Praise *A* dev (past or present) 1.0

Be a letter-writer!

There have been plenty of "you guys are great" and thank you threads, but it's about time to call out some people, if you know who they are, and tell them the things you really enjoyed, whether it be a piece of music, a costume piece, or mission text. I'd like this to be a spot where they can share with each other and say "did you see how much they loved x" while is lasts (hence 1.0).

Please note, past or present includes Paragon Studios and the original Cryptic Studios. Also, "dev" is really a collective term for everyone who worked on behalf of the game, including community managers. Make sure to throw out some love to those that departed earlier-on like CuppaJo, Avatea and BABs (as well as Jack).

Thread Guidelines.
1. Please, no backhanded compliments.
2. Please be specific whenever possible -- we're highlighting individual work.
3. If you don't know who is responsible, just start with a "Whoever was responsible".
4. Please stick to one compliment per post -- that post should be about that person.
5. Post as much as you like, but please do not post back to back --give others a chance to write something too ( ' :

Have fun and thank you!

To whoever is responsible,

You had to have worked on the game during pre-release, but I loved the powers' sound effects, most notably fire blast, fire manipulation and energy melee. For me, the joy of city of heroes lies in its atmostphere and immersion factor, which the sound effects contributed tremendously towards. 8 years later, lighting up a fire power generates this whoosh of sound and still excites me like no other game. Likewise, the pyuhpyuh of a 1-2 energy punch combo (with pnnk pom-poms!) gets me in a tanking mood -- I hear that sound outside of the game when I daydream. I hope I won't have to miss these things come December 1st, but I know I will.

Thank you for the great work and dedication!

I have to single out David Nakayama for outstanding achievement. The man put up with so much **** from us, and his reaction was always "OK, I get that you don't like it. Let's try and figure out what we can do that you'll like better." Matt Miller may have been the one to make the "Give the players what they want." statement, but David Nakayama was the first and... Really, pretty much only developer I remember who actually sat down and ASKED the players what they wanted. My hat's off to that guy.

Quote:

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.

Dr. Aeon for "Who Will Die?", and Viridian for "Pandora's Box". With the Incarnate Trials grabbing so much attention, it was great to see these arcs that were big and epic, but reasonably solo-friendly. Loved the emphasis on exploring the lore, and all the custom maps and clever technical tricks used throughout.

David Lewis.

Most of you guys probably don't know who he is. (Unless you were lucky enough to attend his panel at HeroCon 2009.) But he was the guy who used to make the trailers for COH, and the dev who taught me a lot about the demorecord system.

When most players were submitting beta bugs about powers or numbers or graphics or whatever, I was submitting them about demo problems, and we'd regularly yap via email about the ones I'd submitted. We routinely exchanged tips and tricks about the system, and he was kind enough to offer suggestions after watching my latest vid on things on how I could improve (and what i was doing right).

At both of the original HeroCons, he gave me at least an hour and a half of his undivided attention, talking about filming in-game, things that we both wanted to see implemented into the system, how he was driving the art guys and the programmers crazy trying to make sure that the system kept working with each new release.

So... thanks, David. For all of it.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

PS - Matt "Positron" Miller was actually tied for first place.

Arbiter Hawk cos he has great hair and is apparently a munchkin power-gamer.
Synapse for the Reward Systems and tweaks.

Pohsyb. I crashed his client a few times during the beta and horribly exploited his chat parser , but specifically because I nagged him about reducing the traffic the server sent to the client in order to improve performance in low bandwidth connections, and he delivered, adding the "do not send buff numbers" and "don't send buff data at all" options. With those options enabled, the server sends a lot less data and even a dial up connection can run the game. And in large events like a mothership raid, it helps immensely against network lag.

That's the reason my farewell video features a cardboard box hopping along the other signature characters.

Floyd Grubb / Castle / Fyndhal

I used to ***ch a lot about FF. I traded PMs with States about FF (he skewed condescending). I poked Posi about FF (nothing). I posted in threads, I made fun of the devs' former assertion that "distance = defence".

But Castle?

He actually did listen. After a PM exchange just after I8 hit, he told me to keep my eyes open.

Shortly after that, he gave Repulsion Bomb a 10X (that's right, a ten-fold) damage buff.

I don't think I had much to do with this change -- Repulsion Bomb was, legitimately, one of the worst powers in the game (it's also had some of the most radical make-overs in the game*).

But the 10-fold increase in damage was, as I found out, VERY hard to leverage on my FF / Rad (think Irradiate and Electron Haze). It wasn't worth the hassle, anything I did was either situational (hovering over mobs can't always be done, there aren't always convenient corners) or not as productive as hitting another button. I beat the power up in a variety of situations in the then new RWZ, and couldn't make a go of it.

I explained this, pointed Castle to a thread about the changes, and suggested a lowering of RB's KB mag.

That's the bit I take credit for.

So, thank you, Floyd, for listening to me, and the community, and being the only dev, ever, to take one of FF's lulzy bad powers and making it genuinely useful.

* at release, RB was ally-targetted KB > then it got a low mag, 100% stun > then it became mob-targetted with its recharge tripled and chance to stun drastically lowered > then it had its damage increased (to scale 1) > then it had its KB mag lowered.

I *think* this should be directed at Dink,

Thank you for the Female SciFI 1 boot. There are lots of costume parts I like, but I've always wanted something a bit more utilitarian for some of my female heroes. SciFI 1 boot in particular fits that bill as a sharp, modern looking piece and has become the goto boot for most female costumes because of its versatility. There were a number of pieces I liked in the Retro Sci-FI costume set, but that really was the kicker that made me purchase it.



Awesome work ( ' :

I'm afraid I can't single out one dev over another. Every dev, past and present, did their part to make CoH the awesome game it was and I hope at least some of them will return if CoH does get revived.

I can't really decide.

They were all awesome. I can't really bring myself to single anyone out. I have to thank them all.

I'd like to thank the Type-R programmer that failed Newtonian gravity but managed to convert knockback into the best mez in the game by turning ragdoll into a form of epilepsy.

Dear WarWitch,

I want to thank you for giving me the inspiration to become involved in the gaming industry. Though I always reported bugs for fun, I never knew that it was something that could be a job.

When you had your own forums on your website, I PM'd you that the permissions were not set up to allow people to post to your messages. You replied back with, "Thanks for the heads up, QA Sean."

I had no idea what QA was, so I looked it up and saw that QA was Quality Assurance. It was like a light went off and I knew that was my calling.

Though I never was able to score my dream job of working as QA for Paragon, I never gave up and have used what I learned at CoH when applying for other companies. Without CoH and your knowledge, I'd still be wondering where my place is in life.

It may seem small and silly, but that one reply changed my life.

Thank you!
-Sean "Arachnos Commander" Godfrey

So many things to praise... I guess I'd have to choose Warwitch for reworking the Hollows, she made sure new heroes wouldn't have to run past lvl 15 mobs to reach their lvl 5 missions, so about half my characters owe her a hug.

Vince "Dark Watcher" D'Amelio

The man who gave us those seemingly simple, three extra controls that made base editing so much easier.

Love ya, man. All of you really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow I have to single out David Nakayama for outstanding achievement. The man put up with so much **** from us, and his reaction was always "OK, I get that you don't like it. Let's try and figure out what we can do that you'll like better." Matt Miller may have been the one to make the "Give the players what they want." statement, but David Nakayama was the first and... Really, pretty much only developer I remember who actually sat down and ASKED the players what they wanted. My hat's off to that guy.

Dear Jack,

You got the ball rolling, so I guess you deserve a little thanks.

- Me.

PS: For real, I think a LOT of credit is owed to you. For everything that I've heard people disagree with, and as many times as I've heard some curse you as a plague - it doesn't change the fact that you were key for this world to exist in the first place.

Thank you.

@Kyuu

Pohsyb. Combining 3 inspirations to make 1 was an unbelievably good QoL thing. Thanks.

I can't single out *a* dev or Paragon employee (past or present).

All of them have contributed so much to the game that the final product was just awe-inspiring, and has completely ruined me for just about anything else after this.

They basically blasted open the superhero MMO and squatted in it going "MINE!".

You've had a couple newer contenders come along, promising better gameplay and sexier graphics. And they were all just swatted and shown their place in the scheme of things.

I feel privileged to have been a citizen of Paragon City. A place composed of millions of dreams and no limits but what we set for ourselves. And its gatekeepers at Paragon Studios have my undying thanks for having allowed me to share this world with themselves, and you, my fellow players.

For me, home is always going to look a little like this from now on:

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Zwill is beyond awesome, but I'd also like to give nods to some priors... Let's hear it for Cup 'o Joe and Cricket! I miss them *sniff*

And Omg my First after a red name! I'd also like to edit and thank Hawk for keeping the lights on. Just a tough job to have these days, but he does it with dignity and respect.

I could never afford to make it to the meet and greats or any convention.

Zwillinger put a face to the Rednames with Ustream and TwitchTV. I miss him greatly, and so, so many others.

This is the best game I've played, and their is no replacement.