Obsidius

Heh, come to think of it, the only toons I have that are not Males (or Huge) are robots, and even those use the Male template. Might be interesting to turn an existing concept Female, kind of like Starbuck on BSG

Something I often yell at the monitor:

"How 'bout you target the guy RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!" (as Tab targets a mob on the other side of the room instead of the Syndicate Sword Master turning my character into a shish kebab)

Thanks, I appreciate all the candid, civil feedback. Sometimes when I put stuff like this out, I'm afraid I'm just going to get trolled to death, but what I'm really looking for are some different PoVs and perspective.

What got me thinking about this, initially, was the debacle in regards to the CHVC forums the week or so before GR launched. Ocho gave some feedback, and some concessions were made, but in the end, it still ended up creating a lot of community resentment. I'll more than admit that the whole mess left a sour taste in my mouth.

Combined with the latest debacle re: the Party Pack with no OCR feedback on that front at all (and finding out while I was typing up the OP about the in-game event that leans towards no changes to the pack before it launches), and that sour taste came back up.

At least with the CHCV debate, Ocho actually replied and did make some concessions, even if some of the sticking points ended up being "tough luck" choices. With the Party Pack feedback, we got silence from OCR. Even a response like "We hear you but aren't going to make any changes for this Booster" would have been better than nothing.

I guess that every rep has his / her own style, but I dunno. Perhaps I've just been high on the hog with reps in the past. I certainly don't believe OCR is being "lazy"; on the contrary, they're probably busy as hell. But even when she was uber busy, Ex would drop a line or two when she could.

Again, thanks for the constructive comments all, I appreciate all the PoVs.

Warning: block of text, mild rant, nostalgia, possible Appeal to Antiquity



Remember back to August 2008 when a mysterious Marketing Survey was sent to random City of Heroes/ Villain players asking them what they wanted for the future of the game? I do, although I did't receive the survey personally, I only read about it here on the forums and on related gaming sites. And almost all of it has come to pass, and some of it may still be waiting in the wings.

The reason I bring this up is because, for the past several months, there hasn't been a lot of communications from the Community Relations staff. Good communications implies bidirectional interchanges. Recently, we've been recieveing a lot of announcements about contests, some forum-run contests that ended a month ago, and general game announcements and patch notes... but nothing in the way of communicating with the community on a more casual level.

You might get told about how to buy or win the latest booster pack or costume power. You might get told about the latest GR contest from a third party, or get the latest patch notes. You might get told by a moderator why your thread was closed or your post was deleted (if you're lucky). But OCR, as of late, hasn't been really doing much asking as to what player want, nor have they been responding to player concerns over certain bugs, problems, booster packs, etc.

What happened to casual community queries and banter? Where have the polls and surveys gone? Looking back on the "Community Digest", there's not a lot of replies to any particular player-created threads... just a litany of one announcement after another, or clarification of an announcement, or clarification of some contest rules. No communications, just mostly, for lack of better words, mouthpiece talk.

Lately, it seems as if developers themselves (Noble Savage, for instance) are the only people communicating with the community - not necessarily a bad thing (we love it when devs post), but by appearances, it seems like OCR could be doing something similar to increase the level of communication between the developers and community.

The impression I've gotten over the past few months is that it seems as though OCR has gone from a casual, friendly relationship with the community to one that's a bit more cold as impersonal.

Understandably, OCR isn't an easy role, especially following in the footsteps of people like CuppaJo, Cricket, Lighthouse, Ex Libris, Nivienne, Bridger, Kerensky and Ghost Raptor. That's not to put down the current OCR staff, but most of those people were community powerhouses... and big shoes to fill.

And understandably, OCR has been busy lately. Even without HeroCon this year, between SDCC, the launch of GR, and PAX, all within the matter of a few months, things are undoubtedly busy for Paragon Studios with all the press junkets and Meet & Greets. And now add to that the beta testing of Issue 19 and 20, and one more event to come, not to mention in-game events.

Even so, that's not a reason to post more on the forums, to remark about concerns players may have over upcoming booster packs, persistent bugs, game feedback, and a gamut of other player issues. Even if you are reading and making note, saying something as "We're looking into it" would be better than the silence that has greeted even the official "feedback" threads as of late.

Some of the more recent examples and pet peeves include:

• The Party Pack - The large outcry on the official discussion thread (and several other threads) goes a long way towards displaying the less-than-emphatic reception of a booster pack that's barely related to the name which it's given. A community poll or pre-launch query thread could have gone a long way towards being proactive about what should be in the pack, instead of reactive (if there's even a reaction at all). It would have been better asking us what we wanted instead of telling us what we should want.
  
  Speaking of which...
  
  
• Polls & Surveys - I think the last time I saw a poll on the forums was... well, I can't remember. Has there been one since Ex Libris put up that poll about what powersets we would like (the one that resulted in Dual Blades, Shields, etc. being added)? Polls and surveys would be a great way to gauge what the payers want in terms of future content (the 2008 survey is a prime example). It might work better than having Noble Savage ask himself, or could at least be used in addition to such a method (it worked in the past, after all).
  
  
• HeroCon - We already know there's not going to be one this year, presumably because of the cost-to-benefit ration, mingled in with the number of planned events this year as well as location (for players not on the west coast). That being said, the amount of press from last year's HeroCon was so abysmal that even people paying attention (like me) had little information from the event. IMPO, it was one of the biggest lost Marketing opportunities, especially on the heels of the Going Rogue announcement that happene only a month or two beforehand.
  
  
• Sub-communities - Subcommunities haven't recieved much attention lately (except for the CHVC community, but that's not the kind of attention any sub-community wants), especially the PvP and Base Building sub-communities. Even just basic communications with these communities would go a long way towards bolstering relationships. Dropping in and saying hello certainly wouldn't hurt, but I'd be prepared for long conversations.
  
  
• Fan Sites / Fan Site Kit - I don't think the Fan Site list has been updated since before CoV launched. Some of the links are just dead; many of the pages are just out of date, no longer being maintained, etc. This is a problem that's existed since Lighthouse's day, so it's certainly not entirely the fault of the current OCR team, but one that should be addressed. Either maintain the Fan Site portal, or take it down entirely (because it's an eyesore in its current state).
  
  And please update the Fan Site Kit even if you get rid of the Fan Site portal (it hasn't been updated since Ex Libris was a redname). People still want to make sites for their SGs, and updating the kits would be a boon towards those goals.
  
  
• 3D Sound Issues - Direct Sound 3D was removed for Win Vista and Win 7 during Issue 18, but AFAIK, never mentioned in the official patch notes. In fact, the only way someone would know about it (before their 3D sound mysteriously stopped working post I18) is if they were in the closed beta. Ironically, when I18 went live, the only documentation was in Zombie Man's Guide to Issue 18 (also ironically, Support tried to tell me the guide was the patch notes for I18 to explain that the change had been officially documented). Not letting players know about this change in the official patch notes was a disservice to the community.

Alright, that's it, I'm spent. Just talk to your community OCR - contests are nice and fun, but some real communication would be a lot better.

It's very true, whether one is talking about TPBs, graphic novels, manga, or anime on crunchyroll.com, all of which have more value than a flimsy 22-ish page comic book that costs $4.

<QR> Actually, I've been meaning to get back into the MA to re-write my original arc using some of the new tech, but between playing my Praetorian and RL stuff (work, school, etc.) I haven't had the time :/

<QR>

Jack reminds me or Praetor Barry. He's constantly working on experiments, but when they don't pan out or he's tired with them, he disposes of them into the Underground. Sometimes those experiments get up and walk away.

CoH was one of those experiments lucky enough to walk away and stand up on its own.

And I learned a new word today

What is "American Culture", if not a melting pot of the cultures from every other place, since we're a country of immigrants? Unless we're talking about some manufactured notion from the 1950s post-war bravado about Mom and Apple Pie. Or you're talking about Native American culture, which all but died out when immigrants claimed Manifest Destiny.

But not so critically, people will take and pick what they like from other people's ideas. This goes for any culture. With the Information Age, the process is just merely accelerated. Japanese art that influenced European Impressionists arrived on ships that took months to get between either place. Now, we can just beam ideas to each other over the Internet on our computers or mobile devices.

Kind of funny though, if you think about it - Japanese art influences Impressionists, which eventually leads to comics and cartoons, which leads to Walt Disney, which leads to American animation influencing post-war Japan. Circuitous, indeed.

My 2 cents:

I'm not very convinced by Appeals to Tradition. Traditions are meant to be bent and broken as societies grow and evolve. Holding on to outmoded traditions for the sake of some sort of emotional attachment only holds back society from moving forward. That's just my belief.

That being said, main French painter thought that the camera would ruin painting forever. Before the invention of the camera, realistic paintings and drawings were the only means to convey images in real life. However, a group of Impressionist painters were able to take the medium of painting and turn it on its head, using studies in shape, color, and technique to create new art forms.

From those Impressionist roots, we got the four-color printing method responsible for creating the comics we know today. And comics have been evolving since then, from simple strips in the daily papers, to comic books, to graphic novels, to web comics, to manga, etc.

Manga, and by extension anime, are merely different art styles in the comic form. I don't feel that they're "ruining" comic books any more than the camera ruined painting. Artists continually find new was to express themselves on a given medium. I have no doubt that both "traditional" comics and anime will find their own ways to inspire imagination and creativity.

I think Power Pool customization would help to relieve a lot of these problems, especially in the Travel Powers category. Unfortunately, I'm unsure as to what the timeline is for getting such a thin in-game. At ComicCon, Positron could not comment on the status of such a thing, only that it was going to happen sometime in the future. So maybe Issue 20?

Back on topic:

I commented on customization in another thread. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a few static alternate models from which to choose. That way MMs could have female thugs, or in the case of Bots and Ncero, some alternate robot or undead models.

I don't see more advanced customization happening in the future due to the problems with henchmen customization and henchmen upgrades, but a few alternate models would be a nice compromise.

For all you Triumph forum shut-ins, here's the whole scoop. Nothing about extra slots, but we'll just have to see what happens when the build goes up on the Training Room.

I'm more interested in Issue 20... can't remember when I had to sign a physical NDA to beta test. Did CoV closed beta have a signed NDA?

Meh. Story that depicts devs as cartoony clichés that happens to be a fake out opening to the Ovaltine ad at the end, with some self deprecation mixed in to make the author appeal more to the "everyman". Where's all the good stuff?

My serious thoughts on underwater arcs / missions/ etc.:

Underwater combat (that is, combat while submerged in water) would be tricky (hence why BAB is extremely remiss on this subject). The main problem stems from water being thicker than air, and therefor slowing down motion in water (one reason why athletes like to train in water for the "resistance training"). That means that everything animation-wise would need to be slowed down (with some exceptions) to reflect combat underwater. The "other superhero MMO" does a bad job of this - everything happens at the same speed underwater as it does in air, even for giant animated statues.

That's not even getting into semantics of certain powers (fire blasting underwater, electrical attacks underwater, etc.).

As for events that happen in structures under the water, although the scenery would be entertaining (which is a bonus on any mission, don't get me wrong), functionally, it would be the same as any other map in the game. Your underwater adventure might as well be in an underwater Rikti tunnel, for all it's worth, or an underwater office map for that matter.

The problem, IMPO, is that many players wouldn't want to merely play missions in underwater structures. New tilesets are always welcome, but when players think about underwater zones, they think about swimming underwater, attacking man-eating sharks and octopi, etc., which is all much harder to do than even making a whole new tileset.

Edit: or just completely rip off Bioware and call it a day

For the Wii, all remotes are the same, although there are the Motion Plus and Nunchuck attachments for remotes. It looks like this remote has the appropriate plug for attachments, but those attachments would obviously not mesh very well with this remote's uniques style.

More scoop here.

Have you tried turning down the brightness? Many monitors come with the brightness cranked; see if turning it down relieves your eye strain.

Otherwise, what was the response time on the old monitor? (Your current model apparently has a 5ms response - not bad but I've seen as low as 3ms.) What's the maximum refresh on the new one? What's the difference in screen size between the old monitor and the new Acer?