Anti_Proton

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project

I didn't say we have a flood of dueling trolls, I said the people that want open world PvP are the ones who would make pests of themselves. "Dueling trolls" would not limit themselves to simply spamming someone with demands to duel, they'd also go out of their way to disrupt costume contests and social events. They'd fight in Wentworth's/Black Market, around trainers, Icon/Facemakers, University, npc stores, Pocket D.

Now it's remotely possible that some of the open world PvPers wouldn't act like this but I'm not betting on it.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project

The people that want an open world PvP are the ones who would be doing exactly that.

Originally Posted by kusanagi

1 Griefer flags himself for PVP
2 Griefer goes around looking for non-flagged PCs until he finds one that's hunting mobs in the street.
3 Griefer pays attention to attack chain, then jumps into the mob just before the unflagged PC fires an AoE/cone attack.
4 Unflagged PC's attack damages Griefer.
5 Griefer gleefully stomps on the PC, then returns to 2).

/unsigned.

Originally Posted by Lemur Lad

This is the only thing in the entire post I'll take issue with MB.

We already instantly show up somewhere else and displace whatever is there. Air is less dense than water sure, but what about Tele-attacks? We're displacing living critters which in some cases are more dense.

Other than this, your post is spot on I think.

Originally Posted by Lothic

At this point there's yet another reason why this game getting its own underwater zone would be unlikely.
I can describe that reason with one word: Lemuria.

If you don't know what I'm talking about go ahead and google it with the following phrase: "Lemuria Champions Online".
Once you do you'll realize it'll just look like this game is trying to play "catch-up" to an inferior game.

Originally Posted by Agonus

Here's a pic I found googling that shows how I'd like to a see a CGI Voltron. A nice take on the iconic look that's not quite as boxy-looking.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

It's really a personal thing. I could go on explaining where I draw the line, but it really isn't a very interesting read. My solution has been, as you put it, to simply play more fantastic origins, and it's worked to my benefit. Turns out that's what I like most of all anyway, and if it took a game FORCING me to embrace it for me to realise that, then oh well

And I really don't want to take away from anybody else's fun. Your characters, your call, none of my business. Long as it works for you, I'm all the happier for it.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

That's actually something I've been meaning to comment on, as it's a decision I had to make a LONG time ago. Once upon a time back in 2004, I made a collection of "natural human" characters (or rather, one concept I kept remaking) that I was trying to make something decent out of. Thing is, I'd never gotten above level 20 at the time, so I didn't know much of anything of what I'll be facing later on. All I'd seen was thugs and occasionally cultists.

Then I brought the titular Samuel Tow to 50 and started looking for a new character to play. At the time, I had Crash, the latest incarnation of my "natural human" concept. When I sat down and tried to imagine what she'd be doing at level 50, however... I realised that I could never work with such a concept. At level 50, we fight giant robots, space aliens with plasma rifles, giant monsters and actual super villains. For Samuel Tow, taking out a Zeus or even a Kronos Titan solo wasn't much of a stretch as I'd written him. He's basically a cheat mode super (hence why I try to avoid using him in stories if I can) and it made sense he'd be able to cap one of these things single-handedly without much effort.

For Crash, though, it just didn't make any sense. Originally, she was just a rugged martial artist, but simple skilled martial artists don't punch through tank armour, don't jump 50 feet straight up and don't survive missile swarms to the face. I mean, you can invent some kind of chi defence and mystical super strength miracle excuse, but then you stop being a natural human as such and go into over superheroics anyway. So I retconned her into a Battle Angel Alita inspired super strong, indestructible cyborg for whom it WOULD make sense to jump 50 feet straight up to the top of a Kronos Titan and then proceed to punch straight through its armour and pierce its internal power system for massive damage.

I really don't think the game leaves much room for "natural human" concepts, not considering what we fight at level 50. Again - Indiana Jones does not brawl a War Walker to death. He usually runs away from these. It'd be like him trying to stop that iconic boulder with his bare hands. I know this is just my opinion and other people have made and will make natural humans, but for me, the entire game's power level is just too high for humans who are simply very tough or highly skilled. You need actual super powers to survive as we do in this game.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

More to point:

I just ran across a War Walker. You know those things just hanging on a conveyor belt in the mission with Metronome? I thought they were just for show, but no! I actually ran across one in the mission against Nightstar, and that thing... Is... AMAZING! Huge like I couldn't believe (bigger than a Zeus Titan!), and equipped with what I can only describe as "awesome" attacks. I didn't see it fire its guns much, but I did see it throw quite a few VERY heavy punches. Heavy enough to leave massive cracks in the ground, shake my camera and totally blow me away. That War Walker looked heavy, and in everything it did, it FELT heavy. Even when it died and collapsed to its knees, THAT shook the screen!

Here I am talking about "big explosions" and I haven't even seen the most impressive standard enemy (boss class) in the game? Holy hell! I want one of these! No, scratch that, I want to BE one of these! Pretty please?

Originally Posted by ChrisMoses

Juggernaut needed some humility.

Originally Posted by je_saist

Technically. Yes.

Such physics collection features are already implemented in major commercial engine packages such as the Unreal Engine, Source Engine, Frostbite, and IDTech5. Hardware acceleration support for such physics collision is already exposed under major 3rd party physics engines like Intel Havok, Nvidia PhysX, and BulletPhysics.

There's also a reason why the largest multiplayer maps supported by these commercial engines generally max around 64players, with most only limiting play to 32players. Tracking all of that collision data consumes a large chunk of network bandwidth.

The current record-holder for most number of players online in a sustained fight, Planetside, could support around 400 players (133*3) engaged in active combat. Managing that many players, however, required significant limitations to player animations, player designs, and limited hit-detection boxes. Even then, Planetside was largely unplayable on anything slower than a DSL connection.

Sony's M.A.G. made waves for itself by being the first shooter since Planetside to support greater than 64 players in a match, offering support up to 256 players. Even then, if you actually watch somebody PLAYING M.A.G., you'd be forgiven for noticing that the game world is actually pretty barren with limited hit detections and possible game interactions to shave off on bandwidth requirements.

So yes, a physics enabled system could be done, but it would require a significant amount of processing power on the client-side, a significant amount of processing power on the server side, and a significant amount of network bandwidth to manage collision detection.

For these performance reasons, it is highly unlikely that we will see a true grapple set even if NCSoft decides to move on a CoH2 game. Given the way the Internet itself is trending back towards the AOL style lock out, with major ISP's like Comcast, AT&T, and even Verizon looking to implement non-neutral pathing and premium connection filtering, it's doubtful that, at least in the US, that the network bandwidth to support a fully physics enabled collision system will ever be available for the average consumer to buy.

So. If you want a CoH with a true grapple set, lean on your congressman in the upcoming election season(s) to support Net Neutrality: No premium paths. Treat Data as Data. No forced filtering tiers.