Making of the Forum Malvanum

trailturtle · June 2013

Ave! The Forum Malvanum arc is now complete, so it?s time for LordGar to share a little of what went on behind the scenes to make it, and also give you a taste of what?s coming next.

Go give it a read! http://co.perfectworld.com/news/?p=901151

thegreendragoon1 · June 2013

I strongly feel that continuing with these temporary events are a poor choice for development. This isn't adding any lasting value to the game and it isn't going to get CO out of the slump it seems to be trapped in.

theravenforce · June 2013

Can you confirm that this next story arc has nothing to do with Telepathy?

As for the FM making, was an interesting read, I personally liked the look of the old Early Arena.

I can't wait for the rotation of events which was spoken about to begin!

mighty738 · June 2013

Please stop doing these short events, you are killing this game. Make something that lasts!

gamehobo · June 2013

This was an interesting read. I never did the race. I don't quite understand the "story" behind the lore any better now than I did before. But it was content and it was new. Even if I couldn't really participate or contribute as a non-flying telepathy using concept.

I didn't fully appreciate the full Colosseum map until now. Really wish there were more than one entrance for foes and a bit more dynamic (less predictable) fight.

- - -

Good to know telepathy is upcoming.. Lets hope I can convince my favoritest dev to agree with me on the direction that telepathy should take.. I think hope and pray he will not decimate the debuffing playstyle.

#TelepathyNOW

- - -

Whatever comes next is a bridge I will have to cross in the future. If my character survives the updates to telepathy I sincerely look forward to whatever comes next.. I guess I missed out completely on Harbinger and Bloodmoon.

I hope Freon and Blaze (and LOTS more rampages) come soon. I may JUST MAYBE perhaps finally be useful in boss fights.

eastgatewidow · June 2013

mighty738 wrote: »

Please stop doing these short events, you are killing this game. Make something that lasts!

I have to agree. The concept art is lacking, the scale and quality of this finished Forum Malvanum event is an embarassment compared to the scale of content the sixty plus devs worked on for the Romulan expansion for STO. THAT is content, not this 10 minute alert rubbish - kindly get off sitting on your hands with this IP and invest in it properly!.

vitalityprime · June 2013

Wait...that was considered a story arc?

crypticbuxom · June 2013

The Malvan's were introduced publicly...in the most uninspired fashion for such a huge part of the Champions IP. We don't even get a Malvan Embassy added to Millennium City.

draogn · June 2013

"While the lockbox was packed with many cool potential rewards"

No it wasn't, it was just like every other gamble box.

After trying both the race and the custom alert a few times I found them to be not worth the pain. The rewards were terrible, and the rate of failure was too high because when you pug you can't control who you team up with. Making something a dps race doesn't make it a challenge.

nextnametaken · June 2013

mighty738 wrote: »

Please stop doing these short events, you are killing this game. Make something that lasts!

Vibora is forvever, didnt' stop 3 million people walking in and walking right back out.
Comic books, adventure packs are also forever, same story.

They can tell from their spreadsheets that previous development efforts that take months to complete don't pay off.

trailturtle · June 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Can you confirm that this next story arc has nothing to do with Telepathy?

The team may try to work it in conceptually, but the core of the next story arc doesn't involve telepathy, no. Telepathy won't be rushed to match a particular launch date, but it will be released when it's ready.

crypticbuxom · June 2013

Please don't try and squeeze telepathy into the theme of a story arc if it doesn't fit.

acrosscat · June 2013

nextnametaken wrote: »

Vibora is forvever, didnt' stop 3 million people walking in and walking right back out.
Comic books, adventure packs are also forever, same story.

They can tell from their spreadsheets that previous development efforts that take months to complete don't pay off.

Any reason why? I mean, I realy enjoyed the midlevel romp through Queen's City/Vibora and I love the not-Louisiana (wink wink nudge nudge) Southern feel to it.

gamehobo · June 2013

Vibora Bay remains a great source of content for those who seek it.

trailturtle wrote: »

The team may try to work it in conceptually, but the core of the next story arc doesn't involve telepathy, no. Telepathy won't be rushed to match a particular launch date, but it will be released when it's ready.

This is indeed good news.. now if we could all get on the same line with what "ready" means

saurializard · June 2013

eastgatewidow wrote: »

I have to agree. The concept art is lacking, the scale and quality of this finished Forum Malvanum event is an embarassment compared to the scale of content the sixty plus devs worked on for the Romulan expansion for STO. THAT is content, not this 10 minute alert rubbish - kindly get off sitting on your hands with this IP and invest in it properly!.

I agree.
Even worse, I haven't played STO for quite a long time and when I come back, what do I see? An improved character creator, a new big expansion, a graphically improved base, among many other things.

What did CO get?
-The antenna Tumerboy installed as a simple yet welcome feature to estimate the size of your character has been removed,
-Many female costume parts are still bugged (yoohoo, lots of clipping you guys are supposed to hate to justify some silly restrictions) when they're not missing for no reason,
-Other costume parts are still not account-wide (lemurian spikes, fire demon & DEMON pieces as major offenders),
-You removed the nice Lemurian Invasion Alert and kept the awful Sky Command,
-You made a completely unrewarding alert which is absolutely unforgiving (the only times my team succeeded wave 8 was because someone used the exploit with Throwing Blades) with time limits that have nothing to do with a "defeat waves of enemies" concept
-Lots of wasted potential: http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=214991&highlight=gallery+wasted+potential (really, you couldn't even add 3 comic panels for the Lemurian Invasion?)

It feels kinda like a slap in the face.

What happened to the cool stuff like Resistance or even lvl22 Vibora Bay?

There are still kudos to give like the randomness of the waves in the forum and the lazy but clever "fix" with the Dogz ("Yo man, we're not from MC!"), the nice first try for vehicle races and Telepathy getting looked at again, but as time passes, there are fewer and fewer to give.

CoX is dead, DCUO has lame customization, is not fun and boring, Marvel Heroes is "Attack of the Clones"...

TAKE. ADVANTAGE. OF. ALL. OF. THIS!

gavinruneblade · June 2013

acrosscat wrote: »

Any reason why? I mean, I realy enjoyed the midlevel romp through Queen's City/Vibora and I love the not-Louisiana (wink wink nudge nudge) Southern feel to it.

I'm not sure but I suspect the price was too high. City of Heroes was pretty successful with their signature story arcs as paid content but the price was quite low. If Cryptic had the unlock on a per-character basis or up over $5 that would pretty much guarantee failure.

Hell, half the reason keys are successful is that they are the only item in the store that is priced at impulse buy levels. Go to a supermarket, nothing in the shelves where you wait to check out is priced at $9. Then go look at the prices for consumable items in the C-store. If those things dropped under 0.50c they would move. Priced whre they are, it's development time that will never turn a profit.

I have to suspect the same was true for the comic series. Which is a shame because Whiteout is great stuff. I love the voice acting, I love the combo comic book panels and in-game cut scenes, and it has new enemies and exciting fights. Only one bit is annoying rather than challenging (the bit where you protect the Primus soldiers from robots) but even that's not too bad. Overall it's great stuff. People should have been willing to pay for it. Question is how much.

trailturtle wrote: »

The team may try to work it in conceptually, but the core of the next story arc doesn't involve telepathy, no. Telepathy won't be rushed to match a particular launch date, but it will be released when it's ready.

Thank you! It's always better to do something right than to force it.

malakhellknight · June 2013

It seems as of late the only challenge you know how to give is supped up bags of HP. I haven't seen anything where the challenge comes from us working as a team. Your last attempt the Sky Defense was, imo, a failure due to the fact there was no incentive to work together.

Most alerts I go into it just me and me alone as everyone is more worried about themselves than the group as a whole, there has been exceptions. Can we get a more challenging alert, arc, and/or comic series where the enemies aren't supped bags of HP and use cheap holds and knocks to beat us. I'd like to see more where the players have to work together to accomplish the alert and if we have the one that is selfish we can still make it through.

I don't like on this alert where you pit us against two damage reduction characters on short time limit. The only possible way to make it through is to have the right characters with specific powers. To me that isn't good game design. The challenge should be able to be run without the need to chance of someone have the right powers to overcome the DR. I hope this isn't becoming a trend with this game.

Here's to hoping.

agentnx5 · June 2013

Always interesting to read about content design, thanks for sharing!

malakhellknight wrote: »

It seems as of late the only challenge you know how to give is supped up bags of HP. I haven't seen anything where the challenge comes from us working as a team. Your last attempt the Sky Defense was, imo, a failure due to the fact there was no incentive to work together.

Most alerts I go into it just me and me alone as everyone is more worried about themselves than the group as a whole, there has been exceptions. Can we get a more challenging alert, arc, and/or comic series where the enemies aren't supped bags of HP and use cheap holds and knocks to beat us. I'd like to see more where the players have to work together to accomplish the alert and if we have the one that is selfish we can still make it through.

I don't like on this alert where you pit us against two damage reduction characters on short time limit. The only possible way to make it through is to have the right characters with specific powers. To me that isn't good game design. The challenge should be able to be run without the need to chance of someone have the right powers to overcome the DR. I hope this isn't becoming a trend with this game.

Here's to hoping.

I agree!

liquin · June 2013

too bad the style of the game isn't like that last concept art. I think it would have attracted far more players.

thechampion · June 2013

Yo. Stop wasting time and resources on anything vehicle related. This is a superhero mmo and we want more melee and ranged weapons pack, more costumes, and more content, not more vehicle crap; there are plenty of lame vehicle based games out there. You would have made more money

if you just had have made some melee weapons packs with swords that aren't lame like the ones you are currently selling.

hocofaisan · June 2013

Well unlike some people around here, I still appreciate what I receive from Cryptic studios.

That was a great article, and it really let me know how the hard working developerS behind a stellar studio like Cryptic go about designing content.

Keep up the good work, and looking forward to the next event!

Making of the Forum Malvanum

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