If you could have done anything - (Fantasy position at PS)

... even if it's not a "real" position, you were just given free reign to work on one thing - what would it have been?

For me... epic ATs. Let me work on them, get resources assigned to really make them take off, etc. I'd say one a year would have gotten out. Maybe year and a half.

For instance:

Avilans - yeah, the flying AT, axed because they figured out how to give us wings. I'd have brought them back (with some unique attacks that made use of flying/wings.) They'd have had their own starting "zones," of sorts - like Praetoria - that anyone could visit, but would be exploring their lore more directly than other ATs could have gotten - they're fighting to defend (or take over, perhaps) their home. Want a "land of the lost" area? This would be it.

Coralax: Yep. Get them as an EAT, with a coralax civil war, perhaps, some of the shapers having gone mad. Hello, underwater zone - and glowing, underwater cities.

Blood of the Black Stream - Out of the city? Out of the continent - this would take you to Egypt, both ancient and modern, as you figure out who they were and just what's actually going on now with Gadzul Oil - and how deep their influence really spreads. (And do something nifty with the eye of horus made of oil in Oakes.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

shape shifiting AT, using the costume creator...

Or....custom Masterminds using the CC.

I12 Arena settings, with tweaks for powers regarding damage, IOs etc.

I would have loved to be able to take a crack at writing some stories. Not necessarily something directly in-game, but just extended background (in the same vein of that google doc story bible that got posted). Personally, I'd love to have explored territory outside of Paragon, sort of paint the situations of other countries, their superhero population, the threats they deal with, etc. The idea of an international superteam just resonates real well with me too.

only one thing?

Some sick new IO's or new T9 Vip Angels and Demons set come to mind first.

A month ago, I would have said epic/patron power pools. I know, I know -- it's a really narrow focus. But I love the constrained freedom they offer. I would have done all kinds of crazy (and quite possibly frequently nonoptimal) things with them. Support powers for Scrappers and Blasters! Shield Defense (lite) for Dominators! Tankier Controllers and Controllier Tanks! Knockup for everybody!

Right now?

I would have wanted to work at making Paragon Studios capable of being a self-sustaining independent entity. ;*p

Depends what you mean anything. If you mean without insane revamping that would piss off a lot of people, I would create the 5 archetypes I described in this post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starsman Sergeant: The Sergeants commands a squad of brave soldiers into battle, fighting among them, all as equals. On their own, each member may not be superhumanly strong, but together they can take on most meta-human opponents. Primary: Dom Assault Secondary: Summon Secondary (weaker henchmen, replace the 3 attacks with 3 armors but no mez prot) Epic: Dom Ancillary pools. Inherent: The Sergeant’s defensive toggles from his summon set scale in power with the proximity of his squad members. Suppressor: Suppressors move through the battle field entirely unnoticed, looking for any opportunity to weaken the opponent and empower their allies. Suppressors are equally skilled in ranged and melee skills. Primary: Dom Assault Secondary: Buff (50% of defender values) Lose one power to Stealth. Epic: Defender/Corruptor Ancillary pools. Inherent: Suppression: All suppressor melee attacks used from hide will land a Mag 3 AoE hold. Ranged attacks will land a Mag 3 AoE Fear. Dynamic Duo: This dynamic duo acts like one! You guard each other’s back, and take on any challenge with perfect orchestrated maneuvering. Primary: Assault Primary Secondary: Stalker secondary (replacing hide with a permanent pet.) Epic: Brute/Tank Epic Pools Inherent: Synergy. All your toggles and passives also buff your Sidekick pet if he is within 20ft. Your pet being near slightly buffs your damage. You can’t directly command your pet but he will take offensive mode for about 10 seconds with every attack. You stop attacking, the pet resets to follow/non-aggressive mode. Overseer: The Overseer does not typically join a fight, directly. They tend to oversee and direct the actions of a strong group of men. When the Overseer acts, it's not to attack, but to control a situation. Primary: Summon Primary Secondary: Control Secondary (Overseer control effects will not inflict damage) Epic: Controller Epic Pools Inherent: Every time the overseer commands their pets, he grants them a stance appropriate buff. "Aggressive" will give them a 20 second Damage/Accuracy buff. "Defensive" grants the pets a 20 second Resistance + Def buff. "Passive" will give all pets a recovery/regen aura. Manipulators: The Manipulator heads into a fight, manipulating its surroundings to make things safe for him and extremely uncomfortable to those who oppose him. Manipulators have a limited range of melee attacks and no ranged attacks, but they have a way to make foes think they are being hit harder than they actually are. Primary: Blaster Manipulation (T1 replaced by a melee attack) Secondary: Controller Control Epic: Dominator Epic pools. Inherent: Manipulators are not kings of burst damage, but all their attacks have a high chance of making the enemy think they are being hurt even when they are not. (Manipulators have 50% chance to crit, not necessarily 2x, illusionary damage that heals back after a while.)

Kinda boring, but I absolutely would have loved being a writer for missions/characters/the world in general.

Roleplay + RP Community Developer.

Introducing quality-of-life fixes and features for roleplayers (and of use to others, such as machinima makeirs).

Examples would include:

Buildings that you could enter in each zone to give more locations for roleplay, such as Up n' Away, Mega Mart, City of Gyros, Loyal Tea and Coffee, PPD HQ.

More emotes for use, including the sitting emotes that some NPCs had that were unavailable for player characters.

Website updates with lore on places, people and history.

Raising lore concerns with the story team.

Content design. I had 2 dev's choices, one from the contest. With my RL credentials, I may have stood a chance at getting the job.

All I want to do is write and design cool missions.. and now that I think about it, I'm not sure what ever held me back from applying in the first place. I guess I will never know now.

There are two major possibilities, one far more realistic than the other.

Animator:
I have always had a knack for animation. I imagine it is something to do with timing and perhaps just experience with ti when I was young. We had 8mm film cameras and I used to do stop motion animation and cut out animation... then, many years later, I took some classes about 2D cell animation.
My music career has always gotten in the way, but, just a few years ago, I was giving serious thought about stepping away from that industry and focusing on computer animation and/or possibly getting involved in the video game industry.
I ended up sticking to music, but I will, one day, begin studies on computer animation as I have many projects (even based around my musical career) that involve a lot of animation work.
I often wonder how happy I'd be working in a video game studio, but I'll never know unless I ever try it... Would be interesting to find out.

World/Content Designer:
The other thing is that I have long been an idea man. In this field, I think this position is way out of my league, because i have no experience and zero skill sets to work up the ladder. So, that's why it is extreme pie in the sky, at this point in time.
Still... I've always been skilled at (and I think it is because I love it) leading, inspiring, task-mastering, coordinating and maintaining artistic and design focus of groups of artists.
My dream job at Paragon Studios would be to create, design and fancy ideas, work them out with others and oversee each team's efforts, making decisions, problem-solving and such along the way.


For some reason... musical score for the game just doesn't interest me so much... even though scoring film is something I love. I just tend to stick with rock instruments and rougher things these days and have not been focused on orchestral soundtrack type stuff. I don't know... I think I've gotten too expressionistic to enjoy doing the precision work these types of projects tend to expect from the music.

Blah blah blah... How about just paid-couch-loafer?


Oh... Character creator. I love designing characters, creating their backgrounds, concepts, motives, personalities and story arcs. Love it. Pay me to do it? I'd be in paradise.

I'd have loved to have a marketing position, whereby I was responsible for handling the various contests and such.

The contest I would've loved to run would be an in-game costume contest in which the winner received a real-world version of that costume.

I would've worked on origin specific story arcs at all levels. Either as individual arcs for each origin, or arcs that branched and changed based on origin (kinda like the Origin of Power arc, but more so). It always bothered me that origins had no meaning outside of what DOs/SOs our characters could equip (which became almost completely meaningless once IOs went live), and I've long thought that unique story arcs would be a good way to fix that.

Top 3:

Editor.
Keeper of All Lore.
Cutscene designer.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Buses. I know it's silly, but it's the first thing I would have done. I would have created a bunch of buses, designed routes for them, and set them loose to travel around within each city zone. I'd shift the bus stops a bit so there was one at each neighborhood marker, or as close as possible. Then I'd make the buses work like a local version of the T:

* Stand at a bus stop and wait.
* When a bus shows up, click the door.
* A menu pops up of all the neighborhoods in that zone.
* Choose a neighborhood.
* Get a loading screen.
* Appear at a bus stop in the same zone, at the neighborhood you chose.

Also, the top of the bus would be flat, so you could stand on it and ride around. Maybe I lack imagination, but I can't think of any really effective exploit from standing on the roof of a bus. Or the blimp, or the subway car.

After that, I would start writing missions. But first... buses!

I would have wanted to learn how their system works, and write code for it, working on whatever features needed to be done. I would have also like to do tools programming for internal use to help make development easier.

Also, I would want to make the various Makeup options accept different colors for eye shadow and lipstick, as a gift to my wife.

I did apply to work for them, fresh out of college. Made it to the on site interview, kind of flubbed it up. Not sure if it was the lower amount of C vs. C++ experience or lack of video game development experience, or something else. I still have good memories from the interview though, the people were really nice.