Cantatus

Ex Libris, is Manticore coming too? (Not sure if he's still even working on CoH, to be honest, since he's shy.) And, if not, who's in charge of CoH's lore nowadays?

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Considering it's pretty much the same people running the show I don't see there being too many negative changes.

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My concern is that it'll turn into SWG all over again. Publishers, so far, in my experience are more interested in getting bullet point features onto their marketting promotions and on packaging as possible rather than actually adding features that are of use and are of a high quality. Take a look at SWG and its development history, it has alot of 'features' but their half broken and the publishers didn't care because in the end it looks good from a marketting angle.

Cryptic have proven themselves to have the attitude that if something is to be done, then it HAS to be done well. That kind of attitude is why I'd give any game they made a decent look because thats how games should be made. However NCSoft is a complete unknown except for Tabula Rasa which I have seen first hand and it smells of the same kind of attitude which dragged SWG into the gutter. Lots of features, not polished and features added which don't actually improve the experience for the player.

While the development control is with the devs still the choices in where the budget is spent and where deadlines are made is more firmly in the hands of the publisher now, not the dev team.

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The thing this keeps calling back to mind for me is EverQuest. EQ originally launched with Verant Interactive as their developer with SOE publishing. A couple years after release, Verant was absorbed by SOE, giving them full control of EQ. Looking back at this event, most fans of EverQuest regard it as when things started going wrong with the game. The first expansion they launched is still largely thought of as one of the worst, which is mostly due to SOE forcing it out the doors early to ensure a pre-Christmas release, and future expansions tended to follow that model. Even worse, it seemed like SOE only looked at EQ in terms of what would make them money rather than what would be good for the game. This resulted in things like the much bemoaned Legends server and the Legacy of Ykesha "extension" (which was akin to charging $22 for an Issue). Of course, it's also worth noting that many of the heavyweights behind EQ's creation started leaving after the merge as well.

That's partially why I can't be completely optimistic about the changing of the guard.

To be fair, I do realize Cryptic and NCSoft are completely different companies, and it's unfair to judge them in the light of the mistakes that SOE made. It's entirely possible NCSoft will keep their mitts off the game and let the former Cryptic employees keep this game going in a positive direction. At the same time, I can't shake thinking of the possibility that NCSoft will start poaching this game's talents to use on whatever other big MMOG they have in their back pocket that'll be the "Next Big Thing (TM) - like they did with CuppaJo, Cricket, etc. What assurances do we have that, in three months, they won't have moved War Witch, Castle, and Back Alley Brawler to Lineage III or whatever?

Too early to proclaim DOOOOM, but I'll remain cautiously optimistic, but excited to see where this pushes the game. (Hopefully we see some new expansions and merchandise!)

I'd love to see the Accolades change. I've always found it quite ridiculous that my friend and I can have the same Accolade powers, but she can use them at 30 and I can't use them below 30 purely because of when we got them.

Not only that, but it discourages people from getting badges in the actual course of the game, but to go out of their way to get them as soon as they are available to ensure they get the most use out of them.

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One point I have yet to see mention is who the blonde undercover chick was that worked with Manticore. I'm thinking Swan, based off the blonde hair and her links with Manticore in our reality.

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Cisne is Spanish for Swan.

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Ok, read 10 pages... anyone else notice the discrepancy between "third anniversary" and "four years ago"? Or are they saying that the pandemic didn't start until a year after the virus was discovered? Or is it just a result of the timeline being messed up?

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I imagine it's a case of the virus being contained or just not as widespread for the first year.

And looking at TayJK's list, we can see a lot of things that further back up Warcabbit's theory. Just look at how many of those are hostages you rescue in a mission. If our characters never existed, those people never would've been rescued. Even Katie Hannon fits into this as you have to free her soul in her TF. Of course, I'm doubting all of these people died from the Outbreak plague, but the side articles doesn't necessarily say that that is the case.


However, one thing throws a wrench in this theory: Statesman. How is he free to deliver a remembrance speech during the vigil if I was never around to rescue him from Tyrant?

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Indeed. It states clearly that Jenkins was captured, and that no cure was found for the plague. You get the cure in the last mission in Outbreak, and you rescue Jenkins in the last mission in Breakout.

This is Paragon... without _you_.

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By george, I think you've got it!

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That reference to the 'widow of Doctor Greg Miller'? Well, Dr. Miller is the second person you talk to in the Outbreak mission. He's the one who sends you off on the rest of the missions.

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You're right. And on the villain side, Hard Time is the first contact you talk to and Angel Lopez is one of the second ones. They're also the only two villains who are mentioned as dying in the raid. Jimmy Dortz, the other of the two you're directed to, is oddly enough listed in the "We Remember" section.

Remember Vanguard's warnings in the comic? I definitely think this will have something to do with Arachnos and not Nemesis (unfortunately). Edit: Or this is the 5th's way of returning?

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Also, the issue of the newspaper is Issue 11. Nice.

I am further venturing that there is something to taking a level 50 character and being able to play the game all over again with that character.

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I was thinking of something similar. You hit 50 and then you get to play Game B.

I actually suggested something like this a couple years ago (although my version was to a dimension ruled by Talos where you started in Peregrine and worked back to Atlas to fight him ). Considering how the instancing of zones work, it's very workable for them to have two versions of Talos (normal and Game B) exist simultaneously.

Either that or they've approached Flashback from a drastically different angle. Rather than going back and playing missions you've completed, you hop to a different timeline and are able to participate in the content in a very different manner.

Whatever it is, this is some of the best hyping that's been done for an issue in recent times.

Oooh, for the finale, you guys should have every zone being invaded at once! *grin*

Would be cool for them to host another chat. I don't think they've done that in quite a while.

Very cool! That's gotta get people interested!

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If I recall, the vote was phrased along the lines of "Would you use a CoH Myspace?"

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That was the great misconception that Ex Libris even had to post to clarify. She stated that is the question people THOUGHT was being asked, but it wasn't. The question was "Do you use Myspace?"

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The misconception was that people thought the question was, "Do you think we should make a CoH Myspace?"

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WOW.... I have to admit I have never seen so many people get in a tissy over a myspace page. Libris actually has a point.. 20 or so people venting about how MySpace is horrible is not going to override the majority.

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Majority? I thought when there was a poll about the Myspace, a majority voted down the idea. I'd link it, but of course that stuff has all been purged from the forums as far as I can tell. (Shocking.)

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They didn't ask then. They said "We're doing this, what do you think." It wasn't a vote, it was a declaration.

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I didn't say they asked. If I recall, the vote was phrased along the lines of "Would you use a CoH Myspace?" which most people voted that they wouldn't, and it started far more complaining than we're seeing now, at which point we were told it didn't matter because they were doing it regardless.

Meh, at this point, I don't care. I said my piece last time and it wasn't listened to (nothing done with the front page, which I believe they said they'd look into last time around), which I imagine is also why a lot of other people aren't complaining this time around either, 300 friends or not. It didn't do us any good last time around, so why bother now?

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WOW.... I have to admit I have never seen so many people get in a tissy over a myspace page. Libris actually has a point.. 20 or so people venting about how MySpace is horrible is not going to override the majority.

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Majority? I thought when there was a poll about the Myspace, a majority voted down the idea. I'd link it, but of course that stuff has all been purged from the forums as far as I can tell. (Shocking.)

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Let me get this straight. This poll was open for less than 1 day?

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No kidding. For something that's supposed to take what the players want into consideration, they're seriously limiting themselves to a tiny fraction of the playerbase, which makes me question how much our opinions matter on this at all.

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I think player created content can be GREAT...if it's handled correctly.

The problem with OK'ing submissions is partially an issue because of manpower. Depending on the number of submissions, you'd need people entirely devoted to reviewing, approving and ultimately putting that stuff into the game. That's not trivial, to be honest, when dealing with 100,000+ subscribers.

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Is that necessarily something that needs to be done though? As far as I know, Ring of Ryzom just implements what people make automatically (sort of like how I don't need my base reviewed before it's created). They just get around the possible exploits people could make by having there be absolutely no rewards. If something like this was implemented, obviously you guys would have to go the same route as it'd be too easy to set up farming missions or a chain of missions with only a couple mobs so people can rank up mission bonus exp.

Of course, the other way of doing this would be to cut out the middleman some and let it be judged by players. Go with the above, but also add a system where players can vote on each mission they try based on various parameters (story, creativity, difficulty, etc.) and then, at the end of the month, you guys take maybe the top 50 and decide which of those, if any, make it into the game. Still requires some oversight on your part, but not nearly as much as if thousands of submissions had to be judged.

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We've always talked about ways to get player material into the game...imagine using the base creator tools to make your own missions! Or a your own training room? Maybe some day we can figure a way to put this stuff into the game. The imagination just on these forums alone is so amazing; I can only hope we find a way an outlet for it.

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That'd sure make an interesting contest. *hint hint*

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Jack Emmert has stated in the past that he feels player-created content is a red herring because most players don't have the talent for creating good content. He wasn't slamming players; just acknowledging the fact that most of us don't have great plotting/writing skills.

In theory, the idea is wonderful. In practice, you have to assume that every player who builds custom content is doing so in order to benefit himself. "If my supergroup does this content 100 times, we'll all be level 50 with a full compelement of IOs!"

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Judging by mods community (for games like WarCraft, Counter Strike, etc.), players themselves have a way of separating the good from the bad. The good mods gain the most notoriety and popularity and are the ones players seek out to play. There have been some exceptional mods made for various games, and I've no doubt we'd see the same for player created missions.

Of course, I think this, in itself, is somewhat of a red herring. If players have fun creating the content, does it matter how enjoyable the mission itself is? One of the most pervasive philosophies of CoH seems to be "If it's fun, do it!" We say that about powersets and builds and doing certain missions and getting badges. Why go in the opposite direction regarding this? If I spend 100 hours having fun building a mission that few people play, isn't it still successful in the fact that I spent potentially several weeks having a blast putting it together?

Wonder how many submissions there would have been had Hypercomics worked for everyone...

Yes, I'm still bitter.

Yay, thanks for the Paragon Times article! Made my day!

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I finished my comic four days after the contest was announced.

I couldn't get it uploaded in time due to bugs and problems every day I tried.

I've given up and don't care anymore. If I can't even submit the [censored] thing, it must not be any good anyway.

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Ouch, that sucks. Guess it's a little comforting to know I wasn't the only one who got screwed by the program, heh.

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An old friend returns as an enemy.

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Zeb Cook?

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Lol!

Let me first start off by saying:


AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!


/charliebrownoff

Worked on my comic pretty much every free moment I had over the past week, including getting up early and staying up late, not to mention working on it a lot last week. Being the perfectionist I am, I decide to make sure everything is just right before I submit it, which I try... only to get an error - PDF Writer and GhostScript need to be installed. Ok, I think, it's a minor set back. Maybe I need to reinstall the program. Nope, no luck. Try again. Nada. Maybe I can download the programs independently of Comic Book Creator? Tried and failed. Maybe I can try a different PDF writer? I saw someone suggest CutePDF. Still nothing. By that point, I'd spent at least 3-4 hours trying to get the program to work, and with two hours left until the deadline, I decide my best bet is to just move to the other computer we have and try it from there.

I download it again, and with the way the product is set up, I have to put every picture I used and then pretty much recompile my entire comic. Not a huge issue, I know where everything goes, but the clock is ticking. I get everything in place and am happy with it... hit publish. Yay, no error stating I need to install these programs.

What do I get instead!? An error stating that the program cannot connect to the Hypercomics website.

I turn off my firewall and try again. Nothing! Ran out of options, and at the deadline, pretty much watched all my hard work go down the drain. If I didn't know better, I'd say Micah from Heroes has an entry in the contest and just did everything in his power to make sure I couldn't enter. Since I do know better, I'll just rank it up with it being a shoddy product. If this was supposed to promote the Comic Book Creator, it did the exact opposite for me, especially seeing that I was barely the only person to have issues with it (although a lot of people were more fortunate and able to resolve their issues).

I will say, I had a lot of fun doing the contest, and it was well put together. Kudos to Lighthouse for that, and especially for getting such an incredibly prize line-up together. Hopefully the next contest won't be linked to a product like this, because I really wish I could've entered, and now I'm just frustrated that I can't even show it to my great friend who helped me so much with it.

Oh well, nothing I can do at this point except vent and glower at my computer. Good luck to those that were able to enter.

Every time I try to publish my comic to HyperComics, I get an error stating that I need PDF Writer and GhostScript installed. I've gone through the installer a few times (and done "Install PDF Writer") with no luck whatsoever. Anyone have a similar problem and know how to fix it?

Oh whew, these aren't the pictures of me that Ex_Libris promised not to post.