Discussion: May Producers Letter

This thread is to discuss Second Measure's Producer Letter for the month of May:

That is wonderful news. It really is.

However, it saddens me that a lot of aspects within the current state of City of Heroes clash so terribly with every new content we get.

From costumes, to new zones, to new task forces...back to costumes!

To put it bluntly, when a character leaves Praetoria to Rogue Isles or Paragon City...it's like they stepped into a completely different game. It's like they just stepped out of a modern, highly polished MMORPG into an ancient one with terrible graphics, terrible models, and highly unpolished features.

Here is an example:





Does Paragon Studios have any plans to update some of the ancient aspects of this games in terms of visuals, graphics, models, the interface and various other features that do not strictly count as "gameplay"?

Set Tunnel Rat on Black Pebble, then you can give us more details of the lower level revamps

Well, interesting, but need more information to really be able to comment.

Edit - Dark Astoria - as others have said, add some contacts with story arcs, allow access for villains for their own story arcs, top with a TF. Revised zone.

Considering you added a whole new low level experience with GR, I hope that low level isn't just Mercy/Atlas/Galaxy.

Sounds like revamped initial contact arcs for Atlas/Galaxy/Mercy. Sounds good to me!

Kind of an "Oh crap! It's the 31st!" feeling, there.
Not really much to discuss other than the fact that there's nothing to discuss.

I'd much rather have something like this than nothing at all. But then, i find this stuff interesting.

They hinted in one of the UStream broadcasts recently that it'd be I22/I23 with the tweaks to the lower level stuff.

I don't know why you guys are so antsy about removing some of that old content. Like my friend thoughtlessly said straight to the face of the guy who made a lot of it at the PAX East Meet & Greet, it is beyond terrible.

Honestly we blow through the low level so damn quick it needs to be more interesting. Have The Hallows, Perez Park and Boomtown finally be reclaimed like Fault line was and add an interesting story there.

I find Villain content to be much more enjoyable, not just because the Devs obviously learned lessons since CoH launch (and its associated original-content), but also because the contacts and zones are more colorful, and have their own "personalities".

I don't see why the Devs are overly concerned with "preserving" old content. Items like the Calvin Scott Task Force is understandable, as it was a limited-time, story-driven piece of content. But revamped content like Positron's Task Force are clearly superior in terms of gameplay, storytelling and "flow". I think those kinds of revamps are bringing content more in-line with the original vision & idea behind it.

Anyway, I'm 100% for the revamping of existing content! I think there's a lot that could be done to bring more character to existing content, rather than just letting them fall by the wayside in the wake of "new" content. I'd like to see lower-level contacts revisited as you level; there's no reason you shouldn't have a career-long interaction with some of your contacts!

Bring back the Rularuu Invasion Event!

Insert Zombie Man's usually posted solution:

1. Take the same arc that can be given out by several contacts and limit it to just one contact so that shared mission completion can happen.

2. Take all the one-off missions that are not part of an arc and move them to a perpetual mission giver.

3. Look at the arc and cut out all streetsweeping and fedex missions. Move the doors to only two possible zones: the zone in which the contact is and the nearest hazard zone.

The end.

I've been loving the producer's letters, but this one was really cryptic and didn't say much.

I can rewrite this pretty quickly and say about the same thing.

"Hey guys. We like to update old content sometimes in addition to make new content. Remember I17 and the new Posi task force? Remember I8 and faultline revamp? Those were good times, right?

Yup, new zone is still coming... Can't say more now, later!"

And that's about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure some neat stuff is coming, but I was sure of that before the letter too...

Not trying to hate or be mean here, just really thinking that Dev letter said very little.

Well I certainly don't think well designed content is kill-all after kill all. I don't think well-designed content requires 4 players only because of some arbitrary collection objective and not because of any combat difficulty. I don't think well-designed content, despite being literally the only stories in the whole dimension, takes place half the time in the other dimension you spend all your time in. I don't think well-designed content requires 2 hours minimum at the fastest. I don't think well designed-content puts the contact in the most remote place possible and then doesn't give it a Call option.

What would you say is well-designed content? I truly want to know what you see in the Shadow Shard TFs.

Are you aware that the Shard TFs you're so fond of were (I am told by a knowledgeable fellow player whom I have reason to believe) intended to use maps and other new art assets that ended up not making it into the live game - so that, for example, rather than the same mission four times on the same map, you'd have four different maps? And that when that extra content was cut from the final release, the Shard TFs were pushed live as they are anyway? (That's why they seem so interminably long, repetitive and padded - well, that and that was the state of MMO design six years ago.)

If there's any truth to the above... IMO, finish the zone or write it off and close it.