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How would you do a Superhero MMORPG?
cybersoldier1981
Posts: 2,501 Arc User
I've asked some people around how they'd 'Re-Do' Champions of City of Heroes/Villains or even DC Universe if they'd had the chance. I got some interesting viewpoints (And some stupid ones), but I realized it was a pretty cool way to see what other people liked and wanted.
I had an idea for a sort of Science Fiction MMORPG, and after discussing it with a friend of mine I realized how perfect it would be for a Superhero MMORPG (Actually, in fact I found that it would be BETTER for a Superhero game than a Sci-Fi game... despite the MMO Market hurting for Sci-Fi that isn't based off crappy TV shows, crappy movies, or college business management and economics combined with Naval warfare. But, hey- if in another time my idea got snagged up by someone who wanted to make a superhero game... I'd not complain. So, here we go. My idea...
Bottom Line Up Front:
A Superhero/Supervillain game that allows immersive storytelling and massive options for character creation, structured powers that create balanced options for nearly any concept, and combat skills you design from the ground up.
Setting:
A world very much like our own, with various differences that one could obviously expect from superheroes coming about in the last decade or so. It is a more serious tone, with just a few comic relief and light-hearted elements present through the game (just like comics).
Most technology is still contemporary at a production level, with select individuals and organizations using more advanced technology. For example, laser pistols should be considered cutting-edge. Anti-gravity technology, faster-than-light travel, teleportation machines, and other devices of this nature are still theoretical to humans (though aliens and super-geniuses would have the means to have/create them).
Character creation:
First thing's first, you will need to create a character. It goes without saying that the Character Creation should be on par with Champions Online. It should cater to all tastes in western-style superheroes (though it should have plenty of options for various ethnic and cultural costumes and appearances). Let me be clear and say this is a Western Superhero Comic Book theme, not anime or furcadia. If those tastes can be accomdated to a small degree later on, then perhaps that is the case- but those should never be a primary focus of any costume set or content. Technological, Supernatural, Science Fiction, Classic Hero tights, Vigilantes, various historical cultures, and various ages of comic book history should be equally represented as possible (because you can only have so many spandex costumes, let's face it).
Powers:
The worst thing about CO and the best thing about CO is the freeform system. That is not going to happen in this game. There will be no cobbled-together mess of random powers to create a divide in the players of 'Uber-Elite Powerbuild Nonsense with no recognizable theme' and 'Everyone else'. Despite what you say, that is what CO consists of. Now, powers will have a theme, thanks to the Genome System.
The 'fluff' states, in a nutshell, that the persons who study superhumans have narrowed them down into several 'Genomes'. These are your powers. These are the trees in which you derive your innate abilities- heals, buffs, passives, support powers, and extra attacks. Genomes all have themes; and below are some of the genomes with examples of the type of individuals that would have those genomes.
Now, this is the part where you're going to huff and say what you like isn't in that list and it isn't 'diverse' enough to accommodate what you want. Hold your horses. Read again- the genomes are the trees in which you derive your innate abilities- heals, buffs, passives, support powers, and extra attacks. Your combat skills are completely different.
Why? I kind of always wondered why a telepath couldn't use a staff to fight, or a sorcerer couldn't use an assault rifle. And yes, you 'can' in CO. But that is not what is being done here.
For attacks, it would be simple- you choose what kind of damage you want to deal: Piercing, Energy, Elemental, Crushing, Mystical, Slashing, etc.
Then you balance the other stats- range, rate of fire, damage. They each affect one another so they won't be able to max out completely in all categories.
Next comes the emanation point and animation. This is where you choose how this attack and your other attacks manifest themselves. A burst-shot piecing attack could be an automatic rifle, or an arm blaster, or a series of thrown darts. You won't be forced to choose anything, provided the emanation point and animation fits with the type of damage and method of attack (so, something like bullets from the mouth probably wouldn't work).
As you progress you gain access to different types of attacks- AOE, blast, sustained damage, etc- so you could keep the same animations and emanation points or change them up.
Oh, it also really sucks making people choose ranged attacks over melee attacks- so you get both. Separate, with their own skill trees, etc.. So it is entirely possible to make a character who uses both magic blasts and swords, or martial arts and guns.
Where things get complex is when you ensure your genome and your combat skills work together to make you more effective.
Choosing Sides:
First and foremost, I think it's perfectly fine to have heroes/villains in a game. Whenever someone says 'we're supposed to be super HEROES' to someone in CO- I don't disagree with them, but I like to point out that we HAVE to be Super HEROES. There is not option to play a storyline that caters to a character that is motivated by personal vendettas or wants to change things in the world for the better in his own (unorthodox and unethical) way. To be a villain does not mean that your character would be able to walk around and mindlessly slaughter droves of whatever crossed their path for no reason. Villains would be assumed to have a structure, goals, and laws just as CoX. If you dislike the idea of people playing villains, then you have far more motivation to be a better hero and kick the snot out of them.
Here's the kicker- I don't think it's fair to throw 'noobs' into the fray. Most people shirk from the dual-sides in MMORPG's simply because WoW is plagued with corpse-camping max-level PvP griefers that spend hours doing nothing but 'ganking' level 10 noobs with one shot. So, you will not choose to be a hero or villain when you begin. The option comes later in the game, and I will explain how later on.
Your tutorial. For the sake of all argument, you've just acquired your abilities. All players would go through a tutorial story instance, where they would essentially learn how best to implement their abilities. It's sort of a mainstay in games, and a good way to introduce you to the world.
Story. One of the main things most MMORPG's lack. In Champions Online, it's hard to find immersion when your awesome vigilante avenger, super-soldier, or alien warrior gets the cheeseball/slapstick missions. So, for specific levels, you would have stories that would function as a sort of 'quest chain' to carry you through several levels. In these first stories, you still aren't determined to be a hero or villain yet. However, you will make decisions through these that will determine your most likely alignment (However committing awful, un-redeemable acts of evil won't be an option. You're a villain with goals and ambitions opposite of what society finds acceptable, not a mass-murdering death-junkie).
The stories are designed to present themselves to what you want to be involved in. You like Silver Age capers and stories? There would be a story for you. Want over-the-top military action? Fight off scourges of the underworld? Prevent deadly supertech from falling into the wrong corporate hands? Choose a side in a mutant superiority or human extremist conflict? Stop a violent criminal empire from taking over your city? There's something there for you, and the option is yours. Morality choices appear frequently and yield different turns in the story as well as rewards.
Stories are not instances or 'adventure packs', though some instances will occur in your story. Your stories will take you through various zones in the open world and allow you to cross paths with other characters and assist them as well, not to mention the random encounters from greater threats.
After your first couple of stories, perhaps around level 10 or 15ish, you'd be prompted to choose a side- villain or hero. However, even if your path has been tarnished with poor decisions, you would be given the chance for redemption- just as if you are wasting your power to call yourself a hero, you will be given one last chance to reach your true potential. However, this choice would not come after the mission- you'd have to make the choice before the conclusion of the mission.
Perhaps you've been on the wrong path, and regret your choices and wish to redeem yourself and do something right for once. Or you're sick and tired of wasting your potential and you want to make a real difference in the world, even if it means being considered 'evil' by the common man. This can be done, but it won't be as simple as changing alignment on WoW or Retcon. No, you will have to take on missions and tilt the scales of your morality- and once that is done, you may be approached by someone of the opposite faction to offer you a chance to switch sides.
Nemesis:
The last part of my last statement is crucial. Perhaps you deny that NPC of the opposite faction. Or, as before in your story- you refused your last chance before you chose sides. You have earned their ire and now they will stop at nothing to stop you. Several of your personal stories will involve your nemesis-
And things go a step further. Perhaps you're tired of their antics. End them. Destroy them... and get an entirely new adversary. Or...
Of course, at a certain point-if you like, your nemesis would have to be either killed off permanently or imprisoned for life and removed from the game.
Spare them. Perhaps what you've done could sway them to change their ways- or drive them to further ambitions and vengeance.
The system would allow for complete control of what type of Nemesis you are fighting- down to their abilities and motivations (restricted to story theme, of course).
Good Guys vs. Bad Guys
I like the idea of conflict- but I also like the idea of 'neutral ground'. Various places would be restricted to heroes, others to villains- but most of the open world would be open ground. Some parts are specifically designed as neutral ground, and some stories will even allow cooperation of heroes and villains. Not to mention, some specific social instances would be considered neutral and heroes and villains would be allowed to socialize freely in these areas.
Ganking heroes of lower level not only yields nothing of rewarding value, it also creates infamy- which is bad. At a certain point, a villain or hero would be considered infamous- and a 'bounty' would be placed on his head. NPC's of the opposing faction would target them on site- with response teams of the appropriate level. Essentially, if you were to kill enough low-level toons (the lower the level, the higher the infamy), and were spotted near the opposite faction's NPC's- zone-appropriate response units would close in and attack.
I could think of more later, but my brain's melting. Let me know what you think.
I had an idea for a sort of Science Fiction MMORPG, and after discussing it with a friend of mine I realized how perfect it would be for a Superhero MMORPG (Actually, in fact I found that it would be BETTER for a Superhero game than a Sci-Fi game... despite the MMO Market hurting for Sci-Fi that isn't based off crappy TV shows, crappy movies, or college business management and economics combined with Naval warfare. But, hey- if in another time my idea got snagged up by someone who wanted to make a superhero game... I'd not complain. So, here we go. My idea...
Bottom Line Up Front:
A Superhero/Supervillain game that allows immersive storytelling and massive options for character creation, structured powers that create balanced options for nearly any concept, and combat skills you design from the ground up.
Setting:
A world very much like our own, with various differences that one could obviously expect from superheroes coming about in the last decade or so. It is a more serious tone, with just a few comic relief and light-hearted elements present through the game (just like comics).
Most technology is still contemporary at a production level, with select individuals and organizations using more advanced technology. For example, laser pistols should be considered cutting-edge. Anti-gravity technology, faster-than-light travel, teleportation machines, and other devices of this nature are still theoretical to humans (though aliens and super-geniuses would have the means to have/create them).
Character creation:
First thing's first, you will need to create a character. It goes without saying that the Character Creation should be on par with Champions Online. It should cater to all tastes in western-style superheroes (though it should have plenty of options for various ethnic and cultural costumes and appearances). Let me be clear and say this is a Western Superhero Comic Book theme, not anime or furcadia. If those tastes can be accomdated to a small degree later on, then perhaps that is the case- but those should never be a primary focus of any costume set or content. Technological, Supernatural, Science Fiction, Classic Hero tights, Vigilantes, various historical cultures, and various ages of comic book history should be equally represented as possible (because you can only have so many spandex costumes, let's face it).
Powers:
The worst thing about CO and the best thing about CO is the freeform system. That is not going to happen in this game. There will be no cobbled-together mess of random powers to create a divide in the players of 'Uber-Elite Powerbuild Nonsense with no recognizable theme' and 'Everyone else'. Despite what you say, that is what CO consists of. Now, powers will have a theme, thanks to the Genome System.
The 'fluff' states, in a nutshell, that the persons who study superhumans have narrowed them down into several 'Genomes'. These are your powers. These are the trees in which you derive your innate abilities- heals, buffs, passives, support powers, and extra attacks. Genomes all have themes; and below are some of the genomes with examples of the type of individuals that would have those genomes.
- Paragon- Super-physique, martial arts master, super-soldier.
- Machine- Cyborgs, Androids, Power armor, and advanced gadgeteers.
- Supernatural- Sorcerers, undead, Atlanteans, avatar of a god/demon.
- Inhuman- Mutant, alien, genetic experiment, evolutionary leap.
- Primal- Monster, animal-themed hero/villain, were-thing, ancient species.
- Psionic- Telpath, telekinetic, Psychic manifestation, various X'paths.
Now, this is the part where you're going to huff and say what you like isn't in that list and it isn't 'diverse' enough to accommodate what you want. Hold your horses. Read again- the genomes are the trees in which you derive your innate abilities- heals, buffs, passives, support powers, and extra attacks. Your combat skills are completely different.
Why? I kind of always wondered why a telepath couldn't use a staff to fight, or a sorcerer couldn't use an assault rifle. And yes, you 'can' in CO. But that is not what is being done here.
For attacks, it would be simple- you choose what kind of damage you want to deal: Piercing, Energy, Elemental, Crushing, Mystical, Slashing, etc.
Then you balance the other stats- range, rate of fire, damage. They each affect one another so they won't be able to max out completely in all categories.
Next comes the emanation point and animation. This is where you choose how this attack and your other attacks manifest themselves. A burst-shot piecing attack could be an automatic rifle, or an arm blaster, or a series of thrown darts. You won't be forced to choose anything, provided the emanation point and animation fits with the type of damage and method of attack (so, something like bullets from the mouth probably wouldn't work).
As you progress you gain access to different types of attacks- AOE, blast, sustained damage, etc- so you could keep the same animations and emanation points or change them up.
Oh, it also really sucks making people choose ranged attacks over melee attacks- so you get both. Separate, with their own skill trees, etc.. So it is entirely possible to make a character who uses both magic blasts and swords, or martial arts and guns.
Where things get complex is when you ensure your genome and your combat skills work together to make you more effective.
Choosing Sides:
First and foremost, I think it's perfectly fine to have heroes/villains in a game. Whenever someone says 'we're supposed to be super HEROES' to someone in CO- I don't disagree with them, but I like to point out that we HAVE to be Super HEROES. There is not option to play a storyline that caters to a character that is motivated by personal vendettas or wants to change things in the world for the better in his own (unorthodox and unethical) way. To be a villain does not mean that your character would be able to walk around and mindlessly slaughter droves of whatever crossed their path for no reason. Villains would be assumed to have a structure, goals, and laws just as CoX. If you dislike the idea of people playing villains, then you have far more motivation to be a better hero and kick the snot out of them.
Here's the kicker- I don't think it's fair to throw 'noobs' into the fray. Most people shirk from the dual-sides in MMORPG's simply because WoW is plagued with corpse-camping max-level PvP griefers that spend hours doing nothing but 'ganking' level 10 noobs with one shot. So, you will not choose to be a hero or villain when you begin. The option comes later in the game, and I will explain how later on.
Your tutorial. For the sake of all argument, you've just acquired your abilities. All players would go through a tutorial story instance, where they would essentially learn how best to implement their abilities. It's sort of a mainstay in games, and a good way to introduce you to the world.
Story. One of the main things most MMORPG's lack. In Champions Online, it's hard to find immersion when your awesome vigilante avenger, super-soldier, or alien warrior gets the cheeseball/slapstick missions. So, for specific levels, you would have stories that would function as a sort of 'quest chain' to carry you through several levels. In these first stories, you still aren't determined to be a hero or villain yet. However, you will make decisions through these that will determine your most likely alignment (However committing awful, un-redeemable acts of evil won't be an option. You're a villain with goals and ambitions opposite of what society finds acceptable, not a mass-murdering death-junkie).
The stories are designed to present themselves to what you want to be involved in. You like Silver Age capers and stories? There would be a story for you. Want over-the-top military action? Fight off scourges of the underworld? Prevent deadly supertech from falling into the wrong corporate hands? Choose a side in a mutant superiority or human extremist conflict? Stop a violent criminal empire from taking over your city? There's something there for you, and the option is yours. Morality choices appear frequently and yield different turns in the story as well as rewards.
Stories are not instances or 'adventure packs', though some instances will occur in your story. Your stories will take you through various zones in the open world and allow you to cross paths with other characters and assist them as well, not to mention the random encounters from greater threats.
After your first couple of stories, perhaps around level 10 or 15ish, you'd be prompted to choose a side- villain or hero. However, even if your path has been tarnished with poor decisions, you would be given the chance for redemption- just as if you are wasting your power to call yourself a hero, you will be given one last chance to reach your true potential. However, this choice would not come after the mission- you'd have to make the choice before the conclusion of the mission.
Perhaps you've been on the wrong path, and regret your choices and wish to redeem yourself and do something right for once. Or you're sick and tired of wasting your potential and you want to make a real difference in the world, even if it means being considered 'evil' by the common man. This can be done, but it won't be as simple as changing alignment on WoW or Retcon. No, you will have to take on missions and tilt the scales of your morality- and once that is done, you may be approached by someone of the opposite faction to offer you a chance to switch sides.
Nemesis:
The last part of my last statement is crucial. Perhaps you deny that NPC of the opposite faction. Or, as before in your story- you refused your last chance before you chose sides. You have earned their ire and now they will stop at nothing to stop you. Several of your personal stories will involve your nemesis-
And things go a step further. Perhaps you're tired of their antics. End them. Destroy them... and get an entirely new adversary. Or...
Of course, at a certain point-if you like, your nemesis would have to be either killed off permanently or imprisoned for life and removed from the game.
Spare them. Perhaps what you've done could sway them to change their ways- or drive them to further ambitions and vengeance.
The system would allow for complete control of what type of Nemesis you are fighting- down to their abilities and motivations (restricted to story theme, of course).
Good Guys vs. Bad Guys
I like the idea of conflict- but I also like the idea of 'neutral ground'. Various places would be restricted to heroes, others to villains- but most of the open world would be open ground. Some parts are specifically designed as neutral ground, and some stories will even allow cooperation of heroes and villains. Not to mention, some specific social instances would be considered neutral and heroes and villains would be allowed to socialize freely in these areas.
Ganking heroes of lower level not only yields nothing of rewarding value, it also creates infamy- which is bad. At a certain point, a villain or hero would be considered infamous- and a 'bounty' would be placed on his head. NPC's of the opposing faction would target them on site- with response teams of the appropriate level. Essentially, if you were to kill enough low-level toons (the lower the level, the higher the infamy), and were spotted near the opposite faction's NPC's- zone-appropriate response units would close in and attack.
I could think of more later, but my brain's melting. Let me know what you think.
Post edited by cybersoldier1981 on
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Comments
The beauty if it:
Take that exact formula above. Tweak certain elements. Apply to fantasy or science fiction. It still works. You could literally make 3 games with this formula.
I also don't really see the point in tying any character stat to a finite pool as you have with the genome system. Yes, it's not what you dictate 'combat' powers, but the way you have it set up implies that if I wanted to go with, say, Super Reflexes as an Innate Ability, I'd have to pick a specific Genome even if that doesn't work for my character, and historically it's not something that you can pin down belonging to one 'origin' type for a character either (you can make a very solid case for things like that being in any of your current categories).
Hero/Villain is a great thing to have in a superhero game, except that from a sociological standpoint in games it creates an adversarial schisim in the playerbase from the onset, and leads to issues with favrotism (or the perception thereof). This happens any time you intentionally split your playerbase (no matter how you do it - factions, 'alignment', anything) from the outset. It's an inevitability, but it's also guaranteed to eat a lot of design space as you either design content n times (reduces content pool by taking development time away from other tasks to basically rehash the same plot hooks, provided you care about doing it right at all), you design bland and generic content for all sides (which will still have one side or the other claiming that X or Y piece of content is clearly not written with them in mind), or you try to do both (and then deal with both sets of complaints at once). The benefit of monofaction games is that they really only have to work one story angle, ever.
I'm not going to comment on the overall story direction bits - that's generally irrelevant if you can't narrow down on the gameplay aspects enough (if the gameplay isn't worth putting up with to get to your story, your player retention goes down significantly). The big thing I will say, though, is that your current plan completely and utterly lacks cohesion. It's very hard to tell a story without some cohesion of theme, and that's where a lot of MMOs tend to break down in the first place (trying so hard to be as open to as many people as they can). That's a very real problem you need to find some way to deal with. Also, CoH/V did the 'redemption' bit great, and you'd do well to take notes from there if you want to include aspects like that (provided you're dead-set on it), however at the same time you should realize that essentially creates a third quasi-faction in your system and you need to address it from the onset if you're including the option out of the gate.
Your nemesis system could also use some work. You don't seem to have fleshed it out enough, or your explanation is just weak here. You've spent too much verbage on flat promotion that your idea is just washed out entirely. :U
On the PVP system, take that back to the drawing board and really give a good, long, hard think about what the possible implications could be with that and see if you can't fix some of the core design problems you're showing there. It has 'bad implementation' all over it, especially the bounty system (which at it's core does nothing to stop ganking, which also leads to player retention issues, especially if you're not giving people that don't give a crap about PVP an opt-out feature. Note that implementing an opt-out also includes it's own problems). Don't count on NPC guards to be able to solve the problem, either - learn the lessons other games can teach you.
Needs work, ese. I also sincerely doubt the system would work as effectively in a sci-fi or fantasy environment without feeling generic or just as a 'reskin' of the same game. You need to find ways to manipulate the system enough that you can create a stronger game identity for each game if you decide to go that route, or throw that idea out the window and knuckle down on the one idea to do it as close to right as you can the first time. Do not be a game farm.
EDIT: Final thoughts - Writers often make terrible designers. You seem to have worked a lot on the writing angle, and it's showing a lot of design issues as a result. This is why a lot of games tend to have collaboration between a group of people, and specifically tend to designate 'writing' and 'design' as related but different departments and titles. From experience, mate, get someone that has a more intuitive understanding of design and why/how stuff works to help refine it.
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
One thing I thought should have been done with City of Villains was to make the option available to have characters on one side "arch" characters on the other side. Aside from Masterminds, though, there really wasn't a mechanic for characters to have minions, and the "arching" concept really seemed like it needed minions to send after the hero. I know Architect allowed players to create nemeses for their favorite characters, but that's not quite the same thing. Playing a villain never really felt "villainy" enough without that component.
To bring it back to this game and this thread, the Nemesis system needs a little improvement, insofar as the minions are concerned. Given the flexibility of the Nemesis creation, they shouldn't have minions that look like all the Nemeses are drawing them from some Guild of Calamitous Intent talent pool, or something. I would say that any new spandex game should look at that.
Part of the problem since December, 2012.
Heroes vs. Villains served fine in CoX as well as I have observed. As a matter of fact, the best part of it was that they could interact- I would love, as I said before, to have heroes and villains interacting in some stories to a common goal.
Now, as far as the Genome thing- I think you read too much into the examples, or I didn't explain it. Ideally (and I say this because I don't crunch numbers) genomes would be balanced enough to accommodate all roles and playstyles- that being the point, you shouldn't have to have them X to be a DPS toon, a Y to be a Tank, etc. It would support all playstyles. Super reflexes would most likely have a similarly-functioning variant in the other genome trees. My friend's argument was that genomes should basically be just like the attacks, where you pick the type of ability and choose an animation/effect.
Even story-wise, the comics world manages to do this fine, but I see your point. But, I will not want a game based entirely on the Silver Age when the Modern Age seems more than adequate for all types of heroes.
And to be fair, it won't accomodate everyone's origin, nor should it try to. I would want some lore-barrier in place. If that's not what the players want to do, then I'm sorry- clownbuilds are the bane of PVP and PVE in CO. You can't seriously convince me the learning curve of the genome concept alongside attack powers is more complicated than the freeform system in CO.
But, of course- I would offer archetypes as a guide. It could be as simple as toggling 'autolevel' like features and setting the role you want. Ideally, unlike Champions- it'd have some degree of guidance through the process of combining Skills/Abilities.
Because far worse than any Horde/Alliance rivalry, the 'Learn how to make a build, noob' mindset of Optimized Build elitists creates much more division in a community, and I would like to avoid that.
Also, I'm not finished with the PvP portions (it's not something I do regularly)- I thought flagging for PvP was commonplace? I could be wrong- I wouldn't even play it if it lacked the ability to flag for PvP.
Nemesis concept isn't done either. I would like to flesh it out and have it more than 'part of the story', but also a 'part of the story', if that makes any sense. I had something like this for CO earlier I recommended- and mind you, this originally began as a concept for a Sci-Fi game, so 'Nemesis' wasn't even a thing.
Like I said, unfinished- but my hands hurt. And no, I will never be able to make this game- ever. But if some of my ideas were stolen, I would mind.
Secondly a super hero will be allowed to be a super hero. No gated content. If the super hero feel they are strong enough to handle the villains they can go for it. Not ever major mish have to be a justice league rip off effort. Superman, Batman, Flash, and etc usually face their arch villains and very powerful villains alone.
Super heroes will feel powerful. Ties in with above. They can stand on their two feet and stand toe to toe with the powerful villains or have a chance against them at least without having to min/max.
DPS wont be the only tactic nor the only efficient way. Nor will any other power. There will be different methods where each shine and where each may not be ideal but each will be adequate. Like for example might have a villain that can be taken down eventually with only DPS but is subseptible to holds which can weaken them to be taken down faster although either one can do it alone if they have patience.
I'll have the freedom to build your own hero. Kind of like the freeform here. It's up to the players to build what they want.
I'l have a nemesis system except a bit more involved and actually work and show up often without having to farm chairs.
Not quite sure what to do with PvP. Dont PvP often but like how it's not mandatory and kind of like the invite system.
Lastly ALL WRITTEN RULES WILL BE ENFORCED. PVP AND PVE. If it cant be enforced it wont be written. And players wont be able to ban each other but if spam and other rule breaking behavior is broken, it will NOT be swept under the rug or ignored or blame the victim, or they get passes because the offender is good friends with the tech or mod. No matter who they are or know even if it's Jesus Buddah Zeus or some other powerful godly entity mythical or not, if they break the rule, something WILL happen.
And lastly of the major stuff that I can think of, if the item can be gotten, it can be bought. No longer will players be at the mercy of player controlled markets. If they find it out of their price range in game because they didnt farm tons of in game cash or jusrt dont like to farm, then they pay up real cash for it either directly or indirectly. Or maybe get it from an NPC with possible more reasonable prices. Of course outside a few key items that will be strictly rewards for certain acts and story arcs which wont be able to be sold either. If it can be sold then it can be bought. If it cant be sold it cant be bought.
In the back end just in case nasty solid matter hit the fan and the game sinks, it will be built in with stand alone single player ability that doesnt require internet connection that way it can live on even in worse case scenario.
And of course the players will be let in on what is happening whether it's updates, closing, changes, what ever even if it's simply "no changes today." And of course there will be some sort of actual tech support that is worth their salt. If a bug is reported by many, then someone will either work on it and let player base know or work on it and let player base know it isnt something easily fixed. No more of this leaving bugs hanging.
The code WILL NOT be a tangled mess or heads will roll.
Demonstrably false - most of the complaints and issues I mentioned were born out of my observances from the forum and in-game communities of CoH/V, as well as other games. It most emphatically did not handle the divide well at all, and especially near the tail end most of the content was Hero-focused with the occasional throwaway villain line or a weak lead-in that failed to adequately give an excuse or reasoning for the villain to be there, or that villains were even a concern.
Writing bias may not have been intentional, but it was definately there, and very little of it was purely based on perception as it was a common complaint. They slowly started to get better at it, but the problem never went away. You can see a replay of the exact same issues by checking the STO boards re: Klingon content.
Your design is highly flawed in concept - the idea is great on paper, but the nuts and bolts don't work. You can't use the 'I'm not a numbers guy' excuse to try and handwave it away, because it's not a numbers issue. Numbers come after you define the design concepts and prototype the bits and bobs of how things are going to interact. Come up with a better excuse, or at least blame the right part. Look at it this way - numbers are what the house is made up, and writing is the decour, but none of that makes up for a bad design. Your tenants will constantly complain about it, and you can see echoes of similar concepts of bad design in CO (where the development team often has to design around problems like this all the time).
Comics solve the problem by evolving with time. Sometimes they evolve into mutated, ugly, mutant flipper babies (I dislike 'Modern' comics, defined henceforth as 'everything past the 2010 line' - I'll admit that straight up; In particular, Dan Slott can <redacted>), but they always evolve. You need to pick a cohesive theme to emulate. If you want an Iron Age type of feel for it, stick to your guns there. Don't water it down with Gold/Silver/Modern age concepts unless you can make them work in the setting you want to use.
Like this - stick with stuff like this. Be like a tree - bend in the wind so you don't break, but put up at least some resistance to other things.
Never use absolutes, mate. That's bad policy you don't want to fall into. As to the meat of this sentence, with as little raw detail you have (and as little foundation as you have), you can make that claim to any argument you have. All the data's in your head, and your presentation is bad (not Microsoft bad, at least - you get a passing grade this time). But never, ever, doubt people's ability to argue things (and sometimes effectively argue those things) on the Internet. Especially when those people are your target audience.
Coding and development bloat, unless you know where the line of 'too much' and 'not enough' handholding is. It's a tough call, but that's exactly why I stated that you need to collaborate as opposed to go solo on something like this if you're actually serious about it. That way, you don't make the decision alone, and there's a good chance those people will come up with ways to implement stuff you can't. Or find problems/holes in your project that you can't see through bias or familiarity. Also, see the problem with Freeform vs. Archetype power levels as a core example of something you need to address at the design level.
Can the mindset that elitism is bad - like all things, elitism in moderation can be good. Especially if you cultivate and encourage the elitist population to try and at least give a crap about helping other people. For example, I'm an elitist of many different bands and flavors, and here I am using those exact skills to help you out. Get a proper PR guy, or put more forethought into what you're putting out there.
You need to be honest with yourself. Don't design something that you don't have a good idea of what you're doing with - you will inevitably screw it up. Poll people and get their feelings and opinions on what they would want out of that aspect, or get help from someone who you can trust not to be a total donkus in that area and have them help you build and shape it. For example, if you don't do PVP that often and don't get PVP, don't think you can design something for people that enjoy that kind of play style. You lack context, you lack experience, and you lack motivation. Find someone that has all three.
Honesty, again - if you don't have an idea fully worked out, state that up front and get feedback on how you can actually shape that. It's not a bad thing to be honest, here - you may garner more respect from the admission thereof then you would from bad implementation and bad design. It's all good, man.
Never say never. If there is passion, will, and motivation, mountains can be overcome. However, don't be afraid to take time to continue picking at it and making it better. Even if it's just a hobbyist project you do in your spare time, you should at least want to do the best job you can with it. And remember the big thing - designing stuff is hard, which is why almost nobody ever does it alone (or fully alone). Even solo-designers have playtesters that they rely on.
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
Using current CO as a foundation: UGC would be a priority.
In this genre, more than others, you have players with their own stories for their own heroes and villains. They think these stories are good and worth sharing. They want to share them with the community.
Having the ability to add user-generated-content into the game would allow players to share these stories, even if the quality/desire for them is a myth (i.e. the stories aren't actually good; or, even if they were good, no one wants to experience them, etc.). The choice needs to be there.
On a related note, I think this would also go a ways to placate the calls for playable villains, since the desire to be a villain could be sated on a larger scale (e.g., a mastermind) by being the creator of an entire evil story, or series of connected, progressive evil stories with the same villain. As a player villain, your villainy can't help but stay small scale (or worse, unknown), because of game-mechanics.
With that said, a brief rant: Any superhero MMO would need the ability to share player information and stories. Period. A must. It's just maddening how bad player/villain info/story sharing is in all these games. Dreadful.
All that's left mechanically in CO is right clicking on a character portrait and reading info; and even that is borked all to heck.
This was actually directly addressed by a couple of the devs from City of Heroes about a month ago. It'll take me a bit to find the link, but it's a Google Doc that you would have to scroll through. The gist of it was that the internal numbers that Paragon Studios had for the two sides, particularly after the ability was added to switch sides, showed that blue side was preferred something like 3 to 1 over red, so the incentive just wasn't there to further develop the content. I think that's a huge factor, if not an outright disincentive, in the decision to only have a blue side in this game.
Part of the problem since December, 2012.
That only really proves my point.
It's worth mentioning that:
1) It took what, a year or two to get Villains introduced in the first place? It was also billed and introduced as a completely different game, and the content developed was mostly just a thin reskin. Add in to the fact that the greater portion of the game was already at that time playing Heroes in the first place, and stuck to doing so, contributed.
2) Most of the time, even post-release, villains didn't really get a lot of content additions. This created negative feelings in the community towards how development was continuing, and further led to a 'bleed' of the playerbase either out of the game, or from one side to another (why play a side that's not getting anything?).
3) When 'shared' content did come along, the stuff you brought up was likely considered, and because there was so little actual development of Villain content at all at that point, it was decided not to bother. This continued the bleed from point 2.
If you want to see the replay of this, I again direct you to STO's Klingon community. Underappreciated, underdeveloped, and generally with the feeling that the development team doesn't care. I'll give you a handful of guesses how the playerbase there is broken up.
Learn from the mistakes others have made when designing things. See what they do well, and what they don't, and most importantly... know why what they did worked, or it didn't. So many people forget to do that.
(NOTE: I was a primary Villain player for a good long while in CoH/V - somewhere around 2 years. Three if we include the time put in at launch of CoV, when I started playing the game. I've seen this show and done this dance before, and I can tell you from personal experience that it feels bad. Don't do it, or fully appreciate the problem. Alienating your playerbase is not something you should go into lightly.)
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
This is one of the reasons superhero mmos has been mainly quick money grabs. The hardcore western comic community willing to invest on a mmo seems to be insufficient to sustain a longlasting mmo. I think some relaxation to include other communities would be good for gathering stronger communities.
to offer a simple answer without giving my real ideas. I would take the best ideas from city of. such as huge zones. for co I would use the costume creator and the nemesis as well as use user generated content.
In truth, and this is just my feelings- and I would not say this should be taken:
But I don't want furcadia 3d and Anime swordfest #248754. I'd rather not see a game at all than to see an idea sell out when it is, at its core, a Western Superhero Game.
This I can agree with.
Not because I dislike players that like those other genres, but because when I look at Champions, I don't see a Western Superhero game. For many reasons beyond the types of characters people make, but that's a big part of it.
As far as systems go, the only way to really have a freeform style system and introduce some sort of balance into the mix is to have a pool of powers available to anyone, without any kind of theme. Theme is something that's chosen for each power.
Example: you'd have powers resembling what Champs has. Click powers, charge powers, maintain powers, hold powers, buff powers, debuff powers. None of these would have any effects tied to them. There wouldn't be 15 different charged ranged attacks. That's too hard to balance. You get one permutation of each type of power, balance those all against each other.
For instance - and this is in very basic terms - a charged attack at tap would do 10 damage, at mid charge would do 40, and at full charge would do 80. There's somewhat of a risk involved in charging a power to full in order for it to do full damage, due to interrupts. So a charged attack would do more DPS than a tapped attack. A charged attack would do less DPS than the tapped attack if it itself is tap-spammed. You get the idea.
If you build all powers using a system like this, where DPS is regulated by a strict formula that doesn't get too crazy, it should be easy to keep the damage going around tight. I say should be because, as any game designer knows, on-paper will always yield different results than in-test.
Anyway, you'd also have an Advantage system, if you want to add effects or more damage to your abilities, but these would also follow a strict formula to regulate DPS. The whole point of a system like this is to avoid situations like the Haymaker vs Burning Chi Fist (or whatever it was called). The Martial Arts attack did more damage, faster, and had a DoT to it, and cost less energy (I think, some of this info could be wrong). But the bottom line was that the only reason you'd want to take Haymaker is if you liked the animation and didn't care about doing less damage. That should never be a decision a player has to make. The only way to bring balance is to homogenize abilities, and let people customize the looks of their powers.
Graphically, I would want stylized graphics. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but this is my cup we're talking about, and I don't even like tea. I'm bored to death of generic graphics. First I would go for something like this. Amazing comic-style rendering. It is western comics, after all.
Of course stuff like Nemesis systems would be expanded on. I've always thought that a "shoe on the other foot" type of thing with your nemesis would be cool, where you get to start off a story arc as your nemesis, and at a certain point your hero comes in to foil your plot, and then you switch to hero mode to fight the nemesis. I think it would be cool to introduce nemesis stories this way, where you see both sides of the story, not just the one. More storylines, more epic disasters, more summoning of giant robots and monsters to wreak havoc, etc.
User-generated content would also be a must. Especially with the use of nemeses.
And also a world that would be affected by large events. Having a static world kinda sucks.
And you get double all rewards if you dress in tights. :biggrin:
No the influence the game was made from is Marvel/DC Comics/Champions.
And if you haven't notice a big portion of the community is furries and anime people. So if you're going to minus them out CO would be doing even worst than it is now. Your kind of marketing ploy would have caused the game to plummet and be shutdown long ago.
You don't know that the absence of things that make the game anything-but-western-comics wouldn't bring purists in.
Also, western hemisphere, not western United States.
(DISCLAIMER: There's a good chance I'm just being facetious, unless we can pretend to discuss it in a civil fashion and it goes somewhere interesting and/or amusing.)
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
For a lot of people, this game is a genre-less grab-bag of powers and costumes.
To those of us that like Western comic books, it kinda degrades the experience when you're fighting alongside characters you don't normally see in the genre.
For instance, I don't go to anime RPGs and be like "This is BS, I'm not gonna play this because there's not enough Indiana Jones characters here." Or try to make Pokemon in a Hello Kitty game. Or try to make Perry Mason in an all-girl anime fighting game. Or make Western super hero characters in Robotech. Or make giant sweaty machinegun men in Furry games.
Some things just don't fit in lots of genres, and for every bit that the Champions team adds to the game that isn't normally found in the genre they're playing in, the less it becomes of that genre, and you end up with a game that has no theme other than "anything goes."
Inherently there's nothing wrong with either. Some people just can't stand others liking what they themselves don't like. But to be fair every camp has their overly-vocal-oh-god-why-are-they-making-a-scene-again types that tend to make the rest of them look bad. Regardless of what rustles one's jimmies, it's incredibly easy to just ignore it and move on.
It's not that it's wrong, and it has absolutely nothing to do with people. I don't want them in a Western Superhero game for the same reason I don't want the Transformers involved- it doesn't belong in the theme.
I want everything you said and everything I said to get a room and make a baby.
I dig that art style- I genuinely do. There's a lot you can do with it.
I also think my friend was on to something- I used to play a tabletop game called Aberrant. In this you picked 'quantum overdrive' or something like that. What it DID is what mattered. How it 'looked' was up to you. Genomes could be this, with a few 'specific' things to it.
I still say freeform while it has its appeal, can't work everywhere. The system is borked and exploited.
Especially when new guys are brought in and no older people telling them what the standards are. Then everything's up in the air, we have human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
Of course, point systems aren't always balanced. Lean too heavily on one aspect and it can be game-breaking compared to a normally-distributed power. But at least you've got a guideline to keep everything in check.
The thing is you'd basically just have one generic powerset. Everyone would be able to pick any power. And it would cut down on the whole "it's not in my theme" thing. Need a charged range power for a melee guy? Give it a lunge-punch-leap back animation. You've got a ranged attack now that doesn't break your concept.
It can be balanced, because you're just balancing powers to each other within the same set.
I can respect that, honestly. Dilution of theme is something I brought up, after all.
S'always interesting to see people's reasoning for things, though, so sometimes I can't really help myself from asking contentious questions (even if it's not my intent to cause trouble, some stuff you just can't really ask without people flipping tables).
I do think it's a problem you never really get away from, though you're right that at the same time it's not something you need to actively encourage as much as CO has (and CoH/V did, for that matter).
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
Right. And if it needed 'theme' behind it, you could choose effects- for the leap-punch, jet thrusters in the elbow and back for machine themes, dark shadow streak for supernatural, whatever tickles your fancy to make X power suit your theme.
I like it.
Sold. A billion times over, sold. I would be doing backflips if something like this were on tthe market. Find some programmers and put this on kickstart and I would pour as much disposable income at this as I have on hand.
2 points re others observations, too numerous to quote and everyone gets way worked up over this, but:
1. Never understood furries. I have friends who like to play CO as such. Couldn't they be accommodated via simple costume design? Don't get why this is a problem.
2. Anime-ugh. double triple ugh. The crazy grunting. Eyes that seem to oscillate. A billion other things that puzzle me to no end wondering how on earth humans find this to have any entertainment value. But again, here I am the minority. Plenty of my friends here love anime. Why not allow for anime inspired creations vis a vi the character's appearance options?
You have some disagreement with design philosophy.
Noted.
That being said you can create what you want most from a visual standpoint.
Isn't that how games work?
Seriously you guys are arguing taste while the opening post discussed value merit and potential fun factor.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the PWE Community Rules and Policies -Smackwell
BOOOOM!!! RESCUED!!!
Actually there was a nonfiction book recently released that is really, really, good. Like gonna be made into an epic movie if producers secure enough capitol good.
German Werhmacht regulars/US forces/French resistance?*I think some austrains vs: an encamped and heavily armed super pro Nazi force.
Holed up in a crazy medieval fortess like the kind you see in films.
Cannot recommend this book enough:
The Last Battle
Sounds interesting. I was also kinda fascinated by the new Wolfenstein trailer- I mean, who DOESN'T want to fight Nazis?
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the PWE Community Rules and Policies -Smackwell
Well, to be fair, Nazis are easy to hate on. Few people hate on the colonists that settled America, however; despite some of the atrocities they committed against the natives. Most people tend to just sweep under the rug what was done in the early colonial settler days.
The word genocide comes to mind, and there's a couple of good reads on the subject..but nobody ever hates on the Americans for what we did, hmm? And let us not mention what we are STILL doing to them. At least, not like Nazis are hated.
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/georegions/northamerica/UnitedStates02.htm
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375758569
But, I digress. Sounds like a decent idea on paper. I'd have no clue as to how to implement it though.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Is that one of those military things?
You don't know something you throw your hands in the air and give up?
Here let me give you a little light support.
Game Develoment at Udemy
The Richard Hart class is great.
You can get help at Reddit
There's so many books, videos classes, degree programs and tutorials now its ...my dreams come true.
This is a good thread by the way.
Actually, my bad- edit. Forgot who you were. Don't change your avatar like that.
Usually the response is 'shoot at it and see what happens'. I tried that and now need a new laptop.
But, I'll look into these courses- right now? Not so much. Half my time online is spent doing college courses for what I may go into after retirement. Other half is... arguing on forums.
But, hey- buttslap.
I find little kitten-people... things... and other out-of-genre choices while playing anywhere from immersion-bubble popping to mildly annoying--when I notice them.
BUT...
1) While it's a bit less so in Champions, in CoH and Champions, with instanced missions and Supergroups, it's easy enough to somewhat insulate yourself from this if you really want to, and...
2) I'd happily put up with a healthy community of cat-things, Dragonball clones, Transformers, club-girls with powers, and whatever else can loosely be justified as a "Superhero" if it meant that I could keep a good game that I enjoy.
Heck, I'd even happily tolerate some actual content--Supervillians, storylines, missions and all--geared towards those to keep a good game around.
And, to be honest, really crazy, odd sh... stuff happened from time to time in those old comics. Rocket frikkin Raccoon to Squirrel Girl, for jeebus sakes.
EDIT: As a matter of fact, though if you cut me I bleed that weird purplish-pink colored ink they used to use in comics (what was up with that color--it must have been cheap), I'll turn the whole argument on it's head. Maybe the hope for Superhero MMO's to NOT be quick-grab games is their potential to be inclusive of other genres. Sci-fi, fantasy, anime. Maybe that's what will save us even if the soul of the game is capes and tights.
Any other transforming character is simply robot or PA user with fancy transport mode.
Animal people are tricky question, since we already have those, mostly in Marvel universe. Tigra is plain fan-service and not even remotely anime.
Fair point, although if said Nazis were entrenched and holding hostages I would call for back up. Well no I wouldn't. My main hates paperwork. Sorry Nazis (not really!) !
My main would rush in and...well there just wouldn't be an actual cool story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Battle:_When_U.S._and_German_Soldiers_Joined_Forces_in_the_Waning_Hours_of_World_War_II_in_Europe
Read! (not you op)
Not enough people read these days, make an exception, buy the book, get from library or borrow from a friend.
If you enjoy the book, and like a good fight in the past where things made sense, look up the history of an old B-17 named 666. Fought like the devil for an excruciating couple of hours under terrifying conditions. The accounts of this one are too many to mention a single source, but many good articles, books,videos, etc for this one.
...it would have the look and atmosphere of City of Heroes...with the gameplay mechanics and animations of Champions Online.
VARIANT
"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln-
What kind of Superhero MMO would Foxy create? Oh, dear reader, there is not enough space here for me to lay down the monolithic sprawl of my thoughts on that matter... I've been working on something for a webcomic idea that, because I'm the turboest of turbonerds for stuff like this, has enough mechanics and depth to be consistent (most of my favorite stories had a lot of internal consistency, so why would I offer up anything less to my audience?) that you could probably make an actual game out of it if you could reconcile the technology aspect.
In short, though, it'd be a more open-ended translation of Hero System. I know I banked on the 'truly custom' power idea pretty hard, and I have no illusions that both technology is rather limited to implement it properly (or at least easily and efficiently), that it's anything but a balance nightmare, or that I could even pull it off. Character design is done from a pool of points - as you 'gain experience', you earn more points that you can then spend on... whatever you want. Caps are in place for certain things (no power can have more then N points, no more then N powers of Y type, and so on) with a lot of design space. For those that don't want to go through the hassle, you can pike 'Templates' of powers (kept in an archive system with searchable tags and publically rated so that people that want to do NOTHING but design templates to help people can do so) from other players or an online database. Thematic choices would be 'free', and swappable on-the-fly in the Training Center so you don't have to commit to something. You can also follow a 'Guide' that allows you or another user (another big database - can you IMAGINE the bandwidth issues this would cause? Those poor servers) to create a series of templates for you to follow (X points in Y power until Z point, then switch to new power) out in the field (similar to EVE's skill planning system).
Story wise, it'd have hints of Tiger & Bunny, aspects of Angelic Layer, and some good old Silver Age feelies (and some Venture Brothers stuff played straight). Heroism is corporated and monetized, as is villainy. Metahumans can compete in open contests of power and skill (like the Hero Games, but set up Angelic Layer style and multiple match-types reminiscent of MOBA or FPS games), or join one of the meta-organizations (names to be determined) that in addition to stopping (or CAUSING crime, within certain confines, rules, and restraints) crime, also create media events (think wrestling kayfabe) that get a special tag to let people know that this was a staged, rather then a real event (so that if a REAL incident happens, people can have the appropriate level of fear response). Staged events also use 'dimensional fields' so that no real property gets hurt.
It's also worth noting that all of that is the in-game justification for the story. Wait, what? The comic follows a bunch of people playing what is essentially one big Virtual Reality game (see: .hack, Sword Art Online), with all of the action appropriately segregated. There's a PVE section (broken down into various other shards that have special rules and require you to create different characters), a PVP section (also broken into shards for thematic purposes), and an RP series (two dedicated PVE and PVP shards and a special host of GMs designed to do nothing but create events or cause mayhem). It's a social exploration of MMO concepts and the kinds of people that play them, while also playing with all of the gaming tropes possible in such a setting.
Obviously it works better as a comic series (as then I don't have to deal with the coding headaches this induces), and if I were to actually make it a game... I'd hammer down on a LOT of my old ideas as unfeasible and clunky. And drop the story framing device of it being an MMO (because duh, that's why you're playing it). But if we're dreaming, I'm daring to dream big.
Back to my writer's cave, arrrr.
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
So, for example:
Poison Cloud: AOE DoT toxic to Life
EM Pulse: AOE stun (or confuse) Machine
Radiation blast: charged column blast toxic to Life/Machine
Holy Word: ranged, bonus damage against Spiritual creatures
And so on.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
It's fine to agree to disagree when debating aesthetics - that I think everyone can agree on. It's also fine if you don't think that a specific style or type of reference works very well for a specific genre (and you may be right depending on how it's implemented). It's not fine to claim that anyone that likes it is a sick, twisted person due to the stereotypical view of those people (which often put a spotlight on the absolute worst of those individuals, and tar the majority with the same brush).
For everything else, ignorance is the bane of understanding. Maybe we can shed light on some aspects to help people understand why there's an attraction to certain fields. Anything beyond that is, of course, purely debatable. Educating yourself about things you don't like gives you more tools to understand why and better explain those reasonings to others without being a total donkus about it.
(IE: Let's not get this thread locked so fast, guys.)
[SIGPIC]Also, this poster rambles.[/SIGPIC]
More evil less Carebear. Unless said Carebears were like evil or summing.
Areas where one would be able to gank a noob.
There would be the ability to beat NPCs to a pulp for pushing me outta the AH U__U"
All NPC's would have pimp canes.
The Hills would actually have eyes.
There would be a mini game where you would get to shoot Rob Mahogany in the groin with a honey badger gun OVER and OVER again.
Would have stealth sections in where you sneak after Defender with the aim to catch him in the act of " Penetrating the other side of the building ", taking pics of said act to sell em on Ebay.
The only vehicles available to people would be giant $60 sparkle hamsters and pogo sticks.
PvP would actually have proper rewards. People that spammed Eruption in BASH would be exploded.
Any god modder in Club Caprice would be instantly hit in the face with a bar stool in RL.
The Mill City news would be hosted by The Krunch and Shev.
There would be a section of the game where a NPC version of Nesno and Luci would teach players how to play the game. It would be called the "Learn to @&%?ing play noobs or get the @&%? out" tutorial.
GREAT NEWS HEROES! All toons resembling Pirate pugs in tea cups will be taken out and hit in the face with a DEATH RAY OF DEATH AND STUFF!
Nepht would be declared THE MAYOR OF AWESOME! and given a nice sash with the words MAYOR so I can walk around like a boss \o/
All healing pots would be Tab soda and Smoked breakfast kippers.
There would be BUNNEHS IN THE PARK!
Finally there would be "Rainbow outta arse flight" power in Z-store.
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!
In fairness- the costume set in question was not only disliked by myself but another, for the same reason- based on 'the things seen in Caprice', and more a matter of what would be consider legal and reasonable. That's what I mean. I also didn't say 'anyone' who likes it, I said about half of the people it would appeal to in CO were. Especially since what I see are pictures of little girls in tiny skirts and other scant outfits and that, at its very core, weirds me out.
I also have to be 100%: I appreciate you trying to 'educate' me, however I'm well aware of what I'm speaking about. My main reason, overall? It's hard to take goofy-looking animal characters seriously, even with an animated aesthetic.
Not to mention, anime is limited greatly with the exception of hairstyles and a few other features. While some of the art in anime for mecha, weapons, suits, monsters, etc- is top notch, character design is poor and limited- giving everyone roughly the same face, different hair, etc. Not to mention- if anime themes were to happen- a western studio might not be the best place to create it.
I can further explain.
In my setting, I would be perfectly fine with, say- the capability to create someone with feline or lupine features. If you say 'this dude has animal genetics because a mad scientist was trying to exploit yadda yadda yadda movie trope'. OK dude, that is cool.
However, not to mention the absolute nightmare- if you keep things 'humanoid', it means nearly everything- works for nearly everyone. Helmets, hats, face animations, etc. It means developers don't have to spend hours trying to create those facial expressions/animations in an animal face and can focus more- time on X takes away from time on Y- and there's no point in creating animal heads if they are just freakishly still. Animals have different muscle structure from one species to the next more so than humans. Not to mention, look at the plethora of costume parts in CO which are not functional with animal heads alone- and I for one have stated that it sucks that these parts are unavailable for certain types of characters, I wouldn't feel right marketing something that is 'really cool to customize unless you're creating a furry'. I'd rather 'not use' than 'halfass' if you get my drift.
Edit: I have a friend who does some 'furry' art, and it's outside the traditional cartoonish stuff, looks more human/animal hybrid. His stuff is actually pretty sick, and I've got a picture of a Gorilla-man with a machine gun patrolling a jungle. If he were to create a game with the theme he's got, I'd be so down it's not even funny. This isn't me hating 'people'. It's me hating a type of entertainment. I also hate reality television, but I'm not going to burn your house down for you watching it. I'm just not going to want it in my home or around me. I think that's so far from bigotry and so normal, I simply can't take it seriously when people overract to it. Apologies if you took it personal, but when the reaction to 'yeah I don't want this in my game' is treated like someone has attacked you personally, it's time to re-evaluate your hobbies.