Sixth Anniversary Meet and Greet (North Am.) Part 1

And now that we've cleverly lured you into this thread, we're not letting you go until we get some more info on this:

Yup, I just thought of that a few minutes ago after posting.

Thanks for posting this, Tony. I had computer issues the last few days (damn you McAfee!) and couldn't make it.

I takes time and effort to parse through the text and add little context parentheticals and I appreciate it.

And thanks to the devs that showed up and hung out with players!

What's wrong with Trina?

Also, thanks for this post!

Thanks very much for taking the time to do this, Tony! I wasn't able to attend and was curious, and I certainly appreciate your work in editing this to post here.

There's still more to come. I'll try to post the last couple of hours tomorrow. Back Alley Brawler had a lot to say and actually ended up staying an hour late. Good stuff, too--it was actually my favorite two hours.

BAB + The Ocho + no bossman/gal around = awesomeness.

Thanks a bunch for editing and posting this!
I wasn't able to make it, but reading through this was fun (And a tiny bit enlightening).

They are all such a riot

Haha... And Trina... LOL! That keeps cracking me up every time it gets brought up. It's a running gag... but, honestly... the joke is on poor Trina! Keep fighting for her, Fab!

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post these transscripts, TonyV! It's appreciated.

Aw, shucks, you're welcome. To be honest, I have an ulterior motive for doing this, and I figured that if I could help out everyone else along the way, all the better. Plus, reading through the transcripts, I'm seeing a lot of questions and answers that I either didn't hear the first time through, or that I had forgotten or not caught the significance of at the time.

It is good stuff. I'm stuck without access to my gaming machine today, so it will be tonight before I can post any more, but I'm hoping to wrap the rest up before the day is done. No promises, but I'll try!

Was there any more chat after BAB showed up?

Dang it, TonyV! post! Possssssssssssst!

I wanna know what happened with the last hour!

-Rachel-

Here's part 4, which was roughly the 9:00pm - 10:30pm Eastern time slot. This was Back Alley Brawler's and Dark Watcher's time slot, though both stayed well after the Meet and Greet was scheduled to end. Aside from answering questions, they decided to have a bit of fun by changing players' avatars into NPC models, some of them quite...interesting. I'll post some pictures later.

There's one last post I'm just going to have to delay until tomorrow because I'm walking dead right now. :( It won't be as long as the others, so you already have most of what happened.

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Back Alley Brawler: This thing on?
Back Alley Brawler: Excellent! For those who don't know me, I'm Christopher Bruce and I'm the lead animator/VFX artist. I'll be happy to hang out and chat with you guys about anything related to animations or visual effects in CoH
Nezumi-Ko: Hey, Brawler-sama? Any possible way of getting Impervium and Tech versions of all the melee weapons, like we have Vanguard versions?
Back Alley Brawler: I love making weapons, but I don't get much time to do them...so I couldn't say
Taliesen Riftborn: Wolf tails! :)
Back Alley Brawler: No comment about wolf tails, beaver tails, or any other new animated tail...that's really more on the character artists to make at this point
Arachnos Agent: The Navy Colt Pistols are fantastic BABs.
Back Alley Brawler: Thanks, I really liked how the new pistol models turned out. Doing stuff like that isn't really my forte, so it's always fun to branch out and get some practice
Proto-Zone: BABs. What was your favorite powerset and emote (set) to animate?
Back Alley Brawler: there are far to many awesome animations for me to pick a favorite, but at this point I pretty much hate all of the dual blade animations I did. That's pretty common for artists :P
Taliesen Riftborn: Yeah, the newest pistol looks are wonderful!
AddoX: I like that most of the new pistols actually look like the hand is gripping the handle, even though the hand art is unchanged.
DJ Jules: Seriously, the animations as of late have been absolutely amazing. Smooth, realistic, the whole bit.
Gunny Elf: Seriously, BaBs, thank you for getting the pistols to look GOOD, unlike other games, and their ghetto-style gun-handling
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson and Colin have done awesome work on some of the newer animations [Nelson Tam and Colin Brown, members of Christoper's Animation team. --Wiki Guy]
DJ Shecky: BABs, Will we ever get chance of firingDoves for the Dual Pistol set?
Back Alley Brawler: No dove for Dual Pistols...it's just TOO over the top
Back Alley Brawler: animation costumiztion outside of power customization would be VERY tricky...I'mnot sure if it's even possible to do [I'm not sure which specific comment he was addressing with this. It could have been the one above, or further comment on the "doves while shooting" suggestion.]
Positron: Booo! Want doves!
Praetor Fabulous: Babs, At herocon there was a different animation for rain of bullets, will we see that ever again. ((I kinda liked that one better, sorry!))
Back Alley Brawler: Animation for Bullet Rain didn't change, just the VFX. The Herocon effects were mostly placeholder
Demon Storm Kat: question: how come the whip in DS doesnt stay in hand after activation?
Back Alley Brawler: whip doesn't stay in your hand because we have no good way to make it animate dynamically, and it took too long to roll it up between every attack
NCsoft_Mod08: he was earlier heh [I'm not sure who he's referring to or what "he" was.]
Roulette: Can you spawn anything awesome for us to see Babs? Like oh.... dopplegangers for the whole room? *glutton for punishment*
Back Alley Brawler: I will not be spawning anything tonight...sorry guys. [A reference to Jade Spiders that Positron and/or Castle had spawned earlier.]
Gunny Elf: any new dances coming? Fabulous wants the Yes-dance
Back Alley Brawler: new dances would be cool, huh?
Back Alley Brawler: there will be some cool new stuff coming with Going Rogue, and the Complete Edition of Going Rogue [Possibly referring to dances, as many players were suggesting some, or to animations in general.]
Taliesen Riftborn: HAH! I want a facepalm animation XD
Xprom: 2nd the /e facepalm
Michael Yurke: Oh lord yes, /e facepalm
Back Alley Brawler: I want a faceplam emote for the forums!
NCsoft_Mod08: I'll give you a couple links [I think this might have been a /tell mistell. There were no questions or comments about sites, and no links were ever provided publicly.]
Green Taipan: BAB, did you get a lot of room to add emotes for GR, and were they particularly time-consuming if so?
Back Alley Brawler: A lot of our time went into the new player powersets, and all of the new enemy groups and zones for Going Rogue
Piyerus1: If you had as much time and resources to work on any project you wanted, what would it be?
Back Alley Brawler: If I had unlimted time and resources, I'd probably work on new custom weapons and new themes for power customization
[Another Jade Spider was spawned.]
Michael Yurke: BABs, any chance for non-weapons version of claws, like the Snakes have? I'd really like to be able to have finger talons instead of Wolverine claws.
Back Alley Brawler: There's unfortunately not any way to tie costume parrts (clawed finger gloves) to power customization (open handed claw attack animations)
Back Alley Brawler: without claw weaposn, you'd just swing with your fists
Faethura1: Are there any plans for unlockable dp weapons like there are for archery or assault rifle?
Back Alley Brawler: there aren't really any dual pistols in the game TO unlock...other than the 5th Column Lugers of course
Back Alley Brawler: players already have access to pretty much all there is
Valectric: Hey Back Ally, when are the bases gonna see some love?
Back Alley Brawler: I know nothing about bases or plans for bases
Valectric: yall seem to have just forgotten about them
Back Alley Brawler: forgotten about what? [I think Back Alley Brawler did not see the person who originally asked about bases when replying to this.]
Redios: HEY BABS ! Please tell me what would you think of "defeated emotes" like twitching on the ground, sticking all fours up, or spawning a tombstone at the head of your character, or daisies growing around you?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm not sure if you gusy should be rewarded for being defeated by getting to do fancy emotes
Golden-Girl: BAB, how comnplex is the tech for customizable emination points for powers?
Back Alley Brawler: emenation points are pretty straightforward...just need the animations for them. I think that kind of thing would be on the list after pool power customization
Praetor Fabulous: BABS, who are GPU and Tex?
NCsoft_Mod08: GPU and Tex are two of our programmers
Proto-Zone: GPU and Tex are on the forums to help out with computer tech issues. They are flagged to ignore Community and Developer Digests.
Valectric: Hey BAB, any chance of a new space zone comming around? Maybe we can take the Ritki fight straight to them in space.
Back Alley Brawler: I don't think the Rikti live in space
Green Taipan: Okay BAB....were there any tricky bits or surprises animating for GR? No specifics, but presumably with the newer engine you had some fun?
Back Alley Brawler: The engine hasn't really changed for Going Rogue, they have just added enhancments on top of the renderer
Back Alley Brawler: the triciest thing to animate in this game are...doors
Back Alley Brawler: seriously, doors are a HUGE pain in the...
Back Alley Brawler: getting a door into the game takes the cooperation of 3 departments. It's a real effort
DJ Valor: SKI CHALET! [I have no idea in what context DJ Valor shouted this out, but I think Back Alley Brawler took it to be a question about Pocket D's ski chalet design.]
NCsoft_Mod08: Everyone thank dark watcher, he asked for ski chalet
Valectric: I got another question BAB, any textural enhancements comming? Would be cool to update the texture files to make things look more realistic.
Back Alley Brawler: updating textures is probably not feasible, but you'll be seeing some pretty amazing stuff in Praetoria that's been made from scratch
Lady Warsprite: how many new zones are we going to get?
Back Alley Brawler: more than expected, less than you want
Valectric: Ok, BAB, one more question. How about more content for people who are level 50.
Back Alley Brawler: The incarnate system is being introduced in Going Rogue I believe
Back Alley Brawler: I sure hope that's right
NCsoft_Mod08: Players will get a taste of it in Going Rogue, but the full experience is in I19
Green Taipan: Can you talk some about animating Walk, something a lot of people thought wouldn't happen?
Back Alley Brawler: What about Walk exactly?
Back Alley Brawler: walking around in the game definitely makes you notice the play space and details in a different way
Taliesen Riftborn: Perhaps a second less sensual walk option for the girls?
Back Alley Brawler: animating walks is very very difficult
Redios: The walk power looks nice man. You did a great job with it. But I am wondering why? What is the purpose for it?
Back Alley Brawler: why walk? Cause so many people asked for it
R u catgurl?: Can you do Vehicle Travel Powers that work like Walk?
[Dark Watcher had arrived and was lurking around.]
Dark Watcher: Why walk, when you can just be there? [Referring to the mods' and devs' ability to instantly transport to any coordinates.]
Back Alley Brawler: I'm kind of baffled at howyou made the lateral leap from the Walk power to vehicle travel powers
Michael Yurke: Hey BABs, who was the red guy from the PAX panel?
Back Alley Brawler: which red guy from PAX?
NCsoft_Mod08: You'll learn more about him before Going Rogue releases, I promise
Desiree Glamour: Hey, wasn't The Television supposed to be here by now?
NCsoft_Mod08: the Television is around
Valectric: BAB, can you please clarify what the incarnate system is exactly?
Back Alley Brawler: I have no details on the incarnate system
Green Taipan: BAB....not being an animtor, I'm curious about the process. Were there limitations on animations say for dances that required the charcter to stay in one spot rather than move around, such as the dance emotes in LotRo?
Back Alley Brawler: yes, animations pretty much have to stay within a certain distance of where you're actually at in theworld
Green Scare: BaB will there be any way in the not so distant future to earn NPC costume pieces through NPC group story archs such as Carnival of Shadows and Wyvern?
Dark Watcher: Gah, the TV's infecting people again. [The Television was around and changing players' avatars into Televisions.]
Back Alley Brawler: I don't know anything about unlocking NPC costume parts other than most of those things only exist for one body type
NCsoft_Mod08: *inserting shameless self promotion* A great way to get some of the costume powers is to play in the weekly Official Forum Games! [Shameless! ;)]
Lady Ghost.: can you plz tlk about the upcomin mutant pack..wats gunna be in it?
Dark Watcher: Cool stuff will be in the Mutant Pack.
Back Alley Brawler: the mutant pack will contain 3 things: [At this point, I *almost* sent him a tell telling him to tread carefully not to do something that would get him in trouble.]
Back Alley Brawler: 1) Stuff, 2) things, and 3)dealies [I'm glad I didn't.]
Dark Watcher: _Cool Stff_ (tm)
Back Alley Brawler: You guys pretty much know what's gonna be in it
Golden-Girl: have you had any work on the mutant booster, BAB?
Dark Watcher: [shrug] I just watch. [Not sure what this was in reference to. Possibly Golden-Girl's question above, meaning that he didn't work on the Mutant Booster Pack, or possibly a /tell.]
Covertkill1: How about having weapons ON our characters like having a sword on your back or pistols on your belt?
Back Alley Brawler: Holsters/Sheaths always comes up and it's got a couple of gotchas
Back Alley Brawler: Those things don't work so well with body scaling, and they don't work well with custom weapons
[At this time, my camera suddenly shifted way upward, and my head turned purple. Confused, I zoomed out a little bit and found that the devs were now not just changing their own avatars, but they had changed my avatar to Lanaru the Mad! I decided to take advantage of the situation...]
TonyV: WHOA!
TonyV: I am SOOO signing up to play basketball!
TonyV: Behold, my children.
TonyV: For I am TonyV, god of the Wiki!
TonyV: Do not anger me, or I shall edit badge locations to be off by many hudreds of cubits!
TonyV: 'It says right here in the Wiki that it's next to the trash can, but I swear, I don't see it!'
Feral Storm: I fear no man, for I have.. Dark Watcher's hat. In theory. [In refernce to my chatter, I think.]
Dark Watcher: The hat has mustical powers. [Heh. "Mustical."]
[Several minutes of dev silence ensued, during which time other player avatars were changed into Lanarus, Televisions, Ghost Widows, and Golden Rollers. I'll post pictures after this post. Also, during this time, Back Alley Brawler made his way outside to the Chalet, and my avatar changed back.]
TonyV: Man, this happens every friggin' time I get turned into a god. It's fun for a few minutes, but then I can't reach stuff on shelves again when I'm changed back. :(
Bike Thief: I don't see any radios here
Dark Watcher: We need more Radio!
Back Alley Brawler: lets see how Rularuu does on teh bunny slope
Feral Storm: /e duck ? ^.^
Dark Watcher: quack?
DJ Jules: Squee squee!
Dark Watcher: Squee?
Dark Watcher: Ok, who but the pwny here?!? [In reference to a Nemesis Horse that Positron had spawned earlier.]
Robotronn1: whare is BaB?
Roulette: It got awfully quiet... *Looks around*
Back Alley Brawler: I just popped into the lodge
Redios: BAB, what is your favorite kind of music?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm not really sure I have a favorite kind of music
Back Alley Brawler: I can almost always listen to U2
The Television: OK
The Television: It's getting late
The Television: OK, last requets, then I'm heading out [Referring to any players that wanted their avatars changed.]
[By this time, it was 22:00 Eastern, the official end of the Meet and Greet. Back Alley Brawler was extremely generous with his time, though, and ended up staying over an hour late.]
Green Taipan: What do you listen to when you're working, BAB? Any particular 'work' music?
Back Alley Brawler: I dont' listen to music while I work
Golden-Girl: BAB, what's the average time it takes to make an animation?
Back Alley Brawler: average varies widely
Back Alley Brawler: generally though, 1-2 days covers about everything
Redios: BABs what is your favorite zone in the game?
Back Alley Brawler: Oh, that's a tough question...not sure I have a favorite
Back Alley Brawler: I remember liking Sharkhead during CoV
IndigoWulf: lol "during cov" he says, as if it's days are numbered
Back Alley Brawler: well, with Going Rogue it will kind of be one big game
Dark Watcher: I hate when that happens [Not sure what he's talking about, probably some of the stuff players were doing with their altered avatars.]
Back Alley Brawler: we don't really think of heroes and villains as seperate games...haven't for a LONG time.
Roulette: Whats your favorite AT to play? To Babs, DW and TV
Back Alley Brawler: favorite AT is tanks...duh
Green Taipan: Without giving too much away, Devs....have you seen any really nice social haunts in Praetoria in what you've seen thus far?
Back Alley Brawler: I think the area around Tyrant's tower is going to blow you guys away
Force Encephalon: What's your favorite Mind control/Kinetic set?
Back Alley Brawler: my favorite mind contro/kinetics set would have to be...let's see...probably mind control and I guess kinetics. But mind control and kinetics is a close second [Probably not what he meant, but still, :D]
Madam Enigma: So, no warwalls in Praetoria? So it's one big world without zoning?
Back Alley Brawler: Thats' correctly Praetoria is multiple zones, but no war walls seperating the different parts of teh city. They've done a lot of work to make the loading between areas as quick and seamless as possible
Redios: BABS, what are your feelings about Dual Pistols being light on damage?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm sure Dual Pistols is a more than adequate set for anyone who plays the game outside of spreadsheets
Green Taipan: Ah, there's a question. Without being specific to sets, are there are any particular animations you just look at and go WOW?
Back Alley Brawler: there's lots of animations in teh game that I still find cool
Dark Watcher: I like playing the game. Anonymously. [Not sure what he's referring to, probably a question sent as a /tell or in the local channel.]
Dark Watcher: I'm GOING ROGUE! Oh wait, I'm kind of already am. [Ditto.]
Proto-Zone: BABs, in regards to the mission zones... Will the split between the underground zone and the above ground praetoria be similarly seemless?
Back Alley Brawler: I really don't know how the zoning between Praetoria and the underground is going to work
TonyV: So BAB, I'm wondering, have you ever read something on the forums that REALLY ticked you off? Do the criticisms sometimes get to you, or do you just think, "Enh, typical forum chatter"?
Back Alley Brawler: have I ever read anything on the forums that ticked me off?
TonyV: Yeah, like you thought, "Man, if I wouldn't get in trouble for telling that idiot off..."
TonyV: Not asking what made you mad, just how much some trol-- er, people--can get on your skin.
Back Alley Brawler: some people on the forums can be brutal
Back Alley Brawler: It's really hard to read posts from people who completely brush aside something that you worked on for a really long time, put a lot of time and effort into, just to complain about something else that's not there
Back Alley Brawler: I get really aggrivated with posts like "No one cares about Dual Pistols, when are you guys gonna fix PvP"
R u catgurl?: Don't sweat it, nobody likes pvp'ers
Dark Watcher: I like PvPers.
Back Alley Brawler: logically, you know that it's only one or two people out of thousands and thousands who feel that way...but those are the posts that always stick with you
Back Alley Brawler: but I try to live by one simple moto
Back Alley Brawler: you take the good
Back Alley Brawler: you take the bad
Back Alley Brawler: you take them both
Back Alley Brawler: and there you have the facts...of life
Madam Enigma: I'm curious, when testing the new hami raid, why were you so surprised by using Oil Slick to power howling twilight?
Back Alley Brawler: I actually didn't know that's what they were doing with Oil Slick at the time. I thought someone had just thrown one down
Laughing Guns: Costumes cause lag.
Dark Watcher: I thought it was guns that caused lag.
Back Alley Brawler: chatting causes lag
Green Taipan: Dark Watcher! I don't hear much about what it is you do. What do you do and how long have you been doing it?
Dark Watcher: What do I do? That's an excellent question.
Dark Watcher: I watch!
Dark Watcher: Oh wait. No, I'm a programmer. I tell designers they're crazy.
Dual Mind: no one can hear you watcher [Not sure why he said this. Maybe he was talking in the local channel.]
Dark Watcher: Testing, 1, 2, 3. [Not sure why he was testing the channel.]
[I think that Redios's question triggered the following conversation about Back Alley Brawler filming himself using a real whip to help animate the Demon Summoning powerset.]
Redios: the animations for Demon MMs are great too! I love how they come out of the ground. What was your favorite thing about Demon Summoning?
Back Alley Brawler: filming reference for the whip?
Back Alley Brawler: Nope, I brought my whips in and scared the crap out of Keetsie [Keetsie Berbel, Visual Effects Artist --Wiki Guy]
Dark Watcher: Yes, whips are loud. VERY loud!
Sultry Siren: wait...BABs has whips?!?
Dark Watcher: Hey! I'm the dark one!
Back Alley Brawler: I have 4 whips...2 that I made myself
Dark Watcher: It's always amusing watching the animators work.
Dark Watcher: Of course it's much more distrubing watching programmers working on vector problems.
DJ Jules: Why's that, Dark Watcher?
Dark Watcher: The animators sometimes act out the animations.
Back Alley Brawler: Colin worked very hard on the whip animations
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson just kind of busted out the Dual Pistol animations in a week. That stuff's in his blood
Green Taipan: Very impressive!
Back Alley Brawler: not literally a week
Dark Watcher: Nelson is an animation machine!

Here's the picture of Tony "Lanaru" V...



Here are more "Avatars Gone Wild." At one point, there were six or so Golden Rollers cruising around the dance floor, and a bunch of floating televisions everywhere.



Players were also turned into Ghost Widows, Rikti Monkeys, and I think I saw some turned into demons, too.



Oh, and there's a girl, one who is golden. I wish I could remember her name...

I got a great laugh when, while Ocho was handing out gold titles at the M&G ("6 years and going strong", "6th anniversary partier", etc"), I realized that he gave me the gold title of "videographer type person."

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Where and when did this happen anyways, I never heard about it at all until I saw this thread.