4/05
* cargo ship
Issue 4: 5/4/05 - no new instance types
Issue 5: 8/31/05
* mixed (sewer to tunnel, office to tunnel, etc)
Issue 6: 10/27/05
* Snake tunnel
* Arachnos lab
(also included 2 office re-skins, 2 warehouse re-skins, 1 wet cave re-skin, 1 tech lab re-skin)
Issue 7: 6/6/06
* Mayhem
* Arachnoid tunnel
Issue 8: 11/28/06
* wrecked tech lab
Issue 9: 5/1/07 - no new instance types
Issue 10: 7/24/07
* Rikti tunnels
Issue 11: 11/28/07 - no new instance types
Issue 12: 5/20/08
* Cimeroran ruins
Issue 13: 12/2/08 - no new instance types
Issue 14: 4/8/09 - no new instance types
Issue 15: 6/29/09 - no new instance types (included 5th Column lairs as re-re-skinned Council lairs)
Issue 16: 9/15/09 - no new instance types
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Presumably the interiors of Praetorian buildings won't look exactly like Paragon City or Rogue Isles buildings? We can hope. But the fact doesn't change: there are still only 18 instance palettes. If you want to be generous and count Paragon office, Paragon abandoned office, Rogue Isles office, and Rogue Isles abandoned office as 4 different palettes; count Paragon warehouse, Paragon abandoned warehouse, Rogue Isles warehouse, and Rogue Isles abandoned warehouse as 4 different palettes; blue wet cave and brown wet cave as separate palettes; tech lab and Longbow lab as separate palettes; and Council and 5th Column lairs as separate palettes, you can push that up by another 10. Since that's just changing decals on the same models, I personally don't.
And there still hasn't been a new instance palette added since the Cimeroran excavations of May 2008. There's a reason why people think that they're seeing the same maps over and over again -- it's because they are. There's a reason why people think they've memorized every turn and every spawn placement on the maps we have -- they have.
Yes, I realize that creating all 20 or 30 variations on a new palette is a time consuming job, and that each of them then has to be tested (ideally, better tested than the Arachnos labs were when they were first introduced) to see if they've produced any new AI pathfinding bugs. But didn't Paragon Studios hire about 30 or 40 people a while ago?
(Credit where credit is due: the wrecked tech lab, Rikti tunnel, and Cimeroran excavation instance sets were beautiful, beautiful work.)