WW's reasoning for no weather. Disagree!

Would my future Stormies beable to turn off and ont he Rain?

Make it cloudy?

Make it sunny?

Things a Storm Summoner should be able to do, ala Storm?

Not likely. So, no not really thinking it's all that great of a reason to put it in.

And the immersion arguement fails, when you see "I AM HEALER" "Undearwear Man" "31i73 DuD3" "Sexy Ready to Go" and other such heroes running around.

I find it hard to believe that no weather effects breaks immersion more than names like those.

I'm a latecomer to this conversation so I'm sure someone has said this already but comics are just chock full of atmosphere and weather is an element of that. How many times has the Punisher or Batman stood in a rainstorm? I kind of look forward to the Winter Event more than the others because there is just something different to look at. With the ability to shift zone appearances like in RV, you could freeze over the small pools of water and add the slide effect. It could be, you know, fun.

Of course, you could make it optional if it would cause performance issues but I vote for some weather. War Witch is completely out to lunch on this one.

Incidentally, while running a mission with some RP friends who started to claim that we needed to shut down a machine that would control the weather, I spent the entire mission quipping that maybe we should give the supervillain a shot at it since I hadn't seen a drop of rain in 5 years.

Was there a conversation like this when someone proposed putting light-up windows in office buildings after dark, with one group saying it would break immersion to not have it and another saying it would ruin their experience if it occurred?

One thing I can say for CoH is we definitely have all kinds.

For those who want weather effects and real immersion;

Play CoH in the bath

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

The first winter event back in 04-05, with the first Winter Lords. Winter has taken hold of Paragon City, and the lakes of at least Atlas Park, and Steel Canyon were frozen over giving slipping/sliding effects to anyone if they wanted to "iceskate". It was nice, it was different, meant the city was not stuck in an eternal spring/summer for months and months.

I'm not saying either way I would or would not like weather, but even a little change would be welcomed by me.

I want to jump in on the "buffs/debuffs for weather" argument and put my foot down. I would absolutely, positively HATE to have any of that associated with weather. As my evidence, I cite Rikti/Zombie invasions. I don't care about them. At all. However, when I get a hunt in a specific zone and arrive there just as a Zombie invasion is starting, this makes me very unhappy. Not only does the event itself bug me, but I get to suffer an uncompletable mission for an event I didn't want, all so someone ELSE could have fun?

As an old forum goer (I think it was SkunkWerks) once said, your right to swing your fists ends where my face begins. My tolerance for condoning other people's fun ends when it starts ruining mine. And slapping me with a debuff I don't want as a consequence for a feature I don't want, all for the sake of aiding other people's immersion is not something I will be thrilled at, lemme tell ya.

I can tolerate weather effects as long as they don't get in my way and don't look like crap. I have serious doubts both of those are even possible in this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

a compeling reason to add weather effects...thats simple.

Its for the same reason there is a rain of fire in the power sets.

Its the same reason there is a apocolypse event.

Its to create the illusion of the end times and armegedon coming.

For example in many mythos it is believed that the earth will be covered literaly with a rain of fire fromthe sky.

Imagine this happening in some city zone it could very well be a warning of one of the four horsemen of the appocolypse coming to visit.

In my opinion this would be a wonderful new type of thing to add...riders of the appocolypse coming out as giant monsters rampaging the zones....you could program them to go on a path and kill the random enemies they encounter as they move around.

Another weather effect missing of course is snow fall....which could also be an excuse to add breath effects from the characters.

The biggest reasons many games dont do these as much is due to graphic concerns....but placing the effects in certain areas....and also making it possible for players to be able to turn them off for there own personal preference is a work around many companies use.

Take for example Jade Dynasty and Perfect world...granted they are not the same engines...but they incorporate the weather effects for specifc time periods to remind players of events and things happening.

Another interesting weather effect already in the game that could use some sprucing would be for the appocolyspe event that happens.....
sure the area getting dark clouds is neat.....but its too bad there is no lighting flashes in the sky continualy as the evnt unfolds.

as i said this would cause performance issues to many players but could easily be remedied by having options to turn the weather effects off...just like turning off shadows.

The truth is i dont think players all want weather effects exactly anywise....what they want is more ambience to the already incredible enviroments...there is just so much potential to the differing areas.

Personaly if it where me running this game....i would look at the concept of weather effects and add them in randomly as special events and add special things that happen during those times.
That way i would then easily draw players to areas no longer used or explored and have an excuse to add new enemies or really wild things happening. Also would allow for the ability to test differing concepts and ideas....but
go figure thats just me.

I found that the one thing in these games that makes them the most memorable are the mysteries....things like some robot thing or some weird occurence that happens for no reason.....that maybe a few people see and then a few more see and then they all try to connect the dots to figure out why.

The more mysterious things like this that happen inthe game the more people tend to keep trying to figure them out. And if they happen to get some obscure reward that they can show off to other players at anytime...good gravy it starts a huge chain reaction.

You know there where alot of players when i first played who would scour the Dark Astoria area....there where sure there was some hidden mission or something to explain the darkness.

I dont see any forum posts about it anymore...but its too bad there isnt some strange weather effects and things for players to specualte on....the construction crews and such it looks like most people have given up on too...as they dont seam to be doing much anymore....

perhaps whent he warwalls are removed...weather effects would start happening...considering people are no longer inside giant force field areas.

Makes me wonder if when they get removed...if the ginat monsters might start attacking each other too.

Mmm...

Interesting criss-crossing of opinions here, some ranging from devs are too lazy, there is no pragmatic value for weather to it would make the game appear less artificial.

For myself, I like weather as ameans to add ambiance to the game.

I believe before we restrict the game to hard core utility, we should look at teh soft side of things...

I play the game for recreation first, meet people and socialize is next to my agenda, and then the feeling of being super and not the average citizen. For myself, I am experiencing severe medical conditions which is deeply affecting my day to day life, so I look at this game as my escape from my dark and depressing reality.

I believe much on the "feel" of the game, I often comment as I travel from zone to zone, how much I enjoy the night scene as I fly across the entire zone to the mission entrance. As I see the stars, my mind just wanders with pleasure. Then there are the incredible sunsets at Talos, that makes my skin grow goosebumps.

I do get some weather enjoyment, with the winter events, the slippery sidewalks and what not.

I believe weather could be used as an instrument to create "feelings" such as that eerie fog at Dark Asturia... Would love to see the ghost ship at Talos and IP be preceeded with a similar fog, perhaps that same fog could appear during a zombie raid!

I understand its a lot of work, especially if weather is going to interact with us, such as fog, wind, rain, etc could have a negative impact on both player's and mob's accuracies for instance, slippery floors making us slip and fall (knockdown like effect), Giggles, wind could make our flight go faster or slower based on which way the wind is blowing! But I believe it would add so much to our game! So perhaps this suggestion could be part of a new big time release such as CoV and GR, so the time and effort could be devoted to such a grand undertasking.

A good game takes care of sheer mechanics, a great game also attends to ambiance!

Hugs

Stormy

I suppose you could add my mark the the "Weather? Yes!" column. For me, as I've read others having stated, it adds a certain ambiance that I enjoy in such games. Another MMO i play is Anarchy Online and, while the graphics are currently nothing like CoH's, they do have weather effects that seem to add to the feel of the world. It certainly doesn't have to have any sort of game based effect. But to me, it just adds a certain something I've felt CoX has been lacking.

I agree with op with one consideration. Greater immersion should be reason enough.

Rain is used in movies to set mood, even adding perma-weather to some zones, toggled every so often would do a LOT for immersion.

Personally, I would *love* to see both weather and seasonal changes, but not at the expense of a revamp of the older zones and new missions. Weather would be a "new shiny" whose high sheen would probably dull pretty quickly, but I think it's fantastic for immersion. But that's my personal opinion.

What would be cool is if we had some sort of freakish weather event where the zone was entirely covered in low-lying clouds, with lots of lightening, thunderous booms and whatnot. And, descending from those clouds are massive, monstrous tentacles just like Lusca's, which attempt to snatch people off the street to consume them. Your mission? Beat the creatures back into submission.

If you design the creatures the right way, you could have several of them scattered across the zone, so everyone's not congested in one place (reducing assault & battery on our framerates). The tentacles should reach the ground (to get to their victims), but you should be able to make out massive mouths and bodies in the cloud cover. As an optional task, award a badge for leading an assault on the body and defeating the creature overhead, but as an alternative, simply take out its tentacles to make it flee.

That's just my idea.

I've never really understood why "it's fluff" seems to be a good enough reason to not do something in a game; specifically in an MMORPG. I won't be upset if weather never makes it in-game, but it'd be cool to see. I can imagine my character perched on a ledge on a dark, stormy night with his cape blowing forward against his legs, and watching the hustle-n-bustle of the city; a la Batman.

Should it be the base for the next Issue? No probably not, but I don't see any reason to not add it. Afterall, as others have said, what was the gameplay-impacting reason behind Ultra Mode (aside from making a few computers lag a bit)? That really is also "just fluff", but I don't recall anyone complaining about that.

Just to add a second two cents in. Do you guys know anybody who Likes playing in Dark Astoria? If so, then maybe weather might work. I have nobody on my friends list who likes that zone for its dark immersion. As a matter of fact, we find it annoying. It's also dangerous. The danger is kind of nice, but overall dim vision would be a negative. Also if the weather affected our abilities, then those who don't like weather wouldn't have the option of ignoring it for their own fun, because not seeing it and suffering it would be the pits.

Just my (Now) four cents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galactoman Poor Coyote... I've always wondered what he did to piss off Statesman badly enough to earn himself a lifetime of telling newbies to punch sick people...

Lets not lose sight of the weather topic in lieu of DA's mixed reviews. DA comes up fairly often on the suggestions board and is usually a split between those that love the zone as is and those that would see it changed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TyrantMikey Personally, I would *love* to see both weather and seasonal changes, but not at the expense of a revamp of the older zones and new missions. Weather would be a "new shiny" whose high sheen would probably dull pretty quickly, but I think it's fantastic for immersion. But that's my personal opinion.

I think we would be missing an opportunity to include weather in new missions and zone revamps. What if in revamping a zone weather was made a key element?

Take Boomtown for instance. What if the lawlessness of that zone finally causes the war walls that have protected it from the weather for so long allowing the buildings to burn freely to fail. Now the zone is exposed to bitter winters and driving rains. In the cover of this concentrated weather the 5th have all but ousted the remaining Council and begun building a new fortified base of operations.

You could apply a similar set of story blocks to any number of the hazard zones, crey's folly, 'eden', striga just about all the pvp zones. Even more secure zones like kingsrow and PI.

There are lots of zones that could be revamped to make use of weather effects to dramatic effects. A little time a little effort. I'm sure that paragon studios implementation would be drool worthy enough to inspire a demand for the effects in all zones.