Alternate Animations...Underwhelming

rehashing old animations for every blast set would not have taken less time and work.

You seem to be implying that they didn't want to take quality time, did you forget that Paragon Studios does not make their work schedule?

Yes. And?

The "new" Energy Transfer animation predated BAB by years. It's the Bitter Freeze Ray animation... which was in-game since Launch. Whereas BAB didn't join up until... what, Issue 6?

So on one hand, you're (generalised, not you specifically) lambasting a guy for something he didn't make. And on another hand you're asking for reusing old animations all the while being upset when they did.

I guess we could keep doing that. Oh, and let's blame Castle for all of geko's bad decisions too, k?

Prove it.

Remember when Flares from Fire Blast used to be the overhand 'praise Jesus' animation? They changed that to the same animation used in Charged Bolts from Electric Blast. Also consider that the old Flares animation is the same animation used for Sonic Siphon/Fulcrum Shift. Energy Torrent and Spectral Wounds share the same animation. Hell, every animation in this game is almost invariably used on another power save for the ranged weaponry sets. At some point there will be a crossroads between them that would allow them to be ported to other powers.

A chunk of the current animations share the same run time as other animations, and could easily be interchanged. No new animations would need creating, tweaking, fine-tuning and reviewing; they would just need to change the speed at which they fire off and possibly iron out any deficiencies caused by said speed change. You'd effectively be eliminating the creation/fine-tuning processes involved in totally new animations and only needing to work on lining them up with the cast times of the power they're going to be applied to.

Throw whatever game jargon you want at me; I have a degree that backs up the last paragraph and I've done work almost exactly like that in the Unreal Engine. Sure, this game doesn't run on that specific engine but from my past experience it's not too terribly different.

I thought you meant replacing the guns with flashlights in E.T.: The Extraterrestrial.

From what I recall, Energy Transfer was changed as a balance fix. It wasn't changed to add a new and awesome animation. It was set to use the same animation as Thunderous Blast from the Elec Blast set.

They used it because it was convenient...it was an animation that already existed in the game.

That's a totally different thing than making animations that you advertise as a new feature for an upcoming issue to be boring, bland and repetitive.

And I also recall that BAB removed the part where the character went through looking at their fists before delivering the blow. That was done in response to player complaints.

I'd expect that when/if they add alternates animations to Energy Melee, that ET would be given a fresh animation to choose from. Although now I find myself dreading that when it happens based on what we got this time.

Of course it would take less time and work. Nothing new is being created, it's akin to a copy and paste. (Which is not to say it's as easy as c'n'p, just that porting something which already exists from one part of the code to another part of the code is a lot easier than a guy sitting down and working up a whole new animation from scratch, testing it, then adding that code into the game. By using existing old animations, you're eliminating two entire steps, each of which require more time and effort than the last step. Which, I would hazard, is precisely *why* so many of the "new" animations are really just imports of other animations.)

The Party Pack animations were actually completed sometime in early 2007 and have been sitting around in the Paragon files for a while, hence the terrible quality. The booster packs just added a convenient way to earn some extra cash and implement them.

remember when people thought coloring powers was easy? yeah.

when you assume something is easy and you don't work with that kind of engine...you're already setting yourself up for failure

Like Cryptic did when they used such an ancient animation system in CoH?

The system used for coloring power is entirely different from the system(s) used to create and implement animations. Wanna know how I know that? In the old I16 beta threads there was a thread discussing the mechanics of Light and Dark power color options. Color is different from animation. The reason coloring powers was such a daunting task had to do with alpha values and transparency, plus the revamp it took to all the game's core files in order to allow that level of change, all lumped on top of changing the way powers called for execution of their visual effects.

The animations we have now have been in place since the launch of CoH and the launch of CoV, with the exception of certain powersets such as Dual Pistols, Kin Melee and the like. I know how animation works, and believe me, you can animate in a number of 3D applications and export them into a number of engines so long as you have the right codec.

If you already have all these animations that are native to your engine/game, why on earth would it be MORE difficult to adjust their animation times and apply them to new powers?

The short answer is, it wouldn't. Crafting entirely new animations, however, requires more time to complete; this is why the new animations we have now feel like such a rush job. Two new animations in Mind Control? You can't tell me that's a mark of completion.

The only way your rebuttal would make any sense is if there were separate colors that existed before I16. Since there were not, and powers called upon a specific graphic file when using the particle generators associated with their respective sets, you'd be incorrect in relating custom power colors to custom power animations in the way you chose.

EDIT: You can try telling me there were custom colors in place before they were implemented, such as Luminary's Blue Energy Melee, or the Legacy Chain's White Energy Blasts. Again, these were entirely separate powers that used data files entirely separate from the player-accessible versions of Energy Melee and Energy Blast.

It is often difficult for those not involved in game development to understand the terrible constraints of time and budget which all games, be they mobile, handheld, console or PC, are produced under.

When long-standing, senior core team members such as BAB or any "Lead" position are let go from a team (as opposed to leaving on their own for a better opportunity elsewhere), it almost always signifies that the budget is insufficient to maintain them any longer.

And as the maintenance budget on most MMOs is almost always a percentage of the incoming revenue, it is not too far of a stretch to imagine that user revenues and population had shrunk to the point that Staff cuts were required. While BAB's absence is particularly notable, it is likely that he was not the only person who was let go.

At the end of the day, the animation list that needs to be accomplished each Issue will be carried out by the team that is on hand, and if that consists of a single Junior Animator fresh out of art school, or an Intern, or an outsourcing company in Malaysia, you're going to inevitably see a drop in quality.

The only way that this will change (in my opinion) is if the CoX playing population was to increase. More money coming in will enable better support and ongoing upgrades.

While I don't expect NCsoft to reach out to us and ask us for such a thing, a grass-roots movement amongst the players to actively attempt to recruit 2-3 of their friends into the game would not be amiss.

Imagine this -- if each one of us only got ONE friend to join up and play, we would DOUBLE the population of CoX, DOUBLE the revenue being generated, and -- most likely -- DOUBLE the budget being provided to the support team.

That, dear friends, is a good thing indeed for us to reach for.

Let's actively try and make it happen, instead of bemoaning the current state of things (as is the usual wont of players in the forums -- it being human nature)! Each of us can, today, try and bring one person into the game.

Let's do it, and see what happens!

-- Vivian

Given how quickly BAB moved into a new job, I really think that's unlikely to have been the case here.

Ok...stop right there.

Firstly, I have been playing this game since Issue 1. In that time I have gotten more than 14 or 15 people to join up and play. I'd say I've far surpassed your little quota for actively encouraging enlistment.

Secondly, I have absolutely no interest in becoming a free marketing rep for NCSoft and doing the job of their marketing department for them. That is not the responsibility of any player.

Depending on word of mouth to market your product is fine, as long as it is not your only significant source of marketing. Because only a moron would do that when trying to increase the player population of an MMO.

Finally, you must be joking when you tell me that if I'm unhappy with the poor implementation of a feature of this game, that my best recourse is to hit the road and do free marketing for NCSoft? What the hell is their marketing department for? Do they even have one still?

What they need to do is hire decent animation talent if they don't have any. And if they do have some, then give them time and space to work on something before releasing a half-***** version of it.

That is the one and only bottom line here. Please find somewhere else to sell your volunteer marketing job, I'm not interested.

Crappy work is crappy work. If something is mediocre, then don't release it until it's in a decent state. They asked us if we wanted alternate animations and then failed to deliver something worthwhile. Why in the hell would I feel that's my fault for not doing enough for the game?

Kinda miss that animation. It was cool, actually.

I like it. It's a very powerful-feeling animation, much in the way the animation for Howl is, and the animation for Fearsome Stare/Terrify.

I'd personally love to see the animation for Howl used on powers like Shiver, Static Discharge, and maybe even Frost.

Ninja Run should never have been part of a booster pack, period. It should have been part of a full travel pool powerset.

Its been six years. More than enough time for at least one new travel power pool to be added.

Cool, but slow; you still see it for Gale.