Meanwhile, in the Halls of Titan...
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2012-08-31 17:09 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That could come in handy someday. |
Originally Posted by DeProgrammer
I made a 3D model editor in one month's time. That's kind of similar.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
JLU Episode:Hearafter
Batman: "Ive got some things to say. I shouldve said them when you were here but...despite our differences, I have nothing but respect for you. I hope you knew
know that. You showed me that justice doesnt always have to come from the darkness. Ill miss
"
*Explosion*
Batman: "What did you always call it, Clark? The never-ending battle?"
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I dunno, seems fitting. or possibly,
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Superman vs the Elite:
"You know what, Black..? I wouldn't have it any other way. Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us. And on my soul I swear... until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share... I'll never stop fighting. Ever."
-----
So many awesome quotes can go in here, and they all fit... I guess in the sense that we are saying....
Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
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deep-shadows.com/hax/3DRipperDX.htm|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
<snip>
"ZONES": The child of Graphics is Zones. That's the container in which the city zones, mission maps, etc, live, and which keep you from falling off into empty space. Those are proprietary 3D structures that are created with proprietary tools at Paragon Studios. The tools would have to be replicated before the zones could be displayed or edited. Otherwise you just have a jumble of buildings and enemy groups with no placement. <snip> |
startpage.com/do/search?query=d3d+ripper
startpage.com/do/search?query=3d+printscreen
3D Ripper DX
PIX (Microsoft)
3D Printscreen
These people might be useful I remember seeing a thread when exploring Dead Space stuff (because I wanted to find a way to listen to the hidden bits of text and voice that I might have missed during the game):
forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5966&start=15
I think the 3D Ripper DX one had a capability to save all models attached to something as one big one, so you could save a Zone as one big flat model with all the buildings etc attached to it, which I can imagine wouldn't be great for playing due to performance issues or something but could be a nice way to get a working mockup of the zones to make sure they are fully preserved to be recreated later, similar to an architect's little model buildings? If that doesn't do it, there must be a program that can?
Also the .demo files when you do /demorecord filename in City Of, they record the exact co-ordinates location of every object, even in missions...
So if people ran with demorecord on missions from start to finish they could make them re-creatable later even after the game has gone though it still wouldn't have the scripted events people could work out times from them, especially if say Paragonwiki started having a subpage for demo files for every mission on there to get multiple copies from different people so that the timings on spawns etc could be easy to work out
All that map data is in the client files.
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Anyone have contact info for the folks involved with Real World Hero? They might be able to use this angle.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed
Just a crazy thought, but this just popped into my head:
What if they actually were being charitable. If a charity for the preservation and proliferation of City of Heroes was set up, then if they donated the IP (and possibly code) to it, it might well be that the 'full' value (which they would probably never hope to realise otherwise) would then be tax deductable. That might just be more lucrative to NCSoft than the amount that we could raise to buy it. Donations/subscriptions to the charity could then, in theory, be used for game development. Not sure if that would work, would depend on the various tax and charity laws. Just desperately trying to think outside the box. |
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
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Yay |
Originally Posted by DeProgrammer
All that map data is in the client files.
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Which files? Everyone can talk about this stuff freely now
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Indeed, and the full format for those is known, as well as geobin and the geometry itself. A map viewer / generator was one of the long term projects.
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Originally Posted by DeProgrammer
All that map data is in the client files.
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The PIGG files |
Originally Posted by Killerkitty
Yay
Which files? Everyone can talk about this stuff freely now |
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Now you are actually touching in an area I know something about. I'd say it would be hard to do. The IRS has really started to crack down on the number of not-for-profit organizations because there were many that were just ways to hide businesses without paying taxes. You really need to prove the social good of the organization in order to get the 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. While we all would see a benefit from the game continuing, I think keeping the game alive would be a hard sell to the typical IRS agent reviewing the application. You would probably want to argue that it is like preserving a historic landmark, but again they would see 8 years of operation and not see that as historic.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed
Just a crazy thought, but this just popped into my head:
What if they actually were being charitable. If a charity for the preservation and proliferation of City of Heroes was set up, then if they donated the IP (and possibly code) to it, it might well be that the 'full' value (which they would probably never hope to realise otherwise) would then be tax deductable. That might just be more lucrative to NCSoft than the amount that we could raise to buy it. Donations/subscriptions to the charity could then, in theory, be used for game development. Not sure if that would work, would depend on the various tax and charity laws. Just desperately trying to think outside the box. |
I could of course be wrong, but having spent my career in the nonprofit industry and had more interaction with the IRS then most people would ever wish, I think that it would be a long shot. You are probably better off setting up a for profit corporation and getting money through crowd funding (kickstarter, etc) or through selling shares of the business to investors.
Zapping, 50 storm/elec
Rain King, 50 ice/storm
Ard, 50 NB/SR
The rest of my lineup
Justice, Freedom and Virtue Servers
www.repeat-offenders.net
Avatar by Altoholic_Monkey!
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This sounds an awful lot like someone exaggerating to make themselves sound more important. Why would you not say the names of these public figures expressing support? -.- Why is there no one in the media saying "Shame on you NCsoft", why are there no articles saying what a shame it is? Why only on the forums? Because the forums will be gone, soon...|
Originally Posted by MishiiLove
not just from Americas either. There are many, idols and public figure who have had agents send in messages.
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Originally Posted by MishiiLove
Do not worry everyone.
A little birdie says big Executives have been expressed to and yes even they have humanity. You could say it took a little persuasion to hear out the coming proposal, but ears and eyes are open. There are many inside sources looking over threads, I promise this. |
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Originally Posted by MishiiLove
Project X
It lives. July 13th 2013 |
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
Indeed, and the full format for those is known, as well as geobin and the geometry itself. A map viewer / generator was one of the long term projects.
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The map stuff doesn't address my point that missions are not stored either - short of getting the actual stuff from ncsoft the best way would be to get a demo files section on paragonwiki or something for each mission and make sure that every mission has at least 2 different demo files from different people, or something like that
There is one aspect of City of Heroes that might make it somewhat easier to replicate (but only somewhat): most of the powers appear to be interpretted from XML or spreadsheets and not hard code. This is actually quite different from spells in many games. Believe it or not, in a lot of RPGs, each spell is hand-coded individually with script. I'm not sure on the technical side whether big hitters like WoW generally hand code, but based on how their spells interact with builds, it wouldn't surprise me. We have a much better idea of how our spells operate in general than many similar MMOs.
One aspect that I think will be very very hard to replicate exactly without direct access to server code is knockback. Although its possible some of that is embedded in the client (ragdoll must be). It is my impression that knockback is handled by the server and only animated by the client though.
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Because it's only been about 36 hours since this all went down? And if the Titan Network is seen putting out such info, it could destroy any chance of NCSoft being willing to listen to them (would you listen to people that are actively trying to sabotage your property?). What they're trying certainly isn't unprecedented. Hell, if a random person making ROMs for Samsung phones can set up a meeting with their top executives and convince them to support CyanogenMod, then anything must be possible |
Originally Posted by Killerkitty
Why is this not being publicised and open how-to's now? As much of it should be out on the internet as possible so nothing can be lost
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| The map stuff doesn't address my point that missions are not stored either - short of getting the actual stuff from ncsoft the best way would be to get a demo files section on paragonwiki or something for each mission and make sure that every mission has at least 2 different demo files from different people, or something like that |
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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I am just a web designer, but I will do anything I can to help. This game is very important to my son. To my whole family as a matter of fact. My husband and I play as well. However, my son has a social phobia and this game has LITERALLY helped him come out of his shell a bit. He has friends on here that he has actually met in person and hung out with. Which for a mom with a kid with a social phobia means a lot. So, when I say I will do anything I can to help....I mean it. I don't have a lot of money, but lets face it...I have thrown so much money at this game and all the COOOOOL things he thinks he has to have....quite frankly that just totally makes me mad at the moment. We had just bought him some Paragon points the other day. A bunch of them. He has spend birthday money on it and everything else. But, that really isn't the deal here...I am not really concerned about the money put into the game already by having three of my family members playing it for the past 4 years...I'm concerned about my son and others like him that see this game as more than just a game. Do you know what I mean????
Anyway, anything I can do to help.....let me know.
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The issue, stated baldly, is accountability. And that's something that has to be clear as soon as the funding gates are open.
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Originally Posted by CuppaManga
I wouldn't worry about that just yet. It's not really an obstacle to what we're talking about so far.
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Tried using it - unfortunately you can't launch CoH directly (that I am aware of) and my computer is not 32BIT, so I can't run Global Monitoring Mode.
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Originally Posted by Killerkitty
deep-shadows.com/hax/3DRipperDX.htm
startpage.com/do/search?query=d3d+ripper startpage.com/do/search?query=3d+printscreen 3D Ripper DX PIX (Microsoft) 3D Printscreen These people might be useful I remember seeing a thread when exploring Dead Space stuff (because I wanted to find a way to listen to the hidden bits of text and voice that I might have missed during the game): forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5966&start=15 I think the 3D Ripper DX one had a capability to save all models attached to something as one big one, so you could save a Zone as one big flat model with all the buildings etc attached to it, which I can imagine wouldn't be great for playing due to performance issues or something but could be a nice way to get a working mockup of the zones to make sure they are fully preserved to be recreated later, similar to an architect's little model buildings? If that doesn't do it, there must be a program that can? Also the .demo files when you do /demorecord filename in City Of, they record the exact co-ordinates location of every object, even in missions... So if people ran with demorecord on missions from start to finish they could make them re-creatable later even after the game has gone though it still wouldn't have the scripted events people could work out times from them, especially if say Paragonwiki started having a subpage for demo files for every mission on there to get multiple copies from different people so that the timings on spawns etc could be easy to work out |
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I've not checked out the program, but you can start CoH directly, if you pass cityofheroes.exe the arguments -project coh
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Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
Tried using it - unfortunately you can't launch CoH directly (that I am aware of) and my computer is not 32BIT, so I can't run Global Monitoring Mode.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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The situation here is a little differrent - if NCSoft really are "refocusing" on the Asian market, then selling off a Western-focused title might not matter to them as much as when they were still looking to play a big role in the Western market.
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Originally Posted by Killerkitty
the community tried to buy Tabula Rasa before too... NCsoft would rather see something burn and be buried rather than anyone else having control.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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True, but we're not there yet. Step 1 is finding out if NCSoft is even willing to deal. After *that* is when a corporation is formed, and all the corporate officers are listed etc. (actually they have to be by law when you file an application for a corporation)
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Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
The issue, stated baldly, is accountability. And that's something that has to be clear as soon as the funding gates are open.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I was discussing with a friend if it was actually possible to keep CoX alive longer.
Porting CoX over Heroengine seems easy, all 3D models, textures and sounds are already available in the client itself, this could be a great and fun project, the better part of it is the fact Heroengine is a complete solution for MMORPGs including the server side and is a much better up-to-date engine.
Porting all the quests I'm not sure how troublesome it would be as it seems most text walls contents are held in the servers, probably for easier updating, translation and such but hey, it's already here, I am sure it would be easy to do it with the live game and our rich wiki.
Overall it seems easy and this could be an unique, powerful, MMORPG supported entirely by it's own playerbase, it could grow very quickly and improve itself over time. Isn't it somewhat frustrating to see your character face all blurred out on your HD screen? This could even be called "City of Heroes 2" or IMO, better yet "Paragon City".
I will support any project that's solid enough to keep our City of Heroes alive, be it our current game or a new improved one.
50 Ice/Ice/Force Blaster *
50 Ice/Fire/Fire Tanker
50 Kin/Sonic/Power Defender
50 Ice/Storm/Psi Controller
50 Stone/WP/Soul Brute
50 Spines/SR Stalker
Pinnacle | Virtue
@Black Heart
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Tried launching with a few different commands.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
I've not checked out the program, but you can start CoH directly, if you pass cityofheroes.exe the arguments -project coh
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Hell, I couldn't even get the brief demorecord I ran to launch.
Curse you Windows 7!
Might not have a ton of cash, but I'll donate if any of these plans get to the "gather money" phases.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.
Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with. |
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Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
So much has changed in ten years since CoH started its initial development. And despite NCSoft being a behemoth, Cryptic/Paragon was indeed a small to medium sized studio for much of its duration and in relation to CoH development. In my opinion, the most interesting stuff happening in gaming right now involves things being done by these smaller studios who are not beholden to large money hungry publishers. My hopes is that if a short term buyout does not happen is that several experienced members of the team and talent from Paragon dare to launch an indie studio that could push the multiplayer superhero experience even further. Games/platforms like Minecraft have proven that persistent, multiplayer, and massive are not mutually bound concepts anymore. Similarly, gaming world physics and voxels have come a long long way in the past 10 years. The fall of CoH leaves a big hole IMO in the market. The other two options for persistent super hero play have not held my interest at all, despite being newer engines. At best, CO felt like CoH 1.5 with a graphic update and some cautious experiments. Hopefully this vacuum will be filled though by a bold experiment that pushes preconceptions and innovates as much as CoH has over its history. |
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| {Good ideas from everyone else too, regarding ways to eliminate the stranglehold that NCSoft or others may exert via IP and engine licensing} |
Very well said. I'll be ready to support any such open source or community-owned effort with money and time/coding/testing - even if that means we have to jettison the lore and make an entirely new creation. See you all on the Titan forums.
ill give u my yr's subs from both my accounts to help out if this gets going.
@Eternal Twilight
Friends don't let friends buy an NCSoft controlled project.
Save Paragon one more time!
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index....ic,4877.0.html
Petition to end shutting down CoH:
http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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The folks over at the Star Wars Galaxies Emulator (SWGEmu) project managed to attain nonprofit organization status, so it isn't unprecedented.
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Originally Posted by Zapping
Now you are actually touching in an area I know something about. I'd say it would be hard to do. The IRS has really started to crack down on the number of not-for-profit organizations because there were many that were just ways to hide businesses without paying taxes. You really need to prove the social good of the organization in order to get the 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. While we all would see a benefit from the game continuing, I think keeping the game alive would be a hard sell to the typical IRS agent reviewing the application. You would probably want to argue that it is like preserving a historic landmark, but again they would see 8 years of operation and not see that as historic.
I could of course be wrong, but having spent my career in the nonprofit industry and had more interaction with the IRS then most people would ever wish, I think that it would be a long shot. You are probably better off setting up a for profit corporation and getting money through crowd funding (kickstarter, etc) or through selling shares of the business to investors. |
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination