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October 30, 2007

Dainty little hands

One of the new things in I11 is weapon scaling -- having weapons (broadswords, katanas, ARs (?), axes, claws, etc. scale appropriately to at least the body type (female, male, huge).  This isn't universal -- there is a "legacy broadsword" (etc.) that remains unscaled.

Folks have objected to the female weapons now being too small.  While rejecting the idea of a weapons scale slider before, BAB noted:

We scaled all of the weapons based on the scale and proportions of the player models, particularly the hands. The female models just happen to have small and dainty hands. Up until this point, the exact same weapon models was shared between all 3 body types, so they had to be scaled large enough to at least fit in the huge model's hands...which are roughly the size of the female model's head. It's something that's bothered us for a long time, but we weren't able to change it. Now that we can, we did.

I'm certainly not opposed to gigantic, anime style weapons but we don't to create those in a haphazard way by just taking something that's designed to be hand sized and scaling it up to a ridiculous scale. I'd much rather create a completely new piece of geometry that is a gigantic, anime style weapon but still looks like it could be held and wielded by the player model it's attached to...rather than having the small, dainty female hand buried completely in the grip the size of her forearm.

The answer, of course, seems obvious -- get rid of / redesign those ridiculously dainty Female hands.  No, seriously, they're laughably small.  I have any number of brawling female toons who I've put "Large" gloves onto just so that they have ratiionally sized hands (especially when you consider that Male hands are actually oversized to scale).

Maybe we need hand size sliders ...

Posted by Dave at 10:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

October 29, 2007

Now It Can Be Told

I11 is now in Open Beta.

What can be told is that both Margie and I were in the Closed Beta.

It appears that a lot of what drives invitations to the Closed Beta is time spent in the Test instance.  I, myself, almost never do that -- but we've been known to let Kitten run in Test while we're on Prod doing stuff.  Presumably, that's how I got the invite.

Notes on I11:

1. The new weapon styles seriously rock.  Seriously.  CoX's greatest strength has always been being able to create a hero/villain who looks just how you want, and now you can do so even better.  Worth the price of admission right there.  It's almost enough to make me want to run a Mace Tanker.  Or another AR Blaster.
2. The Ourobous missions are a hoot-and-a-half.  We pulled out Psi-clone and Amorpha, and had triffic fun, from the "running in Outbreak as Lvl 1 characters" to various missions with Freedom Phalanx and Vindicator heroes running against Lord Recluse's lieuts.  Excellent stuff.  New content rocks.
3. Dual Blades is a spiffy power.  My only objection to it is that too many of the blades are not available with the existing blade powers (Broadsword and Katana).
4. Willpower is an interesting defensive set.  I don't know if it's under- or over-powered, but it has a little bit of everything (except a freaking Heal!).  A good add.

Overall, an excellent issue.

Posted by Dave at 9:05 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , Resources & Rules

October 22, 2007

Halloween

Is up live.  As noted earlier. in addition to the normal hitting doors and fighting things, the prizes this year include costume "temp powers" -- make your character look like one of the various villain (and hero) groups.  Cool beans, even if they don't last nearly long enough, and I think it's grossly unfair they don't work in the PVP zones ...

Halloween runs through 4 November.

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Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 17, 2007

"Alts, Mister Rico! Zillions of 'em!"

My gaming activities over the past week have led to all sorts of fine ideas for even more alts.  Because that is, of course, exactly what I need.  (If I said I was running out of space across all servers with alts I've generated, one should not be surprised.)

Some of the fun ones ...

1. The return of Honeygun, in various flavors.  I found the AR Blaster set to be really annoying back in the day, but that's because the "super soaker" AR was a butt-ugly weapon to be carrying around.  I11 will provide some much more attractive alternatives.
2. A Sten analog, complete with 80s-paperback-cover hair, cool camoflage tech outfit, and both a Gurkha kukri and a crystal dagger.  That would be the plan under the Dual Weapons primary, of course, planned for I11 but available to those lucky souls who are in the closed beta.
3. "Punchin' Judy" -- okay, I admit that I saw someone with that name, and determined I must have an alt with the same name.
4. "Warm Fuzzy."  Surely one can create a teddy-bear Fire Controller.
5. "Carmine Zuigiber" -- a red-haired, red-garbed war correspondent and (as envisioned) some-sort-of-weaponed fire aura brute.

That's not keeping me from exercising my current burgeoning stable of alts.  I just dinged Lady Zebra to 23, for example.

Posted by Dave at 12:06 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

October 15, 2007

I could tell you why I haven't been posting much the past few days ...

... but then I'd have to alter time to make sure you never found out.

Let's just say I've been (a) playing CoH a fair amount, and (b) can't tell you anything about it.

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Filed under: Gameplay

October 10, 2007

Zoning with War Witch

Melissa Bianco (War Witch) talks about how they go about designing a new (or revamped) zone in CoX.

When we decided to redo Faultline, we assumed it would be quick and easy because we weren't starting from scratch, we were just 'moving a few things around'. Yeah, we were wrong. We eliminated 1/3 of the zone and added access to the 'hazard' area. We raised it up and flattened it out. Yes, many elements stayed the same, but it was so much work to incorporate the new geometry that it was far from simple because every single neighborhood had a fundamental layout change to it. Live and learn!

Rikti War Zone was easier because the changes were more subtle. Well, except for a few places where I chose massive changes (i.e. the path leading to the Rikti ship and the Vanguard Base), but even the Base was a piece that I could do "underneath" the world so it didn't affect the zone 'topside' too much (except for the compound), even that was added on to the existing zone by adding a cubby hole.

Good stuff.

Posted by Dave at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

New weapons

Someone's doing screen caps (legitimately, despite the closed beta) of all the weapon options.  Nice stuff, as well as making notes of which are or aren't colorable.

Insert litany of complaints on the boards about (a) "They didn't include my favorite!" (b) "This AT power got more options than that AT power" and (c) "That's not a Glaive-Guisarme, that's a Lucerne Hammer"  Etc.  BAB comments.

Additional textures have to be created to fully support color tinting of weapons. They also have to be set up and exported a different way, hooked into the costume menu slightly different, additional scripts have to be written for them. It's not a ton of work, but overall it's just a couple of extra steps that we simply haven't had time to do on every single weapon we've pulled out of the library of existing things. Bows, on top of all of that, have another couple of extra steps because they have to be animated to match the player animations.

Why so many maces and swords and not bows or claws? Because our existing library of weapon models is full of that type of stuff. Not a lot of bows on the other hand...what was there is basically in.

The original plan was to have only 3 unique options for each weapon set. The default weapon, the villain version if it existed, an arcane version and a tech version. I really pushed to get as many things in as we could with the intent of filling in the rest later as time permitted. If it's really that big of a deal to you guys that there are just more options available to mace than bows, we can very easily go in and comment everything out so that everyone has an exactly equal number of options available. But I really don't think that's what anyone wants, is it?

All I can say is that we will continue to create new weapon models, obviously starting with the sets that are a bit sparse right now.

Posted by Dave at 9:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Resources & Rules

October 8, 2007

Recent gaming

A little of this, a little of that.

Margie noticed me playing a lot with Old Saucy Jack (BS/Reg Scrapper), and enjoyed my telling of the Mid Life Crisis SG he's in, so she' quick ran up My Thyme (BS/RS Scrapper), and we're now only a level or two apart.  BS is one of the prettiest sets out there, visually and audibly, and now that I have Whirling Blade (at 20), I'm a very happy man.

We've not done a lot with our other duos -- a bit with Rita & Runt (high 30s now, I think) and Kitsune-Chan (Ill/Rad Controller) and  Ex-Terra (Spines/?? Scrapper).

My hottest solo character at the moment is Miss Crackle (Elec/Nrg Blaster), who I'm having a lot of fun with at 16.  Electricity is a fine power set.  A bit of action with Djinn Taniq (Storm/Nrg Def, 6), too.

Been doing some low level tank action, both Ike Berg (Ice/Ice, 8) and Unlikely Ally (Fire/Fire, 9).  I'm seeing a lot more tanks on PUGs these days, which makes me think the AT is coming back into style.

A bit of Mastermind play with Jack Byzantine (Nec/Dark, 8) and Oni of Shadows (Nin/Arch, 10).

Posted by Dave at 2:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

I11 interview with Posi

Nice article, going into more detail on the time travel mishes and other new stuff.  Most interesting is that there's little to no mention of what's engendered the most commentary (at least red names) on the boards, weapon customization.

And, yes, issues have been coming faster.

Last year, it was decided that the pace of Issue releases would be increased so that one new Issue would be released every four months. The launch of Issue 11, which is scheduled for Fall 2007 or before December 21st, will mean that that goal has been reached.

"It's a testament to the team," Miller said, talking about their dedication to getting new systems, elements, missions and other content to the players. "[We're] making sure we give [the players] the best quality product we can"

It's almost (dare I say it) too fast a pace.  :-)

 

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Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 4, 2007

Keep this posted next to your monitor

Should I Stop Playing this Game?  A decision matrix for married folks

Yeah ... been there, done that. It helps -- I guess -- that Margie plays, too.  :-)

(via BD)

Posted by Dave at 6:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

October 2, 2007

Comments frelled

Aware of the problem, trying to get it fixed.  Great time, of course, what with all the I11 bits.

Posted by Dave at 11:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: This Blog

I11 - OMGASM!

At least that's how Margie characterized 99% of the forum response to the announcement of I11 coming out Real Soon Now and what it will have.

Issue 11: A Stitch in Time reveals that all that is and was is not as it should be! The mysterious Ouroboros organization, a group of beings from the ends of time, enlists the aid of Heroes and Villains to rewrite the past. Heroes and Villains are able to travel through time using the new Ouroboros System, which opens the gates to both new and existing content for players. Issue 11 also unleashes two brand new power sets: Dual Blades and Willpower, giving Heroes and Villains a slew of new power options. Additionally, Dual Blades offers Weapon Customization – taking the “City of” Character Creator to the next level! And the Inventions system is enhanced with new “Very Rare” Purple invention sets.

Okay, sounds interesting.

Ouroboros System

Through the mysterious Menders of Ouroboros, players gain the ability to “Flashback”, that is to travel through time and relive major events from the history of Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™. Heroes who travel back in time will embark on missions such as preventing the Circle of Thorns from unleashing a devastating demon on a defenseless world, a story originally presented in the City of Heroes comic book. Villains who journey through time will get the chance to assist Lord Recluse™ in his initial campaign to conquer the Rogue Isles, and much more.

Heroes and Villains also use the Ouroboros System to return to story arcs that they may have missed and replay hundreds of missions from earlier in the game. Players will even get to set mission parameters for these missions to earn special badges. Heroes and Villains will be auto-exemplared to the appropriate level for each story arc to ensure the challenge level remains constant.

Interesting. "Flashback" is the feature that was being talked about earlier as a long-term request that the devs wanted to do -- for those completists who wanted to go back and run arcs (and get badges) that they'd bypassed on the way up.

The addition of doing it as a time travel device for added content, though, is a very cool bit.

The "mission parameters" include "Time Limits, Lives, No Inspirations, No Temp Powers, self-nerf, (as well as others)."

Weapon Customization

Sometimes an assault rifle just isn’t the right tool for the job, or character, especially when he or she should be using a sniper rifle instead. Players can now change their weapons in the same way that they change their costume parts! From within the costume creator and tailor screen players select the new “Weapons” region. A number of new options are now available for appropriate power sets. Current power sets that benefit from this upgrade include Assault Rifle, Mercenaries/Assault Rifle, Bow, Broadsword, Claws, Villain Claws, Dual Blades (see below), Katana, Ninja Blade, Mace, Robotics/Pulse Rifle, and Thugs/Dual Pistols.

Okay, this is definitely worth of an OMGASM.  First off, though AR is an annoying set to begin with, it's a *really* annoying look.  But the idea that we can now tailor the various swords, axes (not mentioned here, but included elsewhere), and other such discrete weapons is extremely cool.  Granted, folks will now want tailored/customized power effects, but that's a different technical battle (which includes spines).

Well done.

That customization, btw, seems to include (based on the pics) colors for weapons.  Hmmmm ... Jack could use a bloody sword ...

And though it's not mentioned above, axe is part of the customizable set.

It's also mentioned elsewhere that mace includes as variants, war hammer, pipe wrench, and sledge hammer.  And dual blades includes sais and faerie daggers and red cap daggers.  Oh, and tommy guns for AR.  And, somewhere, shovels. And compound bows.  And, for the dual pistols (me wants for non-MM character!) "Revolvers, semi-autos, flintlocks" -- and "color-tinable laser sights."

Another note that customization refers "for Masterminds it's the bow, pistols, assault rifle, and pulse rifle for Ninja, Thugs, Mercenaries, and Robotics powersets."

There are hints, btw, that some weapon options (at least) will be unlockable or based on combat defeats of enemies that wield them.  That feels appropriate on the one hand (a combat trophy) and annoying on the other (no "I start off as a rebel Family guy with the tommy gun").  That includes at least a couple of Rikti weapons, as well as the aforementioned tommy gun. Or, as another example, "Vanguard Talsorian blades (claws) and the Redding Rail Rifle (Assault Rifle) are purchased with Vanguard Merits, if you are of the correct AT and powerset."

And because it's costume system based, it means (a) you can have different variations in different costume slots ("Today I feel like wielding a pipe wrench"), and (b) it doesn't open up for you until you start using the costume system (Icon).  Though that will, I suspect, start folks using all those unused veteran costume tokens they've (well, I've) not seen much use from.

Two New Power Sets

The City of… universe expands with two new amazing power sets: Dual Blades and Willpower.

    Dual Blades

    With a flashing blade in each hand, the Stalker made quick work of the Coralax hybrids guarding the shipwreck.

    Now Heroes and Villains can wield paired weapons to devastating effect! Use the new Weapon Customization interface to choose from several types of weapons. Dual Blades also uses a brutal new Combo system, where the order of your strikes can create new advantages for you to take down your foes! Dual Blades is available to Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers and Tankers!

Okay, I will be curious to see how this "Combo" system works -- and when/if it gets retrofitted to other power sets.  More variations in the Attack Chain is a good thing.

    Willpower

    Available to Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, the Willpower set offers a strong mix of resistance, defense and regeneration powers. This is the perfect power set for those characters who have the mental will and determination – the  willpower – to ignore pain and press on through insurmountable odds!

And (as I understand it from previous posts) who want minimum fx around their defensive set.  Though the picture used is anything but.

More images via here.

New Inventions

Issue 11 brings with it new invention sets including “Very Rare” Purple sets, as well as brand new invention sets for Taunt, Buff and Debuff powers, among others.

/em shrug

It also looks like (from the illustration) that we're going to see more cut scenes, as in CoV.  I have mixed feelings about those.  On the one hand, they provide some nice flavor.  On the other hand, they are always startling out-of-the-moment intrusions, and (when repeating a mission for the Nth time) annoying.

Whew.  Good stuff.  And, interestingly, what's drawing the most commentary (or the most red-name reaction) is the customization bits, which ties into the general acknowledged strength of CoX in toon design.

Posted by Dave at 9:40 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules