IanTheM1

It's 100% against policy for rednames to post using a non-redname account.

And yet David fell completely silent in a thread he was otherwise very active in when it came to responding to objections. I find that odd. I'm not demanding I get my way; I would've been okay with a simple "Sorry, but that's not going to happen." reply. Just anything other than dead silence.

(Also hopefully someone sees the irony in being called out for demanding the devs' attention...over a costume piece that was only included because people demanded it.)

This line of thinking terrifies me, and I hope marketing doesn't get any bright ideas. Of course, I'm currently under the assumption they're at work behind the curtains here already, but that's just an educated guess.

That was one of my arguments as to why the wolf tail should've been free.

Unfortunately.

I especially appreciated the absolute zero response from David (or any other member of the dev team, for that matter), either in-thread or via PM, about the collective qualms over its inclusion.

The few times that a contact acknowledges that a villain might be doing their missions, it boils down to "well, I know you're a horrible, evil villain, but even you have to give a hoot!" which depending on your character is either dead wrong or rather insulting.

See also: Ashley McKnight, one of the worst-written contacts I've seen in the newer issues.

But yeah, I really can't fathom skipping Grandville. It has some of the best content in the game, bar none. It's where a lot of plotlines established earlier in the game finally wrap up, and it has Vernon Von Grun!

That particular segment was my saving throw at trying to believe the wolf tail's inclusion wasn't a marketing scheme and instead overenthusiastic wish-granting.

Interestingly, I did make that argument, albeit in a different post. I would say the tail can be critical (or at least its absence can be distracting...I've always found staring my characters' unadorned backsides distracting, but that's just me), but it doesn't absolutely prevent one from making a wolf-guy, no. However, it's a needless restriction that doesn't exist for cat-guys, rabbit-guys, lizard-guys, and so forth.

In fact, the rabbit tail was not in at launch or CoV. It was added for free upon repeated requests because we already had rabbit ears, but no matching tail. We already have 95% of the parts needed to make a werewolf, why can't their tail be added for free to complete the "outfit" as well?

Fixed, because you don't seem to be keeping up with my argument here.

I vehemently disagree. It was entirely possible to make a cyborg prior to the booster pack, it was entirely possible to make a mad scientist prior to the booster pack, it was entirely possible to make a ninja prior to the booster pack, and it was entirely possible to make a wizard prior to the booster pack, which I won't bother linking to, since that one has about three kajillion possible permutations.

And before you ask, I decided to mostly link to NPCs using player-available pieces because it would've eaten up too much time to go grab screenshots of actual player characters that I didn't have lying around.

I find it a bit funny that people keep trying to shake down my argument by throwing other arguments I agree with at it. I've always felt uneasy about locking such concept-specific parts behind vet rewards as well, just like I'm uneasy about locking such pieces behind booster packs, and locking such pieces behind dubious in-game unlock schemes.

On the other hand, I've never raised a big stink about booster packs before, because for the most part their pieces weren't character-defining in my opinion. They were generally extensions of existing costume themes with slightly higher-quality designs and other bells and whistles. Even the initial Mutant booster sets operated like this.

Even if the wolf tail showed up in a Beast Pack, I'd still be posting about it, because it's still an unfair inconsistency. But at least it wouldn't look quite so much like a quick cash grab as it does currently.

And, as shown by the rest of the post you quoted, I disagree about it fitting the theme.

That's exactly what I fear. I can promise you that they would not give away an item that people had already paid for.

In terms of literal ability or just willingness? Because booster pack (or other premium) items almost always end up in the files prior to their official release, so I'm sure there has to have been at least one patch that had both paid items and free ones in it.

"Desirable" is entirely subjective. I have no use for the wolf tail myself, but I'm willing to fight over it because its inclusion seriously rubs me the wrong way. I'm also still a little shell-shocked that people immediately praised Jay and David for listening to what they wanted (and that is great, and David's overall level of communication has been top-notch), but they glossed over its presence in a booster pack they otherwise didn't like or were already going to buy. In other words, everyone asked for a "Beast Parts" Booster Pack, and what we got was a single piece tacked onto an unrelated pack. I don't consider those to be the same thing.

I don't begrudge you for seeing the irony, though. I knew someone would bring that up. I'm just surprised it didn't involve mention of inspecting an equine's pearly whites.

Normally I would agree Sam, but I know for a fact that there would be no compelling reason to make the wolf tail unlockable. They just wouldn't. We've had absolutely free costume parts in the past that did not require unlocking.

Also, just to send the message home:

I was originally planning on buying the Mutant Booster, since I actually like the Organic Armor and Bioluminescent costumes a whole lot, but the sudden inclusion of the wolf tail feels like a cheap marketing ploy and makes me feel that Paragon Studios is losing a grip on its principles, so I think I'd rather keep my $20.

I'll keep pushing this as hard as I can prior to June 24th, because I know after that they will never budge for fear of upsetting those who really did pay $10 just for a wolf tail.

Hah. Remember the mission where you kidnap a psychic, then hand her over to Arachnos? And then the very next mission you have to break into an Arachnos base to...ask that same psychic a question?

Those two missions were when I realized I could do better in the MA.

There's a spectrum of problems between the two mediums. What I was getting at is that there are a some games out there that try too hard to be like movies that you also play sometimes, rather than true games.

The other issue I was getting at was big, loud explosions don't really do much for me, personally, in either movies or games, unless they have some emotional weight, even if it's very small. I'm especially unimpressed by pure graphical effects in games, because they're not real (and they're not necessarily real in the movies either).

And that's another thing. I'm okay with "mindless" action games (it's funny how often they're not mindless at all, but that's a different topic). I just dislike it when developers feel like their big, loud action-adventure spectacle needs a serious plot to bolster it. Doom kept things simple. Mario has mostly kept things simple. It's even more jarring when the plot is actually great, but the gameplay is completely incongruous with it.

Basically, my feelings are: Simple pretense > fully involved story, especially if it's a bad fully involved story. Games should be an interactive experience first, a story-telling medium second. That's not to say that games with elaborate writing are bad, far from it. Just that a developer doesn't necessarily have to go that far to make a good game.

I'm also on-board with the whole "screw graphics" thing. Especially if we can kill the horribleness that is blur, bloom, the colors brown and gunmetal, and anything else synonymous with "next gen" graphics.

Of course, when it comes to budgets and so on, I have a large stream of bile saved up in a specialized internal sac for the massive trainwreck that is the developer-publisher-retailer triangle, and where it has gone horribly, horribly wrong, especially in relation to the hype machine.

That's the problem with it: context. It's the fourth power in the set, just after a snipe and right before an AoE immobilize. This leaves Dark Blast ailing for more attacks (well, correction: attack in the singular) for a good number of levels. It's also only mag 2, making it only effective against minions. When combined with the accuracy penalty, this makes it pretty lame at both the low levels (where stunning decently large groups of minions might be worth it if you could hit them) and at high levels (where stunning minions, while not useless, is definitely more situational). And that's on top of the long recharge and small radius. I know you can theoretically stack it with something else, but that highly depends on what set you pair it with or who you're teaming with.

And yeah, like you said, the set is about half utility powers, most of them not very good anyway.

I've been saying this for a while now, but for different reasons. With utter slime like Gamestop slowing worming its way into how games are actually made (even GR, now), and big publishers throwing their weight around in all the most back-assward ways (customer-kneecapping DRM, trying to kill second-hand sales while simultaneously lying in bed with Gamestop, Activision, just Activision, and anything related to marketing and risk/reward in general), I think the industry needs to take a nap for a little while. But I suppose that's all best-saved for a different thread.

For the former, see games like Mass Effect or Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Mass Effect accomplishes this by simply making its side-quests legitimately interesting (at least most of the time). Vampire accomplishes it by making XP only gained through completing quests, not by repetitive killing. This means that you can get just as much XP by talking your way out of the situation, or using stealth, as you would by just killing everyone in the room. Makes for a very stable, if slightly imperfect, level curve. In short, don't make your game grindy.

As for the latter, at least in the context of CoH, I've always found the fact that we use the city's existing tram system for the bulk of our travel hilarious and charming. As for actually making travel fun: Give it some dialogue (Mass Effect elevators), skip it outright (Mass Effect space travel, essentially), or make it its own game element (Borderlands' driving).

Now for my long-winded rant about gameplay, story segregation, and player immersion:

For one, games need to stop trying to be Hollywood. This may explain why I tend to look down on a lot of popular games - they're structured like blockbuster movies while forgetting that they're a game. It also doesn't help that even when the do remember, they forget that a lot of movie tropes are already stale in movies. Big, exciting explosions don't really wow me when you're just throwing them in to imitate Michael Bay.

The biggest offender in breaking my immersion is cutscenes. I don't mind them, since they can be incredibly useful and important for achieving mood and atmosphere, not to mention telling some of the story itself. But what really needs to stop? For one, cutscenes that are a movie unto themselves yes Kojima I mean you.

Secondarily, cutscenes diminishing my accomplishments. Something that happens in far too many games: You reach the final boss. You both taunt each other in the traditional pre-fight cutscene, but soon it's on. You trade blows, have a rip-roaring epic smackdown. At last, you take off that last sliver of health. He's dead, baby! ...Oh wait, no he's not. Because now there's another cutscene showing he's still on his last legs, cackling that he's still alive and taunting the hero again about his dark past or whatever. Inevitably, this will be followed by the protagonist stabbing him in the face with a large sword, truly putting an end to the Big Bad. Too bad I didn't get to play that part of the game, huh?

Quicktime events or perhaps the less adrenaline-fueled interactive cutscenes are a decent compromise, but regardless, I feel that bosses should die because I killed them.

Of course, this doesn't mean you can't have a protagonist who's a character in their own right, but you have to let the player in on the experience. This is something that Mass Effect floored me with. While every Shepard's story will be essentially the same, you really get to make your own unique experience playing as the First Human Spectre. This is very relevant to CoH: I wouldn't be nearly as invested in my characters if they were just Night Elf Rogue #94581 and Dwarf Barbarian #69325. With the new morality system, as well as the more general contact conversation system coming into play now, I am very excited for CoH's storytelling potential, especially in how it involves my own characters.

What about the other side of the coin? What about games that aren't character-driven? The everyman is a good stand-by, but only if you're willing to actually give the protagonist some kind of story. Half-Life did this well. It may sound a bit cliche or insulting, but I bet the "everyman" theoretical physicist, who is eventually called upon the save the world probably appealed well to the nerdy crowd that played the game.

But then there's the dark side of blank-slate protagonists: When you play a character that has little to no glimmer of personality at all, and even worse, for no reason. Master Chief isn't exactly a silent protagonist, but it always irked me that he never really got to say or do anything befitting of his as-we're-told fame and experience. Maybe it's the sugar-hyped 10 year old in me, but you have a freaking badass cyborg as your main character - DO SOMETHING WITH HIM! (Mind, I'm only speaking of the first Halo. It's the only one I have any solid first-hand experience with, not to mention without it we wouldn't have the other 6 "final Halo game Bungie is making".)

This is one of the things that killed SiN Episodes for me. The original SiN was a pretty fresh and quirky FPS from the 90s, and it had a very mouthy and fun protagonist in John Blade. Not too dissimilar from Duke Nukem, in fact. But Episodes gave him literally two or three lines total (not to mention tried to make the plot slightly more serious). It was disappointing, to say the least.

And, to close things off, a short criticism of Valve's "no cutscene" style: Yeah, there are still cutscenes. Sure, they might let me walk around a little bit in my cage, but I'm still stuck in Kleiner's room, listening to him babble about getting my HEV suit and the teleporter and Lamarr. Ironically, the best part of that segment was when Kleiner asked me to assist him by pulling the switch on the teleporter ("Great job, Gordon! Throwing that switch and all, I can see your MIT education really pays for itself."), if only because it involved me, the player, actually doing something, instead of listening to an expo-dump.

It's rather interesting to see how that idea of "open cutscenes" has slowly fallen by the wayside in the later Half-Life games too, as the developers are forced to engineer contrivances to prevent Gordon from just shooting whatever threat appears. Bulletproof glass, falling rocks, alien telekinesis are the three common ones.

Thanks for making it through the whole rant if you actually read it. I'm sure it was a bit incoherent.