WW's reasoning for no weather. Disagree!
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-11-17 18:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
They like throwing this one out over in the STO forums.
It's a game not a simulation.
*Votes to NOT get weather before more costume pieces, Pool Customization, and alternate power animations, thank you very much.*
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instead of weather all around I'd rather maybe a a snow zone or something, or maybe during Christmas have snowfall in a handful of zones to signal the Ice Horde's arrival|
Originally Posted by Noble Savage
Hey, folks. Here's the actual quote:
"Ive never been a huge fan of weather for the sake of weather and Ive said not on my watch in the past, but if there is a compelling gameplay reason to do it, not just because its cool, Id reconsider. So far, no ones come up with one, but Im open to ideas." Note that this is a far cry from "solid no." As with all things, we'll look at the priorities of the project at hand and introduce new tricks when they make sense. Cheers.  |
I dunno, I'd love to see weather but I am not heart broken by its absence from game.
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I like the idea of maybe adding an island to redside that's under a cold/snow or rain effect due to something, be it magical or a failed weather control device.|
Originally Posted by Emo_Bitter
instead of weather all around I'd rather maybe a a snow zone or something, or maybe during Christmas have snowfall in a handful of zones to signal the Ice Horde's arrival
I dunno, I'd love to see weather but I am not heart broken by its absence from game. |
Blueside has the Halloween zone and the fog zone (so to speak), so redside should get something similar.
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At the very least, there's no good reason the Holiday Event shouldn't and couldn't have a light snow effect added.
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I am not in either camp on this issue but I thought I should mention just because other games do something and we don't like it there doesn't mean it couldn't be done here and work well.
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Originally Posted by Steel_Shaman
When it comes to weather, I'd rather they didn't. I've played games that had weather effects before and I just didn't care for them at all.
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total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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THIS!|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
*Votes to NOT get weather before more costume pieces, Pool Customization, and alternate power animations, thank you very much.*
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And when they do get around to weather in 2043, I'd vote that it has ZERO gameplay effect. No I do not give a flying &*#! if it makes my ice powers work better or not. I'm against game play bonuses we have no control over. ESPECIALLY the idea that my fire powers on other toons would be weakend if it rained. Thought I read that somewhere up above. I'll keep my opinion on THAT to myself as it would get me banned.
Thanks.
TL;DR; Weather=a solid gold MEH!
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Ultramode does zilch and we still got it
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I have never cared about weather effects and I never will. They do precisely zilch for me. Yes, they're cool to see. Once. Beyond that, they're just fluff, and I agree with War Witch - they add nothing to the part of the game that I care about.
"Immersion" is such a blanket statement these days, what with people throwing it around willy-nilly, that it no longer has any meaning or weight. I, for one, would be much more "immersed" in the game if I could colour my Ring of Fire to be the same colour as my Cremate and my Healing Flames than I would be if it rained or it snowed. In fact, having weather and seasons tends to distract me from games more than it helps, with the possible exception of L4D2 where it actually makes you blind as a bat, thus carrying a gameplay effect. I will always pick more costumes, more powers, more locations and more customization over weather. |
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Putting aside actual particle systems, a change in textures would be kind of cool for the different seasons..as someone mentioned, snow on the ground...perhaps trees without leaves.
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With the age of this engine?|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
I am not in either camp on this issue but I thought I should mention just because other games do something and we don't like it there doesn't mean it couldn't be done here and work well.
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I don't' agree that just about everything that can't be done well in other games can be done well here. And that opinion has nothing to do with the ability of this dev team, but more with the archaicness of this engine.
Could it be done well if the devs dug deep and hacked the hell out of this game's engine? Sure. But is it worth the effort?
For example, they took the time to get the Demon MM flame whip looking sharp while STILL being customizable. I don't' remember who said it but it was mentioned that the effort to get that working was ENORMOUS. I don't doubt that that was because of this aging engine.
However, I'm fine with them taking the time to do that cause it paid off in terms of game play, as it gave the game a type of MM that was VERY unique.
Now would weather effects give the same kind of bump? I'm of the opinion, no.
So then the question becomes is it worth the effort? I think you know where I'd lean on the answer to that.
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True. However, ultra mode effects EVERY SINGLE visual aspect of the game.|
Originally Posted by Santorican
Ultramode does zilch and we still got it
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Weather would be a very limited enhancement, unless we are saying that every zone in the game would have a weather effect going 24/7.
Which would be just retarded.
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In limited areas, sure, THIS I could agree with. But again, if it's too much effort, I'd rather they moved it to dead last on their priorities list.
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Originally Posted by Iggylove
Putting aside actual particle systems, a change in textures would be kind of cool for the different seasons..as someone mentioned, snow on the ground...perhaps trees without leaves.
~Iggy |
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Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
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Costumes do zilch as well. Pure eye candy. They're hardly comparable to weather effects. Unless you claim they are, then we're done discussing.|
Originally Posted by Santorican
Ultramode does zilch and we still got it
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Also weather effects influencing your powers, and different powersets in a different way at that, is just about the worst idea I've heard on here in a while.
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Weather would be nice, but no thanks to buffs or anything like that. it should be an option like Ultra Mode, for those who have the rigs for it.
But i'd rather they waitied till after they've finished amending all the TFs to be soloable via scaling before they start work on the weather.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
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You and your "reason" and "facts".|
Originally Posted by Noble Savage
Hey, folks. Here's the actual quote:
"Ive never been a huge fan of weather for the sake of weather and Ive said not on my watch in the past, but if there is a compelling gameplay reason to do it, not just because its cool, Id reconsider. So far, no ones come up with one, but Im open to ideas." Note that this is a far cry from "solid no." As with all things, we'll look at the priorities of the project at hand and introduce new tricks when they make sense. Cheers. |
How are we supposed to get a giant hysteria-fest going now?
if they could wave a magic wand and give us weather, that'd be great.
if it took one second of limited developer time from any other projects, I'd vote no.
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Put me squarely in the "no weather" camp. I play video games all winter to try to distract me from my outdoors full of grey skies and rain.
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Sad as it is to say, this sums up my feelings on the matter.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
With the age of this engine?
I don't' agree that just about everything that can't be done well in other games can be done well here. And that opinion has nothing to do with the ability of this dev team, but more with the archaicness of this engine. Could it be done well if the devs dug deep and hacked the hell out of this game's engine? Sure. But is it worth the effort? For example, they took the time to get the Demon MM flame whip looking sharp while STILL being customizable. I don't' remember who said it but it was mentioned that the effort to get that working was ENORMOUS. I don't doubt that that was because of this aging engine. However, I'm fine with them taking the time to do that cause it paid off in terms of game play, as it gave the game a type of MM that was VERY unique. Now would weather effects give the same kind of bump? I'm of the opinion, no. So then the question becomes is it worth the effort? I think you know where I'd lean on the answer to that. |
I'd love to have dynamic seasons, but I just don't think the game can handle it.
I've deicded I no longer want weather.
Why you ask? (just pretend you did)
I would be too annoyed about how half ***** it would be, the same feeling I get when I find myself in front of a building in Pretoria and it's not actually reflecting the world around it but some default mapping! This is even more annoying when you are INSIDE a building and the reflective surfaces are showing you IN THE ******* STREET!
I don't want weather because they would get it about 80% right and just ******* stop for the next damn shiney object.
I'm still ******* waiting for blasters to get Dark Blast after all.
--edit--
Another thing that was half ***** was The Rouge Islands.
How many ******* buildings in there have windows behind the doors?
I think it's more common there then in Paragon.
I was just going to ask about having snow in paragon city for christmas this year and to expand that to eventually adding a true weather system. Why don't we have it already? There are older games than Cox that have an amazing weather system.
From rain to thunderstorms, to snow storms to sandstorms.
For snow I'd like to see just that, snow and alternate versions of each zone with piles of snow and stuff on the streets.
One way I could see adding rain would be to recycle animations such as sleet and lightning storm and to put a power on each player that renders only for that player. So that they basically have a lightning storm power following them around. Enhance that so that it gives the illusion that is raining and lightning throughout the zone.
Make it optional for players with crappy computers.
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Ok, will start here. |
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
She could have basically applied the same logic to "Ultra Mode" graphics. For those who don't know, in the New York Post article War Witch said she was a "solid no" on adding weather systems to the game because it "adds nothing" to game play. I really, vehemently disagree with that statement.
One of the greatest goals for any game, especially one where you intend to have very long-term players, is to give them a reason to care about the world they are playing in. Weather may not directly contribute to a players sympathy towards the characters or universe, but the total lack of weather has an extremely detrimental effect on tearing players out of their suspended disbelief. It's like when you are running around Atlas Park smacking down baddies and 3 identical looking male NPCs named "Becky" go walking on by, and when you click on them, they ALL say the exact same thing. Things like that smack players out of the moment and you start to see in a very obvious way all of the dirty plumbing behind the pretty picture on your monitor. The lack of any dynamic environmental effects makes the game world feel like a sterile, lifeless, and utterly static bubble world. The winter event festivities outside of the winter lodge area take place in either the dingy back-alleys of the Rogue Isles, or on the sunny, perfect days of Paragon City (which is in NEW ENGLAND!) In my opinion, lack of weather alone makes it impossible to ever feel like the world your're in is "real" and in that sense makes it a lot harder to give a crap about anything that happens in it. |
1) WEATHER ISN'T A SIMPLE ADDITION- or more accurately, doing weather well isn't a simple addition. People generally think of it as atmospheric effects... but atmospheric effects by themselves make for a very lame experience. Does the sidewalk shine "wet" with the rain? Does snow accumulate? Do NPC's REACT to the weather by wearing things differently or saying different things?
When you envision a weather state (let's use winter)-- to get a realistic weather effect for winter in new England, you'd have to consider...
- Atmospheric snow
- wind (does it affect flyers? can the engine support it?)
- snow accumulation on the ground (essentially means different models and textures for the zones
- trees- not just snow in the trees, but the removal of leaves in the winter. Some of our tree models are pretty spartan if they were bare. Yes, speedtree supports season states now. Speedtree licenses also vary in license costs.
- NPC Dialogues, triggered by weather
- NPC Behaviors/animations triggered by weather (winter activities)
- NPC appearances (bundled up, no shortsleeve shirts)
Do all that, and you're likely increasing the effort that's needed to build any one zone by 25% for each weather / season state you want to support (it's often more cost-effective to just make a single "cold zone" and another "hot zone" etc, instead of making every zone have every weather effect)
Rain sounds simpler, but giving surfaces a "wet" look like EQ2 did was a massive engine undertaking. It still doesn't address NPC behavior patterns, appearances, etc. It still doesn't get us water flowing down the street gutters or splashing out of the storm sewers. It doesn't give trees a weighed-down wet look.
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...Snip... Anyone else have any ideas to implement weather into the game in a way that would have actual gameplay hooks? |
What we need are ways that minimally increase the BENEFIT while minimally increasing the COST.
Other features you offer aren't new, but can have unintended consequences that require more rethinking, more reworking, and a greater degree of planning before they're implemented. It may not be hard to set up tech-wise, but it can be a bear to work out all the details:
Weather-related spawns-
You mentioned spawns that change with the weather. Good effect, but to what point? We already have spawns that change on the night/day cycle, so the idea of different spawn states wouldn't be too new-tech-ish...
... but street hunting is rather minimal now. Will people have quests that encourage them to hunt these guys? If not, is it just a matter of adding variety to a zone? What about zone level ranges? Do we need to make foul-weather-foes for every range just to accommodate this, or is this a level-scaling-like event like RWZ?
... What about the spawns these special spawns replace? Am I going to have a harder time tracking down Tsoo to defeat for my second costume slot because its raining out? This was a common frustration for the day/night spawns in other games... and one reason why MMO's have opted for very fast day/night cycles (so you don't have to wait so #$^$#$ long to hunt those night dwellers.)
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Buffs/Debuffs
Now there are some things that can be done with minimal tech effort- applying buffs/debuffs for example. Maybe even buffs/debuffs to a specific powerset (ice buffed in winter, fire debuffed in rain, etc) but this brings another issue up-- games that have added debuffs before have just found that weather just made people log off or stop doing anything related to the gameplay affected.
I think that a weather debuff should include an XP buff, since the person's fighting more challenging encounters... but if the ice blaster gets a buff in the snowstorm, would players agree to a corresponding XP reduction?
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Don't get me wrong-- I'd LOVE to see developers take things like weather more seriously-- things that we consider mundane. MMO's are HORRIBLE at taking things that can lead to real challenges and making them so damn mundane its ridiculous. When a quest has my half-elf swimming miles in full chainmail to get to a secluded island, it bugs me. Imagine instead if you'd used that water barrier as a way to make me rethink my tactics...-- with less armor and only a few items available to rely on... with spell components too wet to use, etc.
Weather's the same way- there's so much potential there... and so much work to get it going. We see weather as a triviality because WE can avoid it by going inside our comfy homes, offices, and cars. When thats not an option for any length of time, weather can be a SUBSTANTIAL challenge to overcome-- and challenges can make for exciting gameplay. You can't justify the effort it takes for just a novelty, though and you can't justify the effort if you can introduce similar gameplay variations through ways that are less demanding.
It might be nice to have weather in the game, but I don't think my computer can handle it.
But I don't see it as an important aspect to the game, anyways.
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As someone who formerly owned a very low-end system, I would disagree with adding weather effects with just a cosmetic portion if there's even a very small hit to performance. I've played games with weather effects on just-barely-minimum-requirements machines which worked fine with all of the settings turned as low as possible... until it starts raining and the system crashes. While this would not happen on my current machine, I've got a good deal of sympathy for those with lesser boxes.
Ultra-mode is an optional system, rendered client side, that can be completely ignored if you don't like it or don't have the wherewithal to run it. Also, it gave a much needed shot in the arm to an older game with looming competition. Considering as well, within a year of CoH launch I heard the graphics here described as dated. Ultra-mode didn't suddenly turn a 6 year old game into a brand new, cutting edge marvel. It did, however, make the graphics compare well with games made 2-3 years ago as opposed to not comparing well with games made 6-7 years ago.
From an immersion standpoint, the "right" way to do it would be to have winds that effect aim, range, and travel, precipitation and temperature that effect perception, resistances, fire and cold powers, etc. I've seen this done well in a few single-player games, and done badly in several games that attempt it. In a multiplayer game, I can see teams not wanting to take a Fire Scrapper because it's raining, for example. I also have alts already who struggle against enemies with high resistance to my only damage type, if suddenly cold damage is reduced and cold resistance is buffed because of the weather, it could make an already difficult fight even worse. And I'm usually fairly accepting of such changes (compared to many on the forums). The outcry would be deafening.
If it were implemented like Ultra-mode (purely cosmetic and can be turned off) it wouldn't do a lot for immersion for most people. I doubt that the majority of players would enable it to begin with.
I admit it might be nice to have something simple like changing leaves in autumn, bare branches in winter, budding trees in spring, and full trees in summer. I could really get behind some variety in the skies (even just clear/partly cloudy/dark clouds). I could even see snow on the ground in some areas for about three weeks during the winter event, but not for several months on end (there's a reason I moved to Arizona). But if getting even some of these more basic effects takes more than about 40 dev-hours, I think there are better things they could be working on.
I was going to post basically what Noble Savage did...
Hehe, the OP misrepresents WW's words a bit...
Regardless, I also disagree with WW's opinion on no weather just for the looks.
I don't care if Samuel thinks the word "immersion" is tossed around too much, none of what was said eliminates the qualities of immersion that well-done weather can add to a game's world. I don't discount appropriate words just because I think some people use them inappropriately.
I played a game for many years that had some very nice weather effects and it added a ton of fun for me and my group of friends.
Anyways... I'm not interested in quibbling... opinions are opinions.
I just wanted to say that, if I were in charge... While I certainly would not be rushing to make weather systems and effects in this game before addressing quite a few other things (Namely getting power customization for all power pools and such), if and when I would add weather (which I would like to do), I would rather it didn't have strong effects on game play (if any at all, which I'd be inclined to not have).
This game does not strike me as the kind to have rain negatively impact accuracy or something.
We're super-powered peoples and things.
Unless it is super-powered rain and radioactive meteorite dust falling down on us... let it just be a visual and audio experience.
I could see adding small (TINY) buffs, maybe. However, coming up with buffs that work and cover all powers with a number of different weather effects... seems impossible to do well/logically and a complete waste of time.
I think weather would be great. However, I totally feel the opposite about its need to include some sort of game mechanic.
Based on WW's taste for role-play and immersion, herself, I would say that this comes more from including the time and resources involved and (knowing how much work it would be, especially as a world designer herself) that she can't justify doing it just for cosmetics.
I still think weather, in THIS game, should only be cosmetic (although, slipping and sliding could be cool with ice).
Lastly...
I'm pretty certain (And I think it has been discussed previously) Paragon City has a bunch of Weather Controllers maintaining the daily weather we consistently have.
So... put that in your immersion pipe and enjoy!
Personally, I've often referenced the weather (especially in writings) where a background tv has the weatherman giving his forecast for "mostly clear skies and dry weather today in Paragon City".
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I would expect to see a fully functional and realistic looking weather system in a game like this that'll be developed in like 2015 or 2020 when computing power and network bandwidth are so much better for everyone that it'll actually be reasonable to consider doing it.
While I still love this game everyone needs to remember that it's ultimately based on a game/graphics engine that is now well over 7 years old (if not older). Our Devs do an amazing job pushing this system to its limits (i.e. Ultra mode) but when the day is done there's only going to be so much it can do without being redesigned from scratch.
Basically having weather in a game like this might be cool at some point in the future, but I simply don't think it's worth the time and effort from our Devs to try to make it work here.
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