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Gender(s)

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Sailboat
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Gender(s)

COH/V had three "genders," really three body types: male, female, and "huge." The bathroom doors marked "male," "female," "huge" were a nod to that (and quite funny).

Many players have expressed the hope that COT will have more playable body types, including four-legged animal frameworks and possibly more. That's great, I'm all for that, if the engine and the resources allow. COH was full of dog-men and reptiles and kitchen appliances (not kidding, I met one once, a Claws-based sentient food processor) and fallen angels and animated toys and every kind of thing. That kaleidoscope of concepts was hugely entertaining to me.

1) I'd like to suggest that in the interest of both clarity and immersion, we consciously separate the idea of gender from the idea of body type. This would be particularly apparent in the text used by NPCs -- you could designate a gender independent of your body type and be referred to as "he," "she," or "it" (at a bare minimum). I regard "it" as quite useful for automatons, objects, crime-fighting mathematical principles, and the like.

2) Remember that screen area and player choices are resources every bit as real as coding time and hardware. With that in mind, we don't want to clog the character creation screen with options that will hardly ever get used. Also bear in mind that I am primarily referring to gender as a mechanic for determining pronoun use, NOT necessarily to limit costume options or determine NPC reactions, and I'm definitely not envisioning "gender" selection to limit role-playing or anything people might write into their bio spaces.

That said, are there any other "genders" outside he/she/it we should be considering? I think it might be in-genre to suggest "plural" (as in a collective entity, or someone with a tapeworm [nod to Mark Twain], not someone with more than one gender such as a hermaphrodite) which would default to "we/them/they" pronouns. Heck, "hermaphrodite" itself seems like a good candidate, although beats me what pronoun should be associated with that.

Thoughts and suggestions are welcome!

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So to be clear your main

So to be clear your main concern here is a question of language usage as opposed to graphics or which bodies get to use given costume items?

If that's the case then IIRC I've seen the suggestion that during character creation we have the option to pick which pronoun we want our chracters to be referred to from a list of choices. The game would then use that choice to modify as much of the game's text as possible to properly use that term.

Would something like that address your issue here or is there more to it?

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I have no problem at all with

I have no problem at all with a checkbox in the CC that indicates "gender". Although, being honest, I don't recall it coming up in very many cases in CoH. NPC text usually defaulted to "you", generally assuming that the NPC was talking to the player. But, if we're just throwing out pronoun suggestions for the rare case, I might add a "Collective" option that would use "we/they/them" to acknowledge that the individual character represented a multi-unit or "hive-mind."

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In Bujold's VorKosiverse,

In Bujold's VorKosiverse, herms usually get the impersonal third-person pronoun "it".

Just my .02 Betan dollars ^_^

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Well if Facebook can

Well if Facebook can acknowledge 51 different gender options for humans in the real world imagine how many more we could come up with to account for all the non-human possibilities in a superhero universe...

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You realize if we introduce

You realize if we introduce "they" then someone will make a collective of nanobots....

Oh wait, someone already did. *hehe*

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Tyche.. will NPCs react to

Tyche.. will NPCs react to the gender of our characters?

There were so many great comments at a panel just last week here at GDC2014 about being inclusive to the queer community in gaming and this was one of the first things that came up.. simple pronouns like he, she, they can make a profound difference to players. While the solution is easily executed when the game is written from 1st person perspective.. it gets more complicated for people who choose to have avatars that represent them. My friend is a trans-man who often still uses butch looking "female" avatars.. he hates being called "she/her/etc" and brought it up as a player of TSW*.

Pronouns are not important to the majority of gamers (usually the cis gendered) but it is a big difference to some of us.

(Not to mention the press I'll give you at GaymerX and on the many Gaymer websites I know publishers at /em DanglesCarrot )

*He says the same things on forums but I think having the face of someone right there asking "Can I please be represented" had a profound effect on the devs (whose inner commentary was generally "Why would we do this… for who and why?")

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@ Jay - The plan from day 1

@ Jay - The plan from day 1 has been to be as inclusive as practical. We have several members of the LGBT community among the developers, our families and our friends. My own father was transgendered. Part of this has been to not isolate costume elements to one body type or another. If you want to play an obvious barbie-like figure with a full on handlebar mustache and soul patch, we fully plan on making this an option. You want to play a hulking figure clearly not based on some copyrighted comic book green heroic figure with incredible anger management issues, sporting a full set of makeup and a manicure, hey, great!

Ultimately, we want to be the clay in peoples hands. To do this, we have to accept that someone else will not have the same vision, the same preconceptions, the same limits as we do. I want to make sure that every person who logs in gets to experience the hero they envision, their own alter ego, whatever that alter ego may be.

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I think a simple 'male/female

I think a simple 'male/female/neuter' selector in the Character Creator should suffice. My reasoning is that any NPC is going to be reacting to the singular character in front of them. The NPC may be sensitive enough to choose an appropriate pronoun for what they are seeing. I'm sad to say it, but one really shouldn't expect the average NPC to know or care if the person in front of them has a more complex 'gender' than that.

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I would go with Firehearts

I would go with Firehearts suggestion here.

Hell, there are people who I know get "offended" when one group of people call them male, whilst their close friends are allowed to call them via male pronouns. And the same with females (depending on which way the line goes).

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A point that gets lost here

A point that gets lost here when it comes to a "political correctness" issue like this is how different players see themselves in the game. For instance some people have a straightforward first person point of view where they literally see themselves personally as the avatar in the game. Other people have a more abstract third person view where they roleplay their characters as separate individuals who could easily be nothing like what the player is in real life.

It would seem that the people who would get the most "offended" by an NPC not using the right pronouns would be those who overtly inject their own real life personas or identities directly into the game. They take it personally and get mad at an NPC the same way they might get mad if a real person used the wrong pronoun on them IRL. On the other hand those who strictly roleplay characters in games like these would probably only get mad at an NPC if they've pre-established that their CHARACTERS would be offended by something like that regardless of what the person roleplaying the character thinks IRL.

So while I can readily accept people in real life being offended by real people who say real things to them it's basically harder for me to have total sympathy for people who play characters in a game who deliberately choose to let something like that offend their fictional personas to the same degree. I'm all for having as much character concept freedom as possible when it comes to games like this. But bottomline people who are upset by loose-lipped automated NPCs not addressing them with the "proper" pronouns mostly have themselves to blame for wanting to roleplay characters who, by their own conscious choice, have deliberately CHOSEN to be offended by these things. What's wrong with roleplaying characters who have thicker skins and/or don't have the same hang-ups as the person playing them has IRL?

In my last post on this thread I mentioned what Facebook recently did when it came to this gender pronoun issue. Frankly I don't think CoT needs to go to that extreme. Despite my assertion that people who let these kinds of things offend them in a game really only have themselves to blame for playing overly sensitive characters I'm still in favor of having a "pronoun selection" list in the character creator. But it can probably work well enough with just a handful of collectively generic terms that would easily cover 99.999% of the cases. I'd consider that a reasonable compromise between the traditional binary "male or female only" paradigm and the semi-ridiculous ad nauseam of the Facebook scenario.

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I don't speak for everyone

I don't speak for everyone but the issue as I understand it is not about being "offended" but rather being "included"

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It costs nothing to be

It costs nothing to be inclusive.

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

I don't speak for everyone but the issue as I understand it is not about being "offended" but rather being "included"

I don't speak for everyone either but clearly the issue here is that the traditional "male or female" labels are seen as inadequate descriptors to properly describe the entire spectrum of gender identity recognized today.

Now I'll grant you using the word "offended" might be too strong a word to characterize that inadequacy for some people - maybe they are merely "concerned" or "upset" by this situation. But based on how strongly you support these positions I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there were in fact some people out there who are stridently "offended" by this NPC pronoun crisis.

I suppose, just like the huge number of gender labels we now have to juggle to cover all the bases, I should have used many more words to describe the situation than just the single conotation of being "offended".

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Lothic
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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

It costs nothing to be inclusive.

To a reasonable point. I honestly think having a "gender/pronoun selection" list in the character creator with 50+ choices (like the Facebook example) is hyperbolic overkill. I strongly suspect that something like that could be whittled down to at most 6-8 choices and be a perfectly adequate solution/compromise for this issue.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

It costs nothing to be inclusive.

Well nothing for CoT with a volunteer group of workers anyways. Normally creating another menu, more code to include changing the NPC dialogue means more money spent.

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What better game to have a

What better game to have a secret identity. I don't know why I can't name any right now but I know there has to be a female who adventures as a hero who is assumed male..

A simple pronoun selection outside of gender selection is a great step forward.

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One of my character ideas,

One of my character ideas, blatantly stolen from Footloose's School of Marketable Magic with a nod to Eddie Izzard, is a Magical Executive Transvestite. Straight, for extra comedy.

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One character that comes to

One character that comes to mind is Lythande of Thieves World by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

That character was actually a woman, but masqueraded as man to protect her magic powers. (Knowing enough about an opponent made taking their power in combat more likely.) So, that was a major secret element of the character's life.

So, being called 'He' would be preferred in that case: just as a misdirect.

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Terlin wrote:
Terlin wrote:

One character that comes to mind is Lythande of Thieves World by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
That character was actually a woman, but masqueraded as man to protect her magic powers. (Knowing enough about an opponent made taking their power in combat more likely.) So, that was a major secret element of the character's life.
So, being called 'He' would be preferred in that case: just as a misdirect.
-
Terlin

Just to point out that Thieves' World is a "shared fantasy world" series of short stories, where multiple authors have contributed to it.

I haven't read them for a long time, but I believe that Lythande was in the "The Secret of the Blue Star" short story that is *contained* within the main book "Thieves' World".

It is worth picking up the book though... multiple authors all writing in the same world, and you even get some slight character cross over (IIRC).

/nitpick (just in case someone tried searching for Thieves World BY Marion Zimmer Bradley

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You are correct, Gandrel. I

You are correct, Gandrel. I have them all, and really enjoyed the series. There were also several stand-alone books, of which Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote one about that character:

Lythande, January 1985. Looks like it can still be purchased on-line.

-

I'm positive there are many character concepts that are served by directing attention away their true nature, even gender.

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

A simple pronoun selection outside of gender selection is a great step forward.

Foradain wrote:

[...] with a nod to Eddie Izzard, is a Magical Executive Transvestite. Straight, for extra comedy.

Terlin wrote:

So, being called 'He' would be preferred in that case: just as a misdirect.

Just to take these points one step further (and to get back to some of what Sailboat was saying at the top of the thread) it almost seems like instead of having the game present us with hardwired "male" and "female" body types the Devs could just focus on one gender neutral "body model" and allow players to assign gender to a new character via the "gender pronoun" list scheme as opposed to picking base body types.

I remember reading a few months ago that the Devs were already moving towards starting off with what they called "androgynous" body models and applying things like female breasts and/or hips more like "overlays" to the basic neutral model instead of having them be part of the fundamental shape of the body. I think their reasoning at the time was that it would allow for a wider range of body looks (such as younger looking boys and girls or adult females with relatively flat chests and/or thin hips). If this is the case then it seems like they've already abandoned the traditional paradigm of male and female bodies being two specifically predefined things as far as the game is concerned.

So it'd be up to the player to define (likely via additional body sliders) exactly just how feminine or masculine they'd want their characters to look instead of having to be forced to use hardwired models with unadjustable secondary gender characteristics (like wide feminine hips or huge masculine biceps). In this way you could have combinations that were basically impossible in CoH like a super-twiggy, non-muscular looking guy (i.e. the way Captain America looked before he got the super-soldier treatment) or a super-beefy looking warrior woman (i.e. Chyna the WWF wrestler).

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

So to be clear your main concern here is a question of language usage as opposed to graphics or which bodies get to use given costume items?
If that's the case then IIRC I've seen the suggestion that during character creation we have the option to pick which pronoun we want our chracters to be referred to from a list of choices. The game would then use that choice to modify as much of the game's text as possible to properly use that term.
Would something like that address your issue here or is there more to it?

I think pronoun usage by the game/npcs (we obviously can't dictate the players' usage) would be the main place gender would show up, since we are apparently indeed divorcing it entirely from body type (one of my two points). Occasionally gender might show up in nouns too -- you might hear your character identified as "That nice lady/man/thing/? saved me!"

Captain of Phoenix Rising

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I miss Andy and the promise

I miss Andy and the promise he implied.

I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

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Has Andy been supplanted?

Has Andy been supplanted?

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.

Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy (which the two are derived from), and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy, and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

This is interesting news (at least I hadn't heard it before) and it does sound like a reasonable compromise all thing considered.

So to be clear you're basically saying both the male and female models can go all the way from having "extreme" gender characteristics (like large breasts and hips for the female or huge arms/shoulders for males) to some version of "crossover androgyny" where you effectively couldn't tell them apart, correct?

Sounds like it's still going to be hard to create what could be labeled (in CoH terms) as a "Huge Female" but at least it seems like there'll be a larger spectrum of options for both sexes than existed in CoH.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy, and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

This is interesting news (at least I hadn't heard it before) and it does sound like a reasonable compromise all thing considered.
So to be clear you're basically saying both the male and female models can go all the way from having "extreme" gender characteristics (like large breasts and hips for the female or huge arms/shoulders for males) to some version of "crossover androgyny" where you effectively couldn't tell them apart, correct?
Sounds like it's still going to be hard to create what could be labeled (in CoH terms) as a "Huge Female" but at least it seems like there'll be a larger spectrum of options for both sexes than existed in CoH.

That is the plan on the table, yes.

The problem with Andy had to do with polygon counts, when you boil things down. You needed to have far more polygons to cover the extreme at the other end (extreme male and female) which would slow down system performance for every single player on-screen. By splitting, it keeps the speed up.

If you get a large battle royale going in APB on an older machine, the sluggishness becomes rapidly apparent due to these needed-but-not-used polygons.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy (which the two are derived from), and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

I'm glad to hear this alternative. I hope this means that the two will be rigged differently and have sufficiently distinct movement animations to recognize the mechanical differences between the male and female skeleton.

I don't mind if people want to work out their gender issues in a nice, safe environment like a video game. But I'd be rather "offended" if, in striving for a gender neutral model, we ended up with an asexual manikin that moved like a robot.

Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy (which the two are derived from), and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

I'm glad to hear this alternative. I hope this means that the two will be rigged differently and have sufficiently distinct movement animations to recognize the mechanical differences between the male and female skeleton.
I don't mind if people want to work out their gender issues in a nice, safe environment like a video game. But I'd be rather "offended" if, in striving for a gender neutral model, we ended up with an asexual manikin that moved like a robot.
Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

That is the plan.

(and yes, the rig is slightly different)

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:
JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy, and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

This is interesting news (at least I hadn't heard it before) and it does sound like a reasonable compromise all thing considered.
So to be clear you're basically saying both the male and female models can go all the way from having "extreme" gender characteristics (like large breasts and hips for the female or huge arms/shoulders for males) to some version of "crossover androgyny" where you effectively couldn't tell them apart, correct?
Sounds like it's still going to be hard to create what could be labeled (in CoH terms) as a "Huge Female" but at least it seems like there'll be a larger spectrum of options for both sexes than existed in CoH.

That is the plan on the table, yes.
The problem with Andy had to do with polygon counts, when you boil things down. You needed to have far more polygons to cover the extreme at the other end (extreme male and female) which would slow down system performance for every single player on-screen. By splitting, it keeps the speed up.
If you get a large battle royale going in APB on an older machine, the sluggishness becomes rapidly apparent due to these needed-but-not-used polygons.

Thanks for the added detail. If it's just a question of speed trade-offs with rendering polygons (instead of some other technical hurdle) then perhaps the "Holy Grail" of Andy will be readily feasible in a few more years when more players routinely have access to the raw GPU power needed to make this work in a MMO.

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
JayBezz wrote:
I miss Andy and the promise he implied.
I'd LOVE a model that was androgynous and sliders that define the traits. I pledged $ directly after that Kickstarter Update.

That was the original plan, but then we got to discussing it with the makers of APB: Reloaded, which have that very form of system in place (also running the Unreal engine, highly recommend checking out their costume creator videos). While it can be done, it comes at too high a cost for flexibility.
Now the plan is for a male and female model, but with the ability to slider them down *to* andy (which the two are derived from), and meet in the middle as it were. By such a simple split, we avoid the limits APB ran into for future growth.

I'm glad to hear this alternative. I hope this means that the two will be rigged differently and have sufficiently distinct movement animations to recognize the mechanical differences between the male and female skeleton.
I don't mind if people want to work out their gender issues in a nice, safe environment like a video game. But I'd be rather "offended" if, in striving for a gender neutral model, we ended up with an asexual manikin that moved like a robot.
Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

In a system where there are still two distinct Male and Female models (like it sounds like COT's going to be) I'd assume that "typical gender animations" would be tied to each of those models by default.

But if a game ever manages to get down to a single, fully customizable body model then I'd assume we'd be given a specific choice as to which kinds of animations/stances we'd want our character to use. I highly doubt a game would give us one customizable body model and then only one kind of generic, non-gender specific set of animations to go with it. If anything at that point we'd get MORE than just "typical female" and "typical male" movements - we'd probably have multiple choices (like your robot idea) to further customize ourselves beyond strict gender norms.

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Now, given that Andy is gone,

Now, given that Andy is gone, (confirmed) what can you tell us about the limits of body sliders in relation to that? I'm immediately thinking of the exclusivity of chest sliders and boob sliders, where chest sliders impact the size of the pectoral muscles and boob sliders impact the size of the fatty deposits on the upper torso. To maintain inclusive concepts will both masculine and feminine body types be given both, or will it be one slider for each (chest slider for masculiine, boob slider for feminine)?

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summer-heat wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

summer-heat wrote:

Now, given that Andy is gone, (confirmed) what can you tell us about the limits of body sliders in relation to that? I'm immediately thinking of the exclusivity of chest sliders and boob sliders, where chest sliders impact the size of the pectoral muscles and boob sliders impact the size of the fatty deposits on the upper torso. To maintain inclusive concepts will both masculine and feminine body types be given both, or will it be one slider for each (chest slider for masculiine, boob slider for feminine)?

It sounded like the answer from Docter Tyche would be the later (as in chest sliders for masculine, boob sliders for feminine). This is why I made the comment that it sounds like "Huge Females" (in CoH terms) aren't going to be possible because they wouldn't have access to both the gender specific boob sliders AND chest sliders.

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Actually...

Actually...

Doctor Tyche wrote:

WarBird wrote:
Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

That is the plan.

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Xnarl wrote:
Xnarl wrote:

Actually...
Doctor Tyche wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

That is the plan.

Not entirely sure that's the question Docter Tyche was answering. I'm willing to see if he makes this point specifically clear.

Currently it sounds like males can go from Hulk to Puny and females can go from Voluptuous to Waif. It's not clear to me that females could ALSO go to hulking as well.

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I think the point was that
Lothic wrote:

Thanks for the added detail. If it's just a question of speed trade-offs with rendering polygons (instead of some other technical hurdle) then perhaps the "Holy Grail" of Andy will be readily feasible in a few more years when more players routinely have access to the raw GPU power needed to make this work in a MMO.

I think the point was that the 'single Andy model' would be carrying more polygons, regardless of expressed gender-shape, due to Simultaneously being able to express the alternate gender-shape. So the 'single Andy' would have twice as many (unused) polygons, it's not 'just an issue of technology'. Your 'holy grail Andy' would be wasteful of polygons and processing power, and I don't really see point of it, unless you're looking for a model that could fluidly morph between genders in real time.

A 'male' model would go from 'stringbean Andy' to 'top-heavy triangle' as it progresses towards 'huge'. A 'female' model might start at 'stringbean Andy', but is always going to express some proportion of a 'figure-eight', even when 'huge'. A 'true Andy' model would remain... 'rectangular' as it moved towards 'huge', or perhaps a 'narrow triangle'. That's straight physiology and the expression of sex-hormones on gender dimorphism.

So, the idea of having 'Andy' be the shared point of congruity between two different models is an excellent choice that mirrors reality.

Lothic wrote:

Currently it sounds like males can go from Hulk to Puny and females can go from Voluptuous to Waif. It's not clear to me that females could ALSO go to hulking as well.

The former paradigm has been the default in most games. I agree that a separate 'Breast Slider' would be the most effective solution for a 'next generation' system. Even better would be for 'Shoulders', 'Torso', 'Waist', and 'Hips/Pelvis' to be on separate sliders, as well.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Your 'holy grail Andy' would be wasteful of polygons and processing power, and I don't really see point of it, unless you're looking for a model that could fluidly morph between genders in real time.
Be Well!
Fireheart

I agree that the 'Holy Grail Andy' (that could morph into any sex or sized human shape) would probably be "wasteful of polygons and processing power" in a game created to be played in the 2014-15 timeframe. But I suspect a game being created from scratch 3 to 5 years from now would be able to justify that degree of "wastefulness" very easily because the "common denominator" of the playerbases' GPU capabilities will be able to handle it routinely by then. That was the point I was making with that.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Xnarl wrote:
Actually...
Doctor Tyche wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Follow up question Doc: Will the sliders for both genders then be capable of producing both "waif" and "hulk" type proportions?

That is the plan.

Not entirely sure that's the question Docter Tyche was answering. I'm willing to see if he makes this point specifically clear.
Currently it sounds like males can go from Hulk to Puny and females can go from Voluptuous to Waif. It's not clear to me that females could ALSO go to hulking as well.

"Hulking" winds up a mass and bulk configuration, and yes, females would have that option as well.

You can have waif-like men as well in the real world. I did not mean to imply that waif was to be female-only. I want to see your elven warlords standing next to your babushka.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Fireheart wrote:
Your 'holy grail Andy' would be wasteful of polygons and processing power, and I don't really see point of it, unless you're looking for a model that could fluidly morph between genders in real time.
Be Well!
Fireheart

I agree that the 'Holy Grail Andy' (that could morph into any sex or sized human shape) would probably be "wasteful of polygons and processing power" in a game created to be played in the 2014-15 timeframe. But I suspect a game being created from scratch 3 to 5 years from now would be able to justify that degree of "wastefulness" very easily because the "common denominator" of the playerbases' GPU capabilities will be able to handle it routinely by then. That was the point I was making with that.

I would have thought that this would have been an ideal time to get tessellation into the game (basically the model changes the number of polygons required *automagically* without necessarily having all of them stored in the model at the start)

All new graphics cards that are released nowadays will support it (as long as they are DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.0 compliant).

So you wont necessarily have to spent a boat load of cash on getting a new card to support it, because even the most basic $50 graphics card nowadays will support it.. infact any card from 2010 onwards would support it (performance is another issue, but the feature *IS* supported)

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Fireheart wrote:
Your 'holy grail Andy' would be wasteful of polygons and processing power, and I don't really see point of it, unless you're looking for a model that could fluidly morph between genders in real time.
Be Well!
Fireheart

I agree that the 'Holy Grail Andy' (that could morph into any sex or sized human shape) would probably be "wasteful of polygons and processing power" in a game created to be played in the 2014-15 timeframe. But I suspect a game being created from scratch 3 to 5 years from now would be able to justify that degree of "wastefulness" very easily because the "common denominator" of the playerbases' GPU capabilities will be able to handle it routinely by then. That was the point I was making with that.

I would have thought that this would have been an ideal time to get tessellation into the game (basically the model changes the number of polygons required *automagically* without necessarily having all of them stored in the model at the start)
All new graphics cards that are released nowadays will support it (as long as they are DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.0 compliant).
So you wont necessarily have to spent a boat load of cash on getting a new card to support it, because even the most basic $50 graphics card nowadays will support it.. infact any card from 2010 onwards would support it (performance is another issue, but the feature *IS* supported)

Tesselation subdivides polygons. But you still need the root polygons in place to begin with. You cannot tesselate to get morphing polygons, only divide those already there.

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As a quick aside, I'm loving

As a quick aside, I'm loving all the redname forum input lately; from you, Doc, as well as others. It helps ground all our wild conjectures in a bit of reality regarding the game.

Thanks!

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Currently it sounds like males can go from Hulk to Puny and females can go from Voluptuous to Waif. It's not clear to me that females could ALSO go to hulking as well.

"Hulking" winds up a mass and bulk configuration, and yes, females would have that option as well.
You can have waif-like men as well in the real world. I did not mean to imply that waif was to be female-only. I want to see your elven warlords standing next to your babushka.

We all remember that CoH provided three relatively hardwired body types: Male, Female and Huge. Apparently CoH needed to provide separate Male and Huge types because it couldn't allow a single male body model to morph all the way from "normal" male shaped to "huge" male shaped using only one model.

So I know this may sound nit-picky but I just want to be crystal clear with this: Will CoT allow us to potentially create a "huge male" and a "normal male" using one body model now, and if that's the case is that the reason we'll also now be able to create a "huge female" and a "normal female" using a single female model? This is what I mean when I ask about "hulking" females.

In a nutshell will we be able to create a Power Girl,

a Chyna

or a Hitgirl

all using a single female body model?

P.S. Also to be clear I kind of equated "puny males" with "waifish females" at least as far as their small, thin sizes go. And like WarBird said I kind of figured "waifish" could apply to both sexes as well. I realize the terminology is getting thrown around loosely here but hopefully you'll know what I mean by all this.

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YES!

YES!
YES!
YES!

How often do you want to repeat this question already answered?

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Gangrel wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Fireheart wrote:
Your 'holy grail Andy' would be wasteful of polygons and processing power, and I don't really see point of it, unless you're looking for a model that could fluidly morph between genders in real time.
Be Well!
Fireheart

I agree that the 'Holy Grail Andy' (that could morph into any sex or sized human shape) would probably be "wasteful of polygons and processing power" in a game created to be played in the 2014-15 timeframe. But I suspect a game being created from scratch 3 to 5 years from now would be able to justify that degree of "wastefulness" very easily because the "common denominator" of the playerbases' GPU capabilities will be able to handle it routinely by then. That was the point I was making with that.

I would have thought that this would have been an ideal time to get tessellation into the game (basically the model changes the number of polygons required *automagically* without necessarily having all of them stored in the model at the start)
All new graphics cards that are released nowadays will support it (as long as they are DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.0 compliant).
So you wont necessarily have to spent a boat load of cash on getting a new card to support it, because even the most basic $50 graphics card nowadays will support it.. infact any card from 2010 onwards would support it (performance is another issue, but the feature *IS* supported)

Tesselation subdivides polygons. But you still need the root polygons in place to begin with. You cannot tesselate to get morphing polygons, only divide those already there.

Just wondering but what is the approximate % increase in polygons going from "andy" up to hulking male/female (roughly speaking).

Just asking because if it was something like a 10% difference, that could possibly be acceptable, but if it was 200% more, than I would understand.

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Xnarl wrote:
Xnarl wrote:

YES!
YES!
YES!
How often do you want to repeat this answered question?

As often as it takes I suppose. *shrugs*

If it was impossible for them to do a single "Andy" body type for all sexes/sizes then how likely is it for them to pull off what I asked about for females? There is a major amount of polygonal difference between a Power Girl, a Chyna and a Hitgirl - if they can do that all in one female model then one has to logically ask why "Andy" was impossible.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

The problem with Andy had to do with polygon counts, when you boil things down. You needed to have far more polygons to cover the extreme at the other end (extreme male and female) which would slow down system performance for every single player on-screen. By splitting, it keeps the speed up.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question, Lothic, but how does this answer from Dr. Tyche fail to answer your concerns about Andy?

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
The problem with Andy had to do with polygon counts, when you boil things down. You needed to have far more polygons to cover the extreme at the other end (extreme male and female) which would slow down system performance for every single player on-screen. By splitting, it keeps the speed up.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question, Lothic, but how does this answer from Dr. Tyche fail to answer your concerns about Andy?

I don't have an issue with the CoT Devs giving up "Andy" in favor of having a separate male and female body model. I completely understood the reason for that because (as explained) it would take too many polygons to express every possible sex/size type all in one model.

But here's where my logical disconnect comes with what Dr. Tyche has described: I believe that the number of polygons it would take in just the female body model to adequately render a version of Power Girl (an extreme example of a voluptuous female) , a version of Chyna (an extreme example of a huge female which would approach the "hugeness" of CoH's Huge body model) and a version of Hitgirl (an extreme example of a waifish, childlike female) would be so relatively large that it would probably come close to the theoretical number required for Andy.

Thus the point: If they can make a single female body model that can handle all of those extremes then why not have just have Andy? Or to rephrase that in reverse: If Andy is not possible for CoT then how can they actually provide for a female model that could handle three major extremes of shape and would probably need to be just as complex as an Andy solution?

Basically I remain doubtful that a single female model that can express two of these extremes (like a Power Girl and/or a Hitgirl) could ALSO adequately express a Chyna at the same time, especially considering that CoH couldn't even handle a normal male and a huge male via one model. I suspect what we'll actually get (despite what Dr. Tyche has vaguely alluded to) is something that will favor a Power Girl or a Hitgirl but basically be unable to even come anywhere close to a Chyna. I'd like specific confirmation on that point.

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If you are going to use Chyna

If you are going to use Chyna, I would also go for Awesome Kong as another example of "huge"

(she is the same height as Chyna, 100lbs heavier though).

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

If you are going to use Chyna, I would also go for Awesome Kong as another example of "huge"

Chyna was just a quick example off the top of my head. Never actually heard of Awesome Kong myself but I'm sure there are plenty of examples to be used here.

Again it seems clear to me that the number and configuration of polygons it would take to render a "huge female" like this would be fairly different than what it would take to render a Power Girl clone or a Hitgirl clone. If CoT can actually make that happen with just one female body model then that'd be great. I'm just having a hard time believing it if the "Andy" solution (another body model that would require a huge number of polygons) was dismissed as "too processor intensive" for this game.

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I see your concerns Lothic,

I see your concerns Lothic, but really it's still in wait and see ground. There's what they hope to be able to do and then there's what they will be able to do.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

I see your concerns Lothic, but really it's still in wait and see ground. There's what they hope to be able to do and then there's what they will be able to do.

Exactly. I think the CoT Devs "hope" to be able to provide virtually any possible female body shape with just one female body model and I believe that's what Dr. Tyche is implying will happen in CoT.

Unfortunately while that would be a remarkably cool thing to have access to as a player I sadly believe that there will still be various limitations on the "extremes" of size and shape that Dr. Tyche is at best glossing over for lack of certainty at this point. I don't fault him for being vague about it, but that's not going to stop me from asking enough questions to remove as much "vagueness" from this topic as I can.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

But here's where my logical disconnect comes with what Dr. Tyche has described: I believe that the number of polygons it would take in just the female body model to adequately render a version of Power Girl (an extreme example of a voluptuous female) , a version of Chyna (an extreme example of a huge female which would approach the "hugeness" of CoH's Huge body model) and a version of Hitgirl (an extreme example of a waifish, childlike female) would be so relatively large that it would probably come close to the theoretical number required for Andy.

My layman's understanding of the situation is that the Male <-> Andy <-> Female approach would require the character model to have most or all of the polygons required for every contingency, whether the character model needs or uses them or not. Ergo, the female end of the spectrum would still have the polygons present in the model that would be required for the male end of the spectrum. Thus using the Andy <-> Male and Andy <-> Female approach considerably reduces the load on the CPU.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Lothic wrote:
But here's where my logical disconnect comes with what Dr. Tyche has described: I believe that the number of polygons it would take in just the female body model to adequately render a version of Power Girl (an extreme example of a voluptuous female) , a version of Chyna (an extreme example of a huge female which would approach the "hugeness" of CoH's Huge body model) and a version of Hitgirl (an extreme example of a waifish, childlike female) would be so relatively large that it would probably come close to the theoretical number required for Andy.

My layman's understanding of the situation is that the Male <-> Andy <-> Female approach would require the character model to have most or all of the polygons required for every contingency, whether the character model needs or uses them or not. Ergo, the female end of the spectrum would still have the polygons present in the model that would be required for the male end of the spectrum. Thus using the Andy <-> Male and Andy <-> Female approach considerably reduces the load on the CPU.

Yes I again understand that abandoning the "single all sex/size Andy" approach in favor of the "separate male and female" model approach would theoretically reduce the total number or polygons needed in the male and female models because each of them would no longer be required to have all the polygons needed to express BOTH male and female shapes at the same time.

But if the problem with the Andy concept was that it required too many polygons to implement then my concern is that maybe the two model male/female approach would STILL require too many polygons. My contention is that the number of polygons the female model would need to satisfy all the possible female extremes is in reality not that many less than it would take to express ANY human form male or female. Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well? I seriously suspect the difference between the Andy level of complexity is not really that much more than the ideal male/female models.

Thus my key point here: If Andy's level of complexity was not feasible then I STRONGLY suspect that the level of complexity that we really need for the split male/female models will also prove to not be feasible. Unless they choose to further subdivide the models down to things like "female huge", "female waif" and "female voluptuous" then I fear what we're going to get is an unacceptably limited single female model that'll "try to do it all" but not be able to handle the desired extremes.

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While I see the desire for an

While I see the desire for an Andy model, I'd still like to have Male/Female as the main models. Not because I'm trying to be sexist, but because it would be easier to be able to configure the body type I'd like to have going off of a base model. If I have to use too many sliders to try to adjust my body form I'll get annoyed really fast and just hit random 17 thousand times till I find one close enough. I'm not saying that you couldn't go Andy from one model or the other, just that it would be nice to have something to start from other than just a square block.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

While I see the desire for an Andy model, I'd still like to have Male/Female as the main models. Not because I'm trying to be sexist, but because it would be easier to be able to configure the body type I'd like to have going off of a base model. If I have to use too many sliders to try to adjust my body form I'll get annoyed really fast and just hit random 17 thousand times till I find one close enough. I'm not saying that you couldn't go Andy from one model or the other, just that it would be nice to have something to start from other than just a square block.

If there's ever a game in the future that can handle the true Andy model concept I suspect it would provide a means to start character creation with a "default" male or female that you could have as a starting point the same way CoH let you pick "default costumes" that you could then edit to customize any way you want. This would allow quick starts with a "generic" male or female body if you didn't want to fiddle with the sliders to "manually" create one or the other.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Understand, the split is not

Understand, the split is not due to it being impossible, or difficult (APB proved it was more than possible after all, running an older version of the game engine) but for performance reasons.

The polygon difference between a hit girl and an awesome kong is far less than the polygon difference between an Incredible Hulk and an Awesome Kong.

I do not have the hard numbers in front of me, but the polygon difference was something on the order of 75%. While yes, we *could* live with it (APB did after all) we wanted to try and get more players on-screen so as to avoid ye ol jello-raid slideshows.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Understand, the split is not due to it being impossible, or difficult (APB proved it was more than possible after all, running an older version of the game engine) but for performance reasons.
The polygon difference between a hit girl and an awesome kong is far less than the polygon difference between an Incredible Hulk and an Awesome Kong.
I do not have the hard numbers in front of me, but the polygon difference was something on the order of 75%. While yes, we *could* live with it (APB did after all) we wanted to try and get more players on-screen so as to avoid ye ol jello-raid slideshows.

In a recent article over on massively, the APB Reloaded team are shifting over to a more recent version of Unreal 3 (2013 build with other enhancements) whilst still keeping the same flexibility for performance and compatibility reasons.

I wouldn't necessarily write it off yet...

Linkage and Linkage to original article

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Understand, the split is not due to it being impossible, or difficult (APB proved it was more than possible after all, running an older version of the game engine) but for performance reasons.

Yes I never had a problem understanding the "performance" reasons behind the model split. I've been in computer/software engineering for decades so I understand the difference between when something is "technically possible" and when it's robust enough to be "viable in a multi-user environment".

Doctor Tyche wrote:

The polygon difference between a hit girl and an awesome kong is far less than the polygon difference between an Incredible Hulk and an Awesome Kong.

Yes but is the difference that significant when comparing Andy to a single gender model that can adequately do a Hitgirl, an Awesome Kong AND a Power Girl (three different extremes in one model)? How different is a model that can universally express any shaped female imaginable from another model that can universally express any male shape imaginable?

Doctor Tyche wrote:

I do not have the hard numbers in front of me, but the polygon difference was something on the order of 75%. While yes, we *could* live with it (APB did after all) we wanted to try and get more players on-screen so as to avoid ye ol jello-raid slideshows.

Again not arguing your general decision to split from Andy into a two model male and female approach. Just concerned that the individual gender models are still not going to be sufficient for the task at hand without further needing to be split again for the same polygon processing reasons that sidelined Andy. Your further thoughts on this would be appreciated.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?

See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.

I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
Understand, the split is not due to it being impossible, or difficult (APB proved it was more than possible after all, running an older version of the game engine) but for performance reasons.
The polygon difference between a hit girl and an awesome kong is far less than the polygon difference between an Incredible Hulk and an Awesome Kong.
I do not have the hard numbers in front of me, but the polygon difference was something on the order of 75%. While yes, we *could* live with it (APB did after all) we wanted to try and get more players on-screen so as to avoid ye ol jello-raid slideshows.

In a recent article over on massively, the APB Reloaded team are shifting over to a more recent version of Unreal 3 (2013 build with other enhancements) whilst still keeping the same flexibility for performance and compatibility reasons.
I wouldn't necessarily write it off yet...
Linkage and Linkage to original article

APB is an awesome creation system, really one of the best, but it has drawbacks for what we are trying to do. But we have learned an awful lot from them.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?
See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.
I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

The general idea that Andy was split into two models to ease the pressure on having to process too many polygons in a multiplayer environment sounds like a perfectly reasonable engineering solution.

I'm just now left wondering if that single split was itself enough. Will the single male and female models be "roomy" enough from a polygon processing overhead point of view to allow for all the various body shape extremes we'd like to have or will we still suffer from a degree of limitation that might be solved (once again) by a further splitting of the models involved. If like you say we'll still need the concept of separate "male huge" and "female huge" models to fully express a reasonably wide range of options then I'd be on board with that. I simply don't want the "solution to Andy" be too limiting in and of itself.

No there'll probably never be a character body model in a game like this that'll perfectly satisfy every player. But if we've already made the first step to abandon Andy for the sake of performance I'd just like some official feedback to reassure us that the "two model" solution will in fact give us the best bang for the buck so to speak.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Gangrel wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:
Understand, the split is not due to it being impossible, or difficult (APB proved it was more than possible after all, running an older version of the game engine) but for performance reasons.
The polygon difference between a hit girl and an awesome kong is far less than the polygon difference between an Incredible Hulk and an Awesome Kong.
I do not have the hard numbers in front of me, but the polygon difference was something on the order of 75%. While yes, we *could* live with it (APB did after all) we wanted to try and get more players on-screen so as to avoid ye ol jello-raid slideshows.

In a recent article over on massively, the APB Reloaded team are shifting over to a more recent version of Unreal 3 (2013 build with other enhancements) whilst still keeping the same flexibility for performance and compatibility reasons.
I wouldn't necessarily write it off yet...
Linkage and Linkage to original article

APB is an awesome creation system, really one of the best, but it has drawbacks for what we are trying to do. But we have learned an awful lot from them.

For what it's worth I've always been very impressed by what I've seen of the APB creation system. If MWM can incorporate the innovations they've managed there into CoT then I'm sure we'll be well ahead of where CoH left off.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?

See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.
I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

The general idea that Andy was split into two models to ease the pressure on having to process too many polygons in a multiplayer environment sounds like a perfectly reasonable engineering solution.
I'm just now left wondering if that single split was itself enough. Will the single male and female models be "roomy" enough from a polygon processing overhead point of view to allow for all the various body shape extremes we'd like to have or will we still suffer from a degree of limitation that might be solved (once again) by a further splitting of the models involved. If like you say we'll still need the concept of separate "male huge" and "female huge" models to fully express a reasonably wide range of options then I'd be on board with that. I simply don't want the "solution to Andy" be too limiting in and of itself.
No there'll probably never be a character body model in a game like this that'll perfectly satisfy every player. But if we've already made the first step to abandon Andy for the sake of performance I'd just like some official feedback to reassure us that the "two model" solution will in fact give us the best bang for the buck so to speak.

We're still testing to know precise splits. The difference between extreme male and female was just so great it stood out like a sore thumb during initial passes. We will be testing as we go to know if any further splits are needed, but we are not anticipating them. And even if we do need to split further, we can hide this behind the UI as well.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?
See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.
I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

And in many instances its own animations. This is just as much a concern for me. Especially when we finally got to "walk", males "strode", females "swayed", and huges "lumbered." Having a variety of default movements styles that we can select along with "gender" would be nice.

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?

See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.
I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

And in many instances its own animations. This is just as much a concern for me. Especially when we finally got to "walk", males "strode", females "swayed", and huges "lumbered." Having a variety of default movements styles that we can select along with "gender" would be nice.

Our plan is for everybody to float in a chair like MODOK. (j/k)

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

While I see the desire for an Andy model, I'd still like to have Male/Female as the main models. Not because I'm trying to be sexist, but because it would be easier to be able to configure the body type I'd like to have going off of a base model. If I have to use too many sliders to try to adjust my body form I'll get annoyed really fast and just hit random 17 thousand times till I find one close enough. I'm not saying that you couldn't go Andy from one model or the other, just that it would be nice to have something to start from other than just a square block.

I would hope in this instant they would have some presets at the ready for you, or presets stickied on their forums for you to match up to in the creator.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

We're still testing to know precise splits. The difference between extreme male and female was just so great it stood out like a sore thumb during initial passes. We will be testing as we go to know if any further splits are needed, but we are not anticipating them. And even if we do need to split further, we can hide this behind the UI as well.

I'm overtly aware that I've been drilling for specifics that probably haven't been nailed down yet so again I hope you'll forgive my nitpickiness on this. At least there've been other people posting who seem equally interested in getting as many firm facts on this as possible.

As a future player I obviously want as much character customization freedom as possible. I'm hoping to be able to create both male or female characters which could span the entire range between waifish up to huge or anything in-between. Considering that it was effectively impossible in CoH to create a female that was anything other than a subtle variation of Power Girl it'll be a welcome improvement if the system comes even close to approaching something more like a Hitgirl or an Awesome Kong.

I'm honestly hoping that instead of just "getting close" to those extremes CoT will be able to easily get to them with plenty of room to spare.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

WarBird wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Think about it: exactly how many more polygons would the "miracle female model that could express any possible female" need to have to express most if not all male shapes as well?

See, in my mind what Dr. Tyche said amounts to him pointing out that there is no "miracle model". Will the models we will have be able to do everything everyone wants? Of course not. (By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.) I understand the desire to shoot for the stars, but let's not forget to relish the fact that what we will get should, by all accounts, be an amazing improvement over what we had.
I'm more curious to know if the huge models will be reached 'smoothly' from the Andy frame or if there will be a 'click here for huge' option, given that in CoH the huge model had its own skeleton.

And in many instances its own animations. This is just as much a concern for me. Especially when we finally got to "walk", males "strode", females "swayed", and huges "lumbered." Having a variety of default movements styles that we can select along with "gender" would be nice.

Our plan is for everybody to float in a chair like MODOK. (j/k)

Aww, man! Vehicle discussions again?! Dang it.

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Aww, man! Vehicle discussions again?! Dang it.

LMAO! Nicely done, WarBird!

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Did somebody mention vehicles

Did somebody mention vehicles?? lol. j/k

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:It costs nothing to be inclusive.Well nothing for CoT with a volunteer group of workers anyways. Normally creating another menu, more code to include changing the NPC dialogue means more money spent.

Although pronoun substitution is a relatively straightforward process. For example, in the MUF programming language implemented in some of the MUCKs online (text-based virtual worlds; one of the successors to MUDs, 'Multi-User Dungeon'), there is a 'pronoun_sub' command, that takes two parameters off the stack -- a dbref of a player object and a string to be processed -- and performs substitution of tags in the string:

%a/%A for absolute possessive (his/hers/its, His/Hers/Its)
%s/%S for subjective pronouns (he/she/it, He/She/It)
%o/%O for objective pronouns (him/her/it, Him/Her/It)
%p/%P for possessive pronouns (his/her/its, His/Her/Its)
%r/%R for reflexive pronouns (himself/herself/itself, Himself/Herself/Itself)
%n/%N for the player's name.

So the string "%S didn't think %p Flame Strike power would affect %r" for a male character would substitute as "He didn't think his Flame Strike power would affect himself".

Most MUCKs will allow the user to set properties that define what pronoun each of these categories will use, but setting up predefined sets, like 'his/he/him/his/himself' for 'male', etc., so that the player would pick a gender category and the game would perform substitution from the appropriate set, would be a better approach for an MMO to prevent people from being jerks and defining inappropriate pronouns. I think CoH did a basic male/female substitution along these lines, but I may be misremembering.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

(By those standards I should begin complaining that creating a hunchbacked character won't be an option.)

Couldn't this be taken care of via a "stance" (similar to Champions Online or STO)? Same goes for Bestial stances and the like.

Of course - that's assuming COT will have something similar. Considering how this could mess with the model's skeletal movement - thus meaning more work to produce - I could see something like this plugged in at a later date - but it should be possible.

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Hmm.. FunCom just found

Hmm.. FunCom just found itself alot of unhappy soon to be former-customers.

Article available on Massively: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/04/funcom-yanks-mankini-costume-from-the-secret-world/

The mankini is gone but the female April fools "joke" outfit is still there and purchasable? #GenderEquality

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*lol* The Mankini?!? man,

*lol* The Mankini?!? man, that is hi-larious!

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

Hmm.. FunCom just found itself alot of unhappy soon to be former-customers.
Article available on Massively: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/04/funcom-yanks-mankini-costume-from-the-secret-world/
The mankini is gone but the female April fools "joke" outfit is still there and purchasable? #GenderEquality

It would have been one thing to just have temporary April Fool's joke outfits (for free) but to go so far as to make people "purchase" them and have to bother to refund everyone's points (or even real money) to "clean up" after the joke seems like a pretty pathetic stretch on Funcom's part. Besides Borat-based humor only goes so far anyway.

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I'm thinking given how so

I'm thinking given how so many Super heroes have underpants on the outside. I can so see something like that in a Superhero game!

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But, they don't have

But, they don't have underpants on the outside. It's just how it's colored. :p

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Ohh a challange. I give you

Ohh a challange. I give you Captain Underpants!

http://tinyurl.com/nd2ssff

There are also a few others...
http://tinyurl.com/nqpr5f3
http://tinyurl.com/ovpyj2m

Okay True they are all Jokes... but face it we will have a Captain Underpants or similar in the game. Some one will make one!

Of course... http://tinyurl.com/krhoqzg

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

But, they don't have underpants on the outside. It's just how it's colored. :p

They have neither one. They wear tights, which are about as revealing as swimwear, and trunks over them to hide the outline of their naughty bits, or panty lines if they wear such a thing as underwear.

Except in DC's new 52, which is all naughty bits, all the time.

edit: Oh, one of those links above already covered that. State the obvious, get scooped.

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Tranny all the way.

Tranny all the way.

"The best thing about being smart is being able to fool people that are dumber than you."

Visit this site if interested in starting an upcoming super group: http://themsf.webs.com/

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Costume Parity matters. More

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

Costume Parity matters. More on Mankinigate
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/10/chaos-theory-funcom-flubbed-it-with-the-secret-worlds-mankinig/

Yeah this'll definitely be a case study on what NOT to do when it comes to April Fool's jokes and how to clean up after them in MMOs. So far the bigest mistakes Funcom made was 1) involving players paying actual money to be involed in the "joke" and 2) removing the joke male costume completely from the game while letting people keep the joke female costume if they already purchased it.

For me "costume parity" in this case mandated that either both joke items remain permanently in the game or they both get equally removed. Treating one differently than the other (for whatever reason) was extra pathetic on Funcom's part.

P.S. And while they were at it they could have let the females get their own version of the "mankiki" and males get their own version the divesuit, but that element of equality was mostly tangential to the other more obvious problems with this situation.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Yeah.. business ethics and

Yeah.. business ethics and what not but the truest lesson is "Give me my Mankini!". Or perhaps more universally, "once you get a man to take his clothes off, good luck getting them back on willingly"

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Well, the article makes it

Well, the article makes it sound like less of an april fools joke and more of a "we'll call it that to cover the mess the boss made"

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Sweden has something going on

Sweden has something going on that may be worth keeping an eye on. If the MEPs ever gets tired of regulating toasters, light bulbs, and the size of donuts this may catch on.

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Speaking as a transgendered

Speaking as a transgendered person, I can see an obvious and simple solution for this problem that the developers have likely already taken into consideration.

Divorce muscle tissue from adipose tissue in the sliders.

The obvious solution is right there in that there wouldn't be one unified chest slider that does two different things for the models depending solely on the side of the gender divide that they happen to inhabit. There would be two sliders with one used for muscle and the other used for what can be most easily described as 'jigglebones material.'

This would give the developers the flexibility in model structure to encompass a majority of the physically feasible body types for both males and females as well as the unlucky few that fall in between those neat categories. We already have confirmation in other topics that overweight heroes are being taken into consideration, so this is the obvious extension of that line of thought.

Now, ideally there would be three different sliders for females and two for males to reflect the fact that most females have structures, glands, and tissues inside the breasts that are not just fat which contribute to their size. I think this would add more viable customization, but at the expense of perversity and comically oversized mammaries to the point of parody, so it is not worth the hassle to have a third variable simply as a 'so how big were you before you began porking out' baseline for females.

To reference the (frankly quite good) webcomic Spinnerette, having a range of Mecha Maid to Greta Gravity is good, but we do not need to include Super MILF on the bustline scale. There is a point where Gag Boobs become just too much and the line needs to be drawn. When you have reached a point with a character where each individual breast has surpassed the size of the character's WAIST, you are in parody territory.

I have confidence that the developers know where to draw the line in good taste, and hope that I am disconcertingly close to the mark for their actual plans.

The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue

Doctor Tyche
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I will need to note, that 3d

I will need to note, that 3d models do not comprehend the idea of muscle or adipose, and only simulate either through deformation. Since both are simulated through the same exact system, divorcing is... messy.

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

Plexius
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In regards to the pronoun

In regards to the pronoun issue, the folks at MWM could just write all of the game's dialogue in a gender-neutral language, like Turkish. The only catch is that we'd all have to learn Turkish.

Sorun yok, Türkçe öğrenmek zor değil.

JayBezz
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Plexius wrote:
Plexius wrote:

In regards to the pronoun issue, the folks at MWM could just write all of the game's dialogue in a gender-neutral language, like Turkish. The only catch is that we'd all have to learn Turkish.
Sorun yok, Türkçe öğrenmek zor değil.

I will be so happy if I can just choose my gender pronoun. I'm not transsexual but I am a frequent transvestite and just because I'm appearing with feminine qualities does not mean I want to be called female because I don't feel my masculinity is about anything I wear ON my skin but what I am IN my skin.

If people like myself want representation in gaming a simple choice of "he, she or they" goes miles above what we've expected from the industry before.

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