PRAF68_EU

[ QUOTE ]
And those "random" development models are industry approved and recognised,

[/ QUOTE ]

If the industry approve it is must be true.

[In case you missed it, this is sarcasm]

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and highlight benefit of fixing even small things, early on in a project,

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early on, in this case, being seven years ago.

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talking clock npc's

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what does it matter? who talks to people in the street? You want realism? They should all tell you to burger off.

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If they need more developers to get more done, then hire them.


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What with? the game is struggling to break even as is. there is no spare cash to employ devs to work on trivia.

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An improvement, no matter how small, is still an improvement,

[/ QUOTE ]

Resources are LIMITED.

That means that any improvement in one area of the game means that another area of the game has to be neglected.

Better to focus what resources you have on high profile areas than waste them on something that people don't pay a lot of attention to.

[ QUOTE ]
So far, im getting the impression, that its acceptable to leave bad things in the game, if they are small.


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It's a nessassary evil. Fixing everything requites infinite resourses, so if games had to be bug free, it would mean no more computer games ever.

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I think I did well enough since I got 100% in it, so unless you went through the same course, your opinion on the course matters not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Must have been a rubbish course then, since you would expect that someone who got 100% in an ethics course would know what ethics was, but apparently not.

[ QUOTE ]
You say that it would only provide minimal improvement, well, thats more improvement than if they don't fix it.

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No, it's less improvement, because of the big things that don't get improved because some annally retentive dev is fiddling with trivia that 99% of players will ignore anyway.

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Actually, I'd rather not look into ethics more than I have to, its one of those nasty little courses that 'the company' forces employees to do, but no one really likes to do.

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Well, it appears that either:

A) It was a really rubbish course; or

B) You wheren't paying attention.

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I merely pointed out to another member that if they decided to cut corners on quality, to save money, then that could have been an ethically bad move.


[/ QUOTE ]

Which would be wrong, unless it put somones lives at risk, or there was an atempt to conceal it.

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I merely pointed out that IF they HAD compromized the quality of the game, as a cost cutting measure, then that would be a ethical issue.

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All games compromise quality. There is always something you could improve or add with a little more time and money. It is a purely business decision about when to sign it off. To early, and it wont sell, to late, and it will have lost to much money in development and won't be profitable.

All this has exactly NOTHING TO DO WITH ETHICS.

[ QUOTE ]
Note - When I say shiny and idealistic and plastic.
I am referencing the models used for pretty much every character.

Even hair shines like its made out of plastic. Its City of Plastic not Heroes or Villains.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure. It's a design decision. One which Cryptic likes, since they are going even more in that direction in CO. It's a silver age comic books look, not gritty realism.

You don't have to like it. there are lots of games around which go for gritty realism.

[ QUOTE ]
Jean and Paul are talking,
Paul: Have you finished testing this product?
Jean: Diane my supervisor said we dont have enough man power to cover it, so we should just ignore it.

[/ QUOTE ]



That is NOT AN ETHICAL ISSUE. It is a purely business decision. Choosing to ignore an issue may loose a company business, but the company is perfectly entitled to decide where to allocate it's resources.

[ QUOTE ]
I could understand Paragon City having healthy, shiny, clean people. But Rogue Isles?

[/ QUOTE ]

It would be entierly consistent with Lord Recluse's ideology for him to have any "weak" citizens recycled into quornburgers.

[ QUOTE ]
Eg - Cost Cutting, Refusing to do the work because of difficulty, or costs.

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They are not refusing to do the work. It is only you who thinks it needs doing.

Anyway, there are no ethical issues involved, since you are not forced to subscribe: don't like the way resources are allocated? Go play a different game.

[ QUOTE ]
Where is the ethics issue there?
They have 5-10 times more developers, so they fork out 5-10 times more money, its only fair that they get more subscribers.

[/ QUOTE ]

The ethical issue is they have far more money coming in, but pump a far smaller fraction of that money back into improving the game.

[ QUOTE ]
It went to ethics debate when people started saying that the reason they are not providing good features is because of economic or financial restraints.


[/ QUOTE ]

As said, ther is nothing "ethical" because you see exactly what you are getting, and if you don't think it is worth the money, you don't have to subscribe.

the feature is only "good" by your definition.

I have no objection to wheelchairs, but it comes a very very long way down the list of features I would like to see added.

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From what I remember, you have to log in once a month to be entitled to that month of played time.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you don't.

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I just frankly havent seen enough improvement with general gameplay or graphics/technology to warrent any positive remarks towards it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. Go play something else then.

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If they want to save money, they should do so from within.
Stop giving bonuses, freeze merit increases.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bonuses? Merit increases?? You think anyone at NCSoft gets anything like that!!! I would put some LOLs if it wheren't so sad.

The devs work long hours for peanuts, and the only bonus they get is not being sacked by the end of the month.

You want unethical? Look at WoW. they have something like 1000 times as many subscribers, and make a 1000 times as much profit, but they only have about 5-10 times as many developers, and you have to pay for the expansion packs!

[ QUOTE ]
Why City of Heroes doesnt have this level of 'smartness' for Civilians.
Could be Processing power?
Could be lag issues?
Could be inability to do it for lack of technology knowledge.


[/ QUOTE ]

Or it could be that they didn't have anyone to do the work, couldn't afford to hire additional personel, and so they focused the minimal resources they had available on core gameplay.

[ QUOTE ]
In my own opinion, the civilians were done in a very cheap manner

[/ QUOTE ]

they whole game was made in a very cheep manner, by a small, underfunded, inexperienced development team.

On the whole I think they did a pretty good job, but it's not suprising that they had to cut corners in places.

If they where going to devote resources to adding new skelletons and animation sets to the game, I would rather see animals added than wheelchairs.

[ QUOTE ]
Its like they designed everything with the computer systems of 7 years ago in mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

They did.

But it still manages to look less plastic than CO.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure there will be tweaks in I14 and beyond

[/ QUOTE ]

In a position to know are we?

[ QUOTE ]
can we slot them?
can we slot them with IO's or even SO's?

[/ QUOTE ]

No and no.

Damage will be determined by mob rank (minion/lt/boss etc).

Yeah, holodeck mission. Captin Picard is Dixon Hill, PI.

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The damage is nice to have for those situations where:

1) You can't get a team and have to solo;

2) All your team mates are low damage.

Stone/ has better suvivability, at the cost of poor damage, poor mobility, poor agro managment, and poor everything pre 32.

/Stone is high damage but high end cost.

/ice is lower damage with decient control.

I agree with Carni, Ice/Dark is a better option.

That would help, but it is the lack of "monstrous fur" for normal legs/feet that is the real pain.

It's a bit meh, but I need it so it will have to do. I'll post the costume file when I get home.

It would be animations that would "sell" it though.

I was intending to put in a note about difficulty, e.g.

This arc is intended to be very challenging.

I think those examples are bit to specific for general release, and would be more likely to be made for RP and keeped local.

There is the morality of the mission, which it could be useful to describe in more detail though: e.g. mercenary, antihero, truly evil etc.

There is also the possibility of designing "AT trials": arcs intended to be played solo by a specific AT. e.g. A stealth required assassination for stalkers, a bunch of weakish NPCs to be kept alive for defenders etc.

Widow uniforms are PVC.

And I have a male widow, with an orange and black uniform, called Operative Tiger.