Boy did it go down on the DCUO forums today. Players over there started to question the lack of features on their avatar since a great deal of those features are already in-game. here is how it went down, boy oh boy.
Player: I can't see why they couldn't make armors that would basicly be a chest for werewolf... or other creates, to create some bulk.. it's codeable. The rest is just bad excuses.
Dev: ok then how bout "we don't want to"
Another Player: one of my new favorite devs. straight to the point and honest, nuff said
Dev: Let me disclaimer that its a "we dont want to.... because it is not the wisest use of our resources"
The quotes made me think, nah, they are joking, but the dev was very offensive, on the offense in the entire thread. They even let some guy hurt their feelings
Dev:I think this is a little more cynical and callous than it needs to be. Not super appreciating the villainizing
Wow so resources do not go into the player avatar but other things. I thought the creator or styles were one of the most paramount features of a superhero mmorpg? I thought this was just players being players, but the more I read, the more I started to side with the players. They struck a nerve with the dev because it was true. The reason I quit DC Universe Online in 2012 was because of the character creator. Like those players I noticed how a number of great styles were in-game therefore codable but not available to the players.
What do you guys think about this? Admitting that the character is not a priority.
I mean I would be mad if CoT or VO gave us poo poo styles but the non-playable characters got the cool stuff. Rough over there in the DCUO part of town, sucks for them I guess.
I am an advid superhero mmo player so I am up on the "Whats happening" on every superhero game forum. Thought I would share that with you guys. These daybreak people are just like the poster chiild of what not to do with a superhero game, hahaha. I remember one dev saying he does not care about folks who do not pay and I am thinking, so you don't want new customers?
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
We all want the games we play to have like EVERY feature imaginable..... for free.
People who have to design and code up that stuff need to eat, pay rent and send their kids to school. I can totally understand the attitude of the dev who says "we don't do that because YOU say you want it but won't actually pay for it". They need to prioritize things people will pay them for. It's really that simple.
I think this is why a lot of games have a short life span. You can get people to pay for a game if they're buying it, like the whole game, in one up-front purchase. You can make enough content to fill a whole second game, but you can't get them to buy it if it's still called the same game. You can get them pay for it if you call it a different game, but not if its a game they already bought. One game, one purchase, that's how a lot of people think. Anything else is "add-ons" we don't want to get suckered into buying.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree, players can be cry babies, DCUO players are crybabies, but there were a lot of threads now and back in 2012 when I played begging for weapons, updated animal skins, hair, blah, blah, blah. Like you said though, they need to eat so the developers focus on episodes, so I am of the mind-set that having a creator in the first place may have been a mistake? I mean if the focus was shifted away from it, why have it?
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Developers who believe that their creation is the shiniest thing in a game, there are three words to keep in mind:
Upper Blackrock Spire
Now, for those who have played WoW, you may know Upper Blackrock Spire as a raid, used to be a 15-man raid at that. Despite it having been played by millions of people, literally, few people actually know the plotline for the Upper Blackrock Spire. A grand fantasy plot involving the son of a dragon, a war against the dwarves, a fire elemental general, the people behind it likely spent months plotting out the story and lore for this adventure.
Yet, the most memorable moment which ever happened in the Upper Blackrock Spire was never even conceived by the writers. And I'll bet you know this moment yourself.
Ultimately, the player's stories will always dominate the developers.
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
Wise words from the CoT devs as usual. This is why you all have so much support from this community. I really don't get the devs other there at Daybreak, they are so cocky. One would think DCUO was a mmo titan, but hey, it is their world, run it how ya want to.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
I honestly truly felt like DCUO completely missed the point of what made the niche Superhero MMO genre great. Aka the Player Generations and power customization....
Formerly known as Bleddyn
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCqnt88Umk]Do you want to be a hero?[/url]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/nyktoss-character-cove] My characters [/url]
I wholeheartedly agree, that is why I am questioning their decision to even include a character creator in the first place, it makes no sense. What is DCUO exactly? It has no niche at all. The game is all over the place. It makes no sense at all to even have creation options at this point, can't believe that developer said that though. Wowsers.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
I'm left scratching my head over why, if all these fancy new skins exist in the game, they weren't designed for player model compatibility in the first place.
The Dev comment was that it wouldn't be a good use of their time to design new stuff for the costume creator, but if these items are already being made to fit a new human model mob, why aren't they just using the player human model from the start? Two birds with one stone, right?
I know CoX used lower res models for mobs to help save memory and whatnot, but I don't remember that being the case in DCUO. The mobs looked just like the player characters.
Let me guess: the obnoxious dev's handle was Radar X or Razor X or something similar? I was in the closed beta for that game, and I apologize that I can't remember his exact handle at this late date.
He let slip early in the test that the closed beta would never be anything other than a pre-preview, that no changes would be made in response to tester reports, and that the dev's weren't even reading our notes anyway. Any bug report thread that became critical of this attitude or of the fact that a great many progress-preventing bugs still existed (most of which were still present at launch) was immediately locked by Radar/Razor X.
So you could say I'm familiar with the jerk. And I'm not surprised that DCUO devs still have an attitude.
To be fair, Sony strangely never regarded CoX or CO as competition. Their target was the then-in-development Marvel games, neither of which allow you to create your own character (AFAIK) because the premise is to fight to unlock existing Marvel characters.
I think their mindset is that by allowing you to create original characters they're giving you "a gift". But I don't have to respect that mentality or the attitude of that game's devs at all when CoX had already established what a superhero MMO should be. You don't see any fantasy MMO devs attempting to ignore what WoW, AC and UO contributed to that genre.
There is so much more in DCUO that makes no sense from a design standpoint than just refusing to unlock existing skins for player customization. An openly antagonistic relationship with their end users doesn't surprise me at all. I hope they get what they deserve.
I probably spent just as much time creating characters in CoX as I did actually playing the game. That being the case I did not spend much time in DCUO at all. I gave it a good try but it was just not my cup of tea. I'll happily wait for a game that does care :)
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
I have to admit, I didn't read a lot of the backstory to the content I did in CoX either. I remember doing the BAF more than one time and going "Why are we PREVENTING the prisoners from escaping, exactly? That doesn't make any sense..."
That said, I love content that has tactics, strategies, and various actions you have to perform to complete it right, which are different in different missions, etc. I loved that aspect of the Incarnate Trials. I prefer that to just making everything "tank and spank".
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It's because "making a game" is only part of it. The other part is that they are interested in growing their corporate brand. For DCUO The "DC" is just as important, if not more, than the "UO".
I can accept there's a certain percentage of players out there who basically love the old classic DC and Marvel universes and only want to play games where they can "pretend" to be The Hulk or The Flash regardless of actually wanting to "roleplay" a unique character.
It all boils down to whether you just want to see the classic characters do the things they did in the comic books you read as a kid or if you want to create your own characters in a fresh superhero world. These people don't actually care about roleplaying their own characters and by extension generally don't see any point to creating anything new or customized. To them they only want to look/be as identical to the preexisting characters as possible. The DC and Marvel games are giving those people exactly what they want, right down to the heavy disregard towards getting anything customized or unique.
Now I personally usually can't stand the thought of "playing someone else's characters" and haven't even bothered to try any other Superhero games other than CoH and CO. To me roughly 99% of the fun comes from creating my OWN characters and the costumes they'll wear and couldn't really care less about running something somebody else created decades ago. So obviously there's a fundamental difference between games like CoT/CoH/CO and the other games based on the big, established comic book properties. There almost couldn't be a bigger case of "Apples and Oranges" between them.
Therefore I don't really fault games like DCUO and Marvel for being "anti-customization" because their main goal really isn't customization in the first place. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Agree here, but I just don't get the point of having a character creator to begin with. What Marvel 2016 did was understandable, but a game which actually has character creation features have me scratching my head.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Yeah it does seem weird if you're going to have ANY kind of character creator in a game to NOT bother to give it as many options as possible.
Again it seems the whole idea of creating "unique" characters is maybe only the third or fourth highest priority for DCUO (if that) which is why I never bothered to try it. I have no problem with Superman or Batman per se - I just have very little desire to run them (or near exact clones of them) around as characters/avatars in a game especially after I got the chance to play CoH for 8 years. I suppose you could say CoH forever "ruined" me for any kind of Superhero game that's not basically like CoH.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well I''m hoping we can prove you wrong there ; )
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I couldn't agree more with you more Lothic. And Tannim, hopefully this game will be "basically" like CoH.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
To be clear I'm hoping that CoT is, to quote myself, "basically like CoH" in every way that matters. At the very least CoT is almost certainly going to be far more like CoH than DCUO and Marvel Heroes ever tried to be. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Fully agree with you there Lothic.
@Tannim
Isn't that essentially what a spiritual successor is supposed to be, "basically like "? In that it keeps everything that made what it was but at the same time making those things better (at least technology wise), and introducing things that was lacking in the original.
It basically comes down to "they built it wrong" because they were cheapskates cutting corners in the first place. They didn't build everything to function through a common "library" which used the same system for Players and NPCs. Instead, they did "one offs" that could work on the (highly controlled) costuming of NPCs but which wouldn't work on the Player models without major (major) rework ... which they didn't have time to do for what basically amounts to a vanity exercise.
Rather than building EVERYTHING such that it can be used by Players and then simply "handing it out" to the NPCs in defined ways, every single NPC gets designed as its own Special Snowflake and there's no backwards compatibility to the PC used models (because, don't need it).
In other words ... "they built it wrong" in the first place and now it's too much work to change it later for next to no gain.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
How many countless games have ever been made just to cash in on a hot property while it's hot? This is the same type of thing like every game that was made, in a hurry, for a movie. The E.T. game for Atari 2600 comes to mind. Shameless attempt to cash in with shoddy craftmanship and a shiny label that says "Star Wars" on it, so you know everyone's going to buy it, etc. Tsk tsk.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Which is why I'll sit and wait for CoT to be done right.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Agree here.
That is a sound point, maybe they did build it wrong. How you can mess up a super hero mmo with close to a 60 million dollar budget is beyond my mind. Word is they were too cornered with voice actors and that type of thing.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
If you go back and actually read that thread, and then look at the character models to which they refer, I can see why the devs said what they said.
Basically in that thread, the players are asking for another different body type. There are currently 18 body types, 9 male and 9 female; but really there are only 3 of each, with three scaled versions of each those three. I guess you could call it "wrong", but I think the game designers thought it was a good compromise. Don't forget that DCUO was built for consoles as well as PC, so there is a limited amount of memory allocation available to them.
The developers came out and said that what the players are asking for would be so much effort that they have no intention of doing so. The reason is because all the armors and other things that depend on body types would need to be drawn again to match. I don't blame them, to be honest. There are a lot of ways they could have answered it, and they chose the absolute worst way, but that doesn't change the fact that it would be far too much work at his point.
Put yourselves in the developers shoes. How would you answer the request for barrel-chested character models this many years after the game was created if doing so would make you lose money and probably draw resources away from other promised content obligations?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
That is why us here are saying they built it wrong.
They had to consider the fans. There is no way anyone in the dev office could have seen this as ok. DCUO staff had to know that these non-playable character models were vastly superior to the player models. They had to know some hardcore superhero mmo fans would question this. They had to know this genre is all about customization.
Did they think the fans were dumb? "Lets just slip them a cat person and put the real creature features on the non-playable." Lazy and a bad use of resources imo.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
It is not so much that they built it wrong, they built it using the traditional MMORPG approach.
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
That's the thing, right there. Superhero MMOs are not the same as traditional MMOs. I touched on this before, but the superhero genre is large made up of two things:
1. The Costume
2. The Powers.
You can do without one or the other if the tone is set properly. For instance, the Dresden Files novels are much of what i imagine a superhero story to be once you take away the colorful costumes and names. It's still a good story, because it's written well, the characters are engaging, and it's internally consistent. By contrast, "Costumes but no powers" is a thing done regularly even in superhero comics - Batman and many of the villains surrounding him are a good example, including Penguin, Two-face, Joker (though he's a borderline case, dependant on the writer), and, if you extend a little leeway to tech users, characters like firefly and Mr. Freeze, though I wouldn't personally count them.
But the issue here is the same as the Voice Acting situation - Either do it well, or not at all, and you have to do it from the get-go or it's meaningless. DCUO has some pretty hard limits on the character creator, both from the costuming perspective and the power selections - the body types for instance, and the fact that power choices (tht i admittedly only saw a little of) are not only limited, but progression path-ed so that you don't really get to choose your powers, just your set.
A large part of superhero fiction, on the other hand, deals specifically with oddities and unique cases. Something that sets them apart, rather than being generic. In the case of Batman, he's a dude in a costume yes, but the real thing that sets him apart is his ability to bounce back and beat anybody given enough preparation, through a mixture of being an A++ combatant and his know-how with both investigation and tinkering. In the case of Harry Dresden, he's an astonishingly powerful wizard at a baseline, evidently he's the key to some prophecy or another, and his mentality is that of a true hero, spider-man style (in fact, he references spider-man every now and then for that very reason), all of which are hallmarks of Superhero literature. the world of the Dresden Files also (in spite of explaining everything as magic in one way or another) opens up the availability of unique abilities. Hannah Ascher in the latest book is a hilarious powerful and controlled pyokinetic, during Ghost Story we see a kinetomancer and an Ectomancer, and one of the most famous scenes from the books was when Harry rode into combat with a team of supercharged necromancers riding on the back of a T-rex powered by polka. Weird, unique things happening is what makes a superhero story.
This sort of creative freedom is the entire reason why people enjoy the genre. But that's where DCUO completely flopped; there's no creativity to the use of your powers, or the choice of them. There's no true freedom to the costumes - which, by the way, could have been easily solved by just applying the slider system most games use these days, but can't be changed now - And no freedom of expression to the powers. For instance, "summoner" gives you, what, one or two little floating head things? Compare that to the mastermind from CoH for a moment there, and you'll see why just that is a problem.
Ugh, I should stop before I keep ranting. Regardless, i like the direction that CoT is going, and pretty well hate the way that DCUO went.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Guys, I think you are all missing a very important point here.
COH IS NOT THE UNIVERSAL OFFICIAL DEFINITION OF A SUPERHERO MMO
Everything being put against them here, assumes that every superhero MMO needs to have CoH's priorities. That's right, anything else is wrong. The Superhero MMO genre does not have some special official 'everybody wants it like this' status. CoH was like that, the other MMO developed by its makers is like that. The other two - the other HALF the industry - is not like that.
You aren't criticising them for doing it wrong, not really. You're criticizing them for not doing it like City of Heroes, which you've decided is Right. It's not. It's what we wanted. It's what that particular game chose to give us. Criticizing them because 'superhero mmos shouldn't work like that' is just wrong. They can interpret what their superhero MMO should be the same way every MMO made can. Devs sit down and figure out their priorities and go from there. Being a superhero game does not oblige them to be like City of Heroes, at all. And while DCUO is less popular with CoH fans, it's a very successful game. They succeeded by not trying to copy or in any way imitate the original. That is legit. Not being character creator centric is legit, superhero mmo or not.
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[center][color=#ff0000]Interior Map Lead and UI Designer[/color][/center]
As Shadow Elusive said (and I covered a few weeks ago earlier in this thread) the way CoH was designed is not the only way to design a superhero MMO. What those other games did is DIFFERENT, not WRONG.
For better or worse there's apparently a very large number of players out there who love the DC and Marvel pantheon of characters so much that they'd rather have games where they only get to play directly as Batman or Spider-man without any care whatsoever for being able to create their OWN unique characters. That's the fundamental difference here - games like DCUO and Marvel Online were designed PRIMARILY to allow players to directly play as the preexisting characters (or close clones of the existing characters). Because of that it makes perfect sense that giving players full freedom for unlimited customization was NOT a priority and I suspect for a vast majority of the players of those games that's perfectly fine. Not everyone likes to "roleplay" their own characters.
Now as I said before I'm the type of person who truly hates the idea of "playing other peoples' characters" and I have no desire whatsoever to run around as Superman or a near-exact clone of Superman in a game. I'd much, much rather create my own characters to run and that's what made a game like CoH so special. But that doesn't mean that CoH was RIGHT and a game like DCUO is WRONG - it just means they were fundamentally designed to satisfy different kinds of play.
The real problem here was that there were some players who wanted a game like DCUO to do everything customization-wise that CoH was designed to do. It's like wanting a Yugo or a Fiat to race NASCAR - it's just not going to happen without rebuilding those cars from scratch. Sure the response about it from the DCUO Devs might have been rude or whatever, but there was really nothing they could do about it regardless.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Playing as Batman or Superman is all well and good for a console game or even a single-player RPG, but any MMORPG is going to have to allow, nay, encourage players to create their own characters. If your concept of a game is that you get to make your own fake version of Green Lantern or the Flash that can't be called "Green Lantern" or "The Flash" because of copyright (and because there are like a million other players playing the same game, and they can't all be named The Flash), then it's a poorly designed and badly executed game, if you ask me.
Different, yes, still f&*$ing wrong though, or at least wrong for me anyway. Their version of "different" manages to achieve "different, and also not as good, in some critical areas, as one would want/expect from a game of its kind" and thus they did it badly, from my perspective. And by "game of it's kind" I mean "Superhero MMORPG", which CoX was , hands-down, the best example of to date in terms of actual game design and execution. Is "done badly, as compared to games that came before it and were actually better" the same as wrong? Well, if your original goal was "done well" then I'd have to say bad = wrong in that case. So it's only wrong in the sense that it fails at being a good version of the thing it sets itself up to be. As in "If your goal was to make a good superhero MMORPG, you're doing it wrong."
When the Seahawks had the ball on the 1 yard line late in the Superbowl and chose to throw it instead of handing it off to Marshawn Lynch, many people second-guessed that decision, as the outcome was an interception that iced the game as a win for the Patriots. Did the Seahawks call the "wrong" play, or just a "different" play than many people felt they should have? Based on the fact that they lost, you could argue that they did it wrong. They, the Seahawks coaches, would argue that they simply took a chance and called a "different" play. I think the fact that they lost the game on that play instead of winning only proves that they made the wrong decision, ultimately. Do the complaints of the DC online players amount to enough of a negative that you could call it "wrong" of them, I don't know, it's not as cut and dried, but I don't play DCUO and from what I read I'm not about to start. So it's wrong for me, at the very least.
And some people will buy anything that has the DC logo, Marvel logo, Simpsons, Game of Thrones, etc on it. I have the Game of Thrones board game (not the living card game, that's pretty good, but the land-acquisition board game). It has a pretty glaring flaw in the game design that makes it a terrible argument-inducing mess, but it probably sold more copies than many other good, well-designed games I could rattle off, just on name recognition alone. You can make money on a name alone, but it doesn't ensure quality, especially not in game design. Since CoT doesn't have Marvel or DC name recognition to pump up initial sales, it needs to be good, meaning well-made, and thus made right, not wrong.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I spent so much time in the character creator in CoH that DCUO seemed lackluster and boring. I'd spend ages in CoH trying to get everything right yet in DCUO, I'm in game in minutes (as most of my characters have the same look - the one I like from what's available).
I can see the Dev's point - We'd rather concentrate on content rather than character creation - but after being around as long as it has been, they should have devoted small amounts of time to adding costume pieces and / or sets over time. They'd have a much better range now, if they did and I'd be able to put more thought into my character's appearance.
I'm hoping that the Character Creator in CoT will be awesome and can't wait to see what comes out :)
We all have it in us to be a hero to someone,
Super powers are optional.....
Part of the Phoenix Rising Initiative.....
Proud to be a hero. Prouder still to be a member of [url=http://www.watchfire-online.info]Watchfire[/url]
And the key phrases are right there in your own words. Saying things like "if you ask me" or "wrong for me anyway" are exactly my point. There's absolutely nothing wrong with preferring a game like CoH over a game like DCUO. As I said myself I STRONGLY prefer a game like CoH over a game like DCUO. But the simple fact that games like DCUO appear to be relatively successful in the marketplace proves that for some people DCUO is the type of game THEY prefer.
You don't have to like it but calling that kind of game "wrong" just because "you don't like it" is kind of silly at the very least. I prefer to play Magic the Gathering over Poker but I would never say that Poker is "wrong" because it's using its set of playing cards in a way I don't like. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I have to agree with Radiac here. The thing is, like he said, 'wrong' is far from cut-and-dry. My mother still plays farmville and consistently enjoys it; I view the game as a complete crock, a cash-cow, and a waste of time due to its shallow gameplay, lack of engaging features, and similar. Another pair of games that I could mention are Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone To The Rapture; these titles have been called by certain reviewers "Walking simulators" as they do very little else and, to most people, are bad games. A friend of mine, however, enjoys them and finds them relaxing, and to him they feel like good games because of the experience of them.
The trick here is that what makes a good game and a bad game has to be centered around current popular opinion of the people playing the game. Try reading some famous books from the 1850s sometime; They could have been amazing in their time, but if someone tried to sell them fresh nowadays, they'd get turned away by every publisher because they don't fit what is currently 'good'. This is true for all media, video games included, so realistically the only way we can quantify something being "bad" or "done wrong" is based on mass opinion.
And DCUO is showing that it [i]has[/i] done something wrong, if its player base is so upset that the discussion about it has spread to other boards.
Are they making the wrong choices objectively? Probably not. They have a reason for what they did, and that works. They've decided what they want to do and are pursuing it - that's even laudable, given them being verbally attacked over it. That's not the issue though - the issue is that they're alienating their playerbase, because they evidently didn't understand or didn't care about what their overall playerbase wants. Then, when challenged on it, they proceeded to argue the point. Compare most game companies I've seen, who either explain their position and leave it at that, or simply don't answer at all. That can lead to unrest, certainly, but arguing? How in the world did they think that'd make things better? If anything, people are now even more riled up about it, where they wouldn't be if they had just left the angry comments on their own, because they've inflamed the way people think - that of conflict having sides, and it's much easier to hate the overlord of your enjoyment than admit you might be wrong.
The whole thing is two different degrees of failure. Failure to meet the expectations of the demographic they were selling their game to, and failure to keep that same demographic happy with what they had, means that they did it wrong. Maybe not objectively wrong, but the situation was handled improperly enough that the word fits.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
The old adage that the customer is always right comes to mind. The problem is that we seem to think that we (as far as DCUO goes) are the customers. We most definitely are not the customers; DC is. The developers client is DC, and the game was developed solely for DC. We are merely consumers that want a company to redesign a viable, working as intended, functional product to conform to our desires. Not going to happen; product working as intended; and you are not the client (etc., etc., ...).
Good news for us ... the gamers. CoT and its sister projects are coming. Made by gamers for gamers. (Not made by a Dev for an IP owner.) All those DCUO players whose experience is less than what they are seeking (including myself) are just waiting for the chance to bail to a true gamer centric product.
As far as whether DCUO is a good game or bad is irrelevant because the only opinion that mattered and still matters is DC's. For those of us that loved CoX (CoT) for all of the customization that it allowed and the many other aspects that are too numerous too count, DCUO is and will always be a bad game. For Fanpeeps that adore the DC IP, it will always be a good game. For DCUO, the latter group is the target audience. We, the Lost Children of Paragon City, are not their demographic target. I have heard rumors that WE are the targets of MWM. I have never been more thankful to be in someone's crosshairs. MWM fire away. Full auto. I can take it. (Former Tank Goddess - Quannah - Virtue - INV/AXE)
I'd agree that it looks like the Devs of DCUO handled this specific forum situation of theirs very badly. As much as game Devs might want to rip into their players it's never good for their business regardless of who's right or wrong.
But as to this more general question about whether DCUO itself is "wrong" for not offering certain features to its players I would have to see the cold hard facts on just HOW MANY players of DCUO are actually "complaining" about not having enough costume customizations. We all know that the people who haunt game forums usually only represent like 10% of a game's playerbase - the silent majority never bother to post or read forums like these. I suspect people like you and Radiac have misjudged DCUO through the prism of what CoH offered and decided that since DCUO is not as "good" as CoH was (in your opinions) that it must obviously be doing something "wrong" in terms of the way it was designed. Frankly I'm pretty sure you're letting you opinions cloud your thinking on this matter.
One more time to be perfectly clear I (like you) prefer the kind of game CoH was a million times more than the kind of game DCUO is. Clearly if customization and being able to create truly UNIQUE characters is important to you then you'll probably agree that CoH was the "superior" game in that regard. But even if there are a few people playing DCUO who want that game to offer more customization options that doesn't mean that ALL the players (or even a majority of the players) want that for DCUO. Clearly DCUO is so DIFFERENT from CoH in that regard that I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of DCUO players wouldn't even care about the game's supposed "failure" in terms of customization.
DCUO is a game strictly based on the DC universe. I strongly suspect most of its players don't even want "universal character customization" - it's players want to be immersed in all things DC. There couldn't be a bigger case of Apples and Oranges between the two games it you tried.
Try to follow this example to see if it makes sense to you: Let's say you love American football because it let's the players use their hands to run the football down field. To you that'd be a "customized feature" that you can't live without. Then you take a look at soccer and think that because most of the players can't use their hands that somehow that game is deficient or designed "wrong". The problem with your assessment of soccer is that there's billions people who love that game DESPITE the fact that most of the players are not allowed to use their hands during play. You've let your love of American football so completely prejudice you that you can't see there are a ton of people who don't have the same priorities as you do. Even if I agree with you all day long that soccer is a "dumb" game because it won't let you use your hands that doesn't make it any less popular with the people who actually like it.
DCUO was not designed "wrong" for the people it was designed for. It just simply wasn't designed for you or me. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
https://www.dcuniverseonline.com/guides/guide-character-basics-choose-style-unlocks-dcuo
"Every hero or villain needs their signature look. Character creation is your time to let your personality shine!"
The game is centered around customization, but it is incapable of capitalizing on it.
If there were not so "Ra Ra Ra" on customization, then I would wholeheartedly agree with you here.
Customization is their calling card, but not really, or at least they say it is their calling card.
Marvel does not imply nor mention a creator nor customization, this is the route they chose. DCUO is implying that there is a great deal of customization here, but there is not. Now, players expect a vast level of customization since they advertise it through styles, creator, lock boxes, capsules, and the marketplace.
They built it wrong.
To advertise a feature, but not being able to take full advantage of that said feature is doing it wrong.
Marvel is not doing it wrong because they did not advertise, brag, nor take the character creator route. Once you take that route in a superhero mmo, while bragging about your character creator on the site, players expect CoH or CO level of customization.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
I'd personally WANT a game to give me infinite costume options but I know that practically speaking that'll probably never happen. To expect that a given individual game must AUTOMATICALLY be as customizible as another is wishful thinking at best. Sure it sucks that DCUO is not as customizable as CoH but there's no law that says it MUST be therefore it's not "wrong" or a failure of design that DCUO didn't provide for that.
I get that it's the common OPINION here that every superhero MMO must be as cool and capable as CoH was. But the simple fact of the matter is that is merely AN OPINION, not some kind of commandment that must be obeyed.
I get that you don't like DCUO - I'm certainly no fan of its limitations either. But it doesn't make it WRONG that they built it the way they did. Would you start saying that CoH was WRONG if they ever built a new game (CoT?) that had more customization features than CoH provided? Think about your choice of words... they actually make a difference in the right context.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If you can deliver unique styles on the NPCs, but not the PC while having a character creator, you did it wrong.
The first guy posted pictures of NPCs, vs Players. They are absolutely right. You make a creator, but give NPCs the superior skins and they do not expect the players to question that is naive.
These DCUO players are right on the money is what i am saying. You make this feature, but half-@$$ that said feature is doing it wrong. NPC skins are night and day compared to player skins which is not the case in other MMOs, except for the non-playable races.
I can built a pizza joint, while it may not taste like Domino's, Papa Johns, or Pizza Hut, folks expect a variety of toppings. If I cannot offer that, I did it wrong. It can most certainly function,. but those customers whom ask if they have other toppings are justified, because it is what they expect from a pizza joint.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Didn't CoH go through this exact issue and get basically the same response in regards to butt capes?
If I remember correctly, DCUO follows a traditional style of customization that focuses heavily on earning appearance changes through game play. Same way DDO, Vindictus, Destiny and pretty much every other MMO does. Coh was an exception not a rule in this area.
CoH has a vast creator, and many options are available to the players.
We can all find something to nitpick in every mmo, but DC first mistake was introducing the pizza shop (avatar creator) advertising a variety of toppings in the restaurant (non playable character skins), Customers see the signs (in-game) advertising of such things and ask for it but they cannot deliver despite these features being in-game.
Butt capes are like that topping which few restaurants even have. Body proportions, creature skins, layering are pretty much expected in super hero mmos with character creation. We have to dig pretty deep to criticize CoH customization system compared to the plethora of missing components in DC Universe Online.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
And this brings us right back to an earlier point.
The one thing that was most noticeable between CoX and DCUO is that in CoX nearly every possible costume option was available at character creation. Some reserved items were lore dependent and some things had to be earned, like capes.
DCUO wasn't stupid. They know that character customization is what players want, so because they had a free to play model they made players have to play and/or pay to get costumes. Smart business choice. I hate it, but I understand it.
Which model will CoT have? Are we going to have to pay to get access to all the costumes? I think the majority of people in these forums have said they want to pay for costumes because they think that is how MWM will make its money. Are all the costumes going to be available at character creation or not?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Not all of the costumes will be available at character creation. The current plan is for additional pieces may be earned through play by that character (with a badge) or such piece(s) may be purchased from the cash shop and unlocked globally (sans badge).
There may be pieces made specifically to be purchased from the cash shop though only take that with a grain of salt - I'm not on the business team and only point this out as a possibility.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Well - I don't WANT to pay for costumes heh heh. But like you I understand that MWM has to make money somehow, and vanity/cosmetic items and character options (power sets) are probably the way to go with that. Hell, if the game is as entertaining as CoH, and shows the same potential over time, I'll probably keep up my sub.
There are hundreds of MMOs out there right now. Can you name 5 that offer even half as many costume options in their avatar creator that CoH did. Shouldn't be hard, Steam alone has over 100 MMO's, including all 3 current super hero ones.
Not every avatar creator in an MMO is a 'pizza shop'. Most are just restaurants that only let you choose between fries or a bake potato and if your steak is rare or well done.
And incidentally, butt capes were only the most vocal complaint about NPC specific costume parts, they were not the only one by far. Statesman's Mask, Freakshow arms, Black Widows Hair, Synapse's electricity trail and more were all brought up many times.
Once again this is simply your opinion. It's is not a strict "right or wrong" fact.
Players can question ANYTHING about a game all day long. That doesn't make what DCUO did WRONG, especially considering that (ironically) DCUO probably offers more customization options than most other games currently running today.
Practically every other MMO game that's ever been made (before and since CoH) has had cases where NPCs get to "wear" things that PCs can't. I know you would probably say that somehow makes them all "wrong" and maybe in the long run games in general will stop doing that. But as pointed out by Brainbot and others even CoH had many cases where NPCs had costume items that PCs couldn't wear. Did that make CoH as wrong as DCUO?
Computer games created 40 years ago could not offer what CoH did back in 2004. Games created today will likely not be able to offer the features that games created 40 years from now will likely be able to offer. But that doesn't make any of them WRONG. Some games are simply more customizable than others by design.
People were literally spoiled by the customization features CoH provided and that's one of the reasons why it's so special. Basically no game BEFORE or SINCE has been able to match CoH in that area. Sure you can sit there and naively EXPECT that every other game should be able to be equivalent to what CoH provided but frankly that hasn't happened yet. It's even still a question whether CoT will match (or surpass) CoH but of course we all have high hopes for that.
Bottomline saying "CoH did it so DCUO should too" is a very childish, kneejerk reaction that doesn't really help or explain anything.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
You missed the point, but oh well, i will bite.
1) CO
2) APB
3) TERA
4) Aion
5) EVE
6) BDO
But that was not the point.
If a game has a crap creator, but the player had the same or nearly the styles, available to them as random stuff in-game, then NP.
if a game has a crap creator, but nearly 60% of the cooler options were on the NPC and they say, it is not a priority to give you those items while advertising how you can create unique characters then that is foul.
It is not about CoH creator vs other games, but not withholding the best costume options from the player.
Every MMO is a pizza shop (Superhero mmo with a creator) when you declare it a pizza shop (Superhero mmo with a creator).
Talking steak is another genre within the mmo realm, maybe first person shooters or something, whatever floats your boat.
The players are right, a great deal costume options are not available to the player. I understand what they are saying, those creatures are day and night compared to what they have. Their creature skin options are simply re-skins of the human skin. The enemies have true animistic skins. That is the main complaint in one of the threads other there, but I still can't find the official one.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
I didn't miss it. I dismissed it because it is faulty. You make a few assumptions that come from your own bias and let that form your opinion. And yes, it is an opinion.
You assumed that customization is a key aspect of DCUO's development because they advertised that customization was a feature in the game.
You assumed that npc skins or costumes not being made available to players proves customization is not important to the developers.
You assumed that having character customization is a waste of time without the developers making all NPC customization options you see in the game available to players.
First, the game does not need customization to be a game. Customization, like any other feature in a game, is something extra the game offers.
Second, npc specific options is not evidence that the developers of DCUO do not consider customization important. They have priorities in development and in the matter of npc options for player characters it just falls lower than others.
Third, saying something is a waste of time or mistake because you don't get everything you want out of it is subjective and biased. What you expect from customization is not usually going to be the same as what others expect. Pointing out something a feature doesn't offer in no way detracts from what it does offer. It's a classic case of evidence of absence being confused for absence of evidence.
You also make factual mistakes in your statements like this here:
When DCUO went free-to-play late 2011 to early 2015 it was the number one free-to-play MMO on consoles. They topped 18 million active players on PS 3 and PS 4 in late 2014. They are now reporting an increase from last years lower active players which they attribute to current content updates. For reference, WoW is just over 10 million subscribers after the release of their newest expansion and the highest subscriber number they released was 12 million. It's true that comparisons between free-to-play numbers and subscriber numbers is sketchy at best but this information shows that DCUO is a MMO titan on consoles, which is the medium the game was designed for and where the developers are going to spend resources on further development.
A quick breakdown of the MMO's you list
1. CO: Yup they have a fairly extensive character creator.
2. APB: Again, they have a fairly extensive character creator.
With the exception of EVE (which I never played), the rest all have extensive character model options but all have a lot less outfit options. I would say that pretty much all of these have less options than DCUO, forget about comparing them to CoH.
Thats because they tend to follow a traditional rpg style of combining outfits with gear mechanics, just like DCUO does.
How about linking the thread you got your first post from so we can see the entire conversation and not just the suggestive parts you quoted? I can't seem to find any thread on their forums that has the stuff you quoted here.
You keep missing the point that even the perfectly wonderful CoH withheld hundreds of "NPC only" costume items from players over the years. By your strict definition of what makes a game WRONG that means EVERY game is now or has been WRONG in the past. That's simply absurd.
These games are not WRONG... they are just universally doing something that SOME (not all) players find annoying. Trust me when I say there are a significant number of players of any game who DO NOT CARE about this issue at all.
Let me be clear here: I am by no means defending DCUO in particular for withholding costume items from players. But I really do think you are "protesting a little too much" about this considering that effectively EVERY game has done this to some degree or another. The first time we ever get a game that can prove that it allows its players to wear 100% of all costume items in the game it will be a grand day indeed.
We can all agree the DCUO Dev(s) were being asshats about this in their forums. But just because they were being rude/annoying doesn't mean DCUO is a broken/failing game, especially based on the data Brainbot provided about it. DCUO was never designed to be as customizable as CoH was and as far as I can tell it never specifically claimed to be either. You should stop EXPECTING things that were never going to happen in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Maybe "Built it wrong" is a wrong use of words, rather the devs are poor, suck at their jobs, and there was a bad use of resources. I have no idea how it was built but I do know their calling card of creating unique super heroes is limited. If DC Universe Online never claimed players can make truly unique heroes I would have to agree with the other people on this board but they claimed to be something they cannot back up.
"Every hero or villain needs their signature look. Character creation is your time to let your personality shine!"
I would say that this is fairly inaccurate. Character creation is the worst feature, gear grinding is what grants the player style options. If someone new were to read this, they would assume there was a deep character generator.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Further down from your quote is this little tidbit of information:
When I say further down I actually mean directly following.
And in regards to your gear grinding complaint this is on the same page as your quote above:
If someone new read that page they would see that not every option is in the creator and that they would have to earn some in game. Your arguments are getting more desperate now when you engage in personal attacks against the devs of that game.
You are still assuming that you were lied to by game description releases that even mention customization despite them being pretty clear what that entails.
Still can't find any thread on the DCUO forums that have the conversation you quoted in the first post. I'm starting to think that is a little fishy.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/what-is-wrong-with-this-picture.280477/
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Thanks Huck.
Seeing the thread in full puts a lot of things in context. Not the least of which is just how 'rude' that dev actually was.
It's pretty clear reading the thread that Phararri is this swagtastic guy and once that thread got locked he took his trolling here.
That was actually one of the threads where I got the majority of my information from, where swag was talking about the animals features but that is not the one I was referring to, going to dig for it. He opened two threads pretty much saying about the same thing. I will dig around, but it was probably deleted due to the dev's comments.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
What i am saying is DC Universe Online does not live up to its' calling card. I do not even the play the game. I do not know why you are so hot accusing me of being one of the flammers in that thread. I already told you guys I was quoting the comments from those threads. Gheesh someone is hot, going very low there don't you think? I agree with a lot of what he says.
I am DC Urban, I rarely post though. I meant to say i do not play, not post or have a posting account. I like Swag posting. He whines, I tell him because I know the guy personally so I can be a little harsh with him. You are partially right, I did come here to defend the posting cause he was banned. I have always followed jafin, kara and swag as a lurker but never joined until September, me thinks?
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/last-one-to-post-wins.162074/page-2464
You can check ma join date i did not just create this account.
Great detective work there, you were half right but get a cookie regardless for sniffing out the relationship between the posting here and there. Tried to be discreet.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
So there is some bitter or sour grapes here because the devs wielded the ban hammer to someone I am friends with. Those comments are legit I was there when happened, sent me a message ingame saying he was banned shortly after it happened. Corrections, that was the topic with those comments he did open two but it was deleted.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Three posts all to tell me you and swagtastic are not the same person? That's a lot of protest methinks.
Alright fine, you're not the same person. Doesn't change that both of you are drawing some pretty bad conclusions and trying to pass them off as fact.
Customization in DCUO is not its 'calling card'. Interacting with DC characters and setting is the calling card. Customization is a feature.
You and swagtastic may think it doesn't have enough customization or that the 'best' customization is for the NPCs but that does not make it true.
I am not saying you have to change your opinion but until you stop dismissing all the reasons you don't get what you want as 'excuses' and blaming bad developers for the decisions DCUO makes I don't see a point to continuing.
Does not matter if you think we are the same person, I can understand why someone would think that though. I came here with vengeance to avenge his banning using his comments. My point still stands, that is what I am defending. The back and forth and accusations do not matter only the original point. DC Universe Online has not lived up to its calling. That is the reason why I quit. I only played recently , but quit once again. I have not played that game in ages since then. There were alot of players defending the original post agreeing with him, but the devs gave weak responses. I wanted to respond, but it was closed as they always do. Here is how the dev responded to the players.
Dev: It is not feasible to make those player skins. Might be able to make digitigrade feet whenever we have related content in our pipeline"
Player:Not even as separate styles, like how you can morph your legs with a style piece?”
Dev: I'm sure it's "possible" but unlikely. Feet and hands are easier to do since they only have one cut off point... Ergo the werewolf gear
Player: I would also like to see disproportioned hands and feet, since those are the easier ones. Something like oversized hands or monster hands.
I would really love to have a fat body type. :(
Not all of use like to wear tights or amazonian gear. I still wear the same old jeans, hack attack hoodie, casual shoes. A lot of my characters are dressed the same way. Most styles just don't look right. Take the shoe Johnny Cage. Jeans and hoodie. Would love more stuff like this, that doesn't always have a lantern on it or whatever. Making it so we could put emblems on them would be better.”
Dev: Oversized anything tends to just look weird. I've requested more casual clothing but its a matter of when we have some time to do not-DLC related stuff
Yes I still have the medical cross emblem written down"
Player: oooh. In this same line - if you don't mind me asking many questions - does that apply to increased/decreased body sizes too? I mean, an ultra-tall or midget toon would suffer from those problems?
And omg yes, please, add the medical cross and I shall build an altar in honor to the developers of DBG. <3 <3”
Dev: No, but we would really have to stretch or shrink gear to make them fit on on those kinds of bodies. WoW gets away with a lot because all of their chest, leg, and belt armor is painted on and its built to stretch with body types. (Helmets, shoulders, gloves, shoes, capes are more standard in shape so they can scale with model size just fine). (Referencing WoW because they have different body bases)
Player: Any chance we will ever see a fat body style? I don't know just seems it would be funny seeing a big dude super speeding around town”
Dev: 99% no, there was already a thread about this
player: Exactly, internal issues.....issues within......
I still see this is going over your and a lot of over folks head, because you are so busy trying to win a debate over the internet.
Would spell it out, but it is sort of fun this way :D
Continue...please....”
Dev: It is possible but not feasible. We don't have the manpower to go back and redo everything to fit more extreme body types. If we had built our stuff with morph targets it might be something to consider but everything is hand sculpted and sized so itd be a really big waste of time and money when we could have our artists working on other stuff
Player; What about morphing trinkets? We have Manhunter, evil clown, the lion dude.”
Dev: That is doable since we would just replace your model with the NPC one
Player; Since someone brought up the trinkets I had a question. Would it be possible to have a trinket that transforms you into a typical civilian? Also would it be possible when you use said trinket it renders you nontarget-able by enemy NPC's or players? You can just blend into a walking crowd of citizens like a secret identity.”
Dev: I am sure it is possible, but I don't know if its probable.
Player; 1-Seeing your answer, the probability of trinkets that can trasformar in the same game missions?
Not only the appearance but also with the powers?
As in Circe mission where you turn the rhino, gotham wastelands where you turn into a demon, etc.
2-Another thing: What is the possibility of having the form "giant" Like we assume the necro raid? Where we only larger?
3-We could have new heads with equal hands and feet of the werewolf?
Dragon, lion, bull, eagle, etc.
And legs just like we have beef but other animals as well?
4-For the bodies of animals that have displayed the option we change the colors but it is not possible to edit the same? For example the wolf's body, I can only change the primary color, but it is impossible to change the second color! She's always white! There is no possibility to change this?
Thank you!:) ”
Dev: No plans to do anything related to this right now.
Player; I can't see why they couldn't make armors that would basicly be a chest for werewolf... or other creates, to create some bulk.. it's codeable. The rest is just bad excuses.”
Dev: ok then how bout "we don't want to"
At this point the dev was getting upset but some tidbits from these scripts leads me to the conclusion that it was a poorly built project. Or "Building it wrong" they built it their way but it does not live up to player expectations because the dev was saying how their request were already covered a million times or shooting them down. He used the animal models as an example, clearly the animal models are simply the default human skins with small animal features added to them. I am certain you can see their point there at least?
Players expect more from DC Universe but the devs are unable to deliver. I don't understand how you can debate this when I provided you with their comments. I am not trying to win a debate dude, I am just making a point that you can clearly see because the comments are right in front of you. Players are not satisfied, not just me and swag but many others in the topic and other topics were made about this.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/new-skin-styles.248741/
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/should-skins-be-updated.208521/
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/new-skin-and-hairstyles.196062/
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/new-skins-i-would-like-to-see-added.258760/
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/new-skin-idea-suggestion-anthropomorphic-avian-skin.160906/
Just a few but these are highly requested features.
.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Personally, if enough ppl are asking for a feature, why not make it a pay real cash for the item in question? If they are focusing on profitability, doing so should make a lot of sense, buuuut... Yes, there are priorities, but their ideas shouldn't be set in stone... Shifting some priorities to what the consumers are asking for, in large numbers, is good business sense. When we want something, we really don't want to be sidetracked by "Snake Oil", and if we are the ones shelling out the cash that pays for their expenses, indirectly as it is, we need to be listened to. As things are going, as soon as a good alternative to DCUO is available, ppl will be switching in droves, I suspect. If the game has the features that ppl are asking for, there may be a mad scramble to get more and better servers up and running... Also, I really think that using DC heroes and villains limits the game too much, and, only 30 levels to advance, then you need to get better and better gear to advance combat level, is just a big mistake. Both Everquests have 100 levels and counting... CITY had the possible capability to go for more levels than 40 as well, and, I hope that CoT will eventually scale up to like 100 or more as well, adding 5 levels at a time, perhaps, every 3-6 months...
Personally I don't think that just adding on more and more levels is the proper thing to do in the long run since sooner or later you'll have more abilities than you would find useful and maxed out on "enhancement slots". It is also a matter of that you can have too many levels and thus gaining one doesn't become such a big deal. I remember Anarchy Online where you had 250 levels of progression (plus another 50 "shadow levels" with their Shadowlands expansion), and a single run in an instanced mission (main questing) with a full group could net you something like 5 levels which made each individual level just meh. Where the line for "too many levels" is is most likely up to the character progression system. What I want to say is that each level should feel meaningful and have a significant impact on your character but at the same time not giving everything available, so trying to keep within that gives you a practical limit to work with.
Going outside of just level you still have to have some other form of end-game content to play with in between the level increases, and you have to add more than just level increases at those times (think equivalent to WoW expansions) since otherwise it'll become stale in the long run. I'm pretty sure that having a good horizontal progression system will last far better in the long run, especially in this game since one of the goals is to make your "perfect build" and that's kinda hard to do when you regularly gain more powers and slots.
The classic concept of "earning levels while playing a character in a computer game" has been around for 40+ years now. There's certainly nothing wrong with modern MMOs keeping that mechanic alive. On the other hand any game that solely relies on having 100+ levels to handle character progression just seems lazy/unimaginative and as blacke4dawn points out makes any individual level quasi-meaningless.
CoX provided for 50 levels in its character progression - to me that works as a good solid number. We all know that games which mindlessly "add a few new levels every few months" only motivate people who are already at the level cap to grind for a few hours to get to the new cap. There's no lasting "fun" there because you're only playing your maxed out characters a few hours per year to keep them at the latest cap. Modern games need to provide for more interesting forms of "horizontal progression" so that people are motivated to keep playing their level capped characters continuously instead of just whenever new levels are added.
Here's hoping CoT will stick to its long-term 50 level plan. Having levels in a game are important, but they're no longer what makes end-game play fun for many people. I don't care what level "number" my character is sitting at - I want fun things to DO.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm with you guys on the horizontal progression.
Lothic and Blacke4Dawn hit on something that reminded me of a thought I've had.
When I see a game that gives bonus XP or gives you an automatic character progression to level X, I think that that game just signed its own death warrant. Here's my thought process:
The game, especially a MMO Role Playing Game, should be fun to play at all levels. If I am a level 12 character, I should have fun playing level 12 content. If the game designer and publisher are telling me that I should just skip along to max level, then they are telling me that they think their own game isn't fun to play. So rather than giving bonus XP or free levels, I would prefer they do something to make the leveling content more engaging.
(yes I understand that sometimes people just want their characters to get to max level so they can play with friends who are already at max level. And there are some people who don't even play the game to have fun but just to get to max level as fast as possible. There will always be that market to deal with, but that doesn't change my assumption)
But, at the same time, when we do have characters at max level, we shouldn't have to start a new character just to have something to do either. So, to address this, I see nothing wrong with creating new content appropriate to max level characters that can be played solely for the fun of playing. If the content tells a good story and rewards characters with the consequences of their decisions, then people will play it. You don't have to give them more power or more gear. You just have to give them a good time.
"If you build it they will come." Why? Because of a love for the game.
So you can give people acheivements for completing story missions, give them reputation to farm and introduce them to new factions or maps. There are all sorts of things we can do at max level besides submit to power creep.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
One of the greatest updates CoX added was a manual toggle button which allowed players to "turn off" earning XP for a character at will. It made it super-simple to be able to play any content you wanted without fear of "outleveling" it.
Frankly I think good MMO games ought to offer both bonus XP opportunities (like CoX's double XP weekends) AND features to manually shut off XP earning. Some players want to race to the top, some players don't want to outlevel content and some don't care either way. Being able to fully control the rate of XP earning lets all players play the way they want to.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
DCUO, CO, and Marvel Heroes are all getting long in the tooth and will not live forever. I personally hope CoT buries all of them in one swell foop.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
That is a point fairly made. Can't argue with that, and I would support it.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Just want to throw a big ole +1 out there for horizontal progression. And I strongly agree with the points that have recently been brought up and discussed here.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
For what it's worth I do think it's cheesy when a company goes as far as offering "pay X amount to get a brand new level capped character" deals. I'm aware there are players of certain games who'll sell "prebuilt level capped" accounts to other players, but it just seems a little self-defeating when the game companies themselves legitimize the idea by directly selling them to their players.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
When I bought GW2 back in August (a friend tricked me into do it as HE no longer plays anymore), it came with a free "level 80 boost" which I still haven't used yet. The level 80 boost in that game is not as good as it sounds, at least not for a total noob. For one, you need to learn the game a little, and that's easier when you're leveling a toon, I feel. Second, every character on your account has to explore the map to unlock the waypoints separately, or else getting from place to place is a total nightmare. Walking around unlocking waypoints to the point where I now have all of them got me from 1 to 80 anyway. That and the personal story. Third, even after you get to level 80, you still need a ton of Hero Points to unlock the last skill track, and it's no easier to get them after taking the "instant 80 pill" than it is to get them while leveling up the normal way and doing them in passing as you go around the map leveling up. Lastly, just logging in every day for the last 5 months has gotten me like 70 Tomes of Knowledge, which are each worth as much XP as one level, so playing for 6 months get's you that instant cap XP anyway if you want it. I used like 50 of them to auto-level a toon that I just use to open bags of loot so that I'll get the more lucrative level 50-60 loot (linen, rugged leather, platinum, and hard wood), which is the sweet spot for the trading post.
So it's possible to make a game work such that the instant cap thingy isn't giving you a fully playable toon, not by a longshot.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This seems like another collective vote for the "instant level capping is silly" argument even if it's free to do. At least you had to technically play regularly for 6 months to get your instant level 50 mule alt so that's not unreasonable.
Hopefully artificially level capping a character you actually wanted to play in CoT would also be semi-pointless without all the stuff you'd collect/unlock by playing a character normally.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yeah, I usually look at any sort of 'instant level-cap character' as 'WTF would I want that for?' I mean, one buys into a game to Play it! Not just swan about with nothing to do.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think it goes back to ( http://cityoftitans.com/forum/bartles-taxonomy-extra-credits ) where the different player types are after and motivated by different aspects of the game. Just because we love the journey on the way to the end game doesn't mean that all players do. Like Radiac, my 80 booster sits in the proverbial bank. I'm sure there are players that hate the journey as much as I would hate using a max lvl booster. It's a pure monetizing scheme targeting a fraction of the community; they come, they conquer, they leave. It is my hope that CoT/MWM never offers such a cheat.
I think you're missing a step.
they come, they conquer, they complain about the lack of end game content, then they leave.
I fully acknowledge this comment was made in an accusatory and not understanding voice. In actuality, if these sprinters pay money to sprint, I think it would be a bad business decision to ignore their potential income, so long as it can't be construed as pay-to-win.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
If it is a good thing to have, then I anticipate that you will want it to be available Day 1.
I begrudgingly accept the idea that some games probably make money from selling (or at least benefit from offering) instant level cap tokens. But it's also clear from what's been said here that some games are designed so that just getting a brand new instantly level capped character isn't all that useful if you don't have all the things (unlocks, equipment, etc.) you'd need to make such a character worthwhile to play.
Basically I would never directly say to folks of MWM "You must never sell instant level cap tokens". If they think they can make significant money from them why would I deny them the chance to make more money. I just simply hope/suspect that CoT is going to be one of those types of games where it's not all that useful to have instant level cap tokens and that the specific playerbase of this game is going to be generally unlikely to even want them in the game. Even if MWM really, really wants to sell these kind of tokens I'd at least hope they'd resist doing so until the game's been up and running for a few years - having instant cap tokens available on Day One would be truly hyper-super cheesy.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I wouldn't make a case for offering instant level cap until the game is good and mature and has a large percentage of population at level cap already. And even then it should be marketed as a means of playing with your friends now rather than a means to skip content. It's all about the perception.
Rather, I think the business case can be made to include items in the cash shop that last an hour or 24 hours or some set duration that provide 2x or 3x experience bonus. I think there are players who want to race to max level who would find such an offering to be worth their money.
Like I said earlier, however, even though such an item is directed towards a particular element of the population, all elements of the population will see the offer. So by the very nature of being a paid-for item, it gives the impression that racing to max level is something worth paying for. Like any good marketing effort, it creates a need where none existed and the next thing you know, everyone is trying to race to max level just to keep up with the joneses. How do we counter that perception? One way might be to offer another item in the cash shop:
Put an item in the cash shop that allows you to cease, delay, or postpone gaining experience so that you won't outlevel the content you are running. I am imagining a kind of stopwatch that when you click it, all experienced gained is not applied until you unclick it and then it all piles on. Either that or no experience is gained at all while it is active. I suppose we could make that 2 different items.
So if the average player sees both a bonus xp item and a xp restricting item in the cash shop the perception they should get is "Oh, I can play the game how I want to? How nice!"
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I agree you could probably make the case for games selling various things that temporarily boost XP earning.
But since I already mentioned earlier in this thread that CoX offered a very appreciated manual toggle switch that let players turn off XP earning whenever they wanted I would consider any scenario where I'd have to purchase some kind of temporary or limited "XP delayer/postponer" to be a huge step backwards and very annoying. XP boosts should be always be temporary/limited but being able to stop XP earning should be a feature built into the game and freely usable whenever you want. I get that you're trying to create a symmetry between buying either "XP boosters" or "XP delayers" but this is one case where such symmetry would not be needed/useful.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
when you say "not needed/useful" are you saying undesireable? Are you saying that if it was not offered for free, you would not pay for it? Or are you saying that because it was once offered for free in CoX it should be offered for free forevermore in CoT?
CoX was a subscription based game; so naturally a number of features were just part of the core game. I expect that CoT will be a free to play game with a subscription option. And in this case the subscription option could include a number of items found in the cash shop as part of the subscription, including both xp boosters and xp restrictors.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The XP toggle switch was added to CoX several years after the game launched presumably based on a number of requests for it (from what I recall from the CoX forums). Once it was in the game I (and presumably others) used it to better avoid "outleveling" content among other uses. All I can tell you is having to pay for a limited "potion-like" version of something that was a permanently available toggle control switch seems like a huge step backwards in capability. To me it'd almost be like if CoT made us pay for the color "green" in the costume creator when it was free to anyone in CoX.
Again I understand your idea of making this something else MWM can sell to make money. But I assure you it would be a huge inconvenience/annoyance. Remember people managed to figure out ways to avoid earning XP even before the CoX toggle switch - the switch just made things much easier. If MWM was... I'll be nice and say "misguided" enough to sell something like a "XP Restrictor" I'm sure almost no one would buy them unless they did something really silly to make them artificially desirable for some reason. Also remember the number of people who'd ever actually want to "slow down" XP earning will always be much, much smaller than the number who'd want to boost it. Would MWM even make much money from the tiny handful who'd ever want to have a way to reduce XP earning so badly they'd pay for it?
Basically I believe the idea of having both XP boosters and restrictors in the cash store is a "symmetry" that doesn't really make much practical sense. Let the store have all sorts of XP boosters with different durations or effects and leave the XP on/off switch to the option switches GUI.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I assume we can all agree that the quality of super hero mmo titles is severely underwhelming. Out of all the successors for lack of a better term, I have the most trust in CoT staff, although I become impatient at times and say off the wall things about the product. I cannot stand here with a straight face and say the genre is in good hands with DCU. Seems like things got worst under Jack Emmert. To his defense things were bad before Jack, although he did put his foot in his mouth with his player perception comments and by saying the team size was strong while the devs constantly tell players it is small.
DCU is a bad product. The investment company Columbus Nova knows that. In my opinion they are draining what they can, then drop the product. They are an investment company, it is only a matter of time. Rad may be right about CoT stomping DCU but I don't think CN would mind. They have over a few years to milk the player-base before tossing DCU aside.
I really like Marvel Heroes. It is different, but it is done well. DCU is a middle of the road superhero online title.Not quite Champions Online, not quite Marvel Heroes. It is lacking in all areas in which the other two titles are strong in.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
This is my general take on the issue as well.
Certain games can claim that level boosters are good for when a player is getting into a game much later than their friends have been playing so they can quickly join up with their friends. Some devs may actually end up staying clear of the old game's side-kicking mechanic because they lose out on the possible revenue of instant level cap tokens. While I'm not on the business team, to me, it doesn't seem as necessary for a game like ours to have such a thing when the game will encourage grouping with others, and offer the ability to group up regardless of level.
As to horizontal and vertical character progression. Both have pros and cons. They share a common con is both tend to lead toward power creep by increasing what a character is capable of doing in some or multiple manners. I personally prefer horizontal progression but there are other devs on our team which prefer vertical progression. Vertical progression has serious implications for how we've design power sets, not to mention the ever increasing content requires it necessitates. Right now, our overall goal is to work toward a level cap of 50 while designing the underlying system to allow for the possibility of vertical progression thereafter. It doesn't mean it is the direction we will go, only that the possibility is built in so we do have to go back and redo things in order to make it work should that be how the game goes.
I'm also advocating for a system which will offer the possiblity of horizontal progression built in as well. It is too early to tell of such a system will be approved.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I realize you guys are still trying to figure out exactly what you want to do in terms of overall character progression.
My main suggestion/advice for that is that whatever you do please try to avoid the classic laziness where every so often you just "raise the level cap by 10 levels" and think that will solve everything in terms of "adding new content". That kind of maneuver might have been typical for MMOs of the past but the only thing that leads to is people simply powering up to the new cap in a few short hours and then logging off again until the next level cap increase. Under that scenario there's no incentive for people sitting at the level cap to play regularly - they just let their capped characters gather dust until the next increase.
This is why horizontal progression is now so important for CoT because it would give those people who have a bunch of level capped characters a reason to want to play those characters more regularly.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Lothic, you don't have to convince me. I'm in agreement. But I also don't call the shots for thise thpe of decisions. I can give my input, and will gladly point out the preference of our forum posters in this regard (as this isn't the first time this discussion has occurred either). There are others though that have mentioned their desire for increasing levels.
Again, there hasn't been made a definitive decision in this regard, but we've design the leveling system for the possibility.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
One thing you might want to tell your folks who favor periodically increasing the level cap is that there are fundamentally two types of RPGs out there: There are Skill-based games and Powers-based games.
Skill-based games usually have various stats/skills (Strength, Intelligence, Sword Fighting, Archery, etc.) that exist on a big scale (like 1-100) and basically what you get every time you level up is a handful of skill points you can use to add to any of your stats. These kinds of games tend to be open-ended in such a way that it's usually trivially easy to "raise the level cap" on them because the net effect is to give you a few more levels to add a few more skill points to the stats/skills.
Power-based games on the other hand are not designed around character stats but are geared more toward unlocking certain powers at certain level thresholds. CoX was obviously a classic example of a Powers-based game. Under such a system it's usually much harder to arbitrarily "raise the level cap" on them because you have to deal with what new higher tier powers would get unlocked at various levels and it would likely cause a huge amount of game imbalance.
Thus if CoT is going to a Powers-based game like CoX was then you'll understand why it doesn't make much sense that you'd want to randomly raise the level cap in the future without major consequences. This should be a very convincing/logical argument against looking towards level cap increases as anything you'd want to mess with on a regular basis and again stresses why new schemes for horizontal progression ought to be promoted for CoT.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
And here I'm trying to reflexively break things to see what happens.
Instant level cap tokens? Spammers will use them to get past any kind of level-based spam account filter (the "must hit level 5/10/whatever before allowed to chat" thing). So they can't be cheap. Probably ought to be RMT even.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Well, I'm in your corner here.
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
I hate having to repeat myself, but by your answer, Lothic, I think you missed the point.
CoX was a subscription based game. So naturally, things were included in the game. If CoT will be F2P, then a lot of features that were included in the subscription based model will, naturally, have to be cash shop in the free to play model. So you can argue that charging for things in a F2P game that used to be free in a P2P game is a step back in capability, but you may as well argue against gravity.
Also, in your answer you state that
, but I have two rebuttals:
1. So what. The number of people wanting something was not the point. The point was to avoid the perception that playing the game is just a means to get to max level rather than something to enjoy itself.
2. In your own argument you state that
So which is it? Is it a feature nobody wants, or is it a feature so many people wanted that the developer had to rewrite code and put it in an update?
Of course, this whole argument would be made moot if the game includes a feature that ensures a character's power level is always appropriate for the content. There would be no need to stop XP gain and thus no need for an item to offered it.
Then we would be back to square one, dealing with the unintended consequences of offering XP boosters.
By the way, if we come out and state that the only reason to boost XP is to allow one person to catch up with his or her friend(s), then one way of dealing with it is by making XP boosters only available to people who are already at max level, who can then give it to their low-level friends. Of course, no sooner do I say that then I can think of a number of ways it could be abused. I think in principal the idea has merit, but I'd have to think about a more practical implementation.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Did I miss an announcement from the business team that the business model was changing from Buy to Play with Subscriptions?
If you are referring to my arguments, I have always prefaced my statements with "if", with the assumption that I think it will most likely be a F2P model with subscription option.
MWM has introduced us to Stars which are what you can purchase with real world money and can then use for micro transactions. Micro transactions are consistent with a Free to Play business model and less consistent with a pay-to-play business model.
Enough of us have made the same assumption in discussions in these forums that we have even gotten into heated discussions about what should and should not appear in the cash shop. So yes, we are probably getting ahead of ourselves, but I don't think we are too far from reality.
If someone from MWM could chime in on it, that could help put some things to rest.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I found the XP on/off toggle switch to be a very useful feature once it was added to the game. I personally knew at least a few other people who used it. It was requested in the CoX forums before it appeared so I can only assume the CoX Devs agreed it would be a useful feature thus explaining its origin and its implementation as a freely available toggle switch option for everyone. Obviously I don't know how many players ultimately ever used the toggle switch for their own characters, but I have to assume that adding it to the game was seen as a generally "positive" update regardless as far as the Devs were concerned.
Now I suppose one could make the argument (as you're trying to do) that virtually nothing should be taken for granted as a "free default" feature in CoT because of the differences in how the two games will be organized money-wise. Theoretically there would be nothing stopping the Devs of CoT from making the concept of a "XP delayer/reducer" only available as a temporary/limited "potion" like item in the cash store. All I can really say to that scenario is that I would consider that, at the very least, a step backwards and at the very worst a blatant cash grab to charge for something that worked perfectly well as a built-in free GUI option in the previous game for years. Again to me it'd be akin to charging players extra for using the color green in the CoT Avatar Builder - sure the Devs COULD do that but it would be seen by many as a very nit-picky and player-unfriendly maneuver.
It's also possible (as you point out) that CoT will be designed in such a way that the very idea of having "XP delayers" or "XP boosters" might be moot. In that situation I could accept that the need/desire for even a simple XP on/off toggle may be rendered quasi-pointless in CoT. But barring any other foreseeable eventuality like that we don't know about yet you have not demonstrated any substantial benefit the game would gain by NOT providing a straightforward XP on/off toggle switch as a default option regardless. Even if the Devs decided to sell some kind of strange "XP delayer" that provided some other random non-intuitive advantage (e.g. a temp buff that say gave you a big Defense boost in exchange for having to sacrifice say 50% XP earnings) there's absolutely no legitimate argument against ALSO having a binary XP on/off switch built into the game as a permanent default.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
A temporary level Boost?
Like how Disney boosts Cinderella on the night of the Ball, but expires after a time?
Heh! Fairy Godmother Power-Up Go! Bibbity-bobbity-boo!
Be Well!
Fireheart
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