Not a fan of "zowies"


b0bcatmc

 

Posted

I thought the glowing rose bushes were neat at first... until I could only find two of them.

The cameras? That sucked.

As for the bombs planted all over the island? I ended up auto-completing.

Look, I adore glowie missions. I looove clicking glowies. My friends all tease me about it. But the mission needs to state a MUCH MORE LIMITED area for these things to be in. Having to run all over an entire zone map listening and trying to look around for glowies is too annoying.

I'm not asking for them to show up on the map (though if they are on the map, they need to be MUCH more prominent, the dull yellow things are really hard to see) but please, limit the area they appear in and have the mission text state that area.

It makes me sad, I really wanted to love these.


 

Posted

They DO show on the map, at least, the camera's certainly do. Quite prominently too!


@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Posted

The bombs are on the map too.

What do you mean, the dull yellow things are hard to see? They're icons on the map like the tram or the stores, and can each be clicked so they'll show on your nav bar, with the distance needed to get to them. You can turn off some icons in the map options in the corner too if the map's crowded.

Do you ever open the map and click on the icon for the tram, then close it and go there? Same process.

Ooh, if what Ollin's describing has hit you too, I can see the problem OP. My sympathies, I have not run into that. Check your map options.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan View Post
They DO show on the map, at least, the camera's certainly do. Quite prominently too!
Oddly the option to have them show up on the map doesn't always seem to be on for a new character. I've had two folks that I've run through some of those missions and for one of them I had to go into the map settings and turn it on. The other one had it on as a default.

For the life of me I'm not sure why that happened, I might have done something, but I certainly didn't go in and change any of the map settings that's for sure.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oliin View Post
Oddly the option to have them show up on the map doesn't always seem to be on for a new character. I've had two folks that I've run through some of those missions and for one of them I had to go into the map settings and turn it on. The other one had it on as a default.

For the life of me I'm not sure why that happened, I might have done something, but I certainly didn't go in and change any of the map settings that's for sure.
You, sir, are correct. I was frustrated last night, trying like the OP to find the outdoor glowies. The bomb mission was killing me. Finally, in exasperation, I yelled out in the broadcast channel that I couldn't find them and asked if anyone knew where they were, that I'd been roaming around for half an hour to no avail. I got greeted by a couple of yells of, "They're on your map!"

Um, no, they're not.

Oh, wait...

What's this?

*forehead slap!* You have to turn them on to be seen! I foresee that this is going to be a rite of passage for an awful lot of players in Going Rogue. This was my first Praetorian character, so I don't know how the option to display outdoor glowies got turned off when it was never even an option before, but there you go.

I did write up a /bug and filed it under the "Suggestion" category, that during the very first outdoor glowie mission, it needs to be printed in bold yellow text that if you cannot see them on your map, check to see if you have your settings set to display them. Hopefully, they'll do that, or maybe even print it in every mission text that has your traipsing around looking for them in case you forget or the settings get wonky again.


We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)

 

Posted

No pie for the person who decided it should be more than 1 zowie per mission.

3 Rosebushes to showcase it? Ok, fine they are all close together and I can deal with that once. 3 Bombs? Really, 1 should have been enough. 10 dumpsters? Ok, that's going back to the "Hunt 10 Circle of Thorns in Kings Row" type of hunts where you have to find them only at night on the tops of some buildings. Other than the first Rosebush mission reduce these down to 1. The last thing a team of 8 wants to do is wait around for people to clicky stuff.


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Posted

People's mileage clearly varies when it comes to zowies' visibility in game and on the mini-map. I didn't any trouble locating them in the early missions on my first Praetorian characters (even on the cameras, which are probably the smallest glowie model in the game).

As for zowies as a general concept, I think they're long, long overdue. Since City of Heroes is ordinarily such a heavily instanced game, it needs some more varieties of missions on the universal map among the general population besides "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." They could also be invaluable to encourage new players to explore maps and generally mingle.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyV View Post
You, sir, are correct. I was frustrated last night, trying like the OP to find the outdoor glowies. The bomb mission was killing me. Finally, in exasperation, I yelled out in the broadcast channel that I couldn't find them and asked if anyone knew where they were, that I'd been roaming around for half an hour to no avail. I got greeted by a couple of yells of, "They're on your map!"

Um, no, they're not.

Oh, wait...

What's this?

*forehead slap!* You have to turn them on to be seen! I foresee that this is going to be a rite of passage for an awful lot of players in Going Rogue. This was my first Praetorian character, so I don't know how the option to display outdoor glowies got turned off when it was never even an option before, but there you go.

I did write up a /bug and filed it under the "Suggestion" category, that during the very first outdoor glowie mission, it needs to be printed in bold yellow text that if you cannot see them on your map, check to see if you have your settings set to display them. Hopefully, they'll do that, or maybe even print it in every mission text that has your traipsing around looking for them in case you forget or the settings get wonky again.
Oh, sheesh. Well, I guess I'll have to go turn that on, and make sure my second Praetorian has it on before I start running her, as well!

That should definitely be turned on by default. Those annoying ! help popups are!

Thanks very much for the heads-up on that.


 

Posted

People should do their homework first, before coming to the boards and moan their woes out.

But then again, these forums would be a ghost town if they did.


 

Posted

Do the little exclamation point help message thingies state that "Zowies" appear on the map under blah blah setting? Perhaps some kind Developer should add that bit if they have not already. I always play with my map up, so I never had a problem locating them, but given how prevalent this complaint is I imagine some more clear instructions could help.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silverado View Post
People should do their homework first, before coming to the boards and moan their woes out.

But then again, these forums would be a ghost town if they did.
They'd probably be a ghost town if people restricted themselves from posting just to be snarky too.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyV View Post
Dude, coming to the boards and airing out woes is the homework.
What he said.

This sort of question is the reason the Player Questions forum and the Help channel exist.


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Posted

Open your map.

Done.

Unless you have a really, really small screen resolution, keeping your map open at all times is very valuable in this game. If you'd looked at your map, you'd have seen the glowies are right there in front of you the whole time. Utilize what's been given to us.


Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zekiran_Immortal View Post
Open your map.

Done.

Unless you have a really, really small screen resolution, keeping your map open at all times is very valuable in this game. If you'd looked at your map, you'd have seen the glowies are right there in front of you the whole time. Utilize what's been given to us.
...Except that outdoor objectives is not enabled by default for all players. I'm one of them. You know how you can toggle off the little icons for train stations, gates to other zones, contacts, teammates, etc.? When I started my new Praetorian character, he did not have "Outdoor Objectives" selected in that list. So when I got the mission, I had no freakin' clue where to go, even though I always keep my map open, and since I don't toggle those items on or off very often, it did not occur to me that they might be on the map but hidden by default. I suspect that the OP was in the same boat.

I guess my point is that yeah, once you know that, it's easy. But knowing is half the battle.


We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)

 

Posted

I've had to explain this probably half a dozen times already, and most of the time to people who really should know better. I wouldn't fault a new player for not seeing it. I'd fault the game's design for not having it enabled by default. And I know why.

Praetorian zones have three extra map markers than City of Heroes zones - Lounges, Precincts and Zowies. All three are disabled by default because they're not present in City of Heroes maps. In fact, moving from Praetoria to City of Heroes, you will find you suddenly lack those options entirely. Hence why I think someone just forgot to tag them.

This needs to be fixed.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

Posted

I'm curious now. I've got 2 new Praetorians, and both of them I had to go and do all their Settings by hand (because I always fail to save a file with it) .... And both of them have these glowies on their maps normally.

If a new player who doesn't have binds or anything in place already comes along, should they not have this on by default then? I'm just wondering, not saying that yours weren't how you said. I'm just trying to figure out what the difference is between my setup and yours, and obviously others, that mine DO default to on and yours did NOT.


Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zekiran_Immortal View Post
I'm curious now. I've got 2 new Praetorians, and both of them I had to go and do all their Settings by hand (because I always fail to save a file with it) .... And both of them have these glowies on their maps normally.

If a new player who doesn't have binds or anything in place already comes along, should they not have this on by default then? I'm just wondering, not saying that yours weren't how you said. I'm just trying to figure out what the difference is between my setup and yours, and obviously others, that mine DO default to on and yours did NOT.
It's not in your options that you save to a file. It's in the map options, i.e. the list that is in the map screen itself.


"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."

 

Posted

Just curious -- why are we calling these zowies?


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Posted

I think its a smoosh together of Zone Glowie ...into zowie


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkGob View Post
Just curious -- why are we calling these zowies?
Zone + Glowies

It was mentioned in one of the missions. I think there is actually a ! tip that mentions them.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Remidi View Post
It's not in your options that you save to a file. It's in the map options, i.e. the list that is in the map screen itself.
I have never had to change mine, to get these there either. So seriously, ... I wonder what's different between those that default and those that don't! It makes no sense, there has to be some kind of reason why it'd bug for some but not all.

Are you using ultra-mode? I am. *grasping at straws*


Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed

 

Posted

I've always had mine on by default. I didn't have to turn the things on manually once.


 

Posted

There's also the small matter of an ! pop-up explaining zowies, how to locate them and why they're called zowies.