Art Poll: Signature Characters

I like those suggestions (although no more targets please )

However, heres one that should really be considered, in my opinion;

Sound. When you get close to Hami, you should start hearing wierd, organic hums and susserations.
And when you actually step IN the goop? Then you have something as equally freaky as the Hydra sound.
The Hydra passive sound is one of the single creepiest sounds in game. It's a crying shame more hasn't been made of that one, simple but effective sound loop. Having something like that, only more so and more Hami-esque (him whispering at you how worthless you are, and how you should give up now to save yourself the trouble, etc) would be very effective IMO.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Hamidon needs more spikes.

Overall, I like all the Arachnos patrons over the Phalanx any day. The Phalanx costumes are overall pretty bland, standard tights, maybe a couple cool pieces, like BAB's gloves. The patrons have a scary shark-man (Always thought Mako looked awesome), a fairly cool take on a tech suit, a magic Arabian style guy, and of course, Ghost Widow. Recluse I've had mixed feelings on, I love the extra arms, but he seems more creepy than overlord.

1) Cell cillia, definately would make it feel more alive, im guessing the hardest part of the Hamidon encounter in making it feel alive is that it has to be stationary as theres no way to tether the Mitos to the Nucleus.

2) Cell division would be cool, but it may increase the difficulty on leagues if theres say ony 1 tank showed up and you're needing to coordinate efforts. Also as a 'Super-Cell' theme, Mitosis based divison is to create 2 equal cells, which would mean 2 Hamidons (oh noes) Meiosis based division creates only 2 half cells, which I guess could reform halfway through the fight.

Whats boring about the Hamidon encounter for me is the repetition, Perhaps have (and I know this is deviating slightly from the art topic, but since its suggesting new art assets, hopefully staying close) The hamidon attempt to go through mitosis, and have the structures involved in the Prophase begin to appear, the Nucleus would become immune to damage (and perhaps untargatable just to let people know) and the centrosomes begin to mvoe away from the Nucleus to prepare for DNA replication,

these would become the main target, control affects would all slow their progression to the outerwalls of the cell, while raw damage would ultimately be required to defeat them and they must be defeated before they reach the outerwall (this would allow teams that are control heavy to defeat them by leveraging enough control affects, and teams damage heavy would achieve also)

Once defeated the Nucleus would remain in its open state with the DNA available for targeting.

If something like this happened near the end of the fight, even perhaps that last 25% it would go along way to making it feel like a living organism, aswell as getting rid of that Fight-Bloom-Fight-Bloom-Fight-Bloom-Fight mundanity.

3+4)More outer detail - yeah, awesome

5) Floating stuff - Brilliant, maybe a few Crey Scientists, an odd 'Random Button' hero (or villain) corpse, maybe even a few skeletons if thats possible and within the age rating... humerous props for a Shivan or 2...

As has been mentioned to go along with this, an applied hover affect would be awesome, of course some people won't want this, so have the vendor or a NPC give away a temporary power which grounds you, -fly - jump kind of thing.

6) Additional Organelles - as I mentioned earlier, anything to get rid of the repetition, tbh, you know now you will win the Hamidon encounter if you can get to the first bloom, assuming no-one leaves etc, it becomes just a repetion time sink after that.

7) Cytoplasm Bursts - if this combined with 5 and 6 (the part of you're 6 where some are aesthetic) then you could have the organelles break down and release their sub structers that float around a bit


I think alot of the aesthetic could be altered aswell without too much of a tough change, Hamidon's Nucleus does a good job of looking like a cell Nucleus (although again, in Biology this has a surrounding structure which could be broken down as the first wave, but again, more work)

But the Mito's do a pretty poor job of looking like actual Mitochondria, their shape is off.

And Why have just Mitos? you could include, just as an example Lysosomes and the Golgi Apperatus, replacing 2 colours of Mito with those.

Or, while Hamidon closely resembles an animal cell with no cell wall etc, since he has such a big control over the Devouring Earth, he could be a hybrid and contain Plastids.

Or even better, have the initial part of the encounter being to break down a cell wall that has formed around him.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

Except Battlemaiden looks blocky and ugly. She is, frankly, puke coloured. And these signature characters should be signature. Not something you can instantly replicate in CC.

Here's the redesign in a thread of the same name I made a while back;

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I'll take one of everything, thanks...

Just kidding... but all of these sound positively awesome...

So... when can we have them... I22...?

I think any and all of these suggestions are fantastic, and it's clear that you have a firm grasp on how important many of us feel keeping Hamidon's overall "theme" in-tact is. I think this is why the new CoT costumes came as such a shock- not because of any inherent property of the new look, but because it's such a departure from their iconic look. It's as if you completely redesigned Ghost Widow.. Even if the new look was totally cool, it just wouldn't be Ghost Widow.

As for signature characters, I can't really think of anyone off the top of my head that gave me pause, but I can tell you what did: the first time I fought my doppelgängers in the final villain morality mish. I was positively gleeful and took several screen shots. The demonic and angelic versions of my toon were a surprise and just totally cool, and turned what otherwise would have been a routine mission into something I really enjoy taking my time with. Definitely one of my favorite missions in the game, and specifically so because of that tech.

You know, I usally always agree with you... But not on this.
We can replicate Bobcat, Black Swan, Battle Maiden... They have 0 signature costume pieces, but they still look better now than they did before.
I think Battle Maiden looks good enough.
She could get some tweaks:
Signature hair under the helmet
Better helmet
Better colour palette and accesories selection...
Valkyrie is so awful I cant believe she is matching the ugliness of Swan.
Those uber tall ladies dont have any clue of how to dress.
I think Valkyrie should be wearing the Valkyrie armor, with her signature spear.

I'm not a DC fan in the slightest, which is probably going to show bigtime when I say the following: All the costumes linked, I absolutely love. All the old costumes of said characters I absolutely hate, and have hated pretty much since I saw them. It is for this reason I've tried to resist speaking about the Hamidon... Because I hate the thing. I find that any enemy I can describe as "a giant single-cell organism" is beyond ridiculous by a fair bit. I find the whole fight to be positively absurd, unbelievably goofy and nothing at all like interesting. I'm essentially fighting one of those cartoony jelly cakes with bits of fruit suspended inside it, a lot like what I'd have grabbed for points in Bubble Dragon. Seriously, a giant amoeba strikes me as something I'd expect to see on Baseball Ninja Batman, rather than something I'm supposed to take seriously. Because I can't. It's like asking me to take Red Faction's Rainbow Pony *** Cannon seriously. I just can't.

But...

In the spirit of being productive and constructive, let's see what I can come up with. If we want the Hamidon to be taken more seriously, then it needs to feel dangerous, it needs to feel gooey and disgusting, and it needs to feel alive. To this effect, I have a few things to suggest:

1. Make the nucleus and organelles actually 3D and scrap the shoddy sprites. Sprites work sort of OK for things you're not supposed to look at closely and for things that are small. Organelles are both important to look at and quite big. The nucleus in particular is enormous and elliptical. It looks REALLY bad. Make these 3D, make them semi-transparent, give them some internal structure barely seen through the surface and I'll be able to take them much more seriously.

2. Use a colour filter on the surface texture, both looking in and looking out. Do you remember those old Arachnos base vats of red liquid? Remember how looking through them made the world display in redscale negative? Do that to the Hamidon. Make its cell wall refract wall and bleed colour. Make things inside look all green-scale or maybe bleed the green and partially the blue from them, or apply some kind of inversion filter or SOMETHING. The Hamidon right now looks like a cloud. It should look like goo, instead.

3. Give its cytoplasm a sense of weight and thickness. Don't just throw in floating bodies or large debris. FILL the thing with little thickets of stuff, and not just foreign bodies. How much more creepy would it be if instead of being filled with empty space, the Hamidon were filled with small floating critters. Think "sewer cockroaches" in terms of what I mean. Better yet, think river diving. The water is brown, it's full of sand and silt and plant material, there are fish and other critters everywhere, you can't see **** past the length of your arm... THAT is like what the Hamidon cytoplasm should feel like. KILL visibility in there - 20 feet at most. Fill the cytoplasm with clouds of small debris and tiny critters, give players in there a sort of "turbulence" around them as they move to simulate them swimming in syrup. Make the thing look thick.

4. Give the cell wall thickness. The Hamidon should feel like a pike of goo. Right now it looks like someone beat a Forcefield Defender's Dispersion Bubble with a hammer. Make the cell wall appear to be more than one micron thick, make it look like a wall, give it internal structure. Ideally, make it at least a couple feet tick, so that anyone passing through it would have a strong sense of having passed through "something" before coming into the inside goo. In fact, why is the Hamidon's cell wall so permissive? Why not make it in large sections and have players attack it for a while before it softens up before they can even get in? Sure, amoebas aren't exactly rigid, but plant cells have a secondary cell wall which does add significant rigidity, and with the Hamidon chewing biology like bubble gum, I'd expect the thing to be better defended.

5. Make the goo act like goo. Right now, we walk into the Hamidon and we can both breathe fine and move fine, even if it's with a slight debuff, if I remember correctly. The things giant cell organelles are supposed to float in its cytoplasm, but we have to jump to hit them? Why? The thing is, cytoplasm is pretty thick stuff, which means we'd have much greater floating in it than we would even in water, and people can usually float in water. I like the suggestion to have everyone permafly with swimming animations for movement and aerial animations for attacks and other powers. It might mess up ground-only powers, I admit, but still, it would be cool. It really will feel like swimming in syrup. Also, hand out temp powers that allow players to breath inside the goo. If you have to break the cell wall to get in or out, then leaving the make a run for the rebreather vendor becomes a legitimate raid complication.

That's all I can think of.

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.

Except that looks, IMO, nothing like Valkyrie.

She also looks, to put it bluntly, like a pansy. The big bubble armour looks ridiculous. Valkyrie isn't pretty or shiny. She's a tough girl in suit of armour with a damn big sword and a spear. All the redesigns I've seen so far do not reflect that.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Ok, maybe not the T-Shirt and Jeans, sure.

But the others? Awesome, IMO. Supes FINALLY realised his underwear goes on the inside. Only took him how many years?

And, yes, Harley does look a little too TnA service there. But her Arkham Asylum and Arkham City looks? Fits fine IMO.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

That's not saying much. They looked very bad before, now they look less bad... But they still look bad. Battle Maiden is not just something you can make in the costume creator, it's something you can get AS A FULL SET. Remember those "sets" that they gave us at some point that give you a ready-made character? Some are kind of creative in how the developers put them together, but a lot are simply "everything that came with the Booster Pack" deals. These look repugnant, for the simple reason that full sets are usually hideously overdone, largely with the expectation that you'll mix-and-match them.

A full set of anything looks goofy. It always has. I feel pity for the people who go around with, say, a full set of Enforcer gear every time I see them. The complete lack of artistic sense inherent in picking a complete design from a dropdown list is truly tragic. But OK, for players, I can kind of see it. Not all of us aspire to be artists. Some just want to pick something cool and punch faces. But for a professional art team like what's employed at Paragon Studios, this isn't just disappointing, it's shameful. You CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT just pick an entire set, stick it on a character and call it a day. That's boring, it's ugly and it's hideously uncreative. You don't need an art team to do this. Anyone old enough to play this game can pick from a dropdown list.

If characters are remade to David's standard of coolness, they need to be remade with in an interesting, unique fashion. Even if they don't involve brand new pieces, they should at least be designs that I haven't seen a zillion times before. "Full set" anything is not the right call. Full set Valkyrie least of all, with how god damn prolific that set is. It actually makes me hulk out when I see full set Valkyrie these days. I want SOMETHING original from the people getting paid to be artists and apparently aspiring to greatness. I want them to think outside the box and give us cool character designs, not just pick from a dropdown.

Battle Maiden is horrible in that way. I can remake her with about five mouse clicks, 10 if I forget where to look. Black Swan is boring to an extreme. She's essentially black Bridal with wings. Eh. Bobcat is just so, so, SO plain. I know it's supposed to be a catsuit, but it just looks like her texture hasn't loaded yet. Ugh!

... Sorry, sorry. It's just... Full-set anything characters take me out of my skin...

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.

I think the Valkyrie armor is perfect for, you know a Valkyrie
Matter of tastes...
While I know my version is a bit bland for her, I just know she needs to wear the Valkyrie armor, maybe other colours, maybe the helmet and the kilt...

What she needs is a fully unique look that is as high quality as Mirror Spirit and worthy of a Signature character. As does Battlemaiden. I mean, on the one hand you have Marauder and Motehr Mayhem and their unique, awesome costumes. And then you have Battlemaiden and Black Swan who are bland and straight out the CC. I mean, varying standards much?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

What's really annoying is that Bobcats concept art had her with black stripes that helped break up the suit a little, and better hair. That seemed to get lost when they handed it over to Jay. Which...irks me.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

This something I find to be a BIG failing of the game's theme, and is something sort of inherent in MMOs in general - everyone always stands around doing nothing. I get that technical limitations mean we can't expect our contacts to move around, OK, I get that. But can't we put them in more appropriate places just the same? Take, for instance, Efficiency Expert Pyther - why is he standing on a terrace with a Bane Spider welding ten feet from him? How is it efficient to conduct your business outdoors and away from all forms of communication? Wouldn't it make sense for him to be inside an office? Or how about Peter Thermai? He even talks about "his office," so why is he never in said office? Harvey Maylor runs a newspaper, so where is his Jay Jonah Jameson's office?

Or how about the fat afro white boy in Independence Port. He's supposed to be a weapons dealer and manufacturer, so why isn't he in a machine shop, or a lab? He's standing in front of a warehouse, supposedly housing weapons, so why couldn't he be INSIDE it? Or how about Dr. Steven "Science" Sheridan? What the blue balls is he doing next to a hazard zone checkpoint, back up against a fence next to the hospital? He's not a medical doctor. Wouldn't he have a lab set up where he works IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE? And why is Crimson standing under a giant statue's crotch? How did he get out to that little island outcrop without getting that ridiculously obvious red suit of his wet? Shouldn't we be meeting on a park bench or in a crowded restaurant or somewhere a little less conspicuous? That damn red suit alone on that little island within line of sight of the ferry is like a lighthouse in the night.

I would honestly love to see most contacts move either indoors in their own places of business or dwelling, or otherwise moved to places that make sense.

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.

Actually, if you look at Battle Maiden again, she has a single-strap bandolier with a red jewel-thingy on it, which is not accessible to PCs...thus making it a signature costume piece. Her spear-axe is also technically a signature costume piece.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

One, stand-out-like-a-sore-thumb bolt on that is also identical to what it was pre-GR does not a unique costume make.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yep, I know she wears that piece but is ripped from Valkyrie, I meant she is one of the new upgraded Praetorian AVs that doesnt have unique costume pieces, unlike Neuron or Marauder.

This. There's a precedent from a red-side mission for Hami to be able to speak to you in your mind. I think it would be pretty neat for there to be some indecipherable whispers bouncing around once you're inside his cyto (or maybe even before that?)

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Actually, thats a damn good suggestion. I've not seen the Hero side Hami arena, but the Villain side one doesn't have anything unique in the sky.

The place should have a really sickly looking sky, and the air should be clogged with spores. I mean, this is the heart of the Devouring Earth; it should look like even the air is trying to kill you and the grass wants to chew your feet off through your boots. Strange, Hamidon-warped plantlife and twisted rocks that have the freaky feeling they are watching you; Abyss and Hive should feel alien and hostile.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

No time for a more detailed post ... but David ... what if you snagged the whip animations from Demon Summoning and repurposed those for the attack animations from the Mitocondria? You'd have to change the scale of course, but Tunnel Rat has already done all the "hard" work of making them animate right. Having the Mitocondria "lash" at us, rather than just shooting out beams of light or pulsing rings would make a very nice visual impression.

And don't discount the possibility of using an "electric lash" effect for the attack powers of the Blue Mitos.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Someone posted her concept art on the board a bit back and I remember thinking 'that's actually quite nice', which isn't something I expected to think about little miss-one hit from a mile away.

Seconding! That's one of the coolest features of the seers, it'd be nice to see it added to Hami.