< < < DEAR DEVs: A letter from the Base Builders > > >
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2010-05-01 08:49 in Base Construction
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I'm not a base builder, and I 100% support this suggestion. We've done the five origins - now do player faction boosters!|
Originally Posted by American_Angel
My best suggestion outside of this is a booster pak for base builders. This pack could be $10 and contain the Arachnos base items, along with tons of stuff from the game. And it could be tied in with the badge/personal items interface for placement...just like the vet reward items.
I would gladly pay for a base booster pack...and I suspect many here would as well. That way the devs turn a profit and can justify spending time on it. |
(Although what goes in the Marketeer and Farmer booster might be worrisome...)
I'm fine with a base booster pack, but I have to say I hate the "Personal Items" function. I would be OK with it if we could delete stuff without having to click the "Yes I am freaking sure I want to delete this item" dialog box. Very annoying. So is flooding my personal items inventory when I want a particular gun case or poster.
"...freedom isn't a commodity to compromise." -- Captain America, New Avengers #21
Guide to Base Teleporters
Ya know, it makes me chuckle to look at my box for City of Villains and see just how hyped up base building is. Then, years later, it gets little to no attention. I think the only real new item they ever put in to bases since way back when was the Ouroboros crystal.
I'm in favor of other aspects of this game getting tweaked and updated, base building being one of them.
I believe that Bases have already done pretty much all that the Devs wanted them to do. That is it coerced people to fork out the money for CoV whether we had ANY intention, whatsoever of PvPing OR playing a Villain.
That's right. For those of you who don't remember (I know a lot of you do), back before I6 we had no bases. No zone teleporters, no med bays, no storage, etc. We were used to it and it didn't bother us overmuch.
Then along rolls I6 in conjunction with the release of CoV. Suddenly SGs can have all of those neato things. Only 1 problem... you couldn't enter your SGs base (yes, the one that YOU were earning Prestige for) unless you owned CoV.
So your SG builds a base with your hard work and is really excited about it. Its the new toy and as such it is just SO cool! And you sat outside... and sat... until you bit the bullet and payed for ANOTHER GAME (CoV).
Dear Dev team.
Please give this guy his stuff back and take his orange crayon away.
When the time is right , and I am watching it closely...
I am going to give Impish Kat a catnip cooler
and then throw said Kat at the devs...
my advice to everyone here...
wait...
then watch the sparks fly!
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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*wipes coffee off of monitor*
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
When the time is right , and I am watching it closely...
I am going to give Impish Kat a catnip cooler and then throw said Kat at the devs... my advice to everyone here... wait... then watch the sparks fly! |
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Daemonchilde: ((fluffy thinks he's a tank)) Demon . Hunter: (( I think mine is >.> Daemonchilde: ((Yours is no longer fluffy, it is Obliteron, destroyer of worlds)) |
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+1 rep. Best idea in the entire thread. I'd like to purchase tickets please.
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
When the time is right , and I am watching it closely...
I am going to give Impish Kat a catnip cooler and then throw said Kat at the devs... my advice to everyone here... wait... then watch the sparks fly! |
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom (or freem?) fighter; just as one man's exploit is another man's feature.
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Sorry, been gone almost a week because my power supply went out...and then I reformatted my system because it had been a while, lol.|
Originally Posted by CaptA
I'm fine with a base booster pack, but I have to say I hate the "Personal Items" function. I would be OK with it if we could delete stuff without having to click the "Yes I am freaking sure I want to delete this item" dialog box. Very annoying. So is flooding my personal items inventory when I want a particular gun case or poster.
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You bring up a good point though. One suggestion I could make toward that is they add those items to a different tab in our personal items, and mark them as "non-invented" items or something? Maybe that way they would not give us that popup window.
The only other option would be to remove the confirmation window completely...or to give us the option of turning it off, which would make me very, very happy as well.
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While this was true in the beginning, I think it would be remiss if we didn't mention that eventually, the Devs gave...that's right...they gave...the City of Villains content to everyone.|
Originally Posted by Aquila_NA
I believe that Bases have already done pretty much all that the Devs wanted them to do. That is it coerced people to fork out the money for CoV whether we had ANY intention, whatsoever of PvPing OR playing a Villain.
That's right. For those of you who don't remember (I know a lot of you do), back before I6 we had no bases. No zone teleporters, no med bays, no storage, etc. We were used to it and it didn't bother us overmuch. Then along rolls I6 in conjunction with the release of CoV. Suddenly SGs can have all of those neato things. Only 1 problem... you couldn't enter your SGs base (yes, the one that YOU were earning Prestige for) unless you owned CoV. So your SG builds a base with your hard work and is really excited about it. Its the new toy and as such it is just SO cool! And you sat outside... and sat... until you bit the bullet and payed for ANOTHER GAME (CoV). |
And I've been playing since Original Beta, so I remember...and getting around was a total frustration beck then...it bothered everyone. That's why Cryptic added the base beacons and hte devs have since added other travel options (Ourosboros Portal, WW TP Power, etc.)
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
When the time is right , and I am watching it closely...
I am going to give Impish Kat a catnip cooler and then throw said Kat at the devs... my advice to everyone here... wait... then watch the sparks fly! |
>o.o<
I await your signal.
(mmmmmmmmm... caaaaatnip)
.
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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
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This I agree with in principle. It only took about a week or so of outraged cries from members of the community that wanted more animal like parts to get a small bone thrown to them by the addition of a wolf tail to the mutant booster pack. |
Originally Posted by Nitra
I agree, and if this is the case and it sure seems like it is... then it is up to us to keep doing stuff like this... mention it at meet and greets let them know it's important
there is a saying... "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" or something like that... I understand that base building is low on the totem poll but the more you speak out the more they might listen and at least give us an idea as to what is going on with it if anything at all... |
How long have people been asking for new base items?
I'm deeply saddened by this new development, but at the same time, it has set a precedent that if enough people yell loud and long enough, the developers will eventually get around to appeasing the masses. So.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS, UNITE!! WE DEMAND MORE BASE ITEMS.
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Microtransactions on top of subscriptions ftl.
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Originally Posted by mercykilling
a small bone thrown to them by the addition of a wolf tail to the mutant booster pack
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Sorry, Devs, this issue has not been addressed so this thread isn't going away unless...of course...you bring a hammer down...which would show us all a good reason to move on to another game.
With the announcement of Issue 18, upon looking at it, I am totally disgusted. Why'?
Because the whole issue is just to role out Unified Auction Houses in conjunction with Going Rogue (you can bet GR was pushed back so they could be released together too).
Are we supposed to care that we can fight dopplegangers in AE when the system's experience is so nerfed no one wishes to play our arcs anymore? Whoopie-do!
But what's really ticking me off is Issue 18 has so little meat to it that they COULD have put in a couple improvements to BASES in the very same issue...with very little effort (such as adding an arachnos set, for example)...yet still we are totally ignored.
TOTALLY IGNORED
It's yet another slap in the face, fellow base builders.
When treated like this, what will we likely do when DC Universe is released and they add bases?
Numerous times, the Devs have stated that they are amazed by what our faction has done with bases. But, after being continually ignored, if another quality option presents itself, do the Devs risk losing the faction entirely?
I, along with other base builders, love this game. But even I have my limits...as I'm sure many other base builders are feeling also. So when another opportunity presents itself, will some or most of our faction move on?
That is the question the DEVs need to ask themselves. Are they willing to risk losing us by alienating us to the community? While we are forced to sit on the back of the bus, nearly everyone else gets more attention...even the PVPers (yes, I said it...if you disagree, just look at the PVP IO Sets...that's called getting at least some attention).
This issue has become a serious one, Devs. It needs to be addresses, while we base Builders are still in the mood to talk. Don't wait until you've offended us so badly that nothing will keep us here.
It's time to sit at the table and open negotiations.
My Suggestion:
Let our community choose three representatives to talk in a private thread with you Devs. Work on a structured plan, with some immediate issues addressed.
For example, we know that all of our needs will not be met in a day. But how much are we willing to settle for immediately and over time?
EVEN if you commit to adding a few things now, and a couple things each issue, it's more than we'll gotten otherwise.
Better yet, give us a poll between issues and let us vote on things to add from a list to give them priority. YOU can assemble the list of 5-10 items! I know this forum has a poll system.
Come on guys...give us something positive here. A response at least!
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You're asking for too much.|
Originally Posted by American_Angel
Come on guys...give us something positive here. A response at least!
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SG Bases launched with Issue 7. Now 10 Issues and plenty of years later, Bases have only been touched, on Live, ONCE.
The problem is that the legacy base editor is a piece of numblecrunk created by someone who doesn't even work there anymore, and hasn't for a long time. It's not even fully documented. It "works" but it's creaky and clunky, and it's not anything that anyone in their right mind would want to invest time or resources in extending development for.
That means that any Base Editor worth releasing onto Live Servers is going to have to be something made new from whole cloth. And if you do THAT then it's extremely likely that anything developed will not be backwards compatible with the numblecrunk Base System we're putting up with right now. I'd like to argue that people wouldn't have a problem with going from what we've already got to something clearly superior and easier to use with greater functionality than the existing system ... but that would be speculation on my part. I very much want to believe that people would be willing to sacrifice what they've GOT for what they could GET, provided that what would be OFFERED would be clearly better than what we already HAVE ... but that's still a pretty tall order.
What about all that salvage and all those inspirations and all those enhancements that people have got "banked" in their storage racks in their bases? Some people still have nearly 2500 items crammed into their salvage racks from before the last Base "Love" update. What are they going to do? Are they just going to be SOL? Is everyone going to be SOL?
Urban Renewal on this scale is NOT pretty.
Personally, I think the best possible thing would be to launch a SECOND base editing system concurrent with the first in one Issue ... with the explicit declaration and knowledge that the old base editing system will be discontinued and deactivated in the following Issue. That way, you'd have access to "both" bases an SG could have concurrently and people would have months of time in which to "move" from one base system over to another. The game engine would only need to support the legacy and new base building systems for a single issue, after which the old system gets dumped and removed and its claim on both the servers and the databases cleansed and reclaimed. That gives everyone (still subscribed) MONTHS in which to complete the transition from one system to the other, at their own pace.
Chances of something like this happening? Nil ... until the Devs invest in better Development tools for Bases and other User Generated Content (I'm looking at YOU, Architect Entertainment).
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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Thanks for the link, I have been looking for it for a while.
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Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf
List after List. Comprehensive discussions ranging from features we as a playerbase of Base Monkeys wanted to what bugs needed to be fixed.
CoX Issue 13: All your base are belong to us? Enter Sunstorm Progress and Serious Community Relations begin. CoX Issue 13: Power and Responsibility Exit Sunstorm So I'm thinking Hell will freeze over, or atleast get clogged with a bazillion DS/? MMs before we ever get around to a discussion of our issues, let alone actually seeing progression in development of Bases. I may have grown cynical over the years, but that hopeless romantic who thinks everything is going to workout without the need of full global genocide ... ... Is really waiting for a cold day in Hell. |
My Lego Models http://www.flickr.com/photos/30369639@N07/ lemur lad: God you can't be that stupid... I'm on at the same time as you for once, and not 20 minutes into it you give me something worth petitioning?Lady-Dee: Hey my fat keeps me warm in the winter and shady in the summer.
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While I agree with your sentiment, there's one minor detail that my OCD is preventing me from ignoring.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
SG Bases launched with Issue 7. Now 10 Issues and plenty of years later, Bases have only been touched, on Live, ONCE.
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Issue 6: Along Came A Spider
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@Robo_Knight: No Prob. Glad my post was useful.
Edit: Factored in Feb 29th, 2008 for Leap Year, so 1,725 not 1,724
Comic and Hero/Villain Culture
Saturday January 29th, 2005 (12:37 PM) ~ Monday August 9th, 2010
Those Who Lived It Will Remember Long after your Ban Hammer Crumbles and the servers flicker dead.
We Will Remember This One Moment In Time! ~ Shadow Ravenwolf
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Honestly, I think plenty of people would be willing to to put up with a change for the CHANCE at a better system. I know I would.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
I'd like to argue that people wouldn't have a problem with going from what we've already got to something clearly superior and easier to use with greater functionality than the existing system ... but that would be speculation on my part. I very much want to believe that people would be willing to sacrifice what they've GOT for what they could GET, provided that what would be OFFERED would be clearly better than what we already HAVE ... but that's still a pretty tall order.
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| Personally, I think the best possible thing would be to launch a SECOND base editing system concurrent with the first in one Issue ... with the explicit declaration and knowledge that the old base editing system will be discontinued and deactivated in the following Issue. That way, you'd have access to "both" bases an SG could have concurrently and people would have months of time in which to "move" from one base system over to another. The game engine would only need to support the legacy and new base building systems for a single issue, after which the old system gets dumped and removed and its claim on both the servers and the databases cleansed and reclaimed. That gives everyone (still subscribed) MONTHS in which to complete the transition from one system to the other, at their own pace. |
Leaving the old editor functioning, just encourages people to keep using it, when you want them migrating.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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There is something to be said for your point, and it is well taken. I was just looking at the problem and choosing the path with the least number of technical hurdles/work with regards to the legacy base editing system. After all, you are at some point going to want to be able to "wipe" the old base once you're done moving ... although I suppose a UI element to do that could easily be added to the SG Registrar so as to cleanse the database of any legacy base building elements en masse and in total, rather than doing it by hand via the editor.|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
This isn't really the best way to do it IMO. I think disabling the old editor completely from the player end, but leaving existing bases online and accessible, simultaneous with a new editor and an account with identical prestige to your current base is the way to go. Then you use the base portal to chose to enter current or legacy base. Move your stuff, and eventually scrap your legacy base.
Leaving the old editor functioning, just encourages people to keep using it, when you want them migrating. |
But this also brings up an important point ... and an unusual opportunity which could be exploited by the Devs ... should they so choose.
The very basic notion I've got is that a single SG would be capable of supporting more than one Base simultaneously ... both Legacy and All New.
If you examine that very basic premise, you should see inherent within it the opportunity for something we've all wanted since people got the feature in Ultima Online ... Personalized Housing. Because when you're able to support more than one player built environment at a time there's no reason in the world to design your system to limit players to just a single instance of the environment to edit.
What would essentially happen is that SGs would have, as they always have before, a Prestige Pool from which to pay for rooms and the functional items to populate them with. BUT ... there would be an added feature in which individual players within an SG could be granted their own purely decorative "base" (as far as the game engine and database is concerned) which would be in coalition with the "main" functional SG base.
The way it would work out is that the individual, purely decorative "base" ... or "personal floor" if you prefer ... would simply be something like an 8x8 Entry Room (using the current terminology of the legacy base editing system). When you click the entry portal/elevator, you are given the option to go to any other "floor" in your SG's base (including the "functional" floor that has telepads and workshops and power and control and medical and so on) ... or go return to the outside zone you came in from. Each of the players granted a "personal floor" for their base receives an "allowance" of Prestige from the SG Base Editor(s) with which they can use to decorate their room/floor however they want. Individual members are allowed to only edit their own personal rooms, unless they are granted full SG Base Editing priviledges, in which case they can edit any of the "floors" associated with the SG (including individual members' personal rooms).
If we're even still bothering with rent at all under a new system, charge 100 Prestige per month per SG Member Personal Room (functionally, an 8x8 Entry Room that is its own "base" in coalition with the SG "main" functional base), and call it a day.
If looking to make things PvP workable, it would help to be able to make SG Bases have either 1 or 2 (or more?) Functional floors ... allowing for the necessary "levels" of redundancy. Only thing you'd need to do then is to create a way to "pool" the generated levels of power and control between more than a single instance of a base "floor" so as to be able to keep everything running even when they aren't all on the same floors.
Via use of this "more than one base per SG" notion, we not only can achieve personalized housing, where every member of the SG gets to have their own "room" without compromising the security of the entire base environment ... we can also achieve multi-story "building" bases with more than a single floor like we have now. AND ... by enabling multi-floor instances of SG bases, where all the floors are "networked" together via an Entry Portal of some kind (which could include actual elevators, since there's plenty of art for THAT already in the game!) we don't need to have single floors that are both incredibly huge and incredibly database demanding and render engine lag inducing.
Odds of this sort of thing happening?
Let me break out my old calculus textbook so that I can compute Limit --> 0 problems.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
But if a very large SG has say, 75 members, and you are using your "one floor per person, PLUS functioning floors" thats alot of "where the heck do I go to get from here to a TP so I can get to Atlas?" or "Was my base floor number 45 or 54?" plus lots of scrolling and hoping you are in the right place. Add your coalies to that list and entering a base just got alot harder to do...
(I re-read your post, were you saying upoin leaving the main base the list comes up?)
Why not have "personal homes" be a clickable door/ elevator placed in base that allows you to decorate a, say, 3x3 block? That way you always access the main base, and can then figure out where to place the "personal base" entrance WITHIN your base, therefore still keeping the main selection pages simple to use. Then go to the longer lists of personal bases while already IN your base, instead of getting into your base... follow?
Its a neat idea... but then the shear size of some SG's makes this become a very large load time, no?
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Clicking an internal door would be a new instance, no? Two, ten, ten and twenty unique members would not matter... I think. They could set permissions individually to allow or restrict other SGmates entry into their private quarters.|
Originally Posted by Bru_Tal
Its a neat idea... but then the shear size of some SG's makes this become a very large load time, no?
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Originally Posted by Bru_Tal
Then go to the longer lists of personal bases while already IN your base, instead of getting into your base... follow?
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...
I realize this my be a pipe dream but gosh, I'd love to see something like this because I think it lends to community building as much as base building. Still exchanging base tours and the majority have been single player bases - folks who want edit rights and can't find it easily in larger groups.
I think the idea of a totally new system is an awesome one...
...but it is very unlikely. We cannot even get existing items added to the existing system. There's no way we can convince them to develop a whole new system altogether.
However...
...there is another way we could see things get done. They could release an SDK so that we could, as players, work on developing "plugins" for the game.
For example, if they do not wish to do the work on the bases, let us do the work. Some of us on CoX have programming and 3D skills. If we had an SDK to work with, we could actually add many items to the system, subject to approval (of course).
I have Fusion 2, 3D Studio 2010 and more to work with myself.
What would this SDK include? The ability to take all existing items from the various missions (like an arachnos set) and create packets to add to the existing editor.
If the community gets involved, we could see the bases develop into something entirely useful.
Shoot, I wouldn't mind getting the chance to totally rework the system, but I think that would be pushing it.
If asked, I would think chances are better for us to get a totally reworked system over allowing players to create the content for bases in general.
MA isnt aq good example to stand behind in terms of player created content.
Its not content so much as it is just a tool, nothing in it besides random (slightly determined) placing and text is unique (costumes/character creation dont fly with me either)...
But hey, would it be cool?
Yeah
Likely... I think not.
Again, playing to the minority will never get them more money. More costumes, mapsets, villianhero groups, content, zones... that gets people attention and plays the bills. Making 100 objects availible to a base... not so much.
And I'm one of you guys.
I'll get Jones'in for base making and only do THAT for 2 or 3 weeks.
I just recognize what the effort will always go towards.
And thats cool with me too.
But c'mon, reality has to set in on some of us sooner or later...
Or else we'll all be running around on rainbows and unicorns or 100 foot mechs within a week.
Has anyone noticed if they snuck anything for us into the new issue? I know it's doubtful, but anything is possible.
ISSUE 19: Fortress of Solitude
Has a nice ring to it....
Reading this thread has made me depressed...
That apparently the devs have put an entire faction of players on /ignore basically.
Sigh... well after seeing how they borked PVP, I'm not surprised some people are afraid of drawing attention to themselves.
Anyway... there is always COH 2...
"The Good... they don't know how close to Evil they truly are..." -The Overlord
Guess what my avatar is and I'll give you a rare candy!
@Silversword