Tal_N

I'd say rather than make it a big red ball make it a big yellow one with a smile face on it.

Think thats bad, wait until you see the new Jack Thompson MMO.

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Yet a Super Group costume isn’t your creation, either. And yet people wear them.

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Looking around the servers I'd say I haver NEVER seen a group of players who are going around in their SG colors. Also bear in mind one thing, the SG defines two colors which people can use on their costume however lets be clear here - the end uses still defines where and how those colours are used on their costume.

The SG doesn't design the whole costume for someone to wear, its still inherantly that induvidual player making the choices on how they look. Bases however aren't like that, when I join an SG the base is already there and if I like it or not doesn't matter. I had no say in how it was designed or how it is run, however I am expected to help maintain it. This is why you see an increase in the number of SGs these days, because people want to have a base of their own and the fact is you cannot have a base of your own without help from other people.

It creates a paradox of logic. Bases are supposed to be popular because people like to have something they can call their own, something unique to them. However for an induvidual to have a base of their 'own' they need other people, for those other people to feel that they have some ownership of the base they need to be included in how its designed. The net result is that everyone involved doesn't end up with their own base, they end up with a base that they've all compromised on. It is a group identity thing however the larger an SG becomes the larger the number of people who will use the base, thus the greater the likelyhood that people don't like the base their SG has.

Ending up with a self-defeating feature of the game. SGs are a group identity thing but that is only desirablfor aesthetics if you have a close knit group of people since large SGs are filled with people who have varying tastes and do infact have no interest in a group identity.

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I think the Greek Mythology game was just a red herring or a forum rumor.

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I have to appologise for being the source of the rumor, I remember someone sending Statesman a PM or something they said to him at one of the convention and there was some off-hand comment about a greek MMO. Something which I commented on the forum as being interesting since Jack was apparently working on a 'new project'

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I kinda like the idea, but at the same time, it's like "What's the point?" A player goes in decorates and then never has reason to visit it again. Lots of time and coding for what?

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Take a look at housing in other MMOs. Rarely it was anything but simply decoration or a place to display 'phat lewt'. You could even look closer to home, why bother to make a costume when its totally none functional. You could just hit the default, give it a name and the character will be just as useful as someone who spent an hour on the design of their character. Personal bases are an extention of your character.

OK, seems that Statesman knows that bases aren't as popular as he wanted. The situation is simple, what you have is maybe 1 or a few people designing the base. It becomes exactly what they'd want for a personal corner of the CoX universe and then everyone else in the SG simply gets to borrow it. So you have a whole SG paying for someone elses dream.

If you wanted a comparason, its like placing a maintainence cost on your costume. However 3 other players on the game cannot choose what they're character looks like as they are only allowed to look like you. On top of that fact you and these other 3 people have to keep playing the game in a state which brings them some personal loss in order to maintain their costume or have it revert to something generic.

Thats the problem. Bases aren't actually for every player, they're for those who start SGs and have admin rights.

The solution is simple. Personal player housing through SG bases.

The concept is that you're allowed to have a personal plot starting with a 4x4 room however in order to own that plot you need to join an SG. Once you join one the SG will have either doors or portals which you can enter to walk into your personal plot or other players personal plots. Inside a plot the owners has almost complete access to what the base designer tool offers but only in that room. They can make it look anyway they want and because its isolated from the main base it doesn't have to clash with the SG base's design. Prestige is generated almost as normal with one exception - all prestige goes right into a personal bank account. You can then choose to donate an amount to the SG or use it on your personal plot.

To keep things interesting though the player cannot add any functional items to their personal plot. No telepads, no medibay, no work stations. These are SG base only items. Additionally if the rent isn't maintained on the SG base as a whole then when the base shuts down the personal plots are shut down as well meaning its in everyones best interests to keep the prestige donations coming.

This idea solves both problems in one go. Everyone gets a 'base' that they can expand and develop for themselves which others can wander into any time you allow them in for a look plus you have the need to join an SG base and need to develop an SG base which provides a unified goal to the members.

Thoughts?

To be frank here. When you look at player housing in other games they are very very popular because each induvidual player can afford a personal home or building. That is their pad, their little corner to do their own thing. Much in the way the costumes are made for and by a single player.

If bases are to become popular then it needs to be possible for one person to have a building/base all to themself. What you have is SGs where maybe 1 person gets to make their corner and the whole SG ends up paying to maintain that persons idea. In essense, the base becomes exactly what a single person wanted and others simply get to borrow it. Thats why they're less popular.

One solution is that SGs should have a BASE and then doors/portal which lead to a single players room. Something which is a plot for that one person and they have complete freedom to do with that personal plot as they see fit. Bases become a hub for access to personal housing rather than being the end of it. You see this in many comics, each member of the Fantastic Four having their own room, Reed has his lab for example. Or the Xavier institute being a campus where members of the team have their own little corner to themselves.

What would be nice is that the SG as a whole can contribute to the base itself and the base can be expanded as a seperate entity to each members induvidual 'room'. If players are then given their own plots which they can expand and develop seperate from the SG base but linked through it so any member of the SG can wander in and have a look then it creates a fictionally consistant equivilent of personal housing which you see in many MMOs.

Jack, you're missing the point. People love the character creator because they ARE that character as they play through the game. In many cases the character embodies something that the person find cool plus their appearence is something which is shared with everyone in the game and is part of everyday life for every player.

However. Bases are none of the above. People don't dream of being A BUILDING but they no doubt have dreams of owning a certain base, saddly the tilesets for bases are so limited that people haven't got the freedom to do what they want as much. They end up being very very similar. Additionally bases are not part of a typical play session or shared with the player population as a whole. They are created by one person or a small group of people and they are only ever seen by the smallest minority of the player population.

You really can't draw any lines between the success of the costume creator and the lack of success with bases as they are unrelated in so many ways. As stated, what makes bases less interesting is that they're too isolated and not involving enough in the typical play session. No doubt that will change with the invention system when the SG workbenches become preferable to the University workbenches.

Bases are unpopular because they're not useful enough.

Basically you have maybe one feature which is used on a daily basis and thats the teleporters but frankly between things like the monorail, the pocket D shortcuts and such theres is very little need to use them unless you're going to a hazard zone or going from one end of the city to the other.

The medi-bays? Not that handy as you still need to run back to the mission. It'll be more useful once you have an option to reappear at the mission door you were just at.

Inspiration storage? Errr yeah, we know how handy that is.
Enhancement storage? Not bad, better for when you have a large SG who are interesting in sharing the wealth.
Salvage storage? Same as above.

As it stands there isn't much point to the bases to warrenty the kind of investment needed especially considering that on the gandscale of things they only benefit large active and well organised SGs which are, oddly enough, quite rare. So to your average user they're not all that handy. That will no doubt change once the invention system comes in as its been said that they'll have workstations that let you make things you can't get from the Universities.

When that is added the bases will start to become alot more popular but again it might be too costly for your typical group to maintain and thus the feature is again wasted. Empowerment stations are already a huge flop as it is.

You know it is a shame that some folks will never get to see the wonder and awe of seeing a single tank herding dozens of spawns of enemies into one massive pile. I remember the first time i was on a ninjas farming mission and I saw this whole army of ninjas come running across the map into the tanker who had just ran around the map to grab as much aggro as possible. The sight of a 50+ NPC pile up which was so dense that you'd bearly see the tanker in the middle of it all was incredible.

Then of course you had my regen scrapper with his perma instant healing slotted 2 end 4 endurance fighting with something like 30 even con enemies at once and his health was bearly moving. Good days for epic battles but it was all just too easy, visually stunning but far far too easy.

I remember those days, when this supposed Eastgate was little more than distant hills seen beyond the warwalls and you couldn't help but run through Kings Row without seeing folks on broadcast shouting:

"Where do you find Circle of Thorns in here?"

As if the large green plumes of smoke from the rooftops wasn't enough of a give away.

I remember when folks used to sweep through the hazard zones in vast teams herding up spawns and then blitzing them with AoE hits which could take out 20-30 enemies at once. It was even more fun to have a high fire tanker go running around the lake and herding them into a pile only to have everyone laying into the mass of enemies for a crap load of exp.

These were the days when tankers were considered gimp if they couldn't herd over 100 enemies, when ice armor could only have one toggle on at a time which was the same as rock armor with the exception that rock armor made it look liek you were encased in poo and fire tankers were considered gods.

How times change.

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So this was observed in beta- that would have covered Bloody Bay, a little in Siren's, and a probably a small few in Warburg. But have you guys looked at PVP and Stalkers in Recluse's Victory where the tables are certainly more different than Siren's or Warburg? I mean, PVP in RV didn't exist in beta, and it also wasn't on the test server for very long.

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For one thing, they do have internal play testers. So it may have not been publically tested for beta by the players on all levels but it certainly would have been internally. Secondly, the devs said Stalkers are #1 in PvP... they didn't say Stalkers are #1 in PvP in lower level zones, they said #1. Thats to say, they overall perform better in their kill to death ratio than any other AT. So for the sake of one zone where they have to make an effort I'd say they're still on top from what the devs said there.
Lastly don't you find it amazing that one of the main tools for the Stalker being broken they're still number 1?

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I see one major problem with a Marvel Super Heroes MMO. I don't see how they could ever balance it. If a game like this one has balance problems imagine a game like that. And how on earth do you account for multiple versions of the same marvel character? A team of four Wolverines? There is only one Wolverine? More than one would just feel lame.

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I would be shocked if they let you play as signature characters, really.

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Agreed, I'm pretty much assuming all the major marvel characters will either be contacts or "Pets" that come along on missions.

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Matrix Online used to delete people who made copycat Morpheus and Neo characters. Starwars galaxies didn't like you making copies of their famous characters either. The fact is that if you can't control how your trademarks and copyrighted characters are used and percieved by others then you are infact in violation of the copyright and/or trademark laws since you're not working to protect the IP.

By allowing some 8yr old to make a character who is exactly like Spiderman and then go jumping around and cursing on broadcast while griefing people then it portrays a bad image of the person they look like. Thus you'll NEVER be allowed to make a character who is a copy or too similar to copyrighted/trademarked figures.

If the devs want some advice is this. People WANT to be Spiderman, Hulk or whatever. If they don't allow folks to do that then people will be disapointed. So here's a suggestion. Let people take control of these characters inside of instanced missions, let the AI take control of their character OR have them trying to save/rescue their character.

Imagine this. Your character is sent on a mission by Thor to stop a plot of Doctor Doom's to take over the world. You fight through the mission all fine and then in the final room you're face to face with Doc Doom while solo. He totally kicks you're characters butt. The scene switches and now you (the player) is taking control of Thor who is aware of your character being captured and is now going to have to save them from Doc Doom. This means you're not only inside an instanced mission so you're not going to grief someone else, you're in a contained environment and its very very cool because for a brief time you ARE Thor.

If this was a team mission something similar would happen except that you'd have a set of signiture heroes assigned to help Thor. So lets say the mission (when done by a team) allows all of the team to get captured and each member is taken to a selection screen showing what signiture heroes they can control for the 'rescue' part. They each select one person each and off they go with each player controlling a different signiture hero.

Sounds like it would work huh?

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I think the 5th will definitely return, but I kind of doubt that is the "common foe" to which Positron was referring.

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They said FAMILIAR enemy. Not common. Also how many other groups do you know have need of a new 'power base' than the currently leaderless 5th Column?

It's kinda obvious that we're looking at the return of the 5th Column here. Many people suspect that they'll be revived by the Reichsman who's gonna break out of his suspended animation somehow.

At first I would have thought that Reichsman might be allies with Lord Recluse. Considering his eastern european heritidge and all but then again Nazism is nothing like Technocratism which Lord Recluse's organisation is aiming for. So it does make sense that both Arachnos and the rest of the world would see the Reichsman and the new 5th Column as a global threat.

The question then is. Why would they be even more powerful? A supervillain fresh out of the freezer has no knowledge of the current world, no connections and no cash to fund such an operation as reforming a huge militia. I'd be curious to see how the new 5th Column is funded and organised. Maybe in the Nazi controlled universe the Well of Furies was never destroyed?

Ubermenche Incarnates? Now thats INTERESTING!!

Just wanted to congratulate Cryptic on the contract to make the Marvel MMO. What is great is that with all this extra funding coming into this development studio there will be a knock on effect to CoH in that the company will be larger as a whole, have better access to development tools to use on their projects plus the ability to have more staff members to oversee developments.

While I realise that alot of the funding will be directed at the Marvel MMO as Microsoft is footing the bill I'm more thinking more of the profits Cryptic will recieve from the sales and maintainence of the game which will be THEIR money to spend how they feel suitable. I feel that with CoX being Cryptics first love and first 'baby' it'll never be forgotten and will receive alot of the benefits of this new cash flow from Marvel MMO profits.

Once again folks, well done. Since you're working on it I'll have to take a look when its nearly ready to release.

I will also says this. SOE has been dying a slow death for years, with major corperations turning their backs on them in favor of superior and younger development studios I'd say the loss of this major contract will hopefully put a nail in their coffin.

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Don't count on it. There might be something from the veteran rewards tho.

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You are my new favorite forum poster.

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To sig or not to sig, that is the question.

Don't count on it. There might be something from the veteran rewards tho.

Wow this is old. Doctor Vahzilok in da house?

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(a) Street sweeping is boring -- even compared to grinding the same instance maps over and over again.

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Thats complete nonsense. Moving from one spawn to the next is the same in missions as it is on the streets. The only difference is that street spawns usually have much larger numbers and can be approach by choice while in a mission you have to work your way through. Back during the first year it was very commonplace to see people sweeping through the Hazard zones. Thats why they existed, for large teams to go in and get alot of levels in a very short space of time. Because the fact is that exp on the street was usually much much better than missions. However with the invention of the mission slider its not true anymore as you can get just as many enemies, just as high levels only with half as much debt (thus half as much risk) should you die.

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(b) Your team has to compete with other players and teams for the same spawns.

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The hazard zones are so large that you didn't often see two groups competing for spawns. Infact it encouraged those wonderful occasions where two seperate teams worked together while sweeping leading to them being able to take on even tougher spawns. Name me one mission which supports multiple teams inside it.

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(c) Spawn groups on the shared maps aren't generated at the optimal size & levels for the team size & desired difficulty.

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Spawns generate in the world are based upon the size and amount of players in the area at the time. You should have seen the spawns which could take place in Perez Park when it was an active zone, seeing 2 or 3 bosses during the peak playing hours with a ton of leuitenants and minions in the minority was common place. As for being optimised, the players were able to pick and choose who they could have a fight with. A mission tells you what to fight so infact the missions are less optimal compared to street sweeping.

However now with recent changes the much reduced risk in missions sways players totally in their favor.

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Something has to be done to bring back hunting in hazard zones as a valid alternative to missions in the eyes of the player community.

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Definitely, which is why I'm an avid fan of new types of noninstanced, outdoor missions. I'd also love to see them bring over some of the zonewide events from PvP zones and put those into PvE zones.

Dressing up the zone and giving it new contacts really doesn't make the zone that much more used. It just makes the doors there used.

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Exactly, for a city of heroes you see all this crime on the street and every hero buzzing past on their way to a mission. Consindering that people these days can navigate maps simply by glancing around due to the limited building block rooms which missions are made.

Its scary when I can say 'that large room usually at the end of a warehouse map' or 'that room in a council base with all the water pools' or 'the two lab style rooms which are known as the rooms of doom, because they usually get teams killed' and people instantly know what I'm talking about.

If the devs are going to shuffle players into missions then more times need to spent on making missions more diverse in appearence. What is the point of revamping the zones when people aren't inclined to street sweep and thus cannot enjoy the effort gone into street spawns and scripted events.

I doubt many people are even aware of the special Ballista spawns in St. Martial because who these days bothers to go hunting in the zones? It is known about, but when people do mention it on the forums you suddenly have alot of folks acting surprized that its there.

I'm more surprized that War Witch isn't a little annoyed by the position the game is in. The chances of finding a team to street sweep or actively use hazard zones these days compared to the first year of release is so tiny that putting effort into the hazard zones is a big mistake. There just isn't any justification to choose street sweeping over missions as missions have only half of the debt penalty your normally have on the streets themselves.

I personally feel that the devs need to give some better incentives to fighting on the streets such as a higher chance of inspirations or enhancements or an INF bonus for the team for clearing a full spawn.

There is a reason why babbage and the Kraken are considered the rarest of GMs. Its because Perez Park is totally ignored these days as are many of the Hazard zones. This is something the devs have done by making missions give half debt, players know this. So spending more development time on parts of the zone which won't hold the player's attention except to take part in events that the devs add sounds like wasted time.

Something has to be done to bring back hunting in hazard zones as a valid alternative to missions in the eyes of the player community.

I did have a bookmark for the CoV forum which listed all of the known perception and stealth values of various powers. I'm in the process of making an anti-stalker scrapper and wanted to compare numbers. I suspect there may be issues but I can't be sure, tactics + focussed senses as I recall would give you around an additional +700 perception which should be enough to see through stalkers who cap at around 1200 for their stealth value at level 50. But I can't remember for sure.

Did anyone save the notes or know where they were moved to?

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*snip* One of the things the Activist shouts is asking the city to begin to rebuild Faultline. Meaning the devs are no doubt looking into revising the zone.

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He's obviously not planning on being in the construction crew that goes in there to get started. Hope they get good hazard pay.

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As I recall the devs mentioned they were thinking of having rebuilt hazard zones being changed by player actions. Basically heroes would need to defend the construction sites from villainous attacks kinda like pillboxes need defending in RV. Failure to do so makes the zone more dangerous and look like the hazard zone as it is, the more the constructions are defended the more rebuilt the zone becomes. Hopefully one way we'll see zones like Dark Astoria and the Hollows turn into city zones to represent the city's regrowth.

The Activist outside the cityhal in the game regularly blurts out various things which essentially are reflections of what players have been saying. In a way, its kinda like a little joke but also the devs letting players know that they have heard the community.

One of the things the Activist shouts is asking the city to begin to rebuild Faultline. Meaning the devs are no doubt looking into revising the zone.