TonyV

I know that this is probably an unpopular thing to say here, but I actually like the graphics in Champions Online. What I don't like is the gameplay. It's just not fun or interesting to me.

I want both--but if I can't have both, I'll choose City of Heroes any day. Among other reasons, I think it would be easier to update the graphics engine (a la Ultra Mode) than it would be to update the gameplay system.

Well, color me convinced. ATI it is, then, and I'm really glad I asked. You guys are awesome.

I've decided to go with this one. It's out of the price range I was considering, but that should future-proof me pretty well, I hope, and will hopefully kick ultra mode's a**. I'm also buying a 128 GB SSD.

Again, thanks for the advice. I really had pretty much decided to go with one of the nVidia cards.

Okay, I'm on Newegg now, and I'm looking at the RadeonHD 5850 cards. I have a few questions.

1) I'm looking at two Radeon HD 5850 cards. The Sapphire Toxic is factory overclocked. The core clock is 765 MHz instead of 725 MHz, and the memory clock is 1125 MHz instead of 1000 MHz. It's also $70 more expensive than the non-overclocked version. Will these specs really make a difference running City of Heroes? Is it worth paying 20% more, or is it just the difference between a couple of FPS? City of Heroes is really the most graphically intense game I play, but of course, I want to play it with smokin' frame rates. Oh, and I also sometimes do video captures, which can ding the frame rate.

2) There's also a Sapphire Toxic 2GB card (versus 1GB) for exactly the same price. Am I just missing some obvious difference other than how much memory is on the card? Neither of the prices are marked down. Why are they exactly the same price?

3) Does anyone have this particular card from this particular manufacturer? Is there any reason why I shouldn't buy this card? Does another manufacturer have better cards? Again, this is my motherboard. I have a 1000W power supply. Will I need to buy anything else?

4) I figure that if I do go with the Sapphire Toxic model, for just $10 more, they have the RadeonHD 5870, with a non-overclocked 850 MHz core clock and 1200 MHz memory clock. Would this be a better deal?

5) Does anyone else want to weigh in on the ATI vs. nVidia thing? I mean, if we're pushing up into that price range, we're in the price range of some of nVidia's higher-end cards.

Any thoughts and help would be appreciated!

So, seriously? The only advice is to go with an ATI card? I mean, if that's the only advice there is, then I suppose that I'll go for it. I'm just a bit surprised that no one out there will suggest an nVidia card in that price range. I dunno, maybe that's why I came here, because I was having trouble myself finding that. I just know that I had trouble before with settings that couldn't be enabled, wonky bugs, and other problems with an ATI card, but that was quite a while back. Have those been worked out? Also, I was kind of hoping to support one of the companies that sponsors the game.

Hey all, I'm in the market for a new video card that can kill Ultra Mode. I run a dual-monitor setup at 1920x1200 (both monitors), though when I'm playing City of Heroes, I'm only running it on one monitor. (I use the second monitor for the Paragon Wiki or for running other non-graphically intensive apps.)

I'm looking to spend in the neighborhood of $200-$300. This is my motherboard. I'm not a whiz when it comes to hardware, translating specifications into "This will run City of Heroes really well," though I'm perfectly proficient at installing it once I have it. I prefer nVidia cards since I've had trouble with ATIs in the past.

So... Any advice on what will help me get set up would be appreciated. Links to Newegg and/or Amazon would be come close to getting on my Christmas card list.

I'd suggest posting this in your favorite server's forum, you'll be a lot more likely to get the response you're looking for there. Also, don't make it too much like the television series V or else it will be genericked as a EULA violation. General lizard-type alien villains (or heroes, for that matter) would probably be fine, but if you start making their uniforms look like the series's uniforms or naming them Anna or Ryan or John May, or god forbid, you actually name the supergroup "The Visitors," you're going to be GM-smacked in pretty short order.

Here's part 5, the finale, which was roughly the 10:30pm - 11:30pm Eastern time slot. Dark Watcher was still around, but this was almost all Christopher "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce, who stuck around a whole hour and a half extra answering some really good questions.

LOTS of signal to noise on this one, probably more than any other time slot. I was especially surprised and impressed by his candor. Undoubtedly, some of this stuff will be used as argument quote fodder, so you don't want to miss this one.

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Dark Watcher: I think he's borrowing pohsyb's box. [Not sure what he's talking about.]
Electrical Forestes: BAB's is in the sky, for he is god!
Dark Watcher: I thought he was basement-dev?
Back Alley Brawler: Colin worked very hard on the whip animations [Colin Brown, a member of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson just kind of busted out the Dual Pistol animations in a week. That stuff's in his blood [Nelson Tam, another member of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Dark Watcher: Nelson is an animation machine!
Green Taipan: Very impressive!
Back Alley Brawler: not literally a week
Dark Watcher: Oddly, SQL is not usually the problem. [Not sure what he's referring to, probably a /tell regarding development.]
Madam Enigma: What's the biggest reason why you devs don't want to merge hero and villain markets?
Back Alley Brawler: I think the biggest reason why is because you can't go back once you do that
Back Alley Brawler: I believe the plan is to try and address the problems with them seperately before pulling the trigger on merging them and hoping that it fixes all the problems
Madam Enigma: Are there any technical issues with the merger that would make it hard?
Back Alley Brawler: there might be tech issues as well...I know they're completely seperate databases and executables
Redios: HEY Dark Watcher, I am told you are the person to thank for the Ski Chalet, first, TYVM! Second, what do I have to do to get a Halloween Zone with a Haunted House?
HellFriar: Redios: We. Have. Croatoa. ;] Now a 'haunted house' mission in croatoa I would support!
Dark Watcher: I saw some people making some GREAT halloween haunted houses.
Electrical Forestes: Can I has kitten summoning?
Telestra: is it a dead kitten, at least?
Dark Watcher: Undead Kitten Summoning?
Burton Ernie: Was there much watching of the movie WANTED while making the DP powerset?
Back Alley Brawler: we drew inspiration from John Woo, Equilebriaum, and Wanted
Green Scare: never saw equalibrium. Worth renting?
Bike Thief: I saw Equilibrium in the theater when it came out, it was kind of hard to find it playing anywhere
Back Alley Brawler: I never heard of it until about a year ago
Daranable: Random question for the devs. Have the Devs ever grabbed there "signature" Hero and grouped up and done any of the TFs?
Back Alley Brawler: we can't play with Posi, he doesn't like big teams, he gets bored quickly, and he cheats
Dark Watcher: It's good to be a dev.
Back Alley Brawler: liberal use of the "I win button" power
Back Alley Brawler: we don't really do a lot of playtesting with the sig characters, but we do use our live characters
IndigoWulf: question: are you guys in on the D&D games posi and castle mentioned ealier, if so, what do you play?
Dark Watcher: Yes, I enjoy D&D, but haven't played much.
Dark Watcher: Much lately.
Dark Watcher: I just need to find a regular group.
Madam Enigma: Do either of you play a superhero pen and pencil rpg? ANd if so, which one?
Back Alley Brawler: does Heroes Unlimted count?
Back Alley Brawler: although I didn't really play that as much as just made a bunch of characters
Dark Watcher: But we do have a regular gaming night on Tuesday.
Back Alley Brawler: I've bought and read a lot of game books, but only actually played a handful of times
IndigoWulf: who's the GM of your tues group?
Dark Watcher: Nah, on Tuesday we tend to play board or card games.
Dark Watcher: I used to play play by email Diplomacy.
Dual Mind: I know this doesn't fit into your area of expertise, but "Is there a plan to bring back the Cathedral of Pain?"
Dark Watcher: the Cathedral of Pain is aptly named
Back Alley Brawler: I think a more apt name would have been "The Cathedral of Dear God Who Came Up with this and what were they thinking!"
Dark Watcher: See! That's a case of not telling the designers they're crazy.
Green Scare: What is the cathedral of pain?
Feral Storm: Cathedral of Pain basically was equivalent to letting 8-32 people stick you in the eye with a spork.
Dark Watcher: Spork!
Proto-Zone: Cathedral of Pain used to be a Supergroup only Task Force.
Green Scare: oh..why was it removed?
Back Alley Brawler: it was removed because of PvP
Back Alley Brawler: thats what we're supposed to say when we remove stuff, right...PvP
Spam Elemental: I knew it! PvP is the cause of all evils in all MMOs! :P
Dark Watcher: No, PvP actually had nothign to do with it.
Back Alley Brawler: it was removed so that we'd always have something to talk about in Q&A sessions
Back Alley Brawler: pretty good, but we screwed up the whole Posi TF thing [Probably in response to a /tell or local question; I'm pretty sure he's referring to the old Positron task force, not the new one.]
Dark Watcher: Ah, the new one, I hear, is great!
Back Alley Brawler: so now we gotta get a new fallback question
Dark Watcher: I thought Hammi was our fallback question
Dark Watcher: Hammi's too easy.
Back Alley Brawler: it's one of them
Back Alley Brawler: plans to fix hami. 1) Get rid of EOEs, 2) Bring back DE Monsters. 3) Put call for help power on Hami 4) Turn Hive into PvP zone
Madam Enigma: Yeah, the original posi was a pain in the rear. What went wrong when designing it?
Dark Watcher: Design and Tech didn't quite match up in the original Posi.
Dark Watcher: They really wanted it to be two different TFs. At the time, we didn't have the tech for that.
Dark Watcher: Gosh, how things have changed.
Dark Watcher: It should be fun to see what GR does to team makeups.
Madam Enigma: BaB or DW, what's your favorate AE arc?
Back Alley Brawler: I liked the "meow" and "jelly bean" arcs [For those not in the know, this refers to two high-profile Mission Architect exploit arc types that were heavily exploited and subsequently heavily nerfed. He's kidding here. Or maybe not; maybe he took great delight in nerfing him. I'll let you interpret what he meant for yourself. ]
Dark Watcher: Ok, I have to head out for a bit. Thanks everyone for a great 6 years!
Dark Watcher: Night all.
Madam Enigma: BaB, you may have missed it, but what power set so far did you have the most fun animating? And which future sets on the board would you enjoy animating most?
Back Alley Brawler: really, about the only powers I've animate has been Dual Blades
Back Alley Brawler: everythign else has been stuff like emotes, NPC animations, stupid doors, and tons and tons of work in text files making everything work
Laughing Guns: Now, when you say you animated them, do you mean character actions, special effects, or both?
Back Alley Brawler: For DB I did everything. I did the VFX for Dual Pistols, but not the animations
Back Alley Brawler: Colin and Keetsie did Demon Summoning, with some additional help from Nelson on some of the Demon animations [Colin Brown, Keetsie Berbel, and Nelson Tam, members of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Green Scare: I don't even know what vfx are.
Back Alley Brawler: VFX is Visual Effects
Madam Enigma: What sort of reference material did they use for the demons?
Back Alley Brawler: we summoned some demons and took pictures
Roulette: Oooo if you're summoning bad things can we get a cthulhu summoning set next?
Back Alley Brawler: we're not doing any more summoning sets until after we replace the roof
Green Scare: The roof?
Back Alley Brawler: the one the demons took out in a rage of hellish fury and violence
Proto-Zone: BABs, would you mind giving us a background on your fellow animators? When did they join and what have they done? I'm sure some of us would love to give them some forum props!
Back Alley Brawler: I'm terrible with dates, but Colin came on board first. Trying to remember what was the first things he worked on
Back Alley Brawler: may have been some of the first costume change emote animations. Science Super Booster pack I beleive
Back Alley Brawler: Keetsie was here before him actually. She's the VFX artist on the team and she's worked on practially everytrhing
Green Scare: Babs, what were you originally hired to do? Seems like a bunch of you guys have taken on roles you previously never thought you'd be doing.
Back Alley Brawler: I was hired to do both animation and VFX for CoH. I was a one man team
Back Alley Brawler: I did that from Issue 8 until Issue 13 or so?
Back Alley Brawler: what issue was Cimerora? [Issue 12, for the record. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: so around issue 12 Ron came on as an animator and dit a lot of the work on shields [Ron Friedman, former animator no longer with Paragon Studios. --Wiki Guy]
Proto-Zone: Ron? That name came out of nowhere... =P
Back Alley Brawler: Ron was an animator who is no longer with us. He was at Hero-Con two years ago
Madam Enigma: Really BaB, how much did you celibrate when your animation staff was increased?
Back Alley Brawler: not a lot, becasue I still had to pretty much do everything I was doing AND train new people
Madam Enigma: But it has clearly lowered your peronal work load. Were you one of the original team, or did you come in after launch?
Back Alley Brawler: I started working on this game right after Issue 7 launched [Destiny Manifest, the issue that raised the villain cap to 50 and introduced Grandville, Recluse's Victory, and mayhem missions. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: but I've played since early May, 2004
Back Alley Brawler: It's all a blur
Bike Thief: I'm wondering, who's most responsible for the invention system and the consignment houses?
Back Alley Brawler: Posi had a big part in the invention system.
Back Alley Brawler: consignment house was a group effort with a lot of people
Bike Thief: did you have to adjust anything for ultra-mode?
Back Alley Brawler: I tweaked a few weapons and shields to make them work with cubemaps
Amy Amazing: The animated tail clips on my cape, so I can only use it on my capeless costumes
Back Alley Brawler: Yeah, sorry...there's only so much we can do with stuff like that
Madam Enigma: I know a lot of us have stories to tell of our best (and worst) moments in game. Do you have any such stories?
Back Alley Brawler: I have a few war stories, but I can't talk about them because it might clue people in on who my personal characters are
Feral Storm: Forget animated tails, I'm happy for the dedicated slot for the tails!
Mikuruneko: Yes, that too. I'm curious, what technical voodoo did you have to do to accomplish the belt/tail seperation, BABs?
Back Alley Brawler: not complicated, we just had to use one of our few remaining costume nodes
Golden-Girl: was the separaation of the belt and tail into separate nodes something that could eb used for single and separate arm and leg pieces?
Back Alley Brawler: it theoretically could, but we've only got like 2 or 3 left and adding more is apparently a huge undertaking
DarkSabyr: anything that you specificaly would like to see added as a costume option?
Back Alley Brawler: I keep hoping for robotic legs, like the hydrolic arms
Lady Warsprite: is there any chance you guys might consider opening the pvp recipes up for an itme that could be purchased with merits?
DJ Pheonyx: Will there ever be a way to send ideas for chest logos?
Back Alley Brawler: I wouldn't think so [STRONG disclaimer: The questions above appeared in the midst of lots of chatter about farming. I think one of these is what he was answering, but I can't tell for sure or which one.]
Madam Enigma: Is it true you devs sometimes slip in a npc exclusive costume piece into your outfits? There's long been rumors that Positron for example uses the posi shoulders on his costumes
Back Alley Brawler: absolutely not. Our player characters are just like all of yours
Back Alley Brawler: no special costume pieces, powers, nada
Back Alley Brawler: we follow the rules better than most of you
Madam Enigma: Hey! I take pride in my 'no farming' stance
Psicotic Bat: yes anti-farm here
Green Scare: Madam, if you've done a tf more than one time..you're a farmer. :P
Back Alley Brawler: 'farming' is a very loose term
Back Alley Brawler: it means different things for different people, and unfortunately gets used too often to mean 'power leveling' or 'exploiting'
Back Alley Brawler: when inventions were added, and certain enemy groups drop certain typs of salvage...going out and specfiically looking for those particular groups is a type of farming.
Back Alley Brawler: I think the type of things we're most worried about are when people find some unexpected way to gain rewards much quicker than anything else...and seeing too many players get funneled into doing that same thing as well
Lady Warsprite: I think any farm that can get you a toon from lvl 1 to 50 in a day would be considered an exploite
Back Alley Brawler: I would too
Green Scare: BaB's will there be any system in the near future that would allow played to auto-level to 50 for PvP purposes and those toons would only be able to be used in PvP zones and arena matches? Because PvP is the biggest reason why I would want to level a toon quickly.
Back Alley Brawler: I'ts been brought up before, but I'm nto sure if there's a way to do something like that
Back Alley Brawler: I've even suggested we maybe do it as an arena game, where you pilot specfiic AT/Powerset characters and it's all player skill versus player skill
Back Alley Brawler: bottom line, we don't want people to get bored or burnt out on the game and stop playing
Back Alley Brawler: and some of the exploits have the potential to completely change perceptions about what's normal in game
Back Alley Brawler: unfortuantely, we'll always have conflicting motivations. You guys want what's most fun for yourselves, and we have to do what we think is best for as many people as possible
Back Alley Brawler: cause end of the day if we screw up, we lose our jobs, have to uproot our families and move...we're taking all the risks here
Back Alley Brawler: you guys get bummed and save $15/mo
Hyperstrike: And you're hated until the end of the universe
Hyperstrike: Like John Romero "Make you my *****"
Back Alley Brawler: I actually worked with Romero for a little while
Back Alley Brawler: he's a nice guy
Feral Storm: BaBs, with the engine 6 years old, going forward is there still a lot of push to not exceed the original minimum requirements?
Back Alley Brawler: there's really only so much we can do with the engine. It's more limited by having to redo all of the assets in the game at this point
Back Alley Brawler: getting a deluge of PMs here
TonyV: Heh, turn those things off. :P
Back Alley Brawler: I would, but then peopel get all grumpy that I'm ignoring them
Green Scare: Can't please everyone.
Back Alley Brawler: nope, we can't
Back Alley Brawler: I'm gonna have to head out. Happy 6 years everyone, hopeyou enjoyg I17 and Going Rogue, please spread the word and get people to come take another look at the game when GR goes live
Back Alley Brawler: Sorry if I didn't get to address your questions
[Lots of hearty thank-yous ensued]

As a brief side note...

Are we related?

Here's the picture of Tony "Lanaru" V...



Here are more "Avatars Gone Wild." At one point, there were six or so Golden Rollers cruising around the dance floor, and a bunch of floating televisions everywhere.



Players were also turned into Ghost Widows, Rikti Monkeys, and I think I saw some turned into demons, too.



Oh, and there's a girl, one who is golden. I wish I could remember her name...

Here's part 4, which was roughly the 9:00pm - 10:30pm Eastern time slot. This was Back Alley Brawler's and Dark Watcher's time slot, though both stayed well after the Meet and Greet was scheduled to end. Aside from answering questions, they decided to have a bit of fun by changing players' avatars into NPC models, some of them quite...interesting. I'll post some pictures later.

There's one last post I'm just going to have to delay until tomorrow because I'm walking dead right now. :( It won't be as long as the others, so you already have most of what happened.

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Back Alley Brawler: This thing on?
Back Alley Brawler: Excellent! For those who don't know me, I'm Christopher Bruce and I'm the lead animator/VFX artist. I'll be happy to hang out and chat with you guys about anything related to animations or visual effects in CoH
Nezumi-Ko: Hey, Brawler-sama? Any possible way of getting Impervium and Tech versions of all the melee weapons, like we have Vanguard versions?
Back Alley Brawler: I love making weapons, but I don't get much time to do them...so I couldn't say
Taliesen Riftborn: Wolf tails! :)
Back Alley Brawler: No comment about wolf tails, beaver tails, or any other new animated tail...that's really more on the character artists to make at this point
Arachnos Agent: The Navy Colt Pistols are fantastic BABs.
Back Alley Brawler: Thanks, I really liked how the new pistol models turned out. Doing stuff like that isn't really my forte, so it's always fun to branch out and get some practice
Proto-Zone: BABs. What was your favorite powerset and emote (set) to animate?
Back Alley Brawler: there are far to many awesome animations for me to pick a favorite, but at this point I pretty much hate all of the dual blade animations I did. That's pretty common for artists :P
Taliesen Riftborn: Yeah, the newest pistol looks are wonderful!
AddoX: I like that most of the new pistols actually look like the hand is gripping the handle, even though the hand art is unchanged.
DJ Jules: Seriously, the animations as of late have been absolutely amazing. Smooth, realistic, the whole bit.
Gunny Elf: Seriously, BaBs, thank you for getting the pistols to look GOOD, unlike other games, and their ghetto-style gun-handling
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson and Colin have done awesome work on some of the newer animations [Nelson Tam and Colin Brown, members of Christoper's Animation team. --Wiki Guy]
DJ Shecky: BABs, Will we ever get chance of firingDoves for the Dual Pistol set?
Back Alley Brawler: No dove for Dual Pistols...it's just TOO over the top
Back Alley Brawler: animation costumiztion outside of power customization would be VERY tricky...I'mnot sure if it's even possible to do [I'm not sure which specific comment he was addressing with this. It could have been the one above, or further comment on the "doves while shooting" suggestion.]
Positron: Booo! Want doves!
Praetor Fabulous: Babs, At herocon there was a different animation for rain of bullets, will we see that ever again. ((I kinda liked that one better, sorry!))
Back Alley Brawler: Animation for Bullet Rain didn't change, just the VFX. The Herocon effects were mostly placeholder
Demon Storm Kat: question: how come the whip in DS doesnt stay in hand after activation?
Back Alley Brawler: whip doesn't stay in your hand because we have no good way to make it animate dynamically, and it took too long to roll it up between every attack
NCsoft_Mod08: he was earlier heh [I'm not sure who he's referring to or what "he" was.]
Roulette: Can you spawn anything awesome for us to see Babs? Like oh.... dopplegangers for the whole room? *glutton for punishment*
Back Alley Brawler: I will not be spawning anything tonight...sorry guys. [A reference to Jade Spiders that Positron and/or Castle had spawned earlier.]
Gunny Elf: any new dances coming? Fabulous wants the Yes-dance
Back Alley Brawler: new dances would be cool, huh?
Back Alley Brawler: there will be some cool new stuff coming with Going Rogue, and the Complete Edition of Going Rogue [Possibly referring to dances, as many players were suggesting some, or to animations in general.]
Taliesen Riftborn: HAH! I want a facepalm animation XD
Xprom: 2nd the /e facepalm
Michael Yurke: Oh lord yes, /e facepalm
Back Alley Brawler: I want a faceplam emote for the forums!
NCsoft_Mod08: I'll give you a couple links [I think this might have been a /tell mistell. There were no questions or comments about sites, and no links were ever provided publicly.]
Green Taipan: BAB, did you get a lot of room to add emotes for GR, and were they particularly time-consuming if so?
Back Alley Brawler: A lot of our time went into the new player powersets, and all of the new enemy groups and zones for Going Rogue
Piyerus1: If you had as much time and resources to work on any project you wanted, what would it be?
Back Alley Brawler: If I had unlimted time and resources, I'd probably work on new custom weapons and new themes for power customization
[Another Jade Spider was spawned.]
Michael Yurke: BABs, any chance for non-weapons version of claws, like the Snakes have? I'd really like to be able to have finger talons instead of Wolverine claws.
Back Alley Brawler: There's unfortunately not any way to tie costume parrts (clawed finger gloves) to power customization (open handed claw attack animations)
Back Alley Brawler: without claw weaposn, you'd just swing with your fists
Faethura1: Are there any plans for unlockable dp weapons like there are for archery or assault rifle?
Back Alley Brawler: there aren't really any dual pistols in the game TO unlock...other than the 5th Column Lugers of course
Back Alley Brawler: players already have access to pretty much all there is
Valectric: Hey Back Ally, when are the bases gonna see some love?
Back Alley Brawler: I know nothing about bases or plans for bases
Valectric: yall seem to have just forgotten about them
Back Alley Brawler: forgotten about what? [I think Back Alley Brawler did not see the person who originally asked about bases when replying to this.]
Redios: HEY BABS ! Please tell me what would you think of "defeated emotes" like twitching on the ground, sticking all fours up, or spawning a tombstone at the head of your character, or daisies growing around you?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm not sure if you gusy should be rewarded for being defeated by getting to do fancy emotes
Golden-Girl: BAB, how comnplex is the tech for customizable emination points for powers?
Back Alley Brawler: emenation points are pretty straightforward...just need the animations for them. I think that kind of thing would be on the list after pool power customization
Praetor Fabulous: BABS, who are GPU and Tex?
NCsoft_Mod08: GPU and Tex are two of our programmers
Proto-Zone: GPU and Tex are on the forums to help out with computer tech issues. They are flagged to ignore Community and Developer Digests.
Valectric: Hey BAB, any chance of a new space zone comming around? Maybe we can take the Ritki fight straight to them in space.
Back Alley Brawler: I don't think the Rikti live in space
Green Taipan: Okay BAB....were there any tricky bits or surprises animating for GR? No specifics, but presumably with the newer engine you had some fun?
Back Alley Brawler: The engine hasn't really changed for Going Rogue, they have just added enhancments on top of the renderer
Back Alley Brawler: the triciest thing to animate in this game are...doors
Back Alley Brawler: seriously, doors are a HUGE pain in the...
Back Alley Brawler: getting a door into the game takes the cooperation of 3 departments. It's a real effort
DJ Valor: SKI CHALET! [I have no idea in what context DJ Valor shouted this out, but I think Back Alley Brawler took it to be a question about Pocket D's ski chalet design.]
NCsoft_Mod08: Everyone thank dark watcher, he asked for ski chalet
Valectric: I got another question BAB, any textural enhancements comming? Would be cool to update the texture files to make things look more realistic.
Back Alley Brawler: updating textures is probably not feasible, but you'll be seeing some pretty amazing stuff in Praetoria that's been made from scratch
Lady Warsprite: how many new zones are we going to get?
Back Alley Brawler: more than expected, less than you want
Valectric: Ok, BAB, one more question. How about more content for people who are level 50.
Back Alley Brawler: The incarnate system is being introduced in Going Rogue I believe
Back Alley Brawler: I sure hope that's right
NCsoft_Mod08: Players will get a taste of it in Going Rogue, but the full experience is in I19
Green Taipan: Can you talk some about animating Walk, something a lot of people thought wouldn't happen?
Back Alley Brawler: What about Walk exactly?
Back Alley Brawler: walking around in the game definitely makes you notice the play space and details in a different way
Taliesen Riftborn: Perhaps a second less sensual walk option for the girls?
Back Alley Brawler: animating walks is very very difficult
Redios: The walk power looks nice man. You did a great job with it. But I am wondering why? What is the purpose for it?
Back Alley Brawler: why walk? Cause so many people asked for it
R u catgurl?: Can you do Vehicle Travel Powers that work like Walk?
[Dark Watcher had arrived and was lurking around.]
Dark Watcher: Why walk, when you can just be there? [Referring to the mods' and devs' ability to instantly transport to any coordinates.]
Back Alley Brawler: I'm kind of baffled at howyou made the lateral leap from the Walk power to vehicle travel powers
Michael Yurke: Hey BABs, who was the red guy from the PAX panel?
Back Alley Brawler: which red guy from PAX?
NCsoft_Mod08: You'll learn more about him before Going Rogue releases, I promise
Desiree Glamour: Hey, wasn't The Television supposed to be here by now?
NCsoft_Mod08: the Television is around
Valectric: BAB, can you please clarify what the incarnate system is exactly?
Back Alley Brawler: I have no details on the incarnate system
Green Taipan: BAB....not being an animtor, I'm curious about the process. Were there limitations on animations say for dances that required the charcter to stay in one spot rather than move around, such as the dance emotes in LotRo?
Back Alley Brawler: yes, animations pretty much have to stay within a certain distance of where you're actually at in theworld
Green Scare: BaB will there be any way in the not so distant future to earn NPC costume pieces through NPC group story archs such as Carnival of Shadows and Wyvern?
Dark Watcher: Gah, the TV's infecting people again. [The Television was around and changing players' avatars into Televisions.]
Back Alley Brawler: I don't know anything about unlocking NPC costume parts other than most of those things only exist for one body type
NCsoft_Mod08: *inserting shameless self promotion* A great way to get some of the costume powers is to play in the weekly Official Forum Games! [Shameless! ;)]
Lady Ghost.: can you plz tlk about the upcomin mutant pack..wats gunna be in it?
Dark Watcher: Cool stuff will be in the Mutant Pack.
Back Alley Brawler: the mutant pack will contain 3 things: [At this point, I *almost* sent him a tell telling him to tread carefully not to do something that would get him in trouble.]
Back Alley Brawler: 1) Stuff, 2) things, and 3)dealies [I'm glad I didn't.]
Dark Watcher: _Cool Stff_ (tm)
Back Alley Brawler: You guys pretty much know what's gonna be in it
Golden-Girl: have you had any work on the mutant booster, BAB?
Dark Watcher: [shrug] I just watch. [Not sure what this was in reference to. Possibly Golden-Girl's question above, meaning that he didn't work on the Mutant Booster Pack, or possibly a /tell.]
Covertkill1: How about having weapons ON our characters like having a sword on your back or pistols on your belt?
Back Alley Brawler: Holsters/Sheaths always comes up and it's got a couple of gotchas
Back Alley Brawler: Those things don't work so well with body scaling, and they don't work well with custom weapons
[At this time, my camera suddenly shifted way upward, and my head turned purple. Confused, I zoomed out a little bit and found that the devs were now not just changing their own avatars, but they had changed my avatar to Lanaru the Mad! I decided to take advantage of the situation...]
TonyV: WHOA!
TonyV: I am SOOO signing up to play basketball!
TonyV: Behold, my children.
TonyV: For I am TonyV, god of the Wiki!
TonyV: Do not anger me, or I shall edit badge locations to be off by many hudreds of cubits!
TonyV: 'It says right here in the Wiki that it's next to the trash can, but I swear, I don't see it!'
Feral Storm: I fear no man, for I have.. Dark Watcher's hat. In theory. [In refernce to my chatter, I think.]
Dark Watcher: The hat has mustical powers. [Heh. "Mustical."]
[Several minutes of dev silence ensued, during which time other player avatars were changed into Lanarus, Televisions, Ghost Widows, and Golden Rollers. I'll post pictures after this post. Also, during this time, Back Alley Brawler made his way outside to the Chalet, and my avatar changed back.]
TonyV: Man, this happens every friggin' time I get turned into a god. It's fun for a few minutes, but then I can't reach stuff on shelves again when I'm changed back. :(
Bike Thief: I don't see any radios here
Dark Watcher: We need more Radio!
Back Alley Brawler: lets see how Rularuu does on teh bunny slope
Feral Storm: /e duck ? ^.^
Dark Watcher: quack?
DJ Jules: Squee squee!
Dark Watcher: Squee?
Dark Watcher: Ok, who but the pwny here?!? [In reference to a Nemesis Horse that Positron had spawned earlier.]
Robotronn1: whare is BaB?
Roulette: It got awfully quiet... *Looks around*
Back Alley Brawler: I just popped into the lodge
Redios: BAB, what is your favorite kind of music?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm not really sure I have a favorite kind of music
Back Alley Brawler: I can almost always listen to U2
The Television: OK
The Television: It's getting late
The Television: OK, last requets, then I'm heading out [Referring to any players that wanted their avatars changed.]
[By this time, it was 22:00 Eastern, the official end of the Meet and Greet. Back Alley Brawler was extremely generous with his time, though, and ended up staying over an hour late.]
Green Taipan: What do you listen to when you're working, BAB? Any particular 'work' music?
Back Alley Brawler: I dont' listen to music while I work
Golden-Girl: BAB, what's the average time it takes to make an animation?
Back Alley Brawler: average varies widely
Back Alley Brawler: generally though, 1-2 days covers about everything
Redios: BABs what is your favorite zone in the game?
Back Alley Brawler: Oh, that's a tough question...not sure I have a favorite
Back Alley Brawler: I remember liking Sharkhead during CoV
IndigoWulf: lol "during cov" he says, as if it's days are numbered
Back Alley Brawler: well, with Going Rogue it will kind of be one big game
Dark Watcher: I hate when that happens [Not sure what he's talking about, probably some of the stuff players were doing with their altered avatars.]
Back Alley Brawler: we don't really think of heroes and villains as seperate games...haven't for a LONG time.
Roulette: Whats your favorite AT to play? To Babs, DW and TV
Back Alley Brawler: favorite AT is tanks...duh
Green Taipan: Without giving too much away, Devs....have you seen any really nice social haunts in Praetoria in what you've seen thus far?
Back Alley Brawler: I think the area around Tyrant's tower is going to blow you guys away
Force Encephalon: What's your favorite Mind control/Kinetic set?
Back Alley Brawler: my favorite mind contro/kinetics set would have to be...let's see...probably mind control and I guess kinetics. But mind control and kinetics is a close second [Probably not what he meant, but still, :D]
Madam Enigma: So, no warwalls in Praetoria? So it's one big world without zoning?
Back Alley Brawler: Thats' correctly Praetoria is multiple zones, but no war walls seperating the different parts of teh city. They've done a lot of work to make the loading between areas as quick and seamless as possible
Redios: BABS, what are your feelings about Dual Pistols being light on damage?
Back Alley Brawler: I'm sure Dual Pistols is a more than adequate set for anyone who plays the game outside of spreadsheets
Green Taipan: Ah, there's a question. Without being specific to sets, are there are any particular animations you just look at and go WOW?
Back Alley Brawler: there's lots of animations in teh game that I still find cool
Dark Watcher: I like playing the game. Anonymously. [Not sure what he's referring to, probably a question sent as a /tell or in the local channel.]
Dark Watcher: I'm GOING ROGUE! Oh wait, I'm kind of already am. [Ditto.]
Proto-Zone: BABs, in regards to the mission zones... Will the split between the underground zone and the above ground praetoria be similarly seemless?
Back Alley Brawler: I really don't know how the zoning between Praetoria and the underground is going to work
TonyV: So BAB, I'm wondering, have you ever read something on the forums that REALLY ticked you off? Do the criticisms sometimes get to you, or do you just think, "Enh, typical forum chatter"?
Back Alley Brawler: have I ever read anything on the forums that ticked me off?
TonyV: Yeah, like you thought, "Man, if I wouldn't get in trouble for telling that idiot off..."
TonyV: Not asking what made you mad, just how much some trol-- er, people--can get on your skin.
Back Alley Brawler: some people on the forums can be brutal
Back Alley Brawler: It's really hard to read posts from people who completely brush aside something that you worked on for a really long time, put a lot of time and effort into, just to complain about something else that's not there
Back Alley Brawler: I get really aggrivated with posts like "No one cares about Dual Pistols, when are you guys gonna fix PvP"
R u catgurl?: Don't sweat it, nobody likes pvp'ers
Dark Watcher: I like PvPers.
Back Alley Brawler: logically, you know that it's only one or two people out of thousands and thousands who feel that way...but those are the posts that always stick with you
Back Alley Brawler: but I try to live by one simple moto
Back Alley Brawler: you take the good
Back Alley Brawler: you take the bad
Back Alley Brawler: you take them both
Back Alley Brawler: and there you have the facts...of life
Madam Enigma: I'm curious, when testing the new hami raid, why were you so surprised by using Oil Slick to power howling twilight?
Back Alley Brawler: I actually didn't know that's what they were doing with Oil Slick at the time. I thought someone had just thrown one down
Laughing Guns: Costumes cause lag.
Dark Watcher: I thought it was guns that caused lag.
Back Alley Brawler: chatting causes lag
Green Taipan: Dark Watcher! I don't hear much about what it is you do. What do you do and how long have you been doing it?
Dark Watcher: What do I do? That's an excellent question.
Dark Watcher: I watch!
Dark Watcher: Oh wait. No, I'm a programmer. I tell designers they're crazy.
Dual Mind: no one can hear you watcher [Not sure why he said this. Maybe he was talking in the local channel.]
Dark Watcher: Testing, 1, 2, 3. [Not sure why he was testing the channel.]
[I think that Redios's question triggered the following conversation about Back Alley Brawler filming himself using a real whip to help animate the Demon Summoning powerset.]
Redios: the animations for Demon MMs are great too! I love how they come out of the ground. What was your favorite thing about Demon Summoning?
Back Alley Brawler: filming reference for the whip?
Back Alley Brawler: Nope, I brought my whips in and scared the crap out of Keetsie [Keetsie Berbel, Visual Effects Artist --Wiki Guy]
Dark Watcher: Yes, whips are loud. VERY loud!
Sultry Siren: wait...BABs has whips?!?
Dark Watcher: Hey! I'm the dark one!
Back Alley Brawler: I have 4 whips...2 that I made myself
Dark Watcher: It's always amusing watching the animators work.
Dark Watcher: Of course it's much more distrubing watching programmers working on vector problems.
DJ Jules: Why's that, Dark Watcher?
Dark Watcher: The animators sometimes act out the animations.
Back Alley Brawler: Colin worked very hard on the whip animations
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson just kind of busted out the Dual Pistol animations in a week. That stuff's in his blood
Green Taipan: Very impressive!
Back Alley Brawler: not literally a week
Dark Watcher: Nelson is an animation machine!

Look, Sonny, back when I was a CoH kid, we didn't HAVE markets. Hell, we didn't even have those fancy-schmancy recipes or IOs, either, that all you kids are raving about. Back in my day, a million influence could buy you baskets of anything you wanted. And you know what? We LIKED it!

...

Oh, crap, I just realized that that is actually true...

Aw, shucks, you're welcome. To be honest, I have an ulterior motive for doing this, and I figured that if I could help out everyone else along the way, all the better. Plus, reading through the transcripts, I'm seeing a lot of questions and answers that I either didn't hear the first time through, or that I had forgotten or not caught the significance of at the time.

It is good stuff. I'm stuck without access to my gaming machine today, so it will be tonight before I can post any more, but I'm hoping to wrap the rest up before the day is done. No promises, but I'll try!

You know, this is why I didn't worry much when CO came out, and why I don't worry much about new games on the horizon. Yes, some new games might be prettier on the surface, but you cannot easily overcome the sheer vastness of features that have been added over the course of six years starting from scratch. When I see people bring up how old and "outdated" City of Heroes is, I can't help but think, "It's not old. It is mature. It has had six years of continuous development." I mean, is Microsoft Word 2010 "old" because it has been around for a couple of decades? If I wrote a word processor from scratch, does its "newness" automatically make it better?

I'm not saying that no other game will ever come along and clean City of Heroes's clock. But if it did, it would have to be one HELL of a game from day one, and even then, it would take them years to get to the level of maturity that City of Heroes enjoys today. And I highly doubt Paragon Studios would just be sitting around on their duffs in the meantime. Even if they had a hugely successful launch, they'd still have to work a lot faster, a lot harder, and a lot longer than Paragon Studios just to catch up.

Anyone who wants to write a competing game who sees this video had better first think, "Holy s***, we've got a lot of work to do."