Chase_Arcanum

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For a long time, people have been discussing alter egos and origin stories. Today, I would like to introduce:

The Back Story Power Pools

Back Story Power Pools are Power Pools available at a level 4 (or some other very early level). These powers represent the experiences that a character has had in their life previous to becoming a hero/villain that have shaped how they approach the Herculean task of changing the world.

Back Story Power Pools (from here on referred to as BSPPs) provide benefits to the players that enhance the experience of the world of CoX without altering the strategies of fighting or detracting from those who choose not to use them.

The restrictions for picking Power Pool Powers still apply. You still need to have 1 or 2 to pick 3, and two powers to pick 4.
Here are some examples of ideas.

Rogue
Even before you began your official career in Paragon City/The Rogue Isles, you led a disreputable life. Whether you were a high profile hit man or a self righteous pick pocket, you understand how complicated crimes work.
1) Pilfer – Your hands are faster than most people’s eyes, allowing you to grab and hide objects at incredible speeds. Due to this, your interruption time for mission related objects is lowered 20%.
2) Eavesdrop – Your ear is constantly to the ground on the subject of big crimes. You know when they are going to happen before anyone else. You must complete one less newspaper/radio mission before unlocking a Safeguard/Mayhem mission.
3) Criminal Efficiency - Every second is an opportunity to either slip up or hit it big. You value these seconds, and make the most of them. When you enter a Safeguard/Mayhem Mission, your team immediately gets a 2 Minute bonus. This power may only be stacked once.
4) Blueprint Knowledge – A good rogue knows the area before attempting to get anything out of it. You are the best warrior you know, and glowing mission objectives appear on your map when you enter the mission.
Obviously, the purpose of the Rogue Power Pool is to increase one’s enjoyment of the newspaper/radio missions. This can be great for those that don’t like the story of CoX and just want to play.

Student
You may have been a college student. You may have been a religious scholar. In the grand scheme of things, you study hard and learn quickly, a skill that can be invaluable to a developing hero.
1) Subservient – When someone tells you what to do, you do it well. When you are in lackey/sidekick mode, your level is increased by an additional level, making you the same strength as your Mentor/Boss.
2) Protective – You take care of your Mentor/Boss loyally. Toggle: While this power is active and you are within an appropriate range of your Mentor/Boss, they receive a defense bonus.
3) Visual Learner – Learning by example is a specific strength of yours. When you complete a mission in Sidekick/Lackey mode, you receive an experience bonus.
4) Studious – Through your studies you’ve valued mistakes and negative experiences, as they are the best teacher of all. When in sidekick/lackey mode, your experience debt burns off at a twenty-five percent higher rate.
This is a good Power Pool for beginners. Additionally, it can serve as an incentive for players to make long term duo characters.
[u]Although I did not write it out, I suggest a symmetrical version of this called "Instructor", which rewards people for being Mentors/Bosses. The third power of that pool would allow one to have two lackeys/sidekicks.[u]

Lone Wolf
You’ve been by yourself most of your life. That doesn’t bother you, though. In fact, not much bothers you anymore.
1) Inner Strength – When you are on a mission without a team, Inspirations provide an additional 5% bonus.
2) Unshaken – You’ve been outnumbered so many times, it doesn’t frighten you. When more than four enemies are simultaneously attacking (drawn aggro from four enemies), you receive an 8% attack bonus.
3) Vicious Strike – When you are alone, sometimes you have to play dirty, just to survive. When you are on a mission solo, you have a slightly increased chance of stunning enemies.
4) Wanderer- The more you are by yourself, the more you learn. When you complete a mission solo, you receive an experience bonus.
This is for the breed of folk that want to solo City of Heroes/Villains, or for those that just want to feel hardcore by diving into the fray themselves.

Merchant
Before all of this started, you dealt in currency, and lots of it. You understand its value more than most people.
1) Silver Tongue – You can haggle and negotiate easily, always getting the better bargain. When buying Enhancements, you receive a 10% discount.
2) Businessperson – Your ability to come off trustworthy always gets you in with people. When completing missions for non-broker contacts, your relationship meter fills more rapidly.
3) Haggler – Somehow, when someone buys from you, they always think that they are coming out ahead, even though you completely ripped them off. When selling Enhancements, you sell them for an additional 10%.
4) Business Deal – Friends give friends discounts. Your Kindred Contacts sell you Enhancements at an additional 20% discount.
These enhancements enable people to be more focused on enhancing their character and contacts, driving them to complete the story missions. Also, it may influence trade, as Merchants will inevitably buy enhancements and then sell them for profit at the market.

Obviously, many of these will have to be tweaked. There are several more that I have in mind, but I am not trying to sell the individual pools, I am trying to sell the idea in general.

What do you think?

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Not a bad concept. They're independent of combat and largely innate and you've kept their proposed values to be moderate, yet valuable rewards. I'd only be concerned that the absolute lack of combat value may make anyone spending 3 slots here to be labled "combat gimp" by some groups. I think THAT would be unfair... I don't doubt that the hero could still function well on some difficulty levels, but the impact of these selections will have to be weighed to insure that players aren't paying too high a price in combat performance for their out-of-combat benefits

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...snip...
Console games DO NOT match computer games on a depth level.

And this IS going to be a console game adapted to a PC game -- that's what they do.

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Gotta disagree rather soundly.
1) Megabytes do not equal depth. Not even close
2) Consoles do more with the disk- the 360 drive can hold 5 gigs right there. CoH takes up 2.5 gigs on my system & I don't need the original disk. Content updates that use precached disk graphics need not be HUGE updates.
3) Updates: we already have 360 games that require a hard drive. An 80 Gig hard drive is on its way, and since the 360 is an EXTERNAL hard drive, players can swap em out as they fill.
4) Look at some of the highly-rated titles that are on both console and PC- many are critically acclaimed for "depth" of play, depth of story, or both.

Control- Here, we start to see the issue. Oblivion, probably one of the key console/PC crossovers last year shows how a very simple controller system can lead to complex gameplay- and translate OK over to a PC. Other games have done even better- KOTOR was available on console & PC, for example.

Controls DO mean we likely won't see the 10-12 box "spell bars" or interfaces that we see in mouse-based games, but consoles have had titles that had hundreds of maneuver options available to players with just a few button combinations.

It means a different control mechanism, not necessarily a simpler one.

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Awesome, thanks for linking that. Interesting to finally see the origin of the Cryptic Studios name. I'd never seen that explained before.

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"City of Heroes was very tightly focused on moment to moment combat," Rogers says. "The Marvel game will have more big components to it. It's going to be all the stuff we wanted to put into City of Heroes, and you'll get to run around in Marvel costumes. We've got more money now and more people. We'll add more depth. We want to take it to the next level."

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Thats a bit disheartening for CoH players. We're the reason Cryptic has more money. The quote makes it sounds like the plan is, put all the awesome ideas we wanted to have in the old game into the new game.

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"It's pretty much whack-a-mole," Rogers says of his role as a manager on days like these. "Everybody is running around wondering why Captain America's shield doesn't go up when he gets hit. But on a usual day, it's people at their desks with their heads down making stuff."

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Looks like MUO is getting our shield sets.

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<.<

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Anybody else wanna play Whack-a-mole right now?

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To be fair, when Jack spoke at our conference, he was talking about hoping to get MUO out "in this decade." By that time, CoH will be over six years old- a good run for any MMO. CoH development started when? 2001-2002?

Don't be all doom and gloom here folks.

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Please don't take this the wrong way, but basically here are the options open to the legislators:

1) Implement multi-billion dollar education, daycare, and rehabilitation programs to alleviate and offer alternatives to solutions that spur people to violent acts.

2) Find a scapegoat, blame it on that one source, and pat yourself on the back for having done a good day's work.

To address the issue of violence you have to look at poverty, self-esteem, mental health, outlets for aggression, and other such factors. But why do that, when you can pin the blame on something and call it a day?

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Close, but you're missing a few setps:

1) Hold "hearings" to find the scapegoat.
2) Suddenly realize that your scapegoat is too well-backed and popularly supported to really touch (and it doesn't make much sense, for all that matters), so just grill them heavily on the testimonials (to appease the extremists)
3) Declare the entire issue inclusive, but, paradoxically, requiring action.
4) Release funds to research the issue (paid to influential extremists, to buy them off)
5) Encourage the industry to spend a few more bucks in a PR campaign run by some congressman's second cousin
6) Release more funds to the pro-game movement's PR campaign (to keep them from exposing the whole charade... and to make sure that congressman's second cousin can afford the new mercedes)
7) Prepare speech on how Congress managed to protect kids and the first Ammendment
8) Present speech at $1000-a-plate fundraisers for next election.
9) Pose for the cameras.

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For an excellent tretise on the positive uses of violence refer to the Novel (Dear god not the movie) Starship Troopers. I hear it's the only work of fiction that is required reading at Officer's School.

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Heinlein FTW!

(Also read "Stranger in a Strange Land", please.)

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Don't just read it. Grok it.

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We issued a challange to the video game industry, we said don't want to get into this, and have the government regulate video games, and force you to adopt a rating system. But if you don't do it yourself. We will.

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Wow... just simply wow. You don't want to get into this? So don't. Just walk away there... But apparently you DO. So nice contradictary sentence there.

That was my initial thought.

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No, it was Lieberman stating what the government did back then, pre ESRB. It's a narrative of historical relevance. Word was spreading about this new medium that was potentially as gory or sexually themed as anything from Hollywood, open to anyone. At the time, there was no ratings board.

Congress held hearings to determine if they should, indeed, get involved. The message was clear: regulate yourselves, like movies and other media, or be ready to be regulated.

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Ratings were made, it seemed to be OK, but a few high-publicity issues now asks:

- is the ESRB lax in its processes
- are the stores lax in selling to minors
- are developers marketing M-rated games to Teen audiences, much like movie companies we caught marketing R movies to teens?

Those are legitimate issues to ask- and if there are problems, we have to figure out what the heck we can do about them. Oftentimes, just giving publicity to everything that's done to prevent mature content from falling into kids' hands is sufficient to defuse the majority of the ignorant.

The idiots will still howl to the hills that something needs done, but we just need to calm the masses.

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MORAL COMBAT!

/em boombox_technomusic

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Sen. Joe Liberman launches his Bloody Spear at Satanic_Hamster, "GET OVER HERE!"

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Hmm... Kongressional Kombat: a Mortal Kombat skinned with the faces of real politicians and populated by their best sound bytes....

The potential...

brb...

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Don't write this off just yet.

Yes, it's framing a battle on gaming violence, but it seems some game developers and scholars that are GAME ADVOCATES appear to have participated in this.

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"Participated" =/= "Agree with what the filmmakers are saying."

Anyone can get an interview with a game designer, sit there for an hour or so, and get them to say all sorts of things in response to specific leading questions. Then you can use clever editing to take comments out of context and throw in dramatic sounding music to make it appear that the person interviewed is saying something very different from what they actually believe.

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Agreed. See: any local news station interview between candidates in a particularly heated local election. Or cable news channels for that matter. Sound bytes be damned.

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Just to make it clear, some of the speakers that are game advocates are VERY MEDIA SAVVY GAME ADVOCATES, including notables like professors of media studies at MIT. They aren't easily duped.

And the idiots on the other side have been frequently beat up by flawed references and incorrect assumptions (Jack Thompson's bully crusade and anti-sims comments he had to step back from, for example). The flight sim statement he's used in other places, and while he seems to love it, many anti-game-violence people cringe every time he uses such garbage. He damages their cause.

Look at what was really said and ask yourself how much is patently anti-game and what's neutral or pro-game.

Also, from what I've read, the director of this isn't a known anti-game crusader and has said he'd like to frame the topic for debate, not persuade one side or another.

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Its very easy, and very common, to have your words and actions manipulated by an shady interviewer/reporter/film maker so they can make their point. When making a hit piece documentary, they don't get people on the opposite side of the issue to sit down with by telling them its a hit piece. They say that they're making a "balanced" look at a serious issue.

The Borat movie is a good exampe of this, and Michael Moore has made a career out of doing this type of interview.

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That IS true.

It is also common in a debate to lull one side into thinking you're it's advocate, or at least it's "impartial" mediator, while in fact setting up the argument for a slaying. We have some very savvy professionals who've been to congress and back supporting games and we have a few "crusaders" whose cases are almost laughable.

Beyond the trailer... does anyone KNOW if Moral Kombat will be as anti-game as the two soundbites would make it?

People that are anti-game are often so out of ignorance. Many don't know that there even IS self-regulation. They just know that there's a boogyman in the closet, and maybe, once someone turns the light on in the closet, some of them will go "oh, is that all?" and let the issue drop.


That is largely what's happened to the once-very-active anti-music, anti-movie, and anti-TV movements. We still have plenty of idiots out there, but the lost momentum as the rest of the people saw that there were safeguards in place to help parents have some control and make good decisions.

We get THAT message out, and these anti game crusaders become an even smaller fringe. We don't have to shoot down everything they say, just shed enough light on the subject.

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Don't write this off just yet.

Yes, it's framing a battle on gaming violence, but it seems some game developers and scholars that are GAME ADVOCATES appear to have participated in this.

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"Participated" =/= "Agree with what the filmmakers are saying."

Anyone can get an interview with a game designer, sit there for an hour or so, and get them to say all sorts of things in response to specific leading questions. Then you can use clever editing to take comments out of context and throw in dramatic sounding music to make it appear that the person interviewed is saying something very different from what they actually believe.

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Agreed. See: any local news station interview between candidates in a particularly heated local election. Or cable news channels for that matter. Sound bytes be damned.

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Just to make it clear, some of the speakers that are game advocates are VERY MEDIA SAVVY GAME ADVOCATES, including notables like professors of media studies at MIT. They aren't easily duped.

And the idiots on the other side have been frequently beat up by flawed references and incorrect assumptions (Jack Thompson's bully crusade and anti-sims comments he had to step back from, for example). The flight sim statement he's used in other places, and while he seems to love it, many anti-game-violence people cringe every time he uses such garbage. He damages their cause.

Look at what was really said and ask yourself how much is patently anti-game and what's neutral or pro-game.

Also, from what I've read, the director of this isn't a known anti-game crusader and has said he'd like to frame the topic for debate, not persuade one side or another.

Don't want to spam the thread with this message, but please don't paint the entire film as alarmist antigamer based on some of the quotes.

I took a look at the stuff on this- the director isn't an anti-game crusader, and of the speakers he interviewed, more are game advocates, very competent public speakers, and noteworthy for NOT being duped into speaking in something that would take them out of context.

Besides, given that the "best quotes" for the other side are practically ametuerish in their sensationalism, it might be entertaining.

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In the words of a classmate of mine- A movie/videogame/song/etc may put an idea into your head, but YOU are the one who decides to act on it.
Heck, people do stupid things after seeing stuff on the news- do we ban news reports? Do we restrict news reports to text-only, or narration, so that nobody gets a visual of something and tries it?

I think parents are a huge part of the problem in some cases- they don't check or care to read video game info and ratings, they don't talk to their kids, or monitor what their kids are reading, listening to, playing, or watching. I'm not blaming all parents- I know there are some out there who do their best to teach their kids right from wrong, and reality from fantasy. But sadly, some can't be arsed. Then their unsupervised, poorly parented kids do something stupid, cries for censorship are heard, and the responsible ones among us suffer.

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Don't get me wrong here: I'm a big advocate of games as an entertainment medium, and I'm making more and more of my living in applying games to learning.

The learning part is also the reason for concern:

Ever hear the old adage that people retain 20% of what they read, 50% of what they hear, but 70% of what they do? (Note, the percentages are made up for the sake of expedience, but the "flavor" is there). Well, we "do" alot more in games, and there is some truth to that.

We build our world view and motivations on all the input/output around us: our parents, our teachers, our friends, our co-workers, what we see, hear- everything.

Games are only part of the equation.

They're the newest part, the part that many people don't yet understand, and they're growing in influence daily. That makes them scarry.

The fact that we're telling people that they may eventually be better tools for learning than books or TV essentially means that they can potentially influence our world views better than books or TV. That makes them scarrier.

Now, we can say all we want that people can filter things, that kids see through the prostitute-solicitation and killing in GTA and only see a "power up." But... it also objectfies women and jokes about violence against women. We wouldn't bar comedians from making such jokes to an adult audience, but we'd often fire a teacher that did it in the classroom.

We can say that "people have the ability and responsibility to filter out their own input" but many of the problems we might learn or develop from a bad parent we DO blame on the parent. They're really just another factor in forming our world-view- quite a few of them are bad, and we try to do something (often overreacting) to protect kids from them.

Now we have a more powerful media element that will spend more time with a kid than that alcoholic dad ever did.

Is there reason to be concerned?

Note that "concerned" doesn't mean "ban em."

We know adults put the bottom line ahead of "the common good" rather often. Can we trust a store that says "we won't sell M games to minors" when there's no penalty? Maybe we can, but until we discuss it openly, fear and ignorance will prevail.

We know that movie companies only recently stopped marketing "r" rated movies to teens. What are game companies doing? Again, they may be acting honorably, but in the absence of responsible dialogue, people think outlandish things.

If we DON'T show up in numbers ready to discuss this issue, only the ignorant will be speaking- seeding that wild speculation further and using it to power legislation based on ignorance.

All emerging media has gone through this.

All media has suffered at least one "backlash" period based on ignorance and fear.

If all we do is shout at the other side and label them extremists, that ignorance and fear cycle will just repeat.

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Just another witch hunt, by simpleton Crusader's

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Don't write this off just yet.

Yes, it's framing a battle on gaming violence, but it seems some game developers and scholars that are GAME ADVOCATES appear to have participated in this.

The trailer does seem to portray the idea that "yes, game violence can lead to real violence" but that doesn't mean that the entire message is automatically slanted. You often prepare a documentary trailer slanted to the people that most need to really THINK ABOUT the issue, not those well informed in the issue.

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I guess I look at it as the game goes and grows the complexity makes it harder and harder to add meaningful content.

Which got me thinking: If the game were frozen, never to change, how many would stay and play anyway? Besides me.

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Roughly 40% of the playerbase left when the drastic changes of I5 and I6 went live. I would say that most of the departures then were more due to the way that the Devs handled the whole thing as opposed to the game changes (Yes, the game did need some serious adjustment.). How much change is too much?

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Not to start this debate, but NCSoft's own reports show no discernable loss when I5 or I6 went live. In fact, it lept up quite a bit in the first reports after I6 (also the release of CoV in that window). The loss that happened around the time of I5 fits the normal "churn" loss that most MMO's experience, and represents closer to 10%, not 40%.

I can't link to the stockholder reports atm, but MMOGChart uses them in his projections. For all the issues with comparing numbers, MMOGchart does rate the CoH number accuracy as reliable, taken from these reports. (It's alot easier to mislead people in press releases, which fall under less scrutiny)

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I understand that programing can have there problems..and they did say (IF) everything goes right we will be playing I8 over Thanksgiving Holidays .. Well Things did not go the way they wanted it looks .. BUT they should at least keep us informed on when it may be ready instead of letting us wonder when after they told us a date.... I Think it is JUST PLAIN RUDE of them to not inform us what is going on... Guess there making so much money from us they really dont give a Hoot about there members .. If they keep this type of public relations up they will loose many members...Maybe that is what they need for them to WAKE UP!

C'mon Devs let us know something, when is I8 now expected to be out? Keep us informed once you give us a date like you did!

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You mean like I8 Testing Update?

If only the devs would tell us stuff like that. harumpf.

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Don't ruin a perfectly good rant with stuff like facts.

Sheesh, if people like you were in charge, where would the major news networks be?

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Good stuff Chase, but I'm wary of the "offer suggestion," bit, in part because people get enamoured over their own ideas and take it personally when they're not accepted, and in part because the impacts of player suggestions are not always well thought out. In general, it's usually better to identify the specific problems we see, suggest things we'd like to see, and let the powers that be figure out how to fix it all. They, after all, are the only ones who know what may or may not work based on the internal structure of both the organization and the code.

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That's why I made "offer suggestions" optional, really. Sometimes it's necessary- for different reasons. When teaching, you have some people that are too afraid to think creatively, and you have to "tease it out of them" with leading suggestions or questions.

Then, in the business world, there's the common manager line of "don't come to me with a problem unless you have three solutions" crap.

Your concern is very real, though. People often get so focused on their own idea that they can't accept any other.

[quoteHow about, "It seems like the Devs aren't very good at math due to X and Y mistakes they've made?"

I'm not saying it's polite, but pointing out where the Devs are lacking can certainly be true. After all, they're only people, and therefore imperfect.

Heck, if I were on a Dev team and found we kept making errors in judgement or coming up with different answers than everyone else, I'd take serious stock of the situation and maybe start thinking about bringing someone in to bolster those areas where we keep coming up short.

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To many, that phrase ("It seems like the Devs aren't very good at math due to X and Y mistakes they've made?") really says is "I'm ignorant and judgemental, please flame me."

- The statement assumes that the problem is obvious, a fix is easy, and assumes the developers are incompetent. It ignores the fact that EVERY game design studio has had the same issues, that games are not an exact science, and that MOST games go through radical revisioning as they try over and over again to come up with something that *seems to* work. An online game, that can only iterate through so many "revisions" before becoming horribly late, is all the more difficult.

- It assumes that there's some "outside force" that just needs to be put in charge to make everything right. Now, I've been amazed at how poorly-structured and planned some game studios are, but I've also seen where studios trying more "traditional" process improvement management techniques have suffocated.

There are no good answers, and the confrontational tone used (challenging someone's competence) will just derail the issue, rather than address what you really want to address.

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Much of this can be seen in how a (good) teacher operates. We can't ignore faults and flaws- we have to grade people writing in kiddiespeak poorly, but we also frame it in a way designed to encourage, not discourage.

-You don't say "you're (the devs) are incompetent"-BUT- you don't ignore the mistakes (like some fans do):

1)Identify the issue. Only the observable facts, no assumptions.
"The first hints for I8 pointed to a September launch. Then, it was stated that Inventions were put off to I9 so it wouldn't delay I8. Then, I8 was delayed anyway, with hints to a launch post-halloween. Now, it's post-Thanksgiving.

2) Recognize the challenges. Show you understand what they face and are not being unreasonable.
I understand that some changes to underlying tech can cause some unforseen consequences, and that those issues are difficult to schedule for, but the delays frustrate the player base.

3) State the goal
We need to either
-improve our ability to plan debugging into our schedule or
-manage the tech updates in a way that won't delay content releases.

4) (Optional) Offer solution leads.
This might very well involve bringing in someone more experienced at realistically establishing a schedule. It might involve additional training from an external "expert."

Whatever you suggest, just be ready to accept that they might see more about the issue than you, and their solution may differ radically from yours.

Perhaps the toughest thing to add on an adequate timeline is "new tech." Issues 7 & 8 had quite a bit of both, and, sadly, that does significantly affect deadlines. Beyond new gameplay tech, they continue to redefine some of the core workings of the game- trying to get performance better or get it to behave on some configurations (not to mention the PhysX support)... any one of those things could significantly impact a schedule with unforeseen and difficult-to-troubleshoot complications

Adding new content- zones & missions- is the typical fare for MMO updates. They're safe, they're existing tech, they're the central focus of updates. Character "powers" are the next, as they're often just a reshuffling of tech options or the most recent "balance issues."

As Lighthouse mentioned, the stability issue was the reason they missed the pre-Thanksgiving release. Cryptic doesn't like crunch time- they prefer to keep their families intact. Maybe they could have launched this week, but the additional support needed over Turkey Weekend would have been a bit of a scrooge.

Cryptic has announced that they haven't cut back on developers, but it is clear that many of the "founders" have moved on... and it takes time for new developers to orient themselves. Perhaps the toughest thing to learn in programming is accurate time estimates... Positron's suggested that future expansions will be smaller and more frequent.

We'll see. I9 has more new tech in it, but from what I've been hearing, it's alot farther along than we might think...



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All that said, I am hoping to see the release schedule pick back up. It can be a bit disappointing. The "free week" promotion had many people appear and hear about all this new stuff "right around the corner." That corner was a bit more distant than we realized, and that WILL discourage new players.

Me? I'm such an alt-aholic and with so little free time that after 2 years' play, I *still* don't have a level 50... so there's still plenty o content for me...

(sigh) so I guess Cryptic's not working on a Deadlands MMO....

G'luck, shane. Ya done good here.

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I want to stess this:

We are NOT working on a Greek mythology game. Or an ancient history game. Just want to kill that rumour!

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Did you hear that? They ARE working on one. Yay.

Oh wait...

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Can I start a Deadlands rumor, just to see if they deny that one? I mean, we got Capt. Mako on the crew and Jack's bio's often list writing "deadlands supplements..."

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I had heard of a greek mythology game they were developing I think.

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Nah. It's Urotsukidoji the MMO.

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Urowhat?

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If you have to ask, you don't want to know.

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Thank you, LiquidX. You always find some way to remind me why I shouldn't drink coffee during my morning forum browsing.

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To the OP's topic

Jack isn't "off the team." He's Creative Director for ALL cryptic's titles now. New titles in the early stages of development usually need more attention, of course, but creative directors still sit in on the periodic brainstorming sessions and still have a degree of "veto power" on where and how things go.

Every company's a little different. He could have more or less of a say in each game's development, but Cryptic studios is a big enough organization to have a few levels of hierarchy between the "frontline" and the creative director.

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looks good....although its "mayhem"....perhaps your editor was asleep ~

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Compared to the quality of the rag we have in my hometown, that's downright Pulitzer prizewinning!

Nice montage. Good scene selection.

I don't know enough about videography to give solid critique, but I loved some of the scenes you used.

oh... and gratz on hitting 50

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Offical Website recognition for the wonderful artists that thrive in our little community!

(AKA: Update the Fanart Section!)

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Indeed. Looking for the newest Fan Art and Screenshot on the main page used to be something I looked forward to...and then they didn't get updated...and went without being updated for ages...

Keep the Fan Art section updated, and give us a place to submit art for viewing by the masses, and that'd be fine by me.

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Gotta agree.

With the WoW expansion delay & the holiday season upon us, we have alot more people that might be looking at the main site to learn about the game and find out what kind of community we have. An updated fanart site- one that REALLY makes the community to look active and expressive- might be a great thing to highlight.

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How's this?
Blank (aka, unnamed character)

Also, I just had another thought... that might sound a little wrong... how would you draw a black guy without making them white or like some sort of racist characture... I might have to concede defeat and use tones after all >.<

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Looking at some pictures from Sin City might really help you there. There are some great examples where race is conveyed in purely hard B & W scales.

Don't draw to represent the colors, but the lighting. A black man will still have white lighting that would make his features (eyes, cheek, nose, lips, etc) white, but more of his face would be dark. In the same lighting, a white face would have the same lighting points, but more of their face would be "light enough" to represent as white anyways.

Fan art communities are largely self-organized and self-motivated. You don't NEED to do much to satisfy or encourage them. They love what they do.

From a business standpoint, not much you do will increase the number of fan artists (ask an art teacher how to "force" a student to express him/herself) nor will it increase much involvement in the game. Prizes become an expenditure that doesn't return back an investment. Recognition (official links) becomes a chore where each issue of "they didn't link to me" becomes a public relations issue.

So, maybe they think that its best for us to develop our own leadership, our own community, and our own peer rewards instead...