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More than likely our Devs' level of "resources, technical limitations and time frame" dictated the need for using Transgaming's software instead of a native Mac client in the first place. You can't just wave these engineering realities away because they are inconvenient to your desires. |
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
But I might.
 If Paragon would have made a full-fledged native Mac client instead of using Transgaming's software, I'd say *maybe* - because iPad apps are so similarly coded to Mac apps, and use the same tools (similarly, Android apps are based on Java using similar coding methods to iPad). |
As Zwillinger implied there's probably no one out there who outright doesn't "want" this kind of thing to exist. But unless the give and take of software development allows for it it's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. And frankly if any Devs are secretly toying around with something this significant during their "free-time" then I'd seriously question what their "busy-time" is being spent on. *shrugs*
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Money, in such cases, talks loudest. If enough players are willing to pony up a sub-subscription - $2.99 per month seems to be the floor of what the market will bear* - then Paragon Studios can think about devoting time and labor toward the project. And then there's all the current projects scheduled and budgeted. Still, there's nothing to rule this out technically.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
As Zwillinger implied there's probably no one out there who outright doesn't "want" this kind of thing to exist. But unless the give and take of software development allows for it it's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever.
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* Charging a one-time fee for downloading seems like the hardest way to justify a separate app for a subscription-based MMORPG. Maybe those games that have them consider them value enhancers or something.
The one thing I would like COH to do, which would work as a tablet app but also as a regular desktop app, is a chat application with access to the game's global channels. I often log onto the game a lot just to chat with people in the global channels without really playing. I played STO for a month, and while the game bored me quickly, the fact that I could access their chat server using any Jabber client allowed me stay in touch with other players a lot more, and log onto the actual game only when something was actually gong on.
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Originally Posted by CuppaManga
iPad apps are so similarly coded to Mac apps, and use the same tools (similarly, Android apps are based on Java using similar coding methods to iPad).
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Um...
...
How much experience did you say you have in this area...?
Edit: Unless by "tools" you mean things like an IDE, and by "methods" you mean language constructs.
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A while back my main gaming PC self-destructed, so I had to resort to playing CoX on a small Acer Aspire One netbook while it was in for repairs. Granted, Windows 7 would frequently crash, and it ran hot enough to singe my wrists, but the framrate was actually higher than I'd imagined it would be -- not great, but it worked in a pinch.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
The iPad is roughly as powerful as a netbook, right? CoH would probably run at two frames per... minute, if even that.
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@Nanas (on Defiant)
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Uhhh, singing your writs and crashing Windows 7 frequently sounds FAR BELOW "not great, but worked in a pinch" to me. |
Originally Posted by Bananas
A while back my main gaming PC self-destructed, so I had to resort to playing CoX on a small Acer Aspire One netbook while it was in for repairs. Granted, Windows 7 would frequently crash, and it ran hot enough to singe my wrists, but the framrate was actually higher than I'd imagined it would be -- not great, but it worked in a pinch.
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I sure as hell would NOT pay for something like that on a tablet. sorry.
I must have high standards, but I would think possibly burning myself would be a dealbreaker.
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Not impossible. The big beast of a game has exactly an app that lets you do that and they charge you extra to use the web or app to run the market. Of course to use it Paragon Studios would have to get the game to web interface for character information working. It has come and gone from the indevelopment list several times over the last 7 years.
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Originally Posted by MunkiLord
I would pay 20 dollars(maybe more) for an app that allows me to access the market from my Android device(tablet, phone, etc).
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So, if CoH was ported to the iPad, all the NPCs would turn to the camera and give me thumbs up?
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Originally Posted by Sylvanus
The original iPad was able to run "Dreamcast" graphics on it.
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Actually, my suspicion is that the iPad 2 would probably be able to run CoH in the 15 fps range under lower detail settings if a native optimized port was done. I don't think that is efficient use of developer resources, but I think it would work if it was actually attempted.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
The iPad is roughly as powerful as a netbook, right? CoH would probably run at two frames per... minute, if even that.
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The real problem isn't compute speed or rendering speed, its rewriting the game client so it uses memory far more efficiently than it does now.
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Oh, that would be very nice if it was something Paragon was inclined to do.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
if a native optimized port was done
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I'm still sad they chose to go with Transgaming.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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I'd probably be in the camp of 'not wanting this kind of thing to exist'. Coming in from FFXI before this game, one of the annoying limitations on the game in graphics and latency were the fact it had to be able to be ran on PC and the outdated PS2. And since the PS2 really can't be upgraded, everything is going to be limited for future installments of the game.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
As Zwillinger implied there's probably no one out there who outright doesn't "want" this kind of thing to exist.
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Similarly, we'll never have truly impressive water effects/powers because it would require a graphic update that would mandate Ultra Mode to see. Since the devs don't want to burn the bridge on low-spec machines by requiring Ultra Mode, we won't see water blasts.
I'm sure branching off to the iPad would gate performance even more but if I'm wrong, I'll gladly read your response. Then I could probably put this harsh opinion to rest and have more hope for future additions to the game.
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That's exactly what I mean. Both Mac and iPad software are usually designed in Apple's Xcode. That environment makes it theoretically possible to have one code base and two targets (Mac and iPad). The "theoretically" part is where differences in hardware capabilities, OpenGL vs. OpenGL ES, etc come into play.
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Edit: Unless by "tools" you mean things like an IDE, and by "methods" you mean language constructs.
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That's just it though. You're talking about apps. They're built specifically for the platform and most of them are at a basic level of functionality.|
Originally Posted by Sylvanus
It all depends. There are plenty of apps that run rather well on it.
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Trying to run CoH on there would be akin to taking a McLaren F1, putting a trailer hitch on it, then trying to hook up a car-hauler.
It MIGHT be able to do it, but that's not the point.
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Am I talking ultra mode? No. Am I talking about something written specifically for the iPad 2? Yes. The original iPad was able to run "Dreamcast" graphics on it. The iPad 2 is more powerful. The short of this is really simple: Opening up CoX to more people. This might be better suited if there was a F2P version, but that's another story. Please keep in mind that I'm not solely championing Apple here. It's just more likely that the iPad would be supported due to less hardware variables as compared to an Android based tablet (all over the map). Now, what could work? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy...s/default.aspx |
The problem is, the devs would have to almost start from scratch to build an iPad port. Even the OSX/Linux is just the Windows version with a wrapper and a few tweaks. Not honest-to-god separate code.
An iPad port simply doesn't have the system resources available to cope with that.
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I remember the table laptops of yesteryear. The ones that were essentially a laptop with a touchscreen.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
They *are* working on CoH on hand held devices and tablet and netbooks. Here is a leaked photo of RWZ from Beta:
 |
But they had enough power to run things like Quake or Unreal.
At which point, the platform became absolutely EVIL as you could headshot people just by tapping a stylus on their heads.
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Regardless how much storage it has
Regardless of how beefy (or not) the CPU is
Ignoring The GPU entirely.
The iPad2 has 512MB of memory _total_ That's for textures/models/data/code/os the lot. It has less memory than most of our GFX cards. It's unlikely you'd be able to squeeze the basic client/server interaction let alone even basic graphics.
But yeah you could probably render the costume designer accurately with just a single character displayed, with that, chat, in-game email and WW access I'd pay real money for that app.
On Android
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If the Devs could snap their fingers and produce CoH tablet apps for zero cost and zero effort then I'm sure they would exist right now. It doesn't really matter if you or I would personally use them or not. I'm sure someone would if they existed. |
Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'd probably be in the camp of 'not wanting this kind of thing to exist'. Coming in from FFXI before this game, one of the annoying limitations on the game in graphics and latency were the fact it had to be able to be ran on PC and the outdated PS2. And since the PS2 really can't be upgraded, everything is going to be limited for future installments of the game.
Similarly, we'll never have truly impressive water effects/powers because it would require a graphic update that would mandate Ultra Mode to see. Since the devs don't want to burn the bridge on low-spec machines by requiring Ultra Mode, we won't see water blasts. I'm sure branching off to the iPad would gate performance even more but if I'm wrong, I'll gladly read your response. Then I could probably put this harsh opinion to rest and have more hope for future additions to the game. |
But if you read my posts on this thread you would see that I'm generally "realistic" about the possibility of CoH tablet apps actually happening anytime soon. This means I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm quite sure tablet based MMOs and support apps for those MMOs will happen more regularly in the future when the hardware can legitimately handle it. Until then I'm willing to wait for that. *shrugs*
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I agree. In fact I don't think there are enough people like to make the effort worth it for them. But I just want it to be known that if they somehow decide to do it, I'm on board.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Knowing the type of person I am I'd probably buy it too even though I probably wouldn't use it all that much.
All I'm saying is that the Devs are always going to weigh their effort to develop anything for this game against their expectations of how many players would benefit from it. Exactly how many Crazy 88 members are there in this game?  |
If I could play CoH (or hell, even just use the character-creation/chat/market UI) on a device that's smaller than a legal pad, that would spell the end of what passes for productivity in my life these days.
So in this case, bad news is good news.
It's been an interesting thread, though.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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plus the amount of people that's actually going to get a tablet isn't worth the time atm to making this game on it.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
Would we like to do it? I can't think of anyone who would say "no" to making the game available on a mobile/tablet OS.
Resources, technical limitations, time frame? A Community Manager knows not these things. |
A good netbook would be the more real option. I have played CoH on a atom dual core with an nVidia gfx chip , running windows 7 and had 2 Gb of ram on it (and this was about a year ago) and with the graphics at about medium and running the netbooks native resolution 1280x800 i think, don't quote me on that, the game gave me a netgraph of 18 fps. This is better than my current (though older) laptop.
My current cheapy netbook plays CoH for hours on minimum details, without the heating and the crashing (seriously, there was something iffy with that unit). The netbook has been rock solid
Personally I can't see playing CoH on a purely touch screen interface, just playing on the laptop is blerk using a touchpad (go wireless usb mouse!!) . I'd want a keyboard, and a mouse function (true though the touchpad can help with that i've used touch screens for years and loved it, love me PDA's). To me, if I was going to get some sort of wireless keyboard for a tablet i'd just go note/net book anyway.
Give it a few more years. heck I'd be willing to bet CoH already runs natively on the few early windows 7 pads that have been released.
The other option is VPN, some clients will work for games. I have run CoH through my pocket PC, but again, the purely touch screen interface just doesn't go with me. One thing the pocket pc had that was useful was the center 5 way button and 4 application buttons. these were amazingly useful.
My opinion with this though is the same, we'll be waiting a couple years and the technology will be available to pull a device out of our pockets and play CoH with ease.
Heck the one thing I haven't even touched on is the OQO which has run World of Warcraft, but I've never seen these things in person. would they fit in a pocket and how well (if at all) would it run CoH ?
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It's just a question of time, talent, and resources on our end. I'd love to have someone who wants to tackle updating our online planner. Right now, though, we're still on the tail end of catching up to all of the updates that have happened in the last couple of issues.|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
...although personally I'd question why someone just didn't make and maintain a Suckerpunch style web based solution instead and thus not have to worry about different code bases for different tablets
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We are working on a revamp of all of the sites, and we do have a long-term plan to provide an up-to-date and downright nifty online hero planner, but for right now, it's still kind of way out there. In the meantime, if someone who is a Javascript/PHP/HTML/CSS wiz wants to scratch that itch to get the online build planner updated, though, please do drop me an e-mail!
Edit: Probably should have mentioned, I'm tonyv@cohtitan.com, and no, I'm not being facetious. If this is something you're interested in picking up, boy could we use your help.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
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At the risk of sounding cynical...
Tonyv's reply emphasizes one of the biggest problems with making any kind of CoH hero planner: Gathering and maintaining accurate data for such a wide variety of powers, enhancements, IO's, recipes, buffs, and incarnate abilities is an extremely intimidating task. As far as I know, Paragon Studios doesn't exactly hand out spreadsheets with that info, and if they did, I probably couldn't read them anyway.
And from my experience, the user interface of any sort of CoH planner has to be made to look pretty close to the CoH respec interface so it's not so confusing to operate. Both for a web-based interface (which has the added problem of needing to work in every web browser) and for a tablet interface, this is a very difficult feat to accomplish.
On top of that, both of those have to be combined with someone who is willing to do all that work for free (or possibly very little money, in the case of a tablet-based planner - who would be willing to pay more than $1 or $2 for one?**). And, would be willing to let all that work go to waste if Paragon's legal department decides to (somewhat rightfully) shut them down.
**If I knew I could sell tablet-based planners at a lot more than that I might actually consider working on one...
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As for the OP, I just don't think a tablet version of CoH will ever be feasible. As others have mentioned, though, I most certainly do think that it would be worth their while to develop portable interfaces into the game for certain tasks. For example, imagine:
- Having a portable costume creator that not only lets you design costumes, but allows you to save them to the server. When you log on with the full client, those costumes are available to load onto your characters. Alternatively, you could edit costumes on your existing characters, like a portable Icon app.
- Being able to place bids, look up prices, place items in your market inventory up for sale, and so on with a portable market app.
- Being able to send and receive chat messages and e-mail to and from people in-game from a portable e-mail app.
- Being able to create and edit Mission Architect missions from a portable Architect Entertainment app.
- Being able to manage characters' inventories from a portable app. Stuff like shuffling inventory around, selling off enhancements at vendor prices, buying inspirations, etc.
- This might be kind of radical outside-the-box thinking, but how about using something like an Android or iOS device as an auxiliary input/output device?
For that last bullet point, let me explain. For example, you could have an app that you use to log in and talk directly to the game server(s) to serve up your mini-map. You could pan and zoom around, the game server could update it with your position to show you your character's, teammates', and leaguemates' icons, and so forth. You could enable gestures on the tablet so that, for example, a quick swipe to the right means, "burn a green!" When you're in respec or enhancement slotting mode, it could show you details about what can be slotted and what affects it will have. You could keep a Real Numbers window permanently open over there. And so on.
Now, having said all of that, there are also opportunities for community-created apps. Mids is the obvious one, but a while back, I was considering also putting together a task force tracker type app, where you could pick, for example, the Apex task force. It would tell you how many missions and of what type you have left to go, and let you check them off as you make progress so that at any given time you could have a rough estimate of how much longer you're in for. In fact, I've even pondered the possibility of trying to tie in some stuff we're seeing in Titan Sentinel to do some datamining of our own, so that you could get stats like, "Based on the average time of completion of this task force compared to how quickly you are progressing through it to this point, your estimated time to completion is 1 hour and 17 minutes."
I have to admit, I have a bias against iOS myself. When I applied for the developer program a while back, they really jerked me around bad and I ended up telling them to just forget it. If I do write an tablet app, it will most likely be an Android app or a web-based one.
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.)
Maybe in a few years, when the "tablet" is just back to being a "laptop computer" with a different kind of screen.