Sterga, this is a supers game. About half of the appeal, maybe more, is the cool-looking costumes.
And this costume is not cool. It's shoddy. It's half-assed. It's what I'd expect to see from an indie developer trying to get a Kickstarter underway, not from Cryptic Studios. And if we just "let it go", we're saying that it's okay that the work is this bad.
It's not okay, and I for one won't just let it slide.
"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!"
Well, it's out now, and since in the end they flat out refused to include the heavy/weapon parts, I'm not even going to bother with it. (Those where the selling points for me)
But I'm unsure about making this purchase so I go back to my original costume, get an eye full, and then click to a new costume slot and load up the costume I just saved...and get this...
Now, I'm not Sherlock Holmes, but I'm fairly certain something is different about these two pictures.
Maybe our next Costume Set will give us a clue.
For now I'm not being sold a costume set, I'm reporting a bug in two functions that are so common they are the first two functions available in the first menu of almost every program: "Save" and "Open". If the CO tailor was Notepad and I saved "Dear Mom, Camp is fine, the food isn't bad, the girls don't shave." I would be loading "Dear Camp, fine food don't shave." the next time I sat down to finish my letter home.
That's just silly. Load the data as it is saved, give the warning "Hey you don't own this costume set" again. Glaring ugly bugs like this are like forgetting to zip your pants up and then offering someone a wet handshake.
Well I certainly feel like an idiot for thinking it would be fixed...oh well.
I will continue to be an idiot and think they will fix it after making the mistake of releasing it as is. Then I will buy it. Good thing is, I will have enough free zen to buy it by that time .
This costume set was bastarized compared to the original concept art and it looks awful,
I'm sad they complety ignore the Laser Blade and Handguns bracers the concept art had, heck they ignored a lot of stuff
Meedacthunist has EVERY Right to be upset about this subject
The Quality of Z store costumes is getting worse!
Oh and just because we Love the game, that doesn't mean we have to be blind and ignore it's Flaws and DEVs' desicions about it
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
No, my assessment is: "buy it if you want it for whatever reason that may be."
I'm not buying it, but I'm not going to point fingers and shame anyone who does...because it is their decision and I have no right telling them otherwise.
So don't buy their shoddy product, keep it up and they will get the message. Since you're not alone in your opinions many people will probably follow suit. No witch hunts required.
I'm not denying that you CAN buy if you want it, no matter its' condition. I'm saying you SHOULDN'T buy it because ... (read above) IT AFFECTS US ALL when "they"(read:Devs) keep doing this. If "they" don't get the message that "they" shouldn't do this, "they" will keep doing this.
You, and others, need to stop deflecting this with a RIGHT to do what "you" want. It's not that simple and you should know this. It's the reason I am continuing to discuss this. If more people follow your lead in this, then "they" never get the correct message. That being we shouldn't have to put with the release of an unfinished product. Promises of future intent, notwithstanding.
Of course I'm not naive to believe that this doesn't occur all over the business world. I don't have a "forum" for the rest of the business world. I have one here. I don't like the trend we've seen for years. Will it change? Not on it's own. Just voting with the wallet is one way. SAYING something about it helps to DEFINE what i'm voting for.
.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=- "Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
A lot of random tights/skins are now seemingly broken, the muscle layer having inverted(?) texture work much like the urban anime tube top skin has/had. It's on live, it has instantly ruined a lot of looks and I'm worried. Please respond anytime soon?
I'm not denying that you CAN buy if you want it, no matter its' condition. I'm saying you SHOULDN'T buy it because ... (read above) IT AFFECTS US ALL when "they"(read:Devs) keep doing this. If "they" don't get the message that "they" shouldn't do this, "they" will keep doing this.
You, and others, need to stop deflecting this with a RIGHT to do what "you" want. It's not that simple and you should know this. It's the reason I am continuing to discuss this. If more people follow your lead in this, then "they" never get the correct message. That being we shouldn't have to put with the release of an unfinished product. Promises of future intent, notwithstanding.
Of course I'm not naive to believe that this doesn't occur all over the business world. I don't have a "forum" for the rest of the business world. I have one here. I don't like the trend we've seen for years. Will it change? Not on it's own. Just voting with the wallet is one way. SAYING something about it helps to DEFINE what i'm voting for.
Show them by not buying the set, which is what I intend to do...
Don't blame the players by scolding them for it, put the blame where it belongs and simply don't buy it. Be vocal about your displeasure, be honest about your opinions...but don't blame this on players who look at the set as is and think "wow those boots would really look neat on my big robot dude, or gosh I really could use that head on this concept for a character I have... these particular pieces seem reasonably unbroken and I got money to burn."
Chances are there was a deadline and like or not deadlines must be met.
It sucks -- but we all know that businesses will push a product out the door and fix it later. It's not just a CO problem. It's why things like hotfixes, recalls, and patches exist. Because on paper it will look like they met the promised release date.
I guess I'm being a bit of an apologist right now.. but I'm ok with that.
Remember PWE just laid off a bunch of developers. I wouldn't want to be the employee responsible for not delivering a promised release on time if I worked there.
The set is out in the wild and what's done is done. Lengthy posts and outrage will do nothing to change that it.
Your customers won't remember if you shipped a good product a little bit late.
Your customers won't forget if you shipped s*** on time.
That is my first and last word on the subject.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Just what we need yet another "hat" we have to buy with real money. What about all the lvl 40s that are quitting because they are getting sick and tired of farming rampages and getting stiffed on the "Justice Gear" parts?
Screw them, screw us right? Because we only pay your fees and get slapped in the face for it.
We want bug fixes, new content (that is not a new outfit of some kind), and more things to do.
Sterga, this is a supers game. About half of the appeal, maybe more, is the cool-looking costumes.
And this costume is not cool. It's shoddy. It's half-assed. It's what I'd expect to see from an indie developer trying to get a Kickstarter underway, not from Cryptic Studios. And if we just "let it go", we're saying that it's okay that the work is this bad.
It's not okay, and I for one won't just let it slide.
I think Jon said it best here.
I honestly took a week off from the game when the Variable set came out on PTS. I tested the set and logged off.
What really got me was the first comment of "no new materials will be added"
It really bothered me because this is why I play this game. If I can't have decent costumes what is the point? I have really contemplated leaving the game. Not becuase of the costume but the direction it seems the "quality" is headed. I've loved this game for a long time and perhaps it's that time.
Show them by not buying the set, which is what I intend to do...
Don't blame the players by scolding them for it, put the blame where it belongs and simply don't buy it. Be vocal about your displeasure, be honest about your opinions...but don't blame this on players who look at the set as is and think "wow those boots would really look neat on my big robot dude, or gosh I really could use that head on this concept for a character I have... these particular pieces seem reasonably unbroken and I got money to burn."
Not good enough for some of our crusaders around here, apparently.
Hey, everyone remember when Holoforce came out? And we all praised it and loved it and said how awesome it looked (all of which was true), and then damn near everybody bought it immediately?
So you no doubt remember that because of what we did with our money, they got the message about the quality we expect, and after that they only released beautiful costumes with no clipping issues, six materials available, unlimited categories, and terrific utility.
Hah, wait, no, that didn't happen. Throw a *****-fit about the set if you want, boycott it if you want, hell, even criticize other people for buying it if you want. But you should at least know that you're not going to make any difference with your crusade, and that you're just being an ******* towards other people for absolutely no reason. Obviously, many of you can live with that.
For now I'm not being sold a costume set, I'm reporting a bug in two functions that are so common they are the first two functions available in the first menu of almost every program: "Save" and "Open". If the CO tailor was Notepad and I saved "Dear Mom, Camp is fine, the food isn't bad, the girls don't shave." I would be loading "Dear Camp, fine food don't shave." the next time I sat down to finish my letter home.
I don't think that's a bug. It's been that way at least since I started playing. They don't save costumes with parts you don't own. And that makes sense.
What about all the lvl 40s that are quitting because they are getting sick and tired of farming rampages and getting stiffed on the "Justice Gear" parts?
A lot of those are there? And you know this...how?
Just what we need yet another "hat" we have to buy with real money. What about all the lvl 40s that are quitting because they are getting sick and tired of farming
rampages and getting stiffed on the "Justice Gear" parts?
Just for the record, near to completing my 14th set of justice gear. Getting tokens doesn't seem to be an issue, at least for me.
Well lucky you then. For over a year I have not seen a single part drop from Sky Command, 1 diamond drop from Gravitar, and 3 scales drop from the invasion.
This last run of Sky command I farmed it every day it was up on my healer and I got diddly squat. Not a problem you say?
As far as I have heard "only the top two damage dealers get part drops in each match" so where dose that leave healer toons? Keeping the team and (in SC) the match alive for nothing.
I'm sorry but I am starting to get very angry with this non-stop slapping of my face by cryptic/PWE/ARC or who ever still "runs" this game (into the ground).
375 ZEN Swamp King. These are older sets, usually less polished and with a relatively small list of pieces. Were cutting the prices of similar sets, making them more accessible.
600 ZEN Patterned Armor. These sets are polished and have a creative hook, something that stirs your imagination and gets you brainstorming.
750 ZEN Wizard and Witch. You could easily create a dozen different richly-imagined, unique costumes with just this one set. These sets are very polished and detailed, and took quite a bit of effort to get all the modeling just right.
1000 ZEN Holo-Force Armor, and the Power Armor Bundle. This tier will have the bundle packs, and the best of the best costume sets: The 750 tier is the inner ring, but this is the bullseye. These costume sets have a special spark to them that sets them apart, like the Holo-Forces special textures. Because they push the envelope, though, they need more iteration and work. This tier is hyper-exclusive, to the point that only a handful were even nominated to get in; these costume sets are the face of the C-Store.
50 ZEN Emblem packs: These are fun customization, especially with pieces like the Headphones from the gold member rewards. We want them to be an easy purchase, like a pack of gum.
Note: The new tier-based C-store pricing is in effect to showcase the amount of work that went into this set. This set is priced in the high tier 750Z category for its very polished and detailed look, as well as taking quite a bit of effort to get the modeling just right.
For the curious, this is the quality you're being told to accept. The tights included in this set (which are only available in metal texture) are green. The rest of the set is portrayed in black to highlight clipping issues. It clips with itself:
Unless we're just fixing everything by toning down older costumes to the VR level, lol. :biggrin:
Quoted for comedic value.
If you are considering purchasing this set, please also be aware that all pieces (except the tights) have the design sins ofbaked-in colours and colour bleedingas shown in the PTS thread.
As far as details go, the majority of detailing went into the head, belt, and the front cockpit of the chest piece. Everything else is just flat polygons. It's very inconsistent, like the plug was pulled before it could be completed. The head is probably the only good piece in this set, and that's a stretch given all the problems highlighted with colouring.
Where the head shines (and I'm not sure if this should be taken as praise for adhering to the standard expections of how a piece should behave), is that it actually adheres to the face sliders. It's clear that whoever made the head knew how to attach it to the sliders. Because of how badly the body pieces scale, it's as if the rest of it was picked up and made by a person of completely different design experience.
And in the name of being blunt I would like to point out that if you criticize the things presented to you because you do not like it....yeah, that's fine. This set has mistakes all over it, fair enough. If you flat out start making accusational personal attacks against people who screwed something up hinting that it's deliberate, malicious, a scam, and they're just doo doo meany heads....then you're an idiot. No nice way to put that. It's just bringing my joke about the July Gold Vendor Tinfoil Hat that closer to reality.
There is no grand Champions Online Conspirary to fleece the masses as part of the plans of the evil overlords. It's just a new person in WAY over their heads and a schedule which had to be met. Now is it unfortunate and likely a PR nightmare unfolding in this community...well yeah. There are, IMO, multiple better ways in which this could have been handled...but that's why they call them mistakes.
Your customers won't remember if you shipped a good product a little bit late.
Actually, it's been my experiences in CO over the years that when things are delayed and the end results are positive that players, at least vets, will not only remember but will point these things out as positive examples. The same holds true for something like Foxbatcon which, instead of just being flipped on like a switch after many years, ended up with actual "NEW" additions. Now it is true that some people choose to focus more on the negatives and there are likely going to be some of the "Bitter CoXers" hitting the internet to spread the word of how horrible this is and how the playerbase is "enraged and quitting in waves" but those people likely would have reacted in that way regardless of the outcome.
So, IMO, the REAL TEST here is how New/Old Cryptic handles "At a Future Date" and how promptly the new bugs are addressed. Which, as many of us are more than used to by this point, means it's waiting game time....once again. So sit back, get comfy, and just realize that until something more official happens in this issue people likely won't be spending money on this and we'll see less Seekers ingame for the momment. Yes, this kinda sucks but it's also a chance for us to witness how New/Old Cryptic recovers from a fumble....if they recover from the fumble. For the health and betterment of this game I am hoping they recover miraculously but only time will truly tell.
Not good enough for some of our crusaders around here, apparently.
Hey, everyone remember when Holoforce came out? And we all praised it and loved it and said how awesome it looked (all of which was true), and then damn near everybody bought it immediately?
So you no doubt remember that because of what we did with our money, they got the message about the quality we expect, and after that they only released beautiful costumes with no clipping issues, six materials available, unlimited categories, and terrific utility.
Hah, wait, no, that didn't happen. Throw a *****-fit about the set if you want, boycott it if you want, hell, even criticize other people for buying it if you want. But you should at least know that you're not going to make any difference with your crusade, and that you're just being an ******* towards other people for absolutely no reason. Obviously, many of you can live with that.
I can live with that label.
I don't think i've thrown a fit about this issue. I have criticized. But, I know where the majority of the blame lays.
.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=- "Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
With the constant reaming, it sure seems like hate to me. But whatever lies help you sleep at night.
A few people around here don't know the difference between criticism and full on puppy kicker mode.
You're really suggesting the level of detail meedacthunist put into feedback is indicative of hating this game?
There is no logical reason someone who hates this game would put so much effort into seeing it improved, toward fighting its decline.
You didn't actually read any of meedacthunist's extensive reports on this costume set's bugs. That's apparent from any of your replies in which you replace the quoted text with "blah blah blah" and respond with mockery.
For your own sake, stop embarrassing yourself. Defending Cryptic's bad behaviour makes you an enabler in this game's decline.
The only tokens which I can get reliably are diamonds.
I currently have 2 full sets of justice gear, 2 partial sets with 2 pieces, and one character with only one piece, however I have given up regular rampage farming because the queues are dead most of the day, and when it DOES pop it either drops no token, or another ()@)( diamond.
I have a HUGE pile of diamonds. Can I haz BEARING now??? Just once stupid Sky Command.
Again lucky you. Know how many "sets" I have? 0 Know how many pieces of gear I have? 0
With the game on a rapid decline any way with only a possibility of about 500 active players, with the rampage queue's being dead or taking 30+ minuets just to try and get a part, then reliably getting nothing. Just to start at step 1, why make it so hard to obtain still? Up the drop rates to drop a part at least 50% of the time. Hell it might even bring back some of the older players who got tired of the same thing over and over and getting a slap in the face for the effort.
Not to mention the bugs. Oh boy the bug. The other day I was running an adventure pack with a team and it bugged out not once, not twice, but THREE times in less than 20 minuets. Making the team mates that only had enough time to play it through leave because it was reliably glitching.
Adding nothing more than "new" outfits all the time (that contain bugs themselves) is only compacting the problems and making things worse. They need to fix the bugs make the content that is in the game already work, and accessible. In adding "more useless crap" that you have to pay more for shows me one thing. Cryptic/PWE/ARC or who ever is in charge of the updates only cares about 1 thing, Their wallets.
If they make the game work as intended, people would be more willing to spend some money on it. Like the old saying goes. "If you build it, they will come. If you fix it, they will stay."
I said there was a difference between being a cynical jackass and criticism.
I didn't really say much of anything about the set other than the wire-frame was pretty close, the textures were boring, and the clipping was icky. How is that defending Cryptic? No seriously, please explain why I should be embarrassed by my inability to be a flaming d-bag every time a dev isn't perfect.
Voting with the wallet and sticking to the man are 2 different things.
A BOYCOTT is when people refuse to buy products to make an Ideological point.
Voting with your wallet occurs when people do not like a product or feel the quality of said product is not worth the money.
Honestly in this case both actions make sense. We want to make a point. We are tired of half finished, ugly and broken costumes, ESPECIALLY when they are STILL putting the name of the "Designer" on it as if it's ANYTHING like Meeda intended.
"Voting with wallets", "sticking it to the man" and boycotting are synonymous with each other given the context of the situation. I'm not really interested in arguing the semantics behind the terms.
By all means feel free to make a point to Cryptic for releasing a shoddy product and letting them know that it's unacceptable. It doesn't mean the player with the grievance is entitled to act like a **** towards other players who aren't rallying under their banner. No one has an obligation to others to ensure other people's personal enjoyment with the game, as long as they're not being trolls towards others. That's something some of the "crusaders" in the thread are doing otherwise.
Let's put it this way. If it was done ingame, with someone going up to another person using the variable robot pieces and telling them how they're destroying the game and their personal investment in it, the person making that accusation would come across as nothing more than an obnoxious ***hat and be probably told to **** right off. I know I would, but before anyone decides to act uppity with me, I'm still holding back any intention to buy the set until I see whatever it is Cryptic is going to do to try to improve it.
Oh hey! Guess what else broke this patch! The female torso geometry - the shoulder blades now bulge out to the back, clipping through most of the thinner chest wear options.
Unless we're just fixing everything by toning down older costumes to the VR level, lol. :biggrin:
Yes, a fix for the above please.
Also, I'm afraid I agree with those whom are concerned about the Variable Armour costume. If the fixes weren't in, it shouldn't have been shipped. You do risk losing sales by damaging people's perceptions of what to expect out of costumes going forward. Prices went up..
.. and then this happened.
Myself, I'm going to take a wait and see approach. After all, I'm looking at Mad Scientist Pencil Skirt with a schluffy right flank, Pharoh Tech that clips through the right arm when wearing plain tights, and Cowboy Chaps from 2010 that one can see through from the rear.. and more.
But, the Urban Anime chest wear tube top stopped bleeding flesh so there is hope. d('-' )
OK, I wasn't done after all. One of these things is not like the other:
Last week we announced that we were going to release a new Featured Episode, "House Pegh," on May 21st, and that it would be our next chapter in the continuing Iconian War story arc. Due to a critical technical issue, we are unable to update the game with new builds with tomorrows maintenance. While we have a great mission in-house, we arent able to get the changes that make it that way onto the live server tomorrow.
The inability to integrate these changes for our update has led me to delay the release of the episode until May 28th, which is our next standard weekly maintenance. We could release the episode as it sits on our current build, but after a leads playtest today we determined that we would rather wait a week and release the episode as it is intended to be.
While I can understand there may be frustration in waiting an additional week for content that was previously announced, I hope everyone can understand the reasons behind this decision and that our goal is to deliver a polished and fun mission.
One of my first tasks, after getting settled with my new team, is to take a hard look at Elemental Evil and see what was done right and what needs improvement. Im reading through all of the player feedback from a wide variety of sources, and forming a picture of where the game stands. In the coming weeks and months, our team will use this to shift Neverwinter from where it is now into what we feel is a far better place. Most of our goals are to make the game better by improving the aspects noted below, while others will bring the game closer to matching the growth of our players and our original vision for Neverwinter.
...
We are aware that mistakes were made with this release, and for that I would like to apologize. We understand the frustration and are actively working to make positive adjustments. Things wont change immediately, but they will improve over time. Thank you for understanding and giving me the time to help identify and address the issues important to the community.
Several pieces in the Variable Robot have noticeable seams. This will be fixed in a build planned to hit PTS Thursday afternoon, and hopefully the fix will go live next week.
-- Trailturtle, "Release Notes, 5/28", 27 May 2015
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
What in the bajeezus is going on with people in this thread?
Edit: Part of me thinks a rollback would be extreme, but the rest of me has this sinking feeling that the old costume pieces that this build broke will remain that way for a very long, long time.
Why inform the folks in game that a costume that is going to get fixes finished in a week is trash so soon?
You guys make no sense sometimes and always get what you want but in the end demand it to be re worked or re rolled or something
Why inform the folks in game that a costume that is going to get fixes finished in a week is trash so soon?
You guys make no sense sometimes and always get what you want but in the end demand it to be re worked or re rolled or something
Because I don't want someone making a store purchase that was released intentionally broken without being aware of the situation. You know, so they don't regret it and quit the game. We can't afford players that actually make purchases to be lost.
What makes no sense is why you don't understand that.
You guys make no sense sometimes and always get what you want but in the end demand it to be re worked or re rolled or something
Because we don't want people to waste 750 Zen in a Buggy Broken Low Quality costume set which doesn't deserve its full price
the costume was horrible from the begining, the Creator of the Concept art was more than with the result, not to mention Cryptic didn't stay faitheful with the original concept
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
In my experience this is dead wrong. Now a days for F&I I bring my two healers almost exclusively and have no problems getting tokens. I also bring healers to Gravitar (mostly when I get fed up because no one else does) and also get tokens. I have very few toons that ever would be in the top two damage dealers.
Yes, SC and LI can take a long time to pop these days. When I want to go for a token for those I usually am doing one of my other regular sedentary activities that can occur near my computer. E.g. reading a book or catching up on online news, watching a movie, catching up on emails, paying bills or other paperwork. This way I don't lose time waiting around. While I am writing this note I'm waiting for Gravitar to pop.
I really don't know why others have so much trouble getting tokens, but for me it is a non issue.
As far as I have heard "only the top two damage dealers get part drops in each match" so where dose that leave healer toons? Keeping the team and (in SC) the match alive for nothing.
because some people just don 't make the RNG roll.
It's already been worked out on another thread, that it's a max of 5 tokens per run.
so automatically 5 people get nothing.
Then you make your roll and see if you get enough. if you don't, again nothing.
then diminishing returns per run hits.
me I have 1 scale and 1 bearing. I have always had a problem with RNG drops, regardless of game.
gravitar I've done most and got nothing. Even costumes I get very rarely, that's after the increased drop rate.
The entire token system is screwed up as long as RNG rules it. And until its fixed justice gear will be only for lucky people.
I would like them to allow the tokens to be BoE.
I don't try too hard for top end gear. SCR gear is as far as i try. I have a few Legion pieces because I opened lockboxes. Otherwise, I'd just as soon AH these tokens. Let others who DO want them have an alternate means to acquire them.
.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=- "Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Rushing out a horribly done costume set while ignoring a small truckload of feed back, breaking simple existing costume pieces and character models with stealth patches that don't even fix what they were meant to, welcome to the new CO I guess.
And here I sit with a $100 gift card for my birthday, I could use it to get some stuff in STO or NW seeing how CO is apparently being used to train a new team of interns but that would still be money going to Cryptic/PWE when they clearly aren't earning it, guess I'll use it to resubscribe to DCUO for a year.
Also, any of you that think we aren't get the quality of development we should and that the powers that be are blowing us off, remember that Cryptic/PWE has a parent company ( Perfect World Co., Ltd. in Beijing ) and their website has support for customer complaints about any of their games or Subsidiaries. Like with any business, there is always an option to go over the heads of employees.
~I'm a figment of your imagination, a mass hallucination, only real because you feel I am~
Made entirely by extruding and flattening faces of the original mesh. Only breasts had to be deleted and rebuilt from the scratch. Would be much easier and faster if I could work with a base better than an already tesselated mesh captured from my VGA memory.
Obviously has no textures whatsoever.
And here goes proposition for Cryptic and PWE:
Enable player's modding for CO.
Release a base body meshes, skeleton, UV templates and a design document precising standards how things are hooked together, what's scaled what way, what are affordable polygon budgets per piece and texture resolutions, if normals are Y+ or Y- and details like that.
Obviously it will not be possible to use player's help with creating or repairing paid Z-Store costumes and the only use of fan made costumes will be to have them as free parts.
But it's not like players will have ability to put ingame anything you don't want there, since whatever produced by fans for fans will still have to be evaluated.
And it still will take less time to review some fanmade parts that look like they could fit standards. Which leaves you with more times and resources for producing less costumes, but having more time to polish them.
Instead of ending with situations where your developers know that the costume is far from being completed, but it's pushed to live only to meet the deadlines. And in the end everyone's losing and nobody's happy.
Because it's not in human power to complete any task in a proper manner under such circumstances.
(Good thing I copied this to the clipboard before a mod with an itchy trigger finger closed a thread under me.)
Earlier in this thread, I pointed out how STO postponed a Featured Episode release for a week to fix some last-minute bugs, and NW was doing a post-release review after their community pointed out serious concerns with Elemental Evil. Meanwhile, CO just shipped a C-store costume with known errors and broke unrelated costume parts in the process.
I see two possible problems with Cryptic's process here, both of which have more to do with corporate culture than revenue:
1: The QA department is asleep at the switch. I don't know if they're concentrating on STO and NW or if they're just on a late spring break, but that inverted displacement map bug never should have made it to production. If somebody was expecting PTS participants to regression test tangentially related costume features, then something broke down in the internal QA process.
2: "Who cares? It's only CO." I'm sure there are pockets of that among Cryptic's rank and file, especially in Los Gatos. CO used to be Somebody Else's Problem, that somebody being Cryptic North, but now it's theirs. And at the rank and file level, I'm kinda OK with that. When a company or project gets big enough, low-priority tasks slip into the "I don't even want to think about that until the product planners put it on the schedule" category. Once the product planners do put it on the schedule, however, they'll expect the same quality that high-priority tasks receive. And if the product planners don't, the project director will, or the division VP, or somebody else up the org chart. Except in the case of the Variable Robot set, nobody up the org chart did.
I really hope that I'm wrong about this, and this week's build was just a consequence of the move back to Los Gatos. Because the alternative sends a very negative message about this game's present and future.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Comments
Yay. Thank you Microsoft for revealing that people will accept this stupid business model.
And this costume is not cool. It's shoddy. It's half-assed. It's what I'd expect to see from an indie developer trying to get a Kickstarter underway, not from Cryptic Studios. And if we just "let it go", we're saying that it's okay that the work is this bad.
It's not okay, and I for one won't just let it slide.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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@Chimerafreek
But I'm unsure about making this purchase so I go back to my original costume, get an eye full, and then click to a new costume slot and load up the costume I just saved...and get this...
Now, I'm not Sherlock Holmes, but I'm fairly certain something is different about these two pictures.
Maybe our next Costume Set will give us a clue.
For now I'm not being sold a costume set, I'm reporting a bug in two functions that are so common they are the first two functions available in the first menu of almost every program: "Save" and "Open". If the CO tailor was Notepad and I saved "Dear Mom, Camp is fine, the food isn't bad, the girls don't shave." I would be loading "Dear Camp, fine food don't shave." the next time I sat down to finish my letter home.
That's just silly. Load the data as it is saved, give the warning "Hey you don't own this costume set" again. Glaring ugly bugs like this are like forgetting to zip your pants up and then offering someone a wet handshake.
I will continue to be an idiot and think they will fix it after making the mistake of releasing it as is. Then I will buy it. Good thing is, I will have enough free zen to buy it by that time
This costume set was bastarized compared to the original concept art and it looks awful,
I'm sad they complety ignore the Laser Blade and Handguns bracers the concept art had, heck they ignored a lot of stuff
Meedacthunist has EVERY Right to be upset about this subject
The Quality of Z store costumes is getting worse!
Oh and just because we Love the game, that doesn't mean we have to be blind and ignore it's Flaws and DEVs' desicions about it
I'm not denying that you CAN buy if you want it, no matter its' condition. I'm saying you SHOULDN'T buy it because ... (read above) IT AFFECTS US ALL when "they"(read:Devs) keep doing this. If "they" don't get the message that "they" shouldn't do this, "they" will keep doing this.
You, and others, need to stop deflecting this with a RIGHT to do what "you" want. It's not that simple and you should know this. It's the reason I am continuing to discuss this. If more people follow your lead in this, then "they" never get the correct message. That being we shouldn't have to put with the release of an unfinished product. Promises of future intent, notwithstanding.
Of course I'm not naive to believe that this doesn't occur all over the business world. I don't have a "forum" for the rest of the business world. I have one here. I don't like the trend we've seen for years. Will it change? Not on it's own. Just voting with the wallet is one way. SAYING something about it helps to DEFINE what i'm voting for.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Quoting these because of the importance.
Any chance of a fix asap?
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Show them by not buying the set, which is what I intend to do...
Don't blame the players by scolding them for it, put the blame where it belongs and simply don't buy it. Be vocal about your displeasure, be honest about your opinions...but don't blame this on players who look at the set as is and think "wow those boots would really look neat on my big robot dude, or gosh I really could use that head on this concept for a character I have... these particular pieces seem reasonably unbroken and I got money to burn."
Your customers won't remember if you shipped a good product a little bit late.
Your customers won't forget if you shipped s*** on time.
That is my first and last word on the subject.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Screw them, screw us right? Because we only pay your fees and get slapped in the face for it.
We want bug fixes, new content (that is not a new outfit of some kind), and more things to do.
I think Jon said it best here.
I honestly took a week off from the game when the Variable set came out on PTS. I tested the set and logged off.
What really got me was the first comment of "no new materials will be added"
It really bothered me because this is why I play this game. If I can't have decent costumes what is the point? I have really contemplated leaving the game. Not becuase of the costume but the direction it seems the "quality" is headed. I've loved this game for a long time and perhaps it's that time.
Not good enough for some of our crusaders around here, apparently.
Hey, everyone remember when Holoforce came out? And we all praised it and loved it and said how awesome it looked (all of which was true), and then damn near everybody bought it immediately?
So you no doubt remember that because of what we did with our money, they got the message about the quality we expect, and after that they only released beautiful costumes with no clipping issues, six materials available, unlimited categories, and terrific utility.
Hah, wait, no, that didn't happen. Throw a *****-fit about the set if you want, boycott it if you want, hell, even criticize other people for buying it if you want. But you should at least know that you're not going to make any difference with your crusade, and that you're just being an ******* towards other people for absolutely no reason. Obviously, many of you can live with that.
I don't think that's a bug. It's been that way at least since I started playing. They don't save costumes with parts you don't own. And that makes sense.
A lot of those are there? And you know this...how?
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Well lucky you then. For over a year I have not seen a single part drop from Sky Command, 1 diamond drop from Gravitar, and 3 scales drop from the invasion.
This last run of Sky command I farmed it every day it was up on my healer and I got diddly squat. Not a problem you say?
As far as I have heard "only the top two damage dealers get part drops in each match" so where dose that leave healer toons? Keeping the team and (in SC) the match alive for nothing.
I'm sorry but I am starting to get very angry with this non-stop slapping of my face by cryptic/PWE/ARC or who ever still "runs" this game (into the ground).
375 ZEN Swamp King. These are older sets, usually less polished and with a relatively small list of pieces. Were cutting the prices of similar sets, making them more accessible.
600 ZEN Patterned Armor. These sets are polished and have a creative hook, something that stirs your imagination and gets you brainstorming.
750 ZEN Wizard and Witch. You could easily create a dozen different richly-imagined, unique costumes with just this one set. These sets are very polished and detailed, and took quite a bit of effort to get all the modeling just right.
1000 ZEN Holo-Force Armor, and the Power Armor Bundle. This tier will have the bundle packs, and the best of the best costume sets: The 750 tier is the inner ring, but this is the bullseye. These costume sets have a special spark to them that sets them apart, like the Holo-Forces special textures. Because they push the envelope, though, they need more iteration and work. This tier is hyper-exclusive, to the point that only a handful were even nominated to get in; these costume sets are the face of the C-Store.
50 ZEN Emblem packs: These are fun customization, especially with pieces like the Headphones from the gold member rewards. We want them to be an easy purchase, like a pack of gum.
Note: The new tier-based C-store pricing is in effect to showcase the amount of work that went into this set. This set is priced in the high tier 750Z category for its very polished and detailed look, as well as taking quite a bit of effort to get the modeling just right.
Please refer to my list of Commandments to avoid Costume Design Sins
For the curious, this is the quality you're being told to accept. The tights included in this set (which are only available in metal texture) are green. The rest of the set is portrayed in black to highlight clipping issues. It clips with itself:
Quoted for comedic value.
If you are considering purchasing this set, please also be aware that all pieces (except the tights) have the design sins of baked-in colours and colour bleeding as shown in the PTS thread.
As far as details go, the majority of detailing went into the head, belt, and the front cockpit of the chest piece. Everything else is just flat polygons. It's very inconsistent, like the plug was pulled before it could be completed. The head is probably the only good piece in this set, and that's a stretch given all the problems highlighted with colouring.
Where the head shines (and I'm not sure if this should be taken as praise for adhering to the standard expections of how a piece should behave), is that it actually adheres to the face sliders. It's clear that whoever made the head knew how to attach it to the sliders. Because of how badly the body pieces scale, it's as if the rest of it was picked up and made by a person of completely different design experience.
There is no grand Champions Online Conspirary to fleece the masses as part of the plans of the evil overlords. It's just a new person in WAY over their heads and a schedule which had to be met. Now is it unfortunate and likely a PR nightmare unfolding in this community...well yeah. There are, IMO, multiple better ways in which this could have been handled...but that's why they call them mistakes.
Actually, it's been my experiences in CO over the years that when things are delayed and the end results are positive that players, at least vets, will not only remember but will point these things out as positive examples. The same holds true for something like Foxbatcon which, instead of just being flipped on like a switch after many years, ended up with actual "NEW" additions. Now it is true that some people choose to focus more on the negatives and there are likely going to be some of the "Bitter CoXers" hitting the internet to spread the word of how horrible this is and how the playerbase is "enraged and quitting in waves" but those people likely would have reacted in that way regardless of the outcome.
So, IMO, the REAL TEST here is how New/Old Cryptic handles "At a Future Date" and how promptly the new bugs are addressed. Which, as many of us are more than used to by this point, means it's waiting game time....once again. So sit back, get comfy, and just realize that until something more official happens in this issue people likely won't be spending money on this and we'll see less Seekers ingame for the momment. Yes, this kinda sucks but it's also a chance for us to witness how New/Old Cryptic recovers from a fumble....if they recover from the fumble. For the health and betterment of this game I am hoping they recover miraculously but only time will truly tell.
So....get popcorn. :cool:
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
I can live with that label.
I don't think i've thrown a fit about this issue. I have criticized. But, I know where the majority of the blame lays.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
You're really suggesting the level of detail meedacthunist put into feedback is indicative of hating this game?
There is no logical reason someone who hates this game would put so much effort into seeing it improved, toward fighting its decline.
You didn't actually read any of meedacthunist's extensive reports on this costume set's bugs. That's apparent from any of your replies in which you replace the quoted text with "blah blah blah" and respond with mockery.
For your own sake, stop embarrassing yourself. Defending Cryptic's bad behaviour makes you an enabler in this game's decline.
It's bad enough that the Skin texture for Arcane Tattoos Head disappeared a patches ago.
Please stop damaging existing costume parts with new releases.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Again lucky you. Know how many "sets" I have? 0 Know how many pieces of gear I have? 0
With the game on a rapid decline any way with only a possibility of about 500 active players, with the rampage queue's being dead or taking 30+ minuets just to try and get a part, then reliably getting nothing. Just to start at step 1, why make it so hard to obtain still? Up the drop rates to drop a part at least 50% of the time. Hell it might even bring back some of the older players who got tired of the same thing over and over and getting a slap in the face for the effort.
Not to mention the bugs. Oh boy the bug. The other day I was running an adventure pack with a team and it bugged out not once, not twice, but THREE times in less than 20 minuets. Making the team mates that only had enough time to play it through leave because it was reliably glitching.
Adding nothing more than "new" outfits all the time (that contain bugs themselves) is only compacting the problems and making things worse. They need to fix the bugs make the content that is in the game already work, and accessible. In adding "more useless crap" that you have to pay more for shows me one thing. Cryptic/PWE/ARC or who ever is in charge of the updates only cares about 1 thing, Their wallets.
If they make the game work as intended, people would be more willing to spend some money on it. Like the old saying goes. "If you build it, they will come. If you fix it, they will stay."
This news saddens me the most. ;_; I really wanted to change my character's design but I can't because that means her face tats vanish >_>
I said there was a difference between being a cynical jackass and criticism.
I didn't really say much of anything about the set other than the wire-frame was pretty close, the textures were boring, and the clipping was icky. How is that defending Cryptic? No seriously, please explain why I should be embarrassed by my inability to be a flaming d-bag every time a dev isn't perfect.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
"Voting with wallets", "sticking it to the man" and boycotting are synonymous with each other given the context of the situation. I'm not really interested in arguing the semantics behind the terms.
By all means feel free to make a point to Cryptic for releasing a shoddy product and letting them know that it's unacceptable. It doesn't mean the player with the grievance is entitled to act like a **** towards other players who aren't rallying under their banner. No one has an obligation to others to ensure other people's personal enjoyment with the game, as long as they're not being trolls towards others. That's something some of the "crusaders" in the thread are doing otherwise.
Let's put it this way. If it was done ingame, with someone going up to another person using the variable robot pieces and telling them how they're destroying the game and their personal investment in it, the person making that accusation would come across as nothing more than an obnoxious ***hat and be probably told to **** right off. I know I would, but before anyone decides to act uppity with me, I'm still holding back any intention to buy the set until I see whatever it is Cryptic is going to do to try to improve it.
Yes, a fix for the above please.
Also, I'm afraid I agree with those whom are concerned about the Variable Armour costume. If the fixes weren't in, it shouldn't have been shipped. You do risk losing sales by damaging people's perceptions of what to expect out of costumes going forward. Prices went up..
.. and then this happened.
Myself, I'm going to take a wait and see approach. After all, I'm looking at Mad Scientist Pencil Skirt with a schluffy right flank, Pharoh Tech that clips through the right arm when wearing plain tights, and Cowboy Chaps from 2010 that one can see through from the rear.. and more.
But, the Urban Anime chest wear tube top stopped bleeding flesh so there is hope. d('-' )
Launcher problems? Try these from Cryptic's site:
http://files.champions-online.com/launcher/Champions%20Online.exe | http://files.startrekonline.com/launcher/Star%20Trek%20Online.exe
-- Steve Ricossa, "Star Trek Online: House Pegh Updates", 20 May 2015
-- Scott Shicoff, "Neverwinter: Looking into Elemental Evil", 22 Apr 2015
-- Trailturtle, "Release Notes, 5/28", 27 May 2015
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Edit: Part of me thinks a rollback would be extreme, but the rest of me has this sinking feeling that the old costume pieces that this build broke will remain that way for a very long, long time.
You guys make no sense sometimes and always get what you want but in the end demand it to be re worked or re rolled or something
Because I don't want someone making a store purchase that was released intentionally broken without being aware of the situation. You know, so they don't regret it and quit the game. We can't afford players that actually make purchases to be lost.
What makes no sense is why you don't understand that.
WILL it get fixed? Will it?
It didn't got fixed while it was on PTS and it was pushed on live in the current state while Ignoring, Once Again, Critical Feedback
Will it get fixed like all the Bugged Z-store costume pieces which never got fixed?
Because we don't want people to waste 750 Zen in a Buggy Broken Low Quality costume set which doesn't deserve its full price
the costume was horrible from the begining, the Creator of the Concept art was more than
Yes, SC and LI can take a long time to pop these days. When I want to go for a token for those I usually am doing one of my other regular sedentary activities that can occur near my computer. E.g. reading a book or catching up on online news, watching a movie, catching up on emails, paying bills or other paperwork. This way I don't lose time waiting around. While I am writing this note I'm waiting for Gravitar to pop.
I really don't know why others have so much trouble getting tokens, but for me it is a non issue.
It's already been worked out on another thread, that it's a max of 5 tokens per run.
so automatically 5 people get nothing.
Then you make your roll and see if you get enough. if you don't, again nothing.
then diminishing returns per run hits.
me I have 1 scale and 1 bearing. I have always had a problem with RNG drops, regardless of game.
gravitar I've done most and got nothing. Even costumes I get very rarely, that's after the increased drop rate.
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I would like them to allow the tokens to be BoE.
I don't try too hard for top end gear. SCR gear is as far as i try. I have a few Legion pieces because I opened lockboxes. Otherwise, I'd just as soon AH these tokens. Let others who DO want them have an alternate means to acquire them.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
And here I sit with a $100 gift card for my birthday, I could use it to get some stuff in STO or NW seeing how CO is apparently being used to train a new team of interns but that would still be money going to Cryptic/PWE when they clearly aren't earning it, guess I'll use it to resubscribe to DCUO for a year.
Also, any of you that think we aren't get the quality of development we should and that the powers that be are blowing us off, remember that Cryptic/PWE has a parent company ( Perfect World Co., Ltd. in Beijing ) and their website has support for customer complaints about any of their games or Subsidiaries. Like with any business, there is always an option to go over the heads of employees.
Made entirely by extruding and flattening faces of the original mesh. Only breasts had to be deleted and rebuilt from the scratch. Would be much easier and faster if I could work with a base better than an already tesselated mesh captured from my VGA memory.
Obviously has no textures whatsoever.
And here goes proposition for Cryptic and PWE:
Enable player's modding for CO.
Release a base body meshes, skeleton, UV templates and a design document precising standards how things are hooked together, what's scaled what way, what are affordable polygon budgets per piece and texture resolutions, if normals are Y+ or Y- and details like that.
Obviously it will not be possible to use player's help with creating or repairing paid Z-Store costumes and the only use of fan made costumes will be to have them as free parts.
But it's not like players will have ability to put ingame anything you don't want there, since whatever produced by fans for fans will still have to be evaluated.
And it still will take less time to review some fanmade parts that look like they could fit standards. Which leaves you with more times and resources for producing less costumes, but having more time to polish them.
Instead of ending with situations where your developers know that the costume is far from being completed, but it's pushed to live only to meet the deadlines. And in the end everyone's losing and nobody's happy.
Because it's not in human power to complete any task in a proper manner under such circumstances.
Because I think these are mutually exclusive. :biggrin:
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Which won't happen.
Innit. (obligatory +10 characters to reply)
Earlier in this thread, I pointed out how STO postponed a Featured Episode release for a week to fix some last-minute bugs, and NW was doing a post-release review after their community pointed out serious concerns with Elemental Evil. Meanwhile, CO just shipped a C-store costume with known errors and broke unrelated costume parts in the process.
I see two possible problems with Cryptic's process here, both of which have more to do with corporate culture than revenue:
1: The QA department is asleep at the switch. I don't know if they're concentrating on STO and NW or if they're just on a late spring break, but that inverted displacement map bug never should have made it to production. If somebody was expecting PTS participants to regression test tangentially related costume features, then something broke down in the internal QA process.
2: "Who cares? It's only CO." I'm sure there are pockets of that among Cryptic's rank and file, especially in Los Gatos. CO used to be Somebody Else's Problem, that somebody being Cryptic North, but now it's theirs. And at the rank and file level, I'm kinda OK with that. When a company or project gets big enough, low-priority tasks slip into the "I don't even want to think about that until the product planners put it on the schedule" category. Once the product planners do put it on the schedule, however, they'll expect the same quality that high-priority tasks receive. And if the product planners don't, the project director will, or the division VP, or somebody else up the org chart. Except in the case of the Variable Robot set, nobody up the org chart did.
I really hope that I'm wrong about this, and this week's build was just a consequence of the move back to Los Gatos. Because the alternative sends a very negative message about this game's present and future.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
I would love if we could buy Justice gear components with drifter salvage. It would make lockboxes more appealing for players to open.