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Darn missed that one... Updated the post to include it.
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Originally Posted by Oathbound
I was more excited about Wind Control myself.
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Definitely.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
Yeah, when I saw the changes coming in I24, I re-upped. Probably one of the most exciting Issues ever.
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I would have paid $15 to the market JUST to lose the Hasten pom-poms.
Yeah, I can see myself using a lot of those new powers..I've been having fun making NYC skyscrapers and running around with them in-game. But some of these new powers..oh dear! Wind control might be fun- make a Dubai skyscraper who's learned to harness the force of sandstorms, for example. Hey, with this Coming Storm business, perhaps Paragon City's been forced to call in reinforcements from across the pond!
A (Golden Gate) Bridge Too Far- arc 299315
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Those powers are, to the extent that they existed at all, just data. A community attempt to recreate a CoH engine would not specifically need to target a particular build, because frankly no one involved would have significant access to the original source code in all likelihood, so what the community would be targeting is our understanding of how the game engine worked which is, to a large degree, build-blind.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Gents, if player run servers were to happen, and no, I don't see that happening regardless of what the more optimistic are saying, they could use the beta code just as they would the live. Granted, I have no idea how such a thing would work in the first place, but I would expect anyone that *could* pull it off would use I-24.
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And I also think such an effort is a long-shot at best. The effort required is enormous, and I say that as someone that has gone through the mental exercise of figuring out what it would take to recreate the game engine itself to a very high degree of detail.
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Wait, what are those origin pools ?
When I respecced my brute, nothing did show, because it was natural and Fighting is the Natural one ?
WE ARE HEROES. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.
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The effort would be so large, and in my opinion so legally shady, that we may as well just steal the assets and make a whole new game. May be faster and just as legal (not legal at all.)|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Those powers are, to the extent that they existed at all, just data. A community attempt to recreate a CoH engine would not specifically need to target a particular build, because frankly no one involved would have significant access to the original source code in all likelihood, so what the community would be targeting is our understanding of how the game engine worked which is, to a large degree, build-blind.
And I also think such an effort is a long-shot at best. The effort required is enormous, and I say that as someone that has gone through the mental exercise of figuring out what it would take to recreate the game engine itself to a very high degree of detail. |
After all, if we are to reinvent the wheel, why not take as many liberties as we can and just make a game that does not have limitations we never really liked that much?
But at the same time, the amount of work needed is so great... anyone with the skill needed to do so would be sacrificing a LOT by engaging on such a venture instead of dedicating that same time to develop their own thing, something they can actually profit from.
Heck I was quite looking forward to i24 owing to the fact that inventions could finally be used to boost resistance. That would have been amazing.
Too many alts to list.
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If you are asking about the ones I linked, they were under-development special power pools. The first one of these pools we would have seen was the Sorcery Pool, currently available on the beta server.|
Originally Posted by Mister_Bison
Wait, what are those origin pools ?
When I respecced my brute, nothing did show, because it was natural and Fighting is the Natural one ? |
Everyone can access these pools regardless of character orgin, but they were premium power pools you had to pay for.
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Selfishly, perhaps, I thought the same thing. I would have no problem answering questions and making limited contributions to an attempt to recreate the engine, especially if there were no objections from Paragon, but actually reimplementing an MMO engine is such an enormous undertaking that if I had the time and resources I'd probably go make an actual game. Even with toolkits, it seems a daunting task. And toolkits are not likely to be able to reproduce City of Heroes' gameplay with fidelity, given our rather unique design.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
The effort would be so large, and in my opinion so legally shady, that we may as well just steal the assets and make a whole new game. May be faster and just as legal (not legal at all.)
After all, if we are to reinvent the wheel, why not take as many liberties as we can and just make a game that does not have limitations we never really liked that much? But at the same time, the amount of work needed is so great... anyone with the skill needed to do so would be sacrificing a LOT by engaging on such a venture instead of dedicating that same time to develop their own thing, something they can actually profit from. |
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Fanks for the splanation.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
If you are asking about the ones I linked, they were under-development special power pools. The first one of these pools we would have seen was the Sorcery Pool, currently available on the beta server.
Everyone can access these pools regardless of character orgin, but they were premium power pools you had to pay for. |
WE ARE HEROES. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.
City et moi, �a colle !
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Everything is possible in the software world. Even making something exactly the same, it's just going to cost time and time for adjustments, but it's not infeasible to at least have something similar that just needs to be tweaked around the edges.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Selfishly, perhaps, I thought the same thing. I would have no problem answering questions and making limited contributions to an attempt to recreate the engine, especially if there were no objections from Paragon, but actually reimplementing an MMO engine is such an enormous undertaking that if I had the time and resources I'd probably go make an actual game. Even with toolkits, it seems a daunting task. And toolkits are not likely to be able to reproduce City of Heroes' gameplay with fidelity, given our rather unique design.
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Do bear in mind that if we recreate something today, it won't be with yesterday's tools
WE ARE HEROES. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.
City et moi, �a colle !
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In the same way that a with enough time anyone can turn this:|
Originally Posted by Mister_Bison
Everything is possible in the software world. Even making something exactly the same, it's just going to cost time and time for adjustments, but it's not infeasible to at least have something similar that just needs to be tweaked around the edges.
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Into this:
By slowly tweaking around the edges.
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I don't think it's selfish. Just realistic. For such an effort to be completed in a timely manner (and by timely I mean within a year) we will likely need a year of full time work from multiple coders with a solid grasp in multiplayer networking.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Selfishly, perhaps, I thought the same thing.
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Even then, we likely end with a game that is just random enemies and combat, without actual content. There is a lot of stuff that only lives in the servers.
Perhaps within 2 years of a decent team working full time, you may get the AE back up and running so the community can start creating their own content.
It IS something I would attempt if I was still in college or highschool. As it stands, I may as well just try to do the best next thing: a knockoff. Even that sounds intimidating. I may simply try to make a single player game featuring Starsman, and THAT would be selfish me trying to keep the character alive.
I admit, I really want to play a Radiation/Radiation/Experimentation Brute. Capped resists, check. High AoE, check. High single target (4.272 DS on Devastating Blow!), check. Self heal, double check (radioactive Siphon Life and a PBAoE heal). Tons and tons of -resist procs. Various ways to get +Recharge. And would all be thematic.
Man, those new sets ALL have me salivating. Wind Control makes me want to finally get a controller to 50. Savage Melee looks crazy. Psionic Melee looks great. And all the theme power pools look amazing (I would spend money on each even knowing I could only use one per character).
Can't believe we'll never get to see these powers come to life. They make me want to open up Mids so much.
TW/Elec Optimization
I was gonna respec my mind/psi dominator out of the flight pool and use sorcery instead. I mean, it was synergy. How could I not?
Now I'm sad it'll never happen on live.
I was really, REALLY looking toward 24. So much good stuff in it.
Wind Control on the somewhere horizon, too? Damn, damn damn.
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
The truly sad thing is that NCSoft would have likely seen an uptick in sales from i24, i25, i26, and the Super Secret Project the devs had been working on.
I haz a sad. :'(
"If I fail, they write me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart." --- George A. Romero
"If I had any dignity, that would have been humiliating" --- Adam Savage
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If I was still in college and judgment-proof, I'd be all over it.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
I don't think it's selfish. Just realistic. For such an effort to be completed in a timely manner (and by timely I mean within a year) we will likely need a year of full time work from multiple coders with a solid grasp in multiplayer networking.
Even then, we likely end with a game that is just random enemies and combat, without actual content. There is a lot of stuff that only lives in the servers. Perhaps within 2 years of a decent team working full time, you may get the AE back up and running so the community can start creating their own content. It IS something I would attempt if I was still in college or highschool. As it stands, I may as well just try to do the best next thing: a knockoff. Even that sounds intimidating. I may simply try to make a single player game featuring Starsman, and THAT would be selfish me trying to keep the character alive. |
I think my idea to make a Mybrute-like simulacrum of the combat system is something I would one day try to tackle. But my guestimate is 3000 hours of coding just to accomplish that. Two to five man-years of effort is what I figured it would take to recreate the CoH game engine. That's a lot of sustained effort required. Which is not to say a community effort couldn't get pieces of it up in less time: the costume editor for example, or a non-combat fly-around map server. But our combat system is a complex tangle, and if you try to reimplement it that's a major undertaking and if you don't you have a good chance of being unable to directly use all the powers data we have for players and critters. That would be a tough call.
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You're thinking one programmer has to do it alone, but the right analysis can break down the problem into thousands of pieces and then make is combine gracefully like the devs never imagined before because they use old tools. To simulate the combat dynamics only, one wouldn't need more than 2 or 3 week-ends, double that to make it optimized. I mean with the present data.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If I was still in college and judgment-proof, I'd be all over it.
I think my idea to make a Mybrute-like simulacrum of the combat system is something I would one day try to tackle. But my guestimate is 3000 hours of coding just to accomplish that. Two to five man-years of effort is what I figured it would take to recreate the CoH game engine. That's a lot of sustained effort required. Which is not to say a community effort couldn't get pieces of it up in less time: the costume editor for example, or a non-combat fly-around map server. But our combat system is a complex tangle, and if you try to reimplement it that's a major undertaking and if you don't you have a good chance of being unable to directly use all the powers data we have for players and critters. That would be a tough call. |
One of the biggest stops right now is not being legally able to use the assets of the game nor being able at all to use the assets on the servers. The assets that really give life to the game; spawn points, scripts and conversations.
To program all that from scratch won't take long, it's the content that will take time.
WE ARE HEROES. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.
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I'm thinking I get paid to estimate design effort for large software implementations and I know more about how the CoH game engine works than anyone alive outside the actual programmers who worked on it and maybe a few of the power designers.|
Originally Posted by Mister_Bison
You're thinking one programmer has to do it alone
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| To simulate the combat dynamics only, one wouldn't need more than 2 or 3 week-ends, double that to make it optimized. |
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Arcanaville, I do have to ask... 3k hours for a MyBrute-like rendition?
Is this creating a full 3D client and 3D models from scratch?
I would have estimated about 800 hours tops for something like that, with my own client but using in game models. Although I would have "skipped" some steps by using Unity3D Pro engine, the 1500 bucks would be more than worth the time they would save me (in my case I already own it though.)
Mister_Bison, I think you can easily spend the 3 weeks attempting to fully understand the game combat system alone. From condition interpreters to attack redirection, not to mention the enhancement system... It would be one hell of a workload.
I actually have attempted this. Also, it's not a task you can easily split in "a thousand pieces". In fact, you are unlikely to be able to develop any single system in parallel with multiple developers. There are only so many developers you can have working on a single system without having everyone stepping all over each other. One of the many reasons why "doubling the team size does not halve development time."
As Arcanaville, I dont want to discourage you from contributing to any effort, but you need to understand that things are never as simple as you may think at first.
I highly recommend you read this article "Why are task estimations so wrong so often?" it does not only applies to software development, it applies to almost every task you may think off. There are always hundreds of thousands of unexpected in every single large project. It's something you need to understand from the start because joining a large project thinking it's going to take a couple weeks and then quitting due to frustration or intimidation can hurt the project more than it can help.
Again, not trying to discourage you, just trying to prepare you for the potential task. Do read the article, it's priceless information.
Starsman : How would you propose simulating the attack chain of a Dark/Regen Scrapper? What accommodations would you make to ensure that, eg, Arcanatime was being properly respected, and that the proper attack chain was used at 300% haste vs 100% haste? Would IOs be an option?
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I haz one too after just now reading about Utility Belt. I don't normally go on to beta and just wait for the updates to hit and adjust accordingly (this is the only MMO I was like that with too, most others I watch beta like a hawk; guess that's how much faith I have in the team to push something awesome each update and not break everything). So I wasn't caught up on all these new power pools. Now, I'm sad and angry that we might not see I24 cause UB would've been awesome on my main. |
Originally Posted by Kheprera
The truly sad thing is that NCSoft would have likely seen an uptick in sales from i24, i25, i26, and the Super Secret Project the devs had been working on.
I haz a sad. :'( |
Freedom
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That Stinging Sensation #482183
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Curse you. I had written a huge reply to your original question and you change the question on me!!!!|
Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
Starsman : How would you propose simulating the attack chain of a Dark/Regen Scrapper? What accommodations would you make to ensure that, eg, Arcanatime was being properly respected, and that the proper attack chain was used at 300% haste vs 100% haste? Would IOs be an option?
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*grumble grumble*
If it's just an attack chain simulation... perhaps a couple of month of solid work. No graphics, no networking, just the attack logic being spit into a file or console.
I would have to come up with some interpreter for the conditions attacks have, I may need to find a solution that works to evaluate those from within the game and that may be the hardest part. It gets complex as soon as you try to evaluate pseudo-pets, though.
Arcanatime can easily be emulated by forcing the same clock timer Arcanatime represents (0.132 second increments.)
I can always hard code the recharge value (it's what i done in the past.)
Maybe 1 to 2 months if I dedicate my free time to it to this point... with pet and pseudopet handling and HP bag enemies that don't move, with defeat count and each having effect queues (to quantify things like -res that hit specific targets.)
Arcanaville was working on something like that from a week before the cancelation announcement. She said she would finish it regardless of the announcement, but she was doing a lot of simplifications, not an actual full on emulator. Still gets the work done, though.
IO and even SO handling would require a whole additional load of work, at minimum a GUI interface and all the conditionals required to handle the kind of enhancements you can slot and where, plus the cases of Unique IOs and the way to grant set bonuses.
If I had access to Mids source code I may be able to make the build "think" and generate attack chains (and survival chains that simulate clicking heals and the like.) Without that I would have to create a full character creator and it would take a bit of time. All depends how many continuous hours I dedicate there (you may do more in 8 continuous hours of work than in 8 hours split across 2 hour chunks over 4 days.)
Cant tell exactly how long it may take me to do that... much less doing it part time (something I really cant do if I want to stay married.)
Edit: I just realized you asked "how" not "how long"...
Hmm... I have a design document somewhere but dont know where...
I'm sorry I attempted to start retyping it now but it gets too long to write down without oversimplifying it.
if we do happen to save coh i think its still possible we will see all of it, it might take more time than originally planned due to potentially impending doom, but all of the stuff is already in the game files so its very possible it will just be continued if we manage to pass over this major interruption