50+10? Abandoned or still planned?
Actually, they've ticked just about all the boxes in it - except for the space station part - for now
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The Going Rogue system is a new game dynamic for City of Heroes and City of Villains that allows players to alter the morality of their characters, eventually opening up the opportunity to turn their Hero into a Villain or vice versa. By visiting different contacts in the game, players can start the process of "moving their moral compass" towards being a hero or a villain.
Semi-check. You can change Alignments, but it's through Tips rather than talking to contacts. I wonder if Redemption and Pit were repurposed as general info contacts?
In addition to this new game altering dynamic, new neutral starting zones allow new players to select their Archetype (class) first, and then let their actions determine their hero, villain or rogue identities. At the high levels, rewards for these moral choices will be found in new PVP, PVE and Co-op zones. Accomplishments will lead to rewards that will significantly distinguish level 50 characters from one another.
Semi-check. In essence we get the same thing: neutral starting zones where you can pick your archetype. But they're not new, they just used the existing starting zones. And we've never seen rewards for Alginment outside of the Crucible and Fort Trident, which are decidely not high-level PvP zones.
One such reward is the Universal Enhancement Slots. Ten Universal Enhancement Slots are available to be earned in the expansion, and each one has the potential of adding significant power to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots.
Semi-check. We get ten "slots" that make us more powerful, but only Alpha is a universal Enhancement, and we only have access to three so-so sources of level shift. They're certainly not achieved through the Alignment system like the previous point indicates.
For existing City of Heroes and City of Villains players who have previously reached the level cap of 50, the Expansion will take them into outer space where they can now find challenges that test their powers and skills to the max. On an alien space station that mysteriously appears over Earth, Heroes and Villains will race to unlock the secrets of the place and be the first to reap the rewards that are only available to the best of the best.
I suppose it's possible we'll fight the Batallion on a space station... that would kinda fit the theme of what they're saying here.
A brand new Spy Archetype (class), power sets and player costume options will lead to a massive amount of new character and gameplay options.
This is like maybe a fifth of a check. We got 4 new power sets with the expansion, and the first signs of a new Archetype were in Issue 23 beta when Primalist showed up in the Detailed Info window as a choice for archetypes when viewing numbers for powers. (I know additional information was found through hacking, but we don't talk about that here)
Characters that do not wish to change sides are rewarded by becoming exemplary heroes or villains, and earning rewards not available any other way
Check. And frankly, those rewards aren't anywhere NEAR enough to keep me from being able to join people on both sides whenever I want.
Character Creator 2.0 includes Powers Customization, allowing players to customize not only the character, but also the actual look of its powers
I can't quite call this a check, because it happened before the expansion. And after Mr. Bruce said it would never be done. (-:
Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay
You fight a giant Shivan and everything! No check for this one because it's obviously talking about something that never happened the way it was described.
As much as you guys seem to like flaming someone who asks an innocent question, you probably won't like to hear that the OP was spot-on and each of you is dead wrong.
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The very quote you posted has quotes used in this way, in the phrase "hypothetical 'Level 60'".
That does not and never did clearly indicate 10 level shifts. The offset of the phrase "Level 60" in quotes makes clear that it may be a kind of virtual progress, analogous to 10 additional levels, but not so identical with as to clearly indicate 10 additional combat levels. Any interpretation of it meaning 10 level shifts was an assumption on the part of the reader and nothing more.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay
You fight a giant Shivan and everything! No check for this one because it's obviously talking about something that never happened the way it was described. |
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
![](http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/shigmiya64/forumsignewcopy.png)
The very quote you posted has quotes used in this way, in the phrase "hypothetical 'Level 60'".
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No, that's pretty much exactly what happens. It's not nearly as organic as the sellspeak makes it sound, but the process ends up being pretty much what they said.
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No, what we got is very much not what the survey was suggesting. Not that it's a problem, mind you (I like what we got), but it's not what the survey was suggesting.
Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay You fight a giant Shivan and everything! No check for this one because it's obviously talking about something that never happened the way it was described. |
In addition to this new game altering dynamic, new neutral starting zones allow new players to select their Archetype (class) first, and then let their actions determine their hero, villain or rogue identities. At the high levels, rewards for these moral choices will be found in new PVP, PVE and Co-op zones. Accomplishments will lead to rewards that will significantly distinguish level 50 characters from one another. Semi-check. In essence we get the same thing: neutral starting zones where you can pick your archetype. But they're not new, they just used the existing starting zones. And we've never seen rewards for Alginment outside of the Crucible and Fort Trident, which are decidely not high-level PvP zones. |
One such reward is the Universal Enhancement Slots. Ten Universal Enhancement Slots are available to be earned in the expansion, and each one has the potential of adding significant power to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots. Semi-check. We get ten "slots" that make us more powerful, but only Alpha is a universal Enhancement, and we only have access to three so-so sources of level shift. They're certainly not achieved through the Alignment system like the previous point indicates. |
For existing City of Heroes and City of Villains players who have previously reached the level cap of 50, the Expansion will take them into outer space where they can now find challenges that test their powers and skills to the max. On an alien space station that mysteriously appears over Earth, Heroes and Villains will race to unlock the secrets of the place and be the first to reap the rewards that are only available to the best of the best. I suppose it's possible we'll fight the Batallion on a space station... that would kinda fit the theme of what they're saying here. |
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
A brand new Spy Archetype (class), power sets and player costume options will lead to a massive amount of new character and gameplay options. This is like maybe a fifth of a check. We got 4 new power sets with the expansion, and the first signs of a new Archetype were in Issue 23 beta when Primalist showed up in the Detailed Info window as a choice for archetypes when viewing numbers for powers. (I know additional information was found through hacking, but we don't talk about that here) |
Character Creator 2.0 includes Powers Customization, allowing players to customize not only the character, but also the actual look of its powers I can't quite call this a check, because it happened before the expansion. And after Mr. Bruce said it would never be done. (-: |
Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay You fight a giant Shivan and everything! No check for this one because it's obviously talking about something that never happened the way it was described. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Have later trials drop more salvage, with a salvage roll after every major confrontation? Allow Common and Uncommon salvage as rare drops from combat in later trials? Have "Advanced Incarnate Shifts" tied to the new slots that only function in the new trials to keep people from "outlevelling" the existing trials?
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--Rad
/whereami:
![](http://avatars.cohtitan.com/signatures/cgt/u74.png)
You know, forget it. I asked a question and it turns to a war. I really did not need to know and I obviously misinterpreted what was planned and told.
![](http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5003/resistancesig2.png)
Guys, let it go. I appreciate your trying to help GuyPerfect. But it is not worth it, let it go. I have learned my lesson about asking stupid questions here.
![](http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5003/resistancesig2.png)
Guys, let it go. I appreciate your trying to help GuyPerfect. But it is not worth it, let it go. I have learned my lesson about asking stupid questions here.
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In case I personally said anything that came across as a downer, in my initial response to you I may have come off as blunt, but it was only meant to be matter-of-fact.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Character Creator 2.0 includes Powers Customization, allowing players to customize not only the character, but also the actual look of its powers I can't quite call this a check, because it happened before the expansion. And after Mr. Bruce said it would never be done. (-: |
So what did Chris have to say about Power Customization? I'll bold the relevant portions to make it easier for you to see.
From May 2007:
Quote:
Power customization has some pretty big hurdles to overcome. 1) Powers currently point to one animation and one set of FX scripts. There's no way in the our engine at this time to have them reference a different animation or different FX without just changing it in the power definition (which changes it for everyone). This isn't a small or insignificant change and without it we literally can't even begin to do costumized FX or animation. 2) Colors in FX are often baked into the particle textures. Most of the time they're not, they use a greyscale texture and tint the color with an RGB value, but there's enough that do use a colored texture that it would require quite a bit of work to overhaul and set everything up for customization. We did test a more global system that could just shift the hue of the entire FX script around the color wheel, but it's not a complete solution to the problem. Namely that FX aren't normalized to a common color, there's no way to dynamically change this 'shift' value, and there's still issues with blend modes. 3) Particle FX most often use an additive blend mode. Additive means that the closer a color is to white (in RBG values), the more opaque it becomes. Secondaries like yellow (255, 255, 0) are more opaque than primaries like red (255, 0, 0). Black (0, 0 ,0) ends up being completely transparent. So to take the Energy Melee FX for example and make a black version or even a dark purple (64, 0, 64) or dark blue (0, 0, 64), we'd have to do more than just shift the RGB values around. 4) Even if the system could accept more than one animation or more than one FX script for a power, we don't have an in game system for allowing the player to choose this themselves. We could make one (probably based off of the costume editor in some way) but it's still another chunk of time to devote to this. Those are the major issues that I can think of right now, there's other minor little issues here and there but it all adds up to a tremendous amount of dedicated work from multiple departments to pull it off. |
From March 2008:
Quote:
<ul type="square"> [*]Being able to change the hue or color of your power's FX[*]Being able to change the way your FX look[*]Being able to change what your power actually does. Ie, more damage but less accuracy.[*]Being able to modify or add secondary effects to your power. Adding Fire damage to your broadswords[*]Being able to change the appearance of henchmen or pets[*]Being able to change your appearance while form shifted from powers such as Granite Armor.[*]Being able to change the animations related to your power[*]Being able to change the sound related to your power[*]Being able to change the name of your power[*]Any or all of the above.[/list] When we talk about power customization, we're generally talking about the first couple of items...being able to change your power's FX in some way. Quote:
Power defs also point to another file called a PFX. This file contains a series of things that happen on events. The first half deals with animations. Play these animation bits when the power is activated. Play these when the power hits someone. This animation takes X amount of time before the damage should actually happen and takes Y amount of time before another power can be used (ie activation time). The 2nd part deals with the effects in a similar way. Play this FX script when the power activates. Play that FX script on hit. PFX scripts are also softcoded and can't be changed on the fly, yadda yadda yadda. These are also not stored on individual characters. The FX scripts are a series of events and particle emitters. The color of particles are part of the particle scripts set as RGB values. Particles CAN inherit RGB values from the player, but they have to be attached directly to a costume node to do so. Also can't be changed on the fly, also not stored on characters. So all of the things that determine what effects plays, when they play, where they play, and what color they are are all softcoded. They're in one location, shared by all players with the same power, and can't be changed dynamically or stored individually on each player. Quote:
That concept can't really work for anything else...not completely anyway. For everything else that's not a weapon, ever power points to a different PFX which all use different attack effects, activation effects, hit effects, etc. Each PFX in a non weapon powerset generally doesn't have a lot in common with any of the other power's PFXs. So we can't just take one thing out that's shared by everything and stick it on the player as a costume. There are some exceptions to that. We could do it for some things, like the spines that come out of your hands for Spines or the red(pink) pom-poms of Energy Melee...but that's about it. Now, that whole concept can be extended to do a bit more. It should theoretically be possible to move all of the attack effects and activation effects from the various PFX in a powerset into the sequencer for a null costume 'weapon' for the other powersets. So for example, fire blast would get an invisible 'weapon' model as a costume piece. That costume piece is an animated entity and it inherits all of the anim bits from the player. So when it gets the bits to play the Flares animation, the sequencer move for the 'weapon' would play the attack/activation FX for Flares. This gets over most of the hurdles for power customization. It's attaching effects to a costume node so the effects can inherit the costume node's color...similar to how auras are color tint-able. And it should capable of playing any effects that happen on or from the player. Glowy energy melee hands, fireballs that you hurl, lasers that come out of your eyes...all that stuff. What it can't do, is play effects on anyone else. The powers system determines if a power hits or not. There's no way for something on your player model to know that you've actually hit anything...no bits for it to inherit and trigger the right animation (hit anim bits play on the target)...no way to know where to put the FX if it could be triggered. Same thing with continuing effects. The power system keeps track of when the attributes are true or not, whether or not to play the continuing effect, what effects script to play, and what to play it on...you, the enemy, a bunch of enemies, your team...whatever. That information doesn't go to the player. So attack effects and activation effects...we could do similar to custom weapons. But hit effects and continuing effects, we can't. Weapon customization did open up some avenues of exploration and got us thinking more outside the box, but ultimately we found that specific pathway to be a dead end. There's just no way to intercept hit or continuing effects, so every powerset would have some sort of disjointed half customized, half standard look. That's just not acceptable for us, so the only solution is to pursue some other avenue that can handle full customization of every effect associated with a power. All of that, is stage one of power customization. Figuring out how to retool the system so it can actually work. That's the part that involves writing the new code and making the necessary changes to all of the player power defs and/or PFX to support it. Stage 2 is a massive overhaul of every single effects script used by player powers that we're going to customize. Right now, the colors for the various effects are softcoded into the particle emitter scripts. Most of our particle emitters use grayscale textures that are tinted to an RGB value through the particle script. In order for a particle to inherit the tint from an outside source (currently only from a costume node it's attached to), it has to be set to red. So 255,0,0 as an RGB value means that particle is going to inherit 100% of the costume nodes RGB color. The more white a particle's RGB value is the less color it inherits. Most basic example of this would be the effects for Energy Blast powers. Those are all tinted various colors, from blue to white. All of those particle scripts would have to have their RGB values shifted to red instead...So there would be a pretty big chunk of work required to 1) tracking down, collating, and duplicating all of the FX and particles scripts currently used by powers 2) change all of the RGB values used by all of the particle scripts so that they can inherit the color from an outside source. On top of that, we also have some particle scripts that use pre-colored particle textures. Dark Miasma is a good example of that. We also use geometry in some of our FX scripts, and most of them use some sort of pre-colored texture So things like the bubble for Force Fields, that teal blue-green is the color of the texture that's on that sphere. Those particles and FX geometry would have to have new grayscale textures made for them and then they would need to duped and set up to use color tinting. Stage 2 isn't difficult work, it's just a ton of it. There are tens of thousands of FX and particle scripts that would need to be tracked down, duplicated, and modified. Stage 3 is hooking all this up into some sort of system or UI to allow you guys as players to change your fireballs from red-orange to green. Most logical place for that is the costume editor, probably something similar to how you currently deal with auras or custom weapons. Other ideas involve special color enhancements that you can slot into powers, console commands that you could type in, options set in the graphics menu, etc. Those are all implementation ideas...probably the easiest step of the whole process. Can it be done? Sure. Given enough time almost anything can be done. But is it more important to do than all of the various other things that can also be done in the same amount of time? That's the step where power customization as a feature has repeatedly fallen off the list and pushed back to the next issue. We still continue to discuss it, trying to figure out some way to do it in a way that won't require as much new code, or won't require so much time from an FX artist to make it happen. Quote:
Its also a ton more work than being able to just take the current FX/particle scripts, dupe them one time, and set them to a common tint-able ready color. If we had to manually tint variants for every FX script then its a ridiculous amount of work. It's also limiting the options for players. What if the shade of yellow we pick isn't the exact shade of yellow-orange, or yellow-green that you were really hoping for. Even sticking to Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, Violet, White, and Black would be duplicating the power defs for every player power 8 times. And would you guys really be happy with such a limited set of options? So, its a ton more work for us, exponentially more upkeep problems for Castle, and less options for you guys. Not going to do this even if it does work. Quote:
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You could also read the Developer Diary entry at Games Examiner where Positron discussed Issue 16. You'll see that it was Chris that got this done by pushing for it back in the Spring of 2008.
It took them until September of 2009 to release Issue 16.
And if you pay attention to the first quote I listed, it was close to a year from the time he made that post in May of 2007 until he convinced them to start working on it in Spring of 2008.
Trying to claim Chris said it would never happen is just a flat out lie.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
LA, it really wasn't a stupid question. Hopefully you don't feel like anyone is ragging on you, because I really don't think anyone is. The argument above may have been triggered by your question, but that isn't a reflection on your knowledge or even the question itself.
In case I personally said anything that came across as a downer, in my initial response to you I may have come off as blunt, but it was only meant to be matter-of-fact. |
![](http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5003/resistancesig2.png)
One such reward is the Universal Enhancement Slots. Ten Universal Enhancement Slots are available to be earned in the expansion, and each one has the potential of adding significant power to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots.
Semi-check. We get ten "slots" that make us more powerful, but only Alpha is a universal Enhancement, and we only have access to three so-so sources of level shift. They're certainly not achieved through the Alignment system like the previous point indicates. |
I generally consider every Incarnate power I unlock and slot to be an extra "level," because each makes me stronger than I was previously. (That's not to say I call myself a level 56 Scrapper or anything; I con at 50+3.)
Character Creator 2.0 includes Powers Customization, allowing players to customize not only the character, but also the actual look of its powers I can't quite call this a check, because it happened before the expansion. And after Mr. Bruce said it would never be done. (-: |
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay You fight a giant Shivan and everything! No check for this one because it's obviously talking about something that never happened the way it was described. |
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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So, um, let me get this straight. LegionAlpha had heard about something that sounded like ten level shifts, something "equivalent" to being L60, and was looking for details. GuyPerfect responded with information that was exactly what LegionAlpha was thinking of. So, in effect, if we were to delete every post except LegionAlpha's original, and GuyPerfect's reply, this thread's purpose would be fulfilled.
But for some reason folks are fixated on the fact that GuyPerfect said everyone was "dead wrong", and people just can't let that go, can they? The devs should do us all a favor and delete all but those two posts (including this one) and lock the dang thread.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
Just speculation of course, but I think we will be at 50+5 once the current slots are done. I'd guess incarnate shifts for both Mind and Vitae and a full level shift for Omega. No reason reason but symmetry and a gut feeling.
--Rad |
I'll be honest, I've kinda been wondering if they'll do something weird with Mind and Vitae where they'll each offer "half" an Incarnate shift, requiring both to be T3/T4 slotted to get +1.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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I do not mind honesty, I do not mind bluntness. In this age of PC I really respect people more for speaking their mind. However I do mind if my questions start flame wars between posters. I have been on many forums and this one by far is more civilized than most out there so when this happens I tend to walk away rather than deal with the whole anger, anger, your mom, lack of intelligence posts, that so many gaming forums out there do.
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This is the CoH forums... you will find certain posters love to go on and on and on... to prove they are "right." Often semantics of the meaning of simple words enter the conversation, but thankfully shortly (2-10 pages later) the "debate" will die. Nothing you did...just unfortunately the nature of the beast - forum pvp.
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--Rad
/whereami:
![](http://avatars.cohtitan.com/signatures/cgt/u74.png)
Hello everyone,
We would like to remind you to keep discourse and conversation civil and polite on the City of Heroes: Freedom Forums.
Please refrain from inflammatory comments, as well as personal attacks.
We thank you for your cooperation on this issue.
-=Mod9=-
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.
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There was a questionnaire sent out privately to a portion of the player base prior to the release of Going Rogue that suggested some concepts and changes to the game to solicit feedback before making any decisions on them. Among them was the notion of ten "universal enhancement slots" that, as the text states, would (not to be confused with could) grant level shifts for an equivalent of level 60.
The applicable text is as follows:
So yes, LegionAlpha, the level 60 thing has been abandoned and my sympathies for all these jack wads giving you crap about it.
EDIT:
Since I know it needs to be said before Jackson McContradictory pipes up, the survey was never meant as a road map of things that would be happening to the game. Just because it was on the list doesn't mean it was ever in the works. Case in point, the "universal enhancement slots" became "Incarnate Slots" and not all of them provide level shifts. It's not that level 60 was on the to-do list and later removed, but rather the idea of having 10 slots with 1 level each itself was done away with.