Another issue w/ the graphics is that, due to its age, many CoX players had older machines and had to play CO w/ lighting set to low. Since Co relies so heavily upon texture mapping and lighting, shutting these off makes the game look flat and very lacking in detail.
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
Especially with faces, CoX simply had a selection of premade ones, and that's what you went with. Unless you specifically go into the CO face slider menu and play around with the settings, you'll have a very generic look. Of course, CO character actually blink, can open their mouths, and let's not forget fingers and the ability to make different parts glow!
1) CoX had face sliders TOO. That would be IN ADDITION TO MULTIPLE FACE OPTIONS.
2) They're still craptastic looking eyes that blink, mouths that open and fingers. I would seriously take back my "mitten hands" for a more realistic looking character model and skeleton. Don't get me started on the game world.
3) The glow part varies. Depends on what costume parts you use it on. People can(and often do) abuse that feature, simply because "OOOoooOOOO, I can add glow!" with no concept of proportion and lighting effects.
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
I had to go and google Humberto Ramos as I was not familiar with the name.........
DEAR GOD, HE DOES THE ART FOR THIS GAME??? Noreally. He doesn't. But....it's as if he did. Uniface. Even Deadpool, who wears a full mask looks identical to unmasked characters.
It reminds me of a glitch in Secret World where when activating sprint it fails to load the sprint animation, so you start running like a Benny Hill video.
Concerning character animations, I have to say that the newer animations in CoH (and some of the old even) are a lot better than the ones in CO. The CO animations, actually, are a little jerky. They don't flow together very well.
That said, though, the graphics in CO are definitely superior, it's just unfortunate that they chose a style that didn't take an advantage of those graphics.
I knew there was a better video than the ones I found... thx for finding that one
I think part of the perception of CO's animations being "jerky" has to do with what the animations & powers system has to cope with. In CoX, all powers always played out their full animation, whereas in CO most power have different maintain or charge times. In CoX, if you were held in the middle of a power animation, said power would complete *then* you would be held. In CO, you can be knocked out of a power animation right in the middle, so transitions can be jarring.
Another issue w/ the graphics is that, due to its age, many CoX players had older machines and had to play CO w/ lighting set to low. Since Co relies so heavily upon texture mapping and lighting, shutting these off makes the game look flat and very lacking in detail. CoX relied on more detailed, though flat, textures and patterns applied to lower polygon-count models. Especially with faces, CoX simply had a selection of premade ones, and that's what you went with. Unless you specifically go into the CO face slider menu and play around with the settings, you'll have a very generic look. Of course, CO character actually blink, can open their mouths, and let's not forget fingers and the ability to make different parts glow!
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
This flows back to preferences but yeah I agree totally this visual flavor of the art style here is a major turn off for me. From the discussions here there seem to be some very good game mechanics behind that art style that save CO and graphical tweaks that can somewhat alter the visual look.
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
I don't like CO animations. For me they are all looking stiff and unnatural.
And better not to say anything about stances, except heroic one.
Which is actually quite strange - STO uses many of the same animations but there they are looking much better. Maybe it's because of character models?
Now, CoX animations weren't always better, and some were over the top - female walks for example were as oversexualised as it's current CO vixen stance. But also CoX animation were much more fluent and looked much more natural. If people are saying that CoX models looked better and much natural than CO's ones - it's only because of animations, they made otherwise bad looking models acting more natural.
As for CO stylisation... I don't like it. Not because it is stylised, but because its stylisation isn't, imho, good. It doesn't have a comic book feel, but a cartoon feel. There should be less details made with bump maps and shaders, and more details simply drawn into textures.
It's amusing, but closest look to the actual comic book CO has with all lightning details turned off, but outlines turned on. Only then it remotely looks like a comic.
But it isn't a disadvantage, when compared to CoX - that game didn't had a comic book look either. It was looking more like an action movie (except with rapidly aging character models). Also, CoX models were soo nineties, with long legs, and tiny feet, hands and heads.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
Thank you! That's exactly the comparison my brain has been struggling for the past couple of weeks. I'm adapting just fine to the style here and am not complaining about it, but that's spot on.
**personally wants everything to look like Neal Adams, but that'd never happen**
Neal Adams, Scott Adams - all those Adamses look alike anyway, right?
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
AMEN!!! I had started with CoH/V in 2003, and stayed a paid subscriber until the end. However, I did try CO at launch and had the same issues you raised. Now with CoH/V gone, and I'm going through Mission Architect withdrawal big time, and am frustrated with the lack of progress in CO since launch. Right now I prefer it over DCUO only because
the movement with DCUO is more console vs. PC based (and guess I'm fascinated with freeform and the ability to do multiple attacks at the same time with power armor).
But I so agree with everything you wrote below..and am saddened by the lack of suppport for CO
Everyone's got their opinions. For me, coming from World of ********, CoH looked ugly as sin. I'm not talking polygon count, but rather style. I thought CoH should have tried to look like a comic book, but it had generic styling. I played a few months and got bored.
When I first laid eyes on Champs, I fell in love with the stylized graphics. Realistic and generic graphics don't do it for me anymore. Granted, Champs doesn't exactly have a comic book style, but it's more to my liking. Though I wish they would do more texture work instead of lighting work on costumes, but I digress.
When I played Champs, wow it was such a departure from previous MMOs. I love the more action-oriented combat. Rarely have to wait for cooldowns, just GO GO GO all the time. CoH felt slow to me, even slower than WoW (lack of an auto attack probably added to that) and the fact that often, all my abilities were on cooldown, so I had to let the bad guys just pummel me in the face until I felt like punching again. Not too fun for me.
I agree that the game isn't living up to its full potential, but that's on the people pulling the purse strings. Still though, comparing how long it took me to get bored of CoH and how long I've been playing Champs, there's no contest, really.
But with that said, CO is my new home and my only concern is perhaps the lack of attention given to the game from Cryptic themselves. Like I've seen 2 entries (Facebook, and a forum one here) for the foundry and i'm like why do they need to poll the community? I saw a presentation by a Cryptic executive who extolled the virtue of user generated content and how it was in all of these other games including Coh/V and STO but yet never even mentioned the potential to add it to champions.
I guess I don't want to pin my hopes on another game that the owning company doesn't seem to care about; hoping its a lull until NeverWinter launches..keeping fingers crossed
Well looks like this thread is starting to sputter out. Lasted longer, and stayed more on topic, than I ever dreamed it would. MANY MANY thanks to everyone that actually participated Despite a couple off topic and a couple trolls, I think we had a really great convo on the highlights and fails of both games, and some good ideas where we'd like to see CO evolve, OR, where a new supers mmo needs to consider going
I totally agree, especially with the attack chain part. I also agree with the person who said that basically City of Heroes, Villain side was just dark heroes. Example is a rescue mission became a kidnap mission (ha ha ha). I am being hypocritical because I still plaid it but I started skipping the kidnap missions when I got the ability to. They even admitted (in the beginning) that 'Breakout' was 'Outbreak' turned on its head literally. Villain side only had NPC, zone, and archetype originality. When the alignment system came out all that went away minus the Arachnos Soldiers. I kept playing Praetoria hoping it would get to level 50 but never did.
The problem is, by this point, CoH was ALREADY more comprehensive in the amount of content than CO is. And CO has a developer team I can count on one mitten hand. It also wasn't saddled
And only a few months from a MASSIVE QOL-focused issue.
CO shipped with JUST enough content to get from 1-40. Then, on Day 1, XP was nerfed so that they didn't even have that.
The situation's BETTER now. But the amount of unique things to do in this game are simply dwarfed by the amount of stuff to do that CoH had months/years earlier.
If you don't want to sound like you're trashing the game, you might rethink the words you use.
And speaking of the community (which is always opinion - you can't say "our community was better than yours!"), we've had an amazing community here. Sure it's changed a bit now, but a couple years back, it really was an amazing place to hang out. We've had a very friendly community for a long time, and I, personally, have never gotten so involved in a video game community as I have in Champs.
I played hero side on City of Heroes too. I found it different to play hero side as a dark hero that maybe got his power from hell, or the mythological underworld. He'd be a hero but he or she would be very dark to the point where she would scare the hell out of someone seemingly even while or after saving them.
We might see him on the news guys. . .sociopath maybe?
If this is talking about the Smackwell post you quoted: this really is in incredibly poor taste, given recent events. Not only is this deeply nonsensical to the point of bewilderment, but you should be ashamed of yourself. Please apologize now.
If this is talking about the Smackwell post you quoted: this really is in incredibly poor taste, given recent events. Not only is this deeply nonsensical to the point of bewilderment, but you should be ashamed of yourself. Please apologize now.
Scott as usual you are far too nice, adammaquil is clearly the mentally challenged one here if he found anything wrong with Smackwell's post, let alone using recent tragic events to highlight his....'opinion', although that would require a brain in the first place.
It is and will be, once the trolls who joined recently move on. I note that the offensive posts are made by those who joined very recently, about the time CoX folded. Coincidence? Luckily I have met many decent people who once played CoX so i know those who troll here are the minority. Whilst I understand and sympathize with those ex CoX players who miss their game, I see no reason for them to come and troll here.
Scott as usual you are far too nice, adammaquil is clearly the mentally challenged one here if he found anything wrong with Smackwell's post, let alone using recent tragic events to highlight his....'opinion', although that would require a brain in the first place.
It is and will be, once the trolls who joined recently move on. I note that the offensive posts are made by those who joined very recently, about the time CoX folded. Coincidence? Luckily I have met many decent people who once played CoX so i know those who troll here are the minority. Whilst I understand and sympathize with those ex CoX players who miss their game, I see no reason for them to come and troll here.
I kept playing Praetoria hoping it would get to level 50 but never did.
Amen to that, I was rather disappointed that praetorian content effectively ended at lv20 and you were shuffled off to Hero/Villain side. I understand why they did it, and Im sure Praetoria never got to see all the development it would have due to NCsuck being stupid, but I really wanted to spend more time there.
Yeah you are probably right, but Smacks a buddy and people who use the deaths of children to look cool in a game forum deserve to rot in hell. However, trolls have no morals or conscience and I won't lower myself to their level again so signing off.
Amen to that, I was rather disappointed that praetorian content effectively ended at lv20 and you were shuffled off to Hero/Villain side. I understand why they did it, and Im sure Praetoria never got to see all the development it would have due to NCsuck being stupid, but I really wanted to spend more time there.
Technically, the addition of First Ward changed that where you could delay leaving Praetoria for a while.
Truly a baffling post, but no reason to fight over it. I would like to know what the guy meant by it though.
I think he basically meant he didn't want people to answer his rant, thus the "signing off". I don't think the religious part was to be taken litterally either.
Technically, the addition of First Ward changed that where you could delay leaving Praetoria for a while.
Aye but it was such a great alternate universe I could have happily never gone to rogue isles or paragon city if the content had but allowed it. Eventually it even might have but we'll never know now
I think he basically meant he didn't want people to answer his rant, thus the "signing off". I don't think the religious part was to be taken litterally either.
Yeah you are probably right, but Smacks a buddy and people who use the deaths of children to look cool in a game forum deserve to rot in hell. However, trolls have no morals or conscience and I won't lower myself to their level again so signing off.
WOW never seen that post. I dont think I want to
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
This thread has just gone wrong I think its time it was shut.
It went wrong the moment the OP felt the need to resort to personal attacks and name calling. And then had the grace to pat his own back for presenting such an insightful topic (insert massive eyeroll here)
Any insanity that followed is simply typical forum shev`ness
Comments
I'm fully aware of this, thanks to a thread where I was asking what graphics settings I needed to fiddle with to get said details. I really have no idea why my defaults were set so low since already experience dictates that I can crank the graphics up on this game with no performance suffrage.
Still, the style and detail still could have been better than it is. People can go "oh, well comic book game" except for the fact that it doesn't look like a comic book, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. Seriously I want friggin' Jim Lee or Joe Kubert, but instead they gave us god-forsaken Humberto Ramos.
1) CoX had face sliders TOO. That would be IN ADDITION TO MULTIPLE FACE OPTIONS.
2) They're still craptastic looking eyes that blink, mouths that open and fingers. I would seriously take back my "mitten hands" for a more realistic looking character model and skeleton. Don't get me started on the game world.
3) The glow part varies. Depends on what costume parts you use it on. People can(and often do) abuse that feature, simply because "OOOoooOOOO, I can add glow!" with no concept of proportion and lighting effects.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
I had to go and google Humberto Ramos as I was not familiar with the name.........
DEAR GOD, HE DOES THE ART FOR THIS GAME??? Noreally. He doesn't. But....it's as if he did. Uniface. Even Deadpool, who wears a full mask looks identical to unmasked characters.
You totally nailed it. Kudos to you.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Oh we have that one too. :P
I knew there was a better video than the ones I found... thx for finding that one
This would explain a lot yes
This flows back to preferences but yeah I agree totally this visual flavor of the art style here is a major turn off for me. From the discussions here there seem to be some very good game mechanics behind that art style that save CO and graphical tweaks that can somewhat alter the visual look.
At least we didn't get Greg Land.
And better not to say anything about stances, except heroic one.
Which is actually quite strange - STO uses many of the same animations but there they are looking much better. Maybe it's because of character models?
Now, CoX animations weren't always better, and some were over the top - female walks for example were as oversexualised as it's current CO vixen stance. But also CoX animation were much more fluent and looked much more natural. If people are saying that CoX models looked better and much natural than CO's ones - it's only because of animations, they made otherwise bad looking models acting more natural.
As for CO stylisation... I don't like it. Not because it is stylised, but because its stylisation isn't, imho, good. It doesn't have a comic book feel, but a cartoon feel. There should be less details made with bump maps and shaders, and more details simply drawn into textures.
It's amusing, but closest look to the actual comic book CO has with all lightning details turned off, but outlines turned on. Only then it remotely looks like a comic.
But it isn't a disadvantage, when compared to CoX - that game didn't had a comic book look either. It was looking more like an action movie (except with rapidly aging character models). Also, CoX models were soo nineties, with long legs, and tiny feet, hands and heads.
HUSH YOUR MOUTH!!!
We can always use more bewbs.
O-Faces for EVERYONE!
Thank you! That's exactly the comparison my brain has been struggling for the past couple of weeks. I'm adapting just fine to the style here and am not complaining about it, but that's spot on.
**personally wants everything to look like Neal Adams, but that'd never happen**
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Apparently:
I.... I like Ramos.....
(but not the style of CO)
You hush YOUR mouth!
harrumph
the movement with DCUO is more console vs. PC based (and guess I'm fascinated with freeform and the ability to do multiple attacks at the same time with power armor).
But I so agree with everything you wrote below..and am saddened by the lack of suppport for CO
I guess I don't want to pin my hopes on another game that the owning company doesn't seem to care about; hoping its a lull until NeverWinter launches..keeping fingers crossed
You poor, poor thing.
We might see him on the news guys. . .sociopath maybe?
Could you elaborate a bit on what you're getting at here? I'm not seeing any evidence of a sociopath in Smackwell's quote.
Furthermore you're quoting something from page 5 of the thread, I think the conversation has moved on a bit since then.
If this is talking about the Smackwell post you quoted: this really is in incredibly poor taste, given recent events. Not only is this deeply nonsensical to the point of bewilderment, but you should be ashamed of yourself. Please apologize now.
Scott as usual you are far too nice, adammaquil is clearly the mentally challenged one here if he found anything wrong with Smackwell's post, let alone using recent tragic events to highlight his....'opinion', although that would require a brain in the first place.
It is and will be, once the trolls who joined recently move on. I note that the offensive posts are made by those who joined very recently, about the time CoX folded. Coincidence? Luckily I have met many decent people who once played CoX so i know those who troll here are the minority. Whilst I understand and sympathize with those ex CoX players who miss their game, I see no reason for them to come and troll here.
ಠ_ಠ
Seriously dude? You're not helping.
Amen to that, I was rather disappointed that praetorian content effectively ended at lv20 and you were shuffled off to Hero/Villain side. I understand why they did it, and Im sure Praetoria never got to see all the development it would have due to NCsuck being stupid, but I really wanted to spend more time there.
Yeah you are probably right, but Smacks a buddy and people who use the deaths of children to look cool in a game forum deserve to rot in hell. However, trolls have no morals or conscience and I won't lower myself to their level again so signing off.
Technically, the addition of First Ward changed that where you could delay leaving Praetoria for a while.
I think he basically meant he didn't want people to answer his rant, thus the "signing off". I don't think the religious part was to be taken litterally either.
Aye but it was such a great alternate universe I could have happily never gone to rogue isles or paragon city if the content had but allowed it. Eventually it even might have but we'll never know now
No, I meant adammaqil79's post.
This thread has just gone wrong I think its time it was shut.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
WOW never seen that post. I dont think I want to
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Sa much as I'm allergic to censorship, /seconded.
I been a long time leaving but I'm going to be a long time gone.
Willie Nelson
T.U.F.K.A.S. (the user formerly known as Scarlyng)
Wrong on the CO forums since November, 2008
It went wrong the moment the OP felt the need to resort to personal attacks and name calling. And then had the grace to pat his own back for presenting such an insightful topic (insert massive eyeroll here)
Any insanity that followed is simply typical forum shev`ness
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Well, considering that CoX is the Ferrigno guy.......>_>
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
I find this image interesting :B :redface:
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
I think ferrigno goes to the game with the most hulk clones... and andy **** goes to... well... come on... cox.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Because unfortunately: