My big question: Will there be user-generated content?
I'm guessing 'no,' but a man can dream...
From what I understand, that is something that will either be at launch or very soon after.
One of the plans, was to release the base creator before the launch of the game, and those same tools you will use to create your superbase will be the ones used to generate your own missions. So yes, User generated content is part of it.
Well, assuming they do a tolerable job and the game actually gets made, they might have me for life.
We'll see!
(UGC is the most interesting thing to me in MMO-dom, but unfortunately it's only been done a few times, with a variety of critical flaws)
I think in the Kickstarter's text they mention that they want to build the tools to make the game with the intention, from the get-go, to allow players to use those same tools to create their own content. Instead of the alternative, which is to make the game, then create a new set of tools for players to use, which doesn't always come out great.
Instead of the alternative, which is to make the game, then create a new set of tools for players to use, which doesn't always come out great.
If it ever comes out at all... *glares at Jack Emmert*
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
User-generated content is totally something we're going to do. Not even hoping to do. GOING to do. It's just going to take some time, and I'd say there's a 90% chance it won't be in until after the game itself's launch. That's just the nature of the beast- getting the game out there and playable is priority 1. We're making these tools alongside the game, but they're probably not going to be finished at the same time.
But yes, the stand-alone base creator will have a lot of the same tools you'll have access to elsewhere.
________________________________ @kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Happy to help! Additionally if anyone else has questions or concerns (well, ones I'm cleared to answer) I'd be happy to do so.
I'm still trying to figure out if its the actual game that's coming out in 2015 or just the avatar builder.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Well, Kel, all I can say is congratulations on meeting your goal, and I hope it all works out the way you expect it to - perhaps some real competition will give this game the kick in the **** it so desperately needs. (And if it can't survive real competition, well, I love this game and would truly hate to see it go away, but evolution is what it is, you know?)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I'm still trying to figure out if its the actual game that's coming out in 2015 or just the avatar builder.
The game is tenatively targeting 2015, pending some huge issues with development (you never know). The avatar builder and base builder should both be out, as stand-alone releases, significantly in advance of the game itself.
I can't give a time window just yet for those two, but I'd be pretty surprised if they were both in 2015 as well. Just sayin'.
________________________________ @kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
You know, before things like Kickstarter, people that wanted outside investment for their business generally had to provide some things like: a business plan, pro forma, schedule of deliverables, and sometimes even collateral or equity. Not to mention proof of skin in the game -- principals that have invested a chunk of their own money to show good faith. What hard facts do you have about this venture that makes you think it's a good investment? Do they even have a business plan? A physical location? A historical track record? Any assets at all? Is it even clear what they're promising to deliver by 11/2015?
I think that there is a pretty big difference between asking for outside investors to commit potentially millions of dollars to the development of a game with the expectation of a significant financial return on that investment and...
asking for interested fans of a particular game to pitch a few bucks each in the hopes that such will contribute to the production of a game that they can enjoy.
Just a note, I've removed the link to the kickstarter. I'm happy to let people discuss, but I don't feel comfortable with a link to a page where people can pay.
I think that there is a pretty big difference between asking for outside investors to commit potentially millions of dollars to the development of a game with the expectation of a significant financial return on that investment and...
asking for interested fans of a particular game to pitch a few bucks each in the hopes that such will contribute to the production of a game that they can enjoy.
Yes, there's a difference in the sophistication and expectations of the investors; gamers are easier marks. It didn't look like they were limiting themselves to just asking for "a few bucks each" either. I hope those who dropped 5 figures can afford to do so and don't end up being disappointed.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Yes, there's a difference in the sophistication and expectations of the investors; gamers are easier marks. It didn't look like they were limiting themselves to just asking for "a few bucks each" either. I hope those who dropped 5 figures can afford to do so and don't end up being disappointed.
It's hard to tell. I mean people went crazy for the Occulus Rift but they also ran the risk it would be just another Virtual Boy. But still, the people who took the risk are the ones that made it happen and we all get to benefit from it.
We also don't know who dropped 5 figures, for all we know they make alot of money and that's chump change to them. I make perhaps $30,000 - $40,000 a year living alone and I dropped $150 on it because the superhero MMORPG genre doesn't have enough and I want to see what they can do. I'm ok with losing my investment, the point was never purely self-serving in the first place. The point is that we as gamers CAN make a difference. As I continue to get older the ability to make a difference seems more and more like a privilege I've neglected most of my life.
Maybe some of that difference will be here with this game, maybe not. We will see. But all the backers of that game are giving it the chance to do so, I don't think you can really ask for more when it has a reasonable chance of also paying off for you directly. Especially considering how much money the average person (including me at times) wastes on a daily basis.
hey kelp, can i get one quick clarification because i didnt see this on the ks page nor the faq on your main site.
Earlier i had expressed some concern that while cot may be successful, and be made and i hope it is successful, eventually mmos with large backers even shut down, servers aint free, i understand that, but im a little hesitent to get really involved in a game that depends on servers being up. in the other thread, someone mentioned that the pp team had said they were trying to make sure that if there was such a time that the game no longer could support the servers, there was a plan to make it playable offline. is this the case?
im donating either way, so this answer wont put me off, but if cot is a SAFE game where i wont lose several years work like i did with coh, , then all the better and i can relay this to other friends who are on the fence.
hey kelp, can i get one quick clarification because i didnt see this on the ks page nor the faq on your main site.
Earlier i had expressed some concern that while cot may be successful, and be made and i hope it is successful, eventually mmos with large backers even shut down, servers aint free, i understand that, but im a little hesitent to get really involved in a game that depends on servers being up. in the other thread, someone mentioned that the pp team had said they were trying to make sure that if there was such a time that the game no longer could support the servers, there was a plan to make it playable offline. is this the case?
im donating either way, so this answer wont put me off, but if cot is a SAFE game where i wont lose several years work like i did with coh, , then all the better and i can relay this to other friends who are on the fence.
I can't say something concrete without potentially getting in trouble, since anything like a server shutdown would be weird to even consider before the game comes out, but yes. We know what the CoH community went through when that game shut down and we will have plans in place to keep the game alive if we end up unable to support it either financially or via personnel, years and years and years down the line if or when such a thing happens.
These plans are not finalized, but they exist, and we don't want anyone to lose access to a game they enjoy playing if we can possibly prevent it from happening, even if we can't maintain it any longer for some reason.
In my opinion, it would be nice if every MMO had some sort of plan like that. For the sake of the players, at least.
________________________________ @kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
I'd only regard it as a "successor" to CoH if some of the ex-Paragon devs were on board with the project.
Much as I love watching the back and forth about the art style, especially as someone who was "out of the scene" for much of the 90s and has no skin in the game, as it were, I've yet to see this (the above quote) specifically addressed.
Many of the devs (both the MWM team and the former Paragon crew) have been clear, in other places, that no former Paragon Studios employees are directly involved in this, or any, project to make fan-developed super-powered MMO. That said, more than a few (I don't follow them all, so someone else can give an accurate count) have Tweeted support for the Kickstarter, and the Backers list includes some familiar names. Make of that what you will.
Well, Kel, all I can say is congratulations on meeting your goal, and I hope it all works out the way you expect it to - perhaps some real competition will give this game the kick in the **** it so desperately needs. (And if it can't survive real competition, well, I love this game and would truly hate to see it go away, but evolution is what it is, you know?)
I'd also like to add a hearty GRATS!
And a (mild) snark -- if CoH's closing didn't deliver a quick kick to anyone at Cryptic (save the HR department which hired some folks for STO and, IIRC, Neverwinter), I don't think any outside market force will.
On the other hand, we've seen more dev interaction with us over the last few weeks than we have over the last 6 months, so ... hopes springs eternal!
$350,000 (Achieved) = Android port of the Avatar builder
$400,000 = IOS port of the Avatar builder at launch
$450,000 = Mac OS version of the game at launch
Just a note, I've removed the link to the kickstarter. I'm happy to let people discuss, but I don't feel comfortable with a link to a page where people can pay.
Yeah. And it's not like people can't just go to Kickstarter and type in "City of Titans" and get the project.
But of course, they would be foolish not to take good lessons from CO and some of the things it did right. CO is a good game with many strengths and many lessons. Also, they kind of wanted to do alot of those things in COX but it was pretty hard to with what they had to work with from what I understand. Instead they remarkably diversified in power set.
I gotta give props to CO though, logic be danged I LOVE swinging through the air on my grapple line more than I should. Even though it's second rate usability wise to many other travel powers it's got first rate cool factor .
Personally I hope they take the best of travel powers from both COX and CO to make a travel power suite to drool from. For instance I like Super Jump from COX, but CO has alot more options and generally did them well. (I didn't like the super jump in CO, I think the massive ground shake when I hit made using it less fun for some reason)
A new interview that contains some juicy tid bits I think were touched on during our conversations. Might answer a few questions and raise a few more. Gotta give it to these guys, they are aiming high.
I hope they take some lessons from DCUO. Clinging to walls, running up walls... and perhaps a better way of handling travel powers in combat, more like CO than CoH.
Another travel-related lesson from DCUO would be to expand travel abilities to actual power suites -- things like 'wing buffet' help make travel powers feel like a credible part of the character rather than 'oh, I guess I fly and stuff.'
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
I hope they take some lessons from DCUO. Clinging to walls, running up walls... and perhaps a better way of handling travel powers in combat, more like CO than CoH.
Yeah, CoH was absolutely terrible in utilizing travel powers in combat. Kudos to CoT if they handle it like CO.
I hope they take some lessons from DCUO. Clinging to walls, running up walls... and perhaps a better way of handling travel powers in combat, more like CO than CoH.
Another travel-related lesson from DCUO would be to expand travel abilities to actual power suites -- things like 'wing buffet' help make travel powers feel like a credible part of the character rather than 'oh, I guess I fly and stuff.'
We're using the same engine that DCUO uses (Unreal 3) so stuff like running on walls is totally doable. I don't think I'm allowed to say more than that right now? But. Well, it would be silly to not do something a lot of people want if we're able to do it.
________________________________ @kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
I hope they take some lessons from DCUO. Clinging to walls, running up walls... and perhaps a better way of handling travel powers in combat, more like CO than CoH.
Another travel-related lesson from DCUO would be to expand travel abilities to actual power suites -- things like 'wing buffet' help make travel powers feel like a credible part of the character rather than 'oh, I guess I fly and stuff.'
Can you elaborate on the the handling of travel powers in combat? To the best of my knowledge both essentially drain your power but it's much harder to escape combat quickly in CO than it was COH.
I must be forgetting something and I'd really like to know what it is .
Hmmm, I actually preffered COX's creator. To me it was better organized and had a little more personality/thematic stuff even though CO's seemed to have a larger scope. Like I can find costumes and such that were definitely not in COX in any way, but it's also harder to adjust the textures on your costumes like you could on COX. As well, COX just seemed to have alot more variety overall. Likely from being around quite a long time. With good support no doubt CO would have had just as much.
Edit: For example I could walk into COX with a concept of ok, I want to wear armor. Now I had a plethora of choices. Light, medium, heavy, leather, metal, robots of different kinds, steampunk, knight, tech, etc. And there would be multiple version of each or many things that I could pass off as fitting one of those. Sometimes I even made it work via something that shouldn't have and patterns/colors/etc. I just never got that same feeling with CO.
I honestly think you'd have to really sit down and look hard at both and combine the best of the two games.
Keeping the fast paced combat and defined roles additionally would be very difficult to do together I think. Part of what kills defined roles IS fast paced combat. Support and Tanking done with worth and variety really needs a little time to play out.
Can you elaborate on the the handling of travel powers in combat? To the best of my knowledge both essentially drain your power but it's much harder to escape combat quickly in CO than it was COH.
I must be forgetting something and I'd really like to know what it is .
As I remember it (and it's been a LONG time since I played CoH, since I really didn't like the f2p system), in CoH you were boned trying to use most travel powers in combat.
I mean, I had a rad/rad Defender (Doc Wormwood, with the healing power of ATOMICS) who had Hover simply so I could actually fly in combat without being hosed. And it still wasn't fun.
In CO, you slow down a lot in combat, but many characters can be built to suck up the drain. More than that, there are a number of abilities that make travel powers useful in combat (either entering it, defending, or whatever).
And maybe I'm remembering wrong, but in CoX didn't travel powers toggle off during combat? Maybe I'm remembering an older iteration.
I don't recall which game was easier to evade combat in. Again, been way too long. But ease of escape is very much a stylistic decision/taste issue. One thing CO does nicely is a bunch of powers having stealth components, so you can avoid boring fights.
Though I _vastly_ prefer CoX's teleport system. It actually feels like... teleport. Mind you, if it were up to me, I'd have BOTH systems, with CoX's 'Teleport' and CO's version called 'Phasing' or something.
Mind you, I prefer DCUO over both systems. You can easily leave Flight on all the time, if you prefer.
(Edit: that is, I prefer DCUO's handling of this particular issue. I am much less fond of how few travel powers DCUO has)
For example I could walk into COX with a concept of ok, I want to wear armor. Now I had a plethora of choices. Light, medium, heavy, leather, metal, robots of different kinds, steampunk, knight, tech, etc. And there would be multiple version of each or many things that I could pass off as fitting one of those. Sometimes I even made it work via something that shouldn't have and patterns/colors/etc. I just never got that same feeling with CO.
That is very much a taste thing. I can be a frog-headed robot with angel wings and a guitar in CO. And there are a lot of armors, from medieval to insect to...
As I've said before, CoX relied a lot more on texturing, particularly with faces. That's one area where CO's system has problems (though that might be due to lack of development of meshes or something?)
Mainly, wildly grinning old guy in CoX was doable. In CO... it's painfully... not very.
But, despite all the advantages I think CO has, you have things like... auras. Really? We're how many years in?
Keeping the fast paced combat and defined roles additionally would be very difficult to do together I think. Part of what kills defined roles IS fast paced combat. Support and Tanking done with worth and variety really needs a little time to play out.
I think actually CoT would be best off looking at _completely different_ games, like GW2 and, oh, Rift, where roles are fluid and can change easily.
Namely, I'd love a game where roles can emerge from play. One of the things I _loved_ about CoX (and it's far better than CO in this regard) is how interesting grouping was. Getting a bunch of Defenders together, and finding the best way for the wildly different powersets to synergize well, the best strategies, was thrilling.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
Edit: For example I could walk into COX with a concept of ok, I want to wear armor. Now I had a plethora of choices. Light, medium, heavy, leather, metal, robots of different kinds, steampunk, knight, tech, etc. And there would be multiple version of each or many things that I could pass off as fitting one of those. Sometimes I even made it work via something that shouldn't have and patterns/colors/etc. I just never got that same feeling with CO.
Meet the Ferrous Gentleman. (Armor design by Charles Babbage, construction by Greer & Harlick Costumers.)
And Iron Wing, inventor with a bird fetish.
And of course Happifun Security System X-4, an experimental security robot designed by a toy company.
And those are just from my mind, because I have certain things I think look good. You really out to have a look around the various threads down in Costumes and Concepts, especially those done by Bluhman and Slapperfish.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I'd say that CO is shallower but more flexible than CoH.
Shallower, because CoH had a 5 year head start on creating costume parts. It doesn't help that Cryptic has spent the past year not doing much to catch up.
More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO.
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
As I remember it (and it's been a LONG time since I played CoH, since I really didn't like the f2p system), in CoH you were boned trying to use most travel powers in combat.
I mean, I had a rad/rad Defender (Doc Wormwood, with the healing power of ATOMICS) who had Hover simply so I could actually fly in combat without being hosed. And it still wasn't fun.
In CO, you slow down a lot in combat, but many characters can be built to suck up the drain. More than that, there are a number of abilities that make travel powers useful in combat (either entering it, defending, or whatever).
And maybe I'm remembering wrong, but in CoX didn't travel powers toggle off during combat? Maybe I'm remembering an older iteration.
Ahh, that explains it, you used fly. Fly was the only travel power to use enough endurance to impact you really. So if you used it in combat youd run out of juice pretty easily. IIRC everything had a short travel power suppression I think for when YOU attacked, but you could turn it on and bail pretty quickly after a moment at full speed. In CO the damage enemies do to you keep you suppressed. (which makes it annoying to travel in CO at times)
The big reason you didn't see many people using travel powers in combat though was Fly and SuperJump both added a combat power to give you combat movement and a tiny amount of defense for trivial amounts of endurance. Hover and combat jumping for those two. None for superspeed (it got other pool powers instead) and teleportation got utility powers instead of a combat varient but was still highly used for combat by some builds, especially rock armor tankers.
Though I _vastly_ prefer CoX's teleport system. It actually feels like... teleport. Mind you, if it were up to me, I'd have BOTH systems, with CoX's 'Teleport' and CO's version called 'Phasing' or something.
Ugh, that's prolly the only thing in CO that actually made me wince. I can't stand callling that teleport.
Mind you, I prefer DCUO over both systems. You can easily leave Flight on all the time, if you prefer.
(Edit: that is, I prefer DCUO's handling of this particular issue. I am much less fond of how few travel powers DCUO has)
I guess I should try DCUO one day. Will the bad game shock kill me lol?
I think actually CoT would be best off looking at _completely different_ games, like GW2 and, oh, Rift, where roles are fluid and can change easily.
Oof , not rift. I would prefer either COX or CO to that for PVE. It was very quickly hashed out which classes you could chose were best and they would put alot of pressure on you to be those. Like Pyromancer for DPS or Chloromancer for healing if you were a mage. I loved their class design, I loved their flexible class system. I hated how they turned it into WOW 2.0, now with more Rifts!!! When it was originally heading in a more open and free direction. But they massively turned up the focus on dungeons and lost all that was special in that game for me. *cry* I still miss my saboteur .
Being pigeon-holed is a total turnoff to me. That's why CO is exciting and COX is intruiging for managing to build a class based system where, by the end of its life, you could play with any mix of any powersets of any Archetypes in a team and you would be fine with very few exceptions.
Namely, I'd love a game where roles can emerge from play. One of the things I _loved_ about CoX (and it's far better than CO in this regard) is how interesting grouping was. Getting a bunch of Defenders together, and finding the best way for the wildly different powersets to synergize well, the best strategies, was thrilling.
Exactly, I ran teams in COX for years and then let other people run teams when I got lazy in the following years. To have a flexible class based system where support was fun, CC was fun, tanking was fun, damage was fun, and end of life COX nobody was helpless. Everyone could solo. Albeit certain defenders couldn't solo as well as everyone else, but they could still solo.
I'd say that CO is shallower but more flexible than CoH.
Shallower, because CoH had a 5 year head start on creating costume parts. It doesn't help that Cryptic has spent the past year not doing much to catch up.
I 100% agree with you here.
More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO.
I actually disagree here. What if I wanted "Foo" Right and "Achoo" Left? While COX certainly gave people the freedom to make some pretty garish stuff, this comes to mind:
It gave that freedom and more flexibility with that. For every "oh dear god WHY!!!" that was created in that manner you had another guy who mixed many different parts into a costume that was like "I didn't know you could do that even!!". Like a guy who made a cyber robot dog because the goggles would show up underneath a helmet with a shield. So it looked like electronic eyes behind glass in a way the devs likely never intended.
That was part of the fun, creating things with your pile of legos . Even if it looked silly or bad sometimes. It's not all against CO though, yall really do have some cool stuff we never did.
And the ability to adjust difficulty in several dimensions (later in the dev cycle) for CoX made it relatively easy to tailor the experience to what you could handle.
Rift... well, I mean more the notion that you can have a thief tanker, or dps, or... That people can take different directions to some of the same 'roles.'
In GW2, there's the notion that every class gets a variety of controls, defenses, and healing. So you don't have (or need) a 'dedicated healer,' but someone can certainly focus more in that direction.
Or, heck, take a page from WAR or Vanguard, where roles got mixed. 'Every time I punch an enemy, my friends get healed' and similar.
I suppose one way to do that would be roles that added secondary effects, like 'I do damage AND it increases threat/debuffs the enemy/heals or buffs my friends/...'
Oh, and as for DCUO, it's very much worth playing. Briefly.
The UI is screamingly horrible, the lack of a brick powerset is baffling, and the way costumes work is weird.
But the flow of combat, the stories, and the graphics are amazing. (At least until the chat UI drives you to murder)
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
I actually disagree here. What if I wanted "Foo" Right and "Achoo" Left?
You're really saying you prefer a more narrow and less useful system? Because some people make bad designs with it?
It honestly sounds like you're purposely disagreeing with some positive things people are saying about Champs. I know it's not every time, but right here it really looks like it.
For powers, let me explain how things are all PLANNED to work. Remember, none of this is set in stone but it's what they are shooting for.
Copied from a post in the CoT Forums:
"From what I've seen, they're aiming for each character getting 2 8-power sets, plus access to 'pool' powers, including smaller versions of regular power sets. For example, I could make Shmor, God of Lighting as a War Mace/Invulnerability tank, and round him out with some powers from Electric Blast."
Dunno how travel powers will be implemented, but I assume they won't be taking up power slots like in CoH.
Also, as a way to communicate how powers will be done (For those of you who didn't check the forums)
The Planned ATs are:
Or for easier reading:
COMMANDER -- CROWD CONTROL
Brigadier -- Control / Assault
Director -- Control / Support
Executor -- Control / Ranged
OPERATOR -- PET SUMMONER
Engineer -- Pets / Support
Taskmaster -- Pets / Assault
Ringleader -- Pets / Manipulation
And lastly, another quote from the forums
"Sounds like somebody needs to explain how powers are going to work in the new game. What follows is not necessarily how it will be presented to players at character creation. But it is an explanation of how the fundamental assembly works, how it is different from CoH and how that changes possibilities and potential.
Basically, things have been broken up. A power set is now composed of three things: the Base, the Theme, and the Animation. All three can be mixed and matched with impunity. If you wanted, say, an electric powered brawler, you might pick a Brawl base (melee fists without martial arts finesse), an Electricity theme, and then an appropriate animation set. If you wanted a Light blaster, you might pick Pierced Range, a Light theme, and one of several Light based animations. Obviously none of the actual bases or themes are set in stone. And animations will continue to proliferate deliciously throughout the game. But it's good to understand this so you can brainstorm more effectively.
For example, yeah, we want Light stuff. That's probably a theme, but what sort of base might that fall under? How many ranged bases can you think of anyway? How to categorize Sonic? And as a theme, what would distinguish characteristics of a Light theme from others? A blind effect, or a burn? Or a mix? We could have sonic be the same as in CoH, or we could try to do better. It's a theme, but what does it do special? How many different things can it do?
How about bases in general? These will need to be chosen and designed right to create the kind of synergy and ever new feeling combinations we want. Is there just Hand to Hand melee, or should there be several sub-categories of that, with their own traits? Remember, animation is separate, it's not a trait. You could choose a martial arts animation for ANY base and theme combination that's hand to hand. So what makes it Martial Arts as a base? Ability to stun? Higher accuracy? Higher crit chance? How about Brawl? Could it have, perhaps, an intimidation effect proc due to its ferocious style, maybe, differentiating it as a base. That's the kind of thing we're looking for. It's different, yes, but the potential is mind boggling, or so I see it."
^ that is applicable to all powersets from what I know. As in, you customize how your primary looks and performs (Base/Theme/Animation for it), your secondary (different Base/Theme/Animation than primary), and each pool power (different Base/Theme/Animation for each one of a different pool)
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I actually disagree here. What if I wanted "Foo" Right and "Achoo" Left? While COX certainly gave people the freedom to make some pretty garish stuff, this comes to mind:
I fully enjoy the freedom CO allows to have Foo and Achoo featured right and left respectively. Sure, there is the risk of something looking absolutely horrible, but there is no freedom without risk. Heck, Foo and Achoo might actually look good together; you don't know until you try.
I'm sorry, but CO's costume creator frankly trumps CoH's in a lot of areas.
Hey, you sass that hoopy kojirohellfire? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.
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
You're really saying you prefer a more narrow and less useful system? Because some people make bad designs with it?
It honestly sounds like you're purposely disagreeing with some positive things people are saying about Champs. I know it's not every time, but right here it really looks like it.
It's a comment on preference ABOUT COSTUME DESIGN UI. For pities sake, it's just getting silly to get hostile over that. If me having a differing opinion is not ok then you're right. It's not that big a deal honestly even if it wasn't a misread. (see below)
Side note: Sorry Smackwell, I didn't realize there was cursing in that image or I wouldn't have uploaded it. I was poking some light fun at COH.
I fully enjoy the freedom CO allows to have Foo and Achoo featured right and left respectively. Sure, there is the risk of something looking absolutely horrible, but there is no freedom without risk. Heck, Foo and Achoo might actually look good together; you don't know until you try.
I'm sorry, but CO's costume creator frankly trumps CoH's in a lot of areas.
That's what I meant too lol, I misread your comment. "More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO." I read that as 3 separate parts from COH were combined into 1 single part in CO.
I only threw the picture in there as some COH depreciating humor. You can see by my response we are actually saying the same thing. I like more options. More options in costume design is always better and I've stated that before.
That's what I meant too lol, I misread your comment. "More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO."
That wasn't me who said that. That was sistersilicon.
Hmmm, I actually preffered COX's creator. To me it was better organized and had a little more personality/thematic stuff even though CO's seemed to have a larger scope.
Well, this is true.
Like I can find costumes and such that were definitely not in COX in any way, but it's also harder to adjust the textures on your costumes like you could on COX. As well, COX just seemed to have alot more variety overall. Likely from being around quite a long time. With good support no doubt CO would have had just as much.
This really isn't. I think you have the rose colored glasses on, Randell. I'm a die-hard CoX fan and even I have to admit that CO's costume generator has a MUCH wider variety. More colors than two available, more body parts to hold costumes, WAY more sliders and sliders that do way more (granted, some of them are...placed oddly). It's pretty much "CoX, the next step".
Edit: For example I could walk into COX with a concept of ok, I want to wear armor. Now I had a plethora of choices. Light, medium, heavy, leather, metal, robots of different kinds, steampunk, knight, tech, etc. And there would be multiple version of each or many things that I could pass off as fitting one of those. Sometimes I even made it work via something that shouldn't have and patterns/colors/etc. I just never got that same feeling with CO.
I honestly think you'd have to really sit down and look hard at both and combine the best of the two games.
You want it really up in your face? Go over to that Titan app that lets you create things under the final setting of CoX and try to recreate some of your CO characters. That really brought home how much more variety is in CO to me.
I don't know if it counts as costume, but another win for the CoX side is shields.
There ARE some shields (bucklers, that is) in CO, but due to specifics of models and placement they generally look bad.
While the Shield powerset wasn't the best (IMO) in CoX, it was a very welcome addition and range of cool costume options. (It also worked great in Architect for creating various fantasy or historic groups)
Oh, also, CoX had Architect. That... is a big plus.
See, personally, having a vastly involved costume system is awesome mainly if you can actually showcase your outfits in some way. Costume contests are ok, but... they don't feel meaningful. I mean, it's superhero cosplay (sorta). Very shallow.
Actually having a mission where different costumes come together is... thrilling. I had a fantasy Architect mission where there were rat-like 'kobolds,' dwarves, necromancers and evil knights with a consistent 'look,' and magitech troops.
Mind you, Cryptic's Foundry is far superior... but only available on the two games with much more restricted costuming. Mmph.
Though if CoT is going to do UGC, they really really REALLY need to get a good search UI designer. Foundry and Mission Architect suffer from massive problems in making missions accessible to an audience.
You need things like 'given how I've rated missions, match me with missions people have also rated highly,' or 'list missions my friends (or 'this specific list of people') have rated highly'.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
There ARE some shields (bucklers, that is) in CO, but due to specifics of models and placement they generally look bad.
This is true.....we need vastly improved shields. Shields were one of the few things that I think CoX did better (concerning costumes) than CO.....however, in my opinion, the CO costume creator is better overall.
Costume contests are ok, but... they don't feel meaningful. I mean, it's superhero cosplay (sorta). Very shallow.
Each to their own man....they're not supposed to be "meaningful". It's an MMO, not a Shakespeare play. The vast majority go to CCs to have fun, winning is secondary (but a nice recognition).
As for your remark that they are "superhero cosplay", well you're right.......and what's wrong with that? The look of a superhero is a huge part of what makes a superhero.
Batman, Superman and The Flash wouldn't be the same in track-suits. It's a huge part of what defines the genre and I, for one love making and showing off costumes and seeing the creations of others during CCs.
And "Very shallow" ??!! lol... if you want deep, go read Ulysses
Each to their own man....they're not supposed to be "meaningful". It's an MMO, not a Shakespeare play. The vast majority go to CCs to have fun, winning is secondary (but a nice recognition).
As for your remark that they are "superhero cosplay", well you're right.......and what's wrong with that? The look of a superhero is a huge part of what makes a superhero.
Batman, Superman and The Flash wouldn't be the same in track-suits. It's a huge part of what defines the genre and I, for one love making and showing off costumes and seeing the creations of others during CCs.
And "Very shallow" ??!! lol... if you want deep, go read Ulysses
I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying CCs are bad, what I'm saying is that when it's the only venue for costume design, it feels horribly limiting.
My _only_ recourse to showing any group of folks some of my cool costume ideas is a CC. And I hate that.
In other words, CO needs Foundry. So then you can have, for instance, multiple costumes creating atmosphere and theme, with an actual context to events.
There'd still be CCs, of course, and that's cool.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
OPERATOR -- PET SUMMONER
Engineer -- Pets / Support
Taskmaster -- Pets / Assault
Ringleader -- Pets / Manipulation
And lastly, another quote from the forums
^ that is applicable to all powersets from what I know. As in, you customize how your primary looks and performs (Base/Theme/Animation for it), your secondary (different Base/Theme/Animation than primary), and each pool power (different Base/Theme/Animation for each one of a different pool)
So does this setup allow one to use swords and guns or martial Arts and blast electricity
while still being able to regenerate or dodge with lighting reflexes?
I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying CCs are bad, what I'm saying is that when it's the only venue for costume design, it feels horribly limiting.
My _only_ recourse to showing any group of folks some of my cool costume ideas is a CC. And I hate that.
In other words, CO needs Foundry. So then you can have, for instance, multiple costumes creating atmosphere and theme, with an actual context to events.
There'd still be CCs, of course, and that's cool.
I recall CO having something to see all the various costumes of players on the website, and you could vote on them.
Comments
I'm guessing 'no,' but a man can dream...
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?
From what I understand, that is something that will either be at launch or very soon after.
One of the plans, was to release the base creator before the launch of the game, and those same tools you will use to create your superbase will be the ones used to generate your own missions. So yes, User generated content is part of it.
We'll see!
(UGC is the most interesting thing to me in MMO-dom, but unfortunately it's only been done a few times, with a variety of critical flaws)
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?
I think in the Kickstarter's text they mention that they want to build the tools to make the game with the intention, from the get-go, to allow players to use those same tools to create their own content. Instead of the alternative, which is to make the game, then create a new set of tools for players to use, which doesn't always come out great.
If it ever comes out at all... *glares at Jack Emmert*
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
But yes, the stand-alone base creator will have a lot of the same tools you'll have access to elsewhere.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
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I'm still trying to figure out if its the actual game that's coming out in 2015 or just the avatar builder.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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The game is tenatively targeting 2015, pending some huge issues with development (you never know). The avatar builder and base builder should both be out, as stand-alone releases, significantly in advance of the game itself.
I can't give a time window just yet for those two, but I'd be pretty surprised if they were both in 2015 as well. Just sayin'.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
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I actually loved a lot of those artists from the 90's Image.
I think that there is a pretty big difference between asking for outside investors to commit potentially millions of dollars to the development of a game with the expectation of a significant financial return on that investment and...
asking for interested fans of a particular game to pitch a few bucks each in the hopes that such will contribute to the production of a game that they can enjoy.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Yes, there's a difference in the sophistication and expectations of the investors; gamers are easier marks. It didn't look like they were limiting themselves to just asking for "a few bucks each" either. I hope those who dropped 5 figures can afford to do so and don't end up being disappointed.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
It's hard to tell. I mean people went crazy for the Occulus Rift but they also ran the risk it would be just another Virtual Boy. But still, the people who took the risk are the ones that made it happen and we all get to benefit from it.
We also don't know who dropped 5 figures, for all we know they make alot of money and that's chump change to them. I make perhaps $30,000 - $40,000 a year living alone and I dropped $150 on it because the superhero MMORPG genre doesn't have enough and I want to see what they can do. I'm ok with losing my investment, the point was never purely self-serving in the first place. The point is that we as gamers CAN make a difference. As I continue to get older the ability to make a difference seems more and more like a privilege I've neglected most of my life.
Maybe some of that difference will be here with this game, maybe not. We will see. But all the backers of that game are giving it the chance to do so, I don't think you can really ask for more when it has a reasonable chance of also paying off for you directly. Especially considering how much money the average person (including me at times) wastes on a daily basis.
Earlier i had expressed some concern that while cot may be successful, and be made and i hope it is successful, eventually mmos with large backers even shut down, servers aint free, i understand that, but im a little hesitent to get really involved in a game that depends on servers being up. in the other thread, someone mentioned that the pp team had said they were trying to make sure that if there was such a time that the game no longer could support the servers, there was a plan to make it playable offline. is this the case?
im donating either way, so this answer wont put me off, but if cot is a SAFE game where i wont lose several years work like i did with coh, , then all the better and i can relay this to other friends who are on the fence.
I can't say something concrete without potentially getting in trouble, since anything like a server shutdown would be weird to even consider before the game comes out, but yes. We know what the CoH community went through when that game shut down and we will have plans in place to keep the game alive if we end up unable to support it either financially or via personnel, years and years and years down the line if or when such a thing happens.
These plans are not finalized, but they exist, and we don't want anyone to lose access to a game they enjoy playing if we can possibly prevent it from happening, even if we can't maintain it any longer for some reason.
In my opinion, it would be nice if every MMO had some sort of plan like that. For the sake of the players, at least.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
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Much as I love watching the back and forth about the art style, especially as someone who was "out of the scene" for much of the 90s and has no skin in the game, as it were, I've yet to see this (the above quote) specifically addressed.
Many of the devs (both the MWM team and the former Paragon crew) have been clear, in other places, that no former Paragon Studios employees are directly involved in this, or any, project to make fan-developed super-powered MMO. That said, more than a few (I don't follow them all, so someone else can give an accurate count) have Tweeted support for the Kickstarter, and the Backers list includes some familiar names. Make of that what you will.
Part of the problem since December, 2012.
And a (mild) snark -- if CoH's closing didn't deliver a quick kick to anyone at Cryptic (save the HR department which hired some folks for STO and, IIRC, Neverwinter), I don't think any outside market force will.
On the other hand, we've seen more dev interaction with us over the last few weeks than we have over the last 6 months, so ... hopes springs eternal!
$350,000 (Achieved) = Android port of the Avatar builder
$400,000 = IOS port of the Avatar builder at launch
$450,000 = Mac OS version of the game at launch
:
Yeah. And it's not like people can't just go to Kickstarter and type in "City of Titans" and get the project.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Now why does that sound familier, oh yes.
cloud flight, magic carpet flight, earth flight, flying disk,
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But of course, they would be foolish not to take good lessons from CO and some of the things it did right. CO is a good game with many strengths and many lessons. Also, they kind of wanted to do alot of those things in COX but it was pretty hard to with what they had to work with from what I understand. Instead they remarkably diversified in power set.
I gotta give props to CO though, logic be danged I LOVE swinging through the air on my grapple line more than I should. Even though it's second rate usability wise to many other travel powers it's got first rate cool factor
Personally I hope they take the best of travel powers from both COX and CO to make a travel power suite to drool from. For instance I like Super Jump from COX, but CO has alot more options and generally did them well. (I didn't like the super jump in CO, I think the massive ground shake when I hit made using it less fun for some reason)
http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/city-of-titans-kickstarter-interview/
Another travel-related lesson from DCUO would be to expand travel abilities to actual power suites -- things like 'wing buffet' help make travel powers feel like a credible part of the character rather than 'oh, I guess I fly and stuff.'
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?
I would highlight that riding clouds and flying carpets are hardly original ideas.
Yeah, CoH was absolutely terrible in utilizing travel powers in combat. Kudos to CoT if they handle it like CO.
Character creation.
Fast-paced combat.
Things to do like CoX;
Diverse powersets that work in different roles
Good Writing
Things to do like DCU:
Be an online MMORPG
We're using the same engine that DCUO uses (Unreal 3) so stuff like running on walls is totally doable. I don't think I'm allowed to say more than that right now? But. Well, it would be silly to not do something a lot of people want if we're able to do it.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Art, Animation, and Stuff:
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Can you elaborate on the the handling of travel powers in combat? To the best of my knowledge both essentially drain your power but it's much harder to escape combat quickly in CO than it was COH.
I must be forgetting something and I'd really like to know what it is
Hmmm, I actually preffered COX's creator. To me it was better organized and had a little more personality/thematic stuff even though CO's seemed to have a larger scope. Like I can find costumes and such that were definitely not in COX in any way, but it's also harder to adjust the textures on your costumes like you could on COX. As well, COX just seemed to have alot more variety overall. Likely from being around quite a long time. With good support no doubt CO would have had just as much.
Edit: For example I could walk into COX with a concept of ok, I want to wear armor. Now I had a plethora of choices. Light, medium, heavy, leather, metal, robots of different kinds, steampunk, knight, tech, etc. And there would be multiple version of each or many things that I could pass off as fitting one of those. Sometimes I even made it work via something that shouldn't have and patterns/colors/etc. I just never got that same feeling with CO.
I honestly think you'd have to really sit down and look hard at both and combine the best of the two games.
Keeping the fast paced combat and defined roles additionally would be very difficult to do together I think. Part of what kills defined roles IS fast paced combat. Support and Tanking done with worth and variety really needs a little time to play out.
As I remember it (and it's been a LONG time since I played CoH, since I really didn't like the f2p system), in CoH you were boned trying to use most travel powers in combat.
I mean, I had a rad/rad Defender (Doc Wormwood, with the healing power of ATOMICS) who had Hover simply so I could actually fly in combat without being hosed. And it still wasn't fun.
In CO, you slow down a lot in combat, but many characters can be built to suck up the drain. More than that, there are a number of abilities that make travel powers useful in combat (either entering it, defending, or whatever).
And maybe I'm remembering wrong, but in CoX didn't travel powers toggle off during combat? Maybe I'm remembering an older iteration.
I don't recall which game was easier to evade combat in. Again, been way too long. But ease of escape is very much a stylistic decision/taste issue. One thing CO does nicely is a bunch of powers having stealth components, so you can avoid boring fights.
Though I _vastly_ prefer CoX's teleport system. It actually feels like... teleport. Mind you, if it were up to me, I'd have BOTH systems, with CoX's 'Teleport' and CO's version called 'Phasing' or something.
Mind you, I prefer DCUO over both systems. You can easily leave Flight on all the time, if you prefer.
(Edit: that is, I prefer DCUO's handling of this particular issue. I am much less fond of how few travel powers DCUO has)
That is very much a taste thing. I can be a frog-headed robot with angel wings and a guitar in CO. And there are a lot of armors, from medieval to insect to...
As I've said before, CoX relied a lot more on texturing, particularly with faces. That's one area where CO's system has problems (though that might be due to lack of development of meshes or something?)
Mainly, wildly grinning old guy in CoX was doable. In CO... it's painfully... not very.
But, despite all the advantages I think CO has, you have things like... auras. Really? We're how many years in?
Agreed. I've very often said 'I wish I could take a bunch of MMOs and run them through a blender.'
I think actually CoT would be best off looking at _completely different_ games, like GW2 and, oh, Rift, where roles are fluid and can change easily.
Namely, I'd love a game where roles can emerge from play. One of the things I _loved_ about CoX (and it's far better than CO in this regard) is how interesting grouping was. Getting a bunch of Defenders together, and finding the best way for the wildly different powersets to synergize well, the best strategies, was thrilling.
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?
And Iron Wing, inventor with a bird fetish.
And of course Happifun Security System X-4, an experimental security robot designed by a toy company.
And those are just from my mind, because I have certain things I think look good. You really out to have a look around the various threads down in Costumes and Concepts, especially those done by Bluhman and Slapperfish.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Shallower, because CoH had a 5 year head start on creating costume parts. It doesn't help that Cryptic has spent the past year not doing much to catch up.
More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Ahh, that explains it, you used fly. Fly was the only travel power to use enough endurance to impact you really. So if you used it in combat youd run out of juice pretty easily. IIRC everything had a short travel power suppression I think for when YOU attacked, but you could turn it on and bail pretty quickly after a moment at full speed. In CO the damage enemies do to you keep you suppressed. (which makes it annoying to travel in CO at times)
The big reason you didn't see many people using travel powers in combat though was Fly and SuperJump both added a combat power to give you combat movement and a tiny amount of defense for trivial amounts of endurance. Hover and combat jumping for those two. None for superspeed (it got other pool powers instead) and teleportation got utility powers instead of a combat varient but was still highly used for combat by some builds, especially rock armor tankers.
Ugh, that's prolly the only thing in CO that actually made me wince. I can't stand callling that teleport.
I guess I should try DCUO one day. Will the bad game shock kill me lol?
Oof , not rift. I would prefer either COX or CO to that for PVE. It was very quickly hashed out which classes you could chose were best and they would put alot of pressure on you to be those. Like Pyromancer for DPS or Chloromancer for healing if you were a mage. I loved their class design, I loved their flexible class system. I hated how they turned it into WOW 2.0, now with more Rifts!!! When it was originally heading in a more open and free direction. But they massively turned up the focus on dungeons and lost all that was special in that game for me. *cry* I still miss my saboteur
Being pigeon-holed is a total turnoff to me. That's why CO is exciting and COX is intruiging for managing to build a class based system where, by the end of its life, you could play with any mix of any powersets of any Archetypes in a team and you would be fine with very few exceptions.
Exactly, I ran teams in COX for years and then let other people run teams when I got lazy in the following years. To have a flexible class based system where support was fun, CC was fun, tanking was fun, damage was fun, and end of life COX nobody was helpless. Everyone could solo. Albeit certain defenders couldn't solo as well as everyone else, but they could still solo.
I 100% agree with you here.
I actually disagree here. What if I wanted "Foo" Right and "Achoo" Left? While COX certainly gave people the freedom to make some pretty garish stuff, this comes to mind:
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the PWE Community Rules and Policies -Smackwell
It gave that freedom and more flexibility with that. For every "oh dear god WHY!!!" that was created in that manner you had another guy who mixed many different parts into a costume that was like "I didn't know you could do that even!!". Like a guy who made a cyber robot dog because the goggles would show up underneath a helmet with a shield. So it looked like electronic eyes behind glass in a way the devs likely never intended.
That was part of the fun, creating things with your pile of legos
Rift... well, I mean more the notion that you can have a thief tanker, or dps, or... That people can take different directions to some of the same 'roles.'
In GW2, there's the notion that every class gets a variety of controls, defenses, and healing. So you don't have (or need) a 'dedicated healer,' but someone can certainly focus more in that direction.
Or, heck, take a page from WAR or Vanguard, where roles got mixed. 'Every time I punch an enemy, my friends get healed' and similar.
I suppose one way to do that would be roles that added secondary effects, like 'I do damage AND it increases threat/debuffs the enemy/heals or buffs my friends/...'
Oh, and as for DCUO, it's very much worth playing. Briefly.
The UI is screamingly horrible, the lack of a brick powerset is baffling, and the way costumes work is weird.
But the flow of combat, the stories, and the graphics are amazing. (At least until the chat UI drives you to murder)
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?
You're really saying you prefer a more narrow and less useful system? Because some people make bad designs with it?
It honestly sounds like you're purposely disagreeing with some positive things people are saying about Champs. I know it's not every time, but right here it really looks like it.
Copied from a post in the CoT Forums:
Dunno how travel powers will be implemented, but I assume they won't be taking up power slots like in CoH.
Also, as a way to communicate how powers will be done (For those of you who didn't check the forums)
The Planned ATs are:
Or for easier reading:
COMMANDER -- CROWD CONTROL
Brigadier -- Control / Assault
Director -- Control / Support
Executor -- Control / Ranged
RANGER -- RANGED DAMAGE
Hunter -- Ranged / Manipulation
Partisan -- Ranged / Support
Gunner -- Ranged / Defense
GUARDIAN -- BUFF / DEBUFF
Sentinel -- Support / Ranged
Warden -- Support / Manipulation
Vindicator -- Support / Assault
ENFORCER -- MELEE DAMAGE
Gladiator -- Melee / Defense
Striker -- Melee / Manipulation
Bodyguard -- Melee / Support
STALWART -- TANK
Bulwark -- Defense / Melee
Centurion -- Defense / Manipulation
Bastion -- Defense / Assault
OPERATOR -- PET SUMMONER
Engineer -- Pets / Support
Taskmaster -- Pets / Assault
Ringleader -- Pets / Manipulation
And lastly, another quote from the forums
^ that is applicable to all powersets from what I know. As in, you customize how your primary looks and performs (Base/Theme/Animation for it), your secondary (different Base/Theme/Animation than primary), and each pool power (different Base/Theme/Animation for each one of a different pool)
I fully enjoy the freedom CO allows to have Foo and Achoo featured right and left respectively. Sure, there is the risk of something looking absolutely horrible, but there is no freedom without risk. Heck, Foo and Achoo might actually look good together; you don't know until you try.
I'm sorry, but CO's costume creator frankly trumps CoH's in a lot of areas.
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Hey, you sass that hoopy kojirohellfire? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
It's a comment on preference ABOUT COSTUME DESIGN UI. For pities sake, it's just getting silly to get hostile over that. If me having a differing opinion is not ok then you're right. It's not that big a deal honestly even if it wasn't a misread. (see below)
Side note: Sorry Smackwell, I didn't realize there was cursing in that image or I wouldn't have uploaded it. I was poking some light fun at COH.
That's what I meant too lol, I misread your comment. "More flexible, because there are more types of parts, more colors per part, and has asymmetry built into the engine, so what might have been three separate "Foo Left", "Foo Right", and "Foo Both" parts in CoH is just a single "Foo" part in CO." I read that as 3 separate parts from COH were combined into 1 single part in CO.
I only threw the picture in there as some COH depreciating humor. You can see by my response we are actually saying the same thing. I like more options. More options in costume design is always better and I've stated that before.
That's good information right there
That wasn't me who said that. That was sistersilicon.
Well, this is true.
This really isn't. I think you have the rose colored glasses on, Randell. I'm a die-hard CoX fan and even I have to admit that CO's costume generator has a MUCH wider variety. More colors than two available, more body parts to hold costumes, WAY more sliders and sliders that do way more (granted, some of them are...placed oddly). It's pretty much "CoX, the next step".
You want it really up in your face? Go over to that Titan app that lets you create things under the final setting of CoX and try to recreate some of your CO characters. That really brought home how much more variety is in CO to me.
There ARE some shields (bucklers, that is) in CO, but due to specifics of models and placement they generally look bad.
While the Shield powerset wasn't the best (IMO) in CoX, it was a very welcome addition and range of cool costume options. (It also worked great in Architect for creating various fantasy or historic groups)
Oh, also, CoX had Architect. That... is a big plus.
See, personally, having a vastly involved costume system is awesome mainly if you can actually showcase your outfits in some way. Costume contests are ok, but... they don't feel meaningful. I mean, it's superhero cosplay (sorta). Very shallow.
Actually having a mission where different costumes come together is... thrilling. I had a fantasy Architect mission where there were rat-like 'kobolds,' dwarves, necromancers and evil knights with a consistent 'look,' and magitech troops.
Mind you, Cryptic's Foundry is far superior... but only available on the two games with much more restricted costuming. Mmph.
Though if CoT is going to do UGC, they really really REALLY need to get a good search UI designer. Foundry and Mission Architect suffer from massive problems in making missions accessible to an audience.
You need things like 'given how I've rated missions, match me with missions people have also rated highly,' or 'list missions my friends (or 'this specific list of people') have rated highly'.
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?
This is true.....we need vastly improved shields. Shields were one of the few things that I think CoX did better (concerning costumes) than CO.....however, in my opinion, the CO costume creator is better overall.
Each to their own man....they're not supposed to be "meaningful". It's an MMO, not a Shakespeare play. The vast majority go to CCs to have fun, winning is secondary (but a nice recognition).
As for your remark that they are "superhero cosplay", well you're right.......and what's wrong with that? The look of a superhero is a huge part of what makes a superhero.
Batman, Superman and The Flash wouldn't be the same in track-suits. It's a huge part of what defines the genre and I, for one love making and showing off costumes and seeing the creations of others during CCs.
And "Very shallow" ??!! lol... if you want deep, go read Ulysses
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
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I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying CCs are bad, what I'm saying is that when it's the only venue for costume design, it feels horribly limiting.
My _only_ recourse to showing any group of folks some of my cool costume ideas is a CC. And I hate that.
In other words, CO needs Foundry. So then you can have, for instance, multiple costumes creating atmosphere and theme, with an actual context to events.
There'd still be CCs, of course, and that's cool.
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?
So does this setup allow one to use swords and guns or martial Arts and blast electricity
while still being able to regenerate or dodge with lighting reflexes?
Or is it limited like CoH was?
I recall CO having something to see all the various costumes of players on the website, and you could vote on them.