Empyrean wrote:

The_3d_Scammers_News_and_Reports_ wrote:
Just one more thing i am looking for any CoT completed models. I searched for them I know that the claimed they purchased Zbrush and i would like to see the sculpts of the models. I will keep searching the forum for completed models . IMaybe someone can give me a link to a thread of a work inprogress of them modeling in Zbrush, Max, Blender,or Maya. I could be looking in tthe wrong place. I am just looking original Models made for the game itself.
@3d. Just so you know, MWM has been VERY up front about the fact that they were going to focus on mechanics first and foremost and then add graphics/models pretty much dead last. Which has made us all eager to see the final look, but then, we were told that it'd be one of the last things coming.
As you have said in your criticism of City of Titans, graphics and models aren't really all that difficult or expensive--which is exactly why MWM has stated that they are saving it for last. And I assume that you know that there is much more to making a game than just graphics and models.
Brainbot wrote:
I urge you to look at the development of other games to understand that MWM not showing a complete and final model is not evidence of anything.
As Brainbot indicates, you can produce amazing graphics/models, and even video footage, without having much of a game developed at all (you actually see this all the time these days). And you can have a game mostly done with little more than "gray box" level graphics.

yes but it doesn't mean that it's proof that this is a scam either... just because something could happen doesn't mean it is happening... I mean I could be chocking a dog right now since none of you can see me.... it doesn't mean I'm actually chocking a dog as we speak...

I mean if we are going to take "Hey they could I guess" as solid proof then that means any of us could convicted of a crime because we could be doing anything right now... by that logic any of us could be ripping someone's teeth out with the claw end of a hammer because they talked bad about a favorite video game, or any one of us could be making corpse stew out of acid and the neighbour girl in our bath tub while we make a comment on the forums.... could happen doesn't mean is happening...

StellarAgent wrote:

Gammar and Spelling are SOOOOOO important.

This is too easy to pass up, so I will. :)

Huckleberry wrote:

At this point, I don't think any publicity would be a bad thing.[list]
[*]If 3D scammers do poor research or come to illogical conclusions, I think the community response will be vocal enough to set any record straight and the publicity of the conflict will be good in the end. Because when all is said and done and the actual product is out, all people will remember is that the name City of Titans was being tossed around the internet for a few months back in 2017.
[*]If they end up concluding that the project is coming along and people will actually end up getting what they paid for, then that's good too. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
[*]If they end up concluding that the time between kickstarter and now is too long for what kickstarter supporters were expecting, then that is pretty much the truth from what I can tell. So what?[/list]
In the end, any publicity this brings will be a good thing.
I think 3D Scammers' reputation is more on the line than City of Titans. Because if they hose this up, they'll lose credibility.

All too often the first voice out there becomes the de facto baseline no matter how accurate. If this investigative piece bears any fruit (no matter how fully formed), it can be leverage to further whatever agenda(s) are at play here. The accuracy of the video(s) has very little bearing on alleviating the concerns of the person(s) that made the request.

If most or all of this Person(s)' questions have answers on the KS page or buried somewhere here on the forums, how do you think the answers will be delivered if they haven't done the research themselves? It is more than likely that said Person(s) is waiting for 3DS's video to clarify things. How that gets consumed can be varied. There is no guarantee that this Person(s) will read the youtube comments, do more research here on the forums or exercise the Google muscles. The most effective counter to this approach I think would be to author another video to address any questions or assertions made by 3DS's video.

The vector for the messaging is YouTube. Any counter or supporting information will need to also appear on the same platform.

Brainbot wrote:

notears wrote:
Actually I'm pretty sure this video showing detailed runes, particle effects and a more enhanced version of the character showing that they are indeed making improvement is their most complete model as of yet https://cityoftitans.com/content/smooth-operator
I was speaking directly towards the character model, the ones in the smooth operator video seems to be less detailed than the one in the Five Dragons update.
Regardless, 3D scammers have specifically pointed to the smooth criminal video as evidence to a lack of development. Offering an alternative seemed a good choice.

Well the CoX avatars didn't look all that good either and these ones have fully functioning hands and can move their upper body independently of walking as shown by the "smooth operator" moving while casting his spells... the avatars in CoX looked sort of like deranged barbie dolls with scanned faces slapped on. If you compare and contrast the graphics CoT's are currently better. That's not really meant to be insult to CoX because it still had a lot of aesthetics, and really aesthetics are more important than graphics, but the graphics as they are now are? Are better than CoX's... and if they want to make a spiritual successor to CoX they need to put way more effort into aesthetics than graphics.

Heck even the 5 dragons animation shows how well the animation has come... that one 5 dragons member? He was tracking his shot... this wasn't something where he shot off in a direction and we saw the projectile home in on it's target like in CoX from the start of his attack to the end of his attack he was aiming right at his target.... that? Is impressive and it shows the work that they've done...

spend to much concentration on graphics over aesthetics and animation and you get something like mass effect Andromeda with realistic characters, who have dead eyes moving around like sad grandpas with back pain and no idea how faces work

I think what needs to happen is view a video made by someone who came into the game out of contract, who's more honest about what the game was like who at the time of making the video had no rose tinted glasses to wear... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGZPvTbWSKo

Alright instead of trying to figure out these guys thoughts. How about we talk about damage control.

What are their questions and how we answer in a logical way?

Do we produce a counter Video?

What research do we need to fight the doubt?

In terms of heroes and villains, we have been challenged instead of trying to hit the blob with fists lets do this with cunning.

There is no threat.

There is no such thing as bad press.

Also, I get the feeling that 3d is a bit surprised at the support of the project that they met.

The only possible bad effect is that 3d will get more attention than they deserve. And, even then, maybe they can learn and do better in the future.

But if in the end MWM puts out CoT, and if CoT is a good game, then all the added attention is just publicity.

in case you guys haven't noticed he is screen capping the forum posts on this thread, making a video and putting it on his YouTube channel called COT forum updates. I'm not sure if this is a legit reporter or not but the fact that his anonymous source put him on to COT as opposed to the other successor projects is quite suspect. I've been a backer since day one and quite proud of the work they have done so far. Making a game costs a lot money and a lot of time triple especially with an all volunteer workforce. Doc and the rest of the crew still have my support.

The problem is that we're taking this too seriously.... it seems every other person here is freaking out and screaming "WHAT DO WE DO!?!?!?" over this... heck even when one of the co creators of the game is treating this like it's such a big deal... and well? It's not... these people don't pose a threat to us... even if they where motivated by ruining us they couldn't do it... there just some random people RPing Mr. Robot on a channel that hasn't even hit 20 subscribers..... I mean... seriously? Calm down... this isn't anonymous...

everyone just needs to calm down... breathe... and compose themselves... and just walk away from this whole thing...

I guess I was right to not touch the troll's junk. *grin*

Be Well!
Fireheart

The_3d_Scammers_News_and_Reports_ wrote:

Ok so why trying to make angry people understand they should not be angry then. It is good you know not everyone is happy with the progress of this game. It is voices like yours that think their feelings of being had is no big deal. I mean not to make you feel bed i am not doing this for you i am doing this for them. It is your feeling i really don't care for i am not trying tell you to stop loving the slow progress of the game . Like i said i am not doing this for you I so i dont know why you are taking offense . Sorry if you don't understand that.

Ah, there it is, the fabled cry of communists, socialists, fascists, and other Alinsky devotees. "We're fighting for the little people!"

I ain' buyin' your logic, 3d. It smells funny. What you are doing is not investigative journalism. What you are doing is something some neo-Marxist high school teacher taught you and you bought into hook, line and sinker. You've been duped into believing troublemaking and heroism are the same thing. They are not.

You're not a journalist. You're a muckracker.

That's my takeaway from this. No apologies to anyone who gets offended. My opinions are mine and they are never "humble".

These questions are more than reasonable. If you'd come to us with these first, rather than accusing someone who has never worked for us of embezzling 300,000 dollars of Kickstarter backer donations, we would probably have gotten this resolved much faster. It should be stated that starting off with words like 'scam' and 'embezzlement' is not a great way to make people willing to discuss matters with you.

You: what type of recast software are you using?

We are actually not sure what you're asking here. As far as I am aware, it is not a common term in the industry. It may mean retopologizing software, rebroadcasting software for audio, sales tax processing for nations with a VAT or, well, any number of things.

You: Have you written a copy of the game on the severs?

This question is poorly structured, and could mean a few things. Do understand that “the game” is made up of multiple pieces, being developed in parallel, and is not a singular entity one can point at until rather late in the development. For example, if I can direct your attention to this video right here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Set4aFIJE showing us in a game world, interacting with each other, using several of these pieces simultaneously. This update is from June of last year: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1598257

You: Have you purchased a licences for Autodesk or Z-brush? I ask that because that was said in your Kickstarter canpaign thats where the bulk of the money was going to.

Yes, several. We purchased multiple copies of Autodesk Maya, 3DS Max, some of which were part of suites which include other applications such as Mudbox. Note that we are not using the standalone versions of these programs, but the network administrated versions which allow us to have the flexibility of a site license while not having people at the same physical location. It was something new for them that they have now made somewhat standard with their managed subscription routine.

Unlike the Autodesk products, zBrush’s licenses are tied to the hardware they are installed on. As a result we have had to use remotely administrated machines which had to be shipped to the artists when dealing with zBrush. We've also had to pick up subscription licenses now and again for short terms. We also, for a period of time, had a site subscription for Houdini, but it wound up not working well with our toolchain. Other tools we have used include Substance and Cinema4D.

You might enjoy this update (with video) of how we go from concept to final art asset.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1281676

You: What is the price of the game? I read that @ the $50 KS campaign LvL you get a copy of the game. Does this mean you have a price of the game?

We're not really ready to discuss the price of the game until closer to launch. I think it's safe to say $50 is the upper end for it, and I would like to point out that the $50 that our backers donated includes an extra month of subscription time at a nominal value of $15/month on top of the months included in the package price. We do intend to have further announcements about price as things become relevant.

You: I see you are using assets and animation from Mixamo, I know their TOS is you can use their assets free of charge for game creation. I know all the assets are free even Fuse a character generator is free to use. So if you are using Mixamo assets that means you are not paying for the models nor animation.

We used Mixamo assets only in the Kickstarter video, as stand-ins for the final design. We made clear note of that at the time. We do not at this time use any assets from Mixamo. We have used their animations - some are good enough to make the final game, some of them are simply good enough for test work - we're lucky enough that we've recently gotten access to a Perception Neuron suit. Very impressive stuff, but, well, animation is probably the hardest graphic task in gaming development to some degree.

As for Fuse, you are not the first, and likely will not be the last to suggest that particular program. We studied it when it came out, and found that would not stand up to our character creator's needs and would require substantial redesign in order to work, causing further delays. If you care to examine our updates, you'll notice a series of character models showing up, and their gradual improvement. You may even have seen our final model, but we're not ready to publicly reveal it except in hints and shadows, until we can show off the character creator in full.
Here's an update showing off some of that history.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1669755

You: Last question. I was told that the game was pushed back 2 times , I found it has been pushed back 3. with 2018 the third time. It has been almost 5 years and why have MWM produced one finshed model?

It seems to be, with this question and the Mixamo/Fuse question that you do not understand the very concept of a customizable character within a video game. If you import a Mixamo character, that is it, done, end of story. You may be able to change their colors, if you’re lucky, but otherwise, you’ve got, well, whatever you’ve imported, be it a school girl, police officer, or goblin. Our character model has to be able to be all of these, and more, at the same time, based on the data input fed to them. We’re not doing unique models for every character in the game, every potential combination of pieces – that would be a huge storage space problem for one, and limits our players for another. Instead we’ve taken a different approach, one used by games such as APB-Reloaded, where we have few models, but near infinite variety of forms as a result. The APB team took over 5 years to make their model, and we go past what they have.

Let me give you an example:

The model being used as this 5 Dragons Goon:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1764598

That is the exact same model we used as Santa. Just fatter, shorter, and wearing a different outfit.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1769795
(Santa's outfit, the packages, the christmas lights, the snowman, the snow, were all made by us and unique for that video. It was shot in our suburb test location.

Every NPC, be they minions, pets, or civilians walking around, is using a modified version of this character rig. By having only a few of these highly flexible models, instead of thousands or hundreds of thousands of custom one-off models, we keep the data storage demand on the client’s system within a reasonable scope.

You: Does MWM Have a company portfolio of games you have worked on and completed?

As MWM was founded for this specific purpose, our current company portfolio is limited to Clicky Cape. That being said, we have volunteers whose history covers a wide range of titles. But what matters more is related experience. Having someone who voice acted in Mass Effect when you’re using them for animation does not give related experience or expertise, for example. Our volunteer portfolio can claim things as mundane as civil engineering to as out of this world as satellite systems and more.

For those of you who missed this, Clicky Cape is our testbed game - we use it to test compiling, porting to new versions of the engine, and packaging. We've gotten it to work as a standalone executable for Windows and MacOS, and intend to compile it to Android and iOS when possible.

We've also managed to compile it to HTML5 - so it'll run right off the web. Why not give it a try?
https://cityoftitans.com/content/april-fools-2017
(Not all browsers support this - it should work fine on Chrome and Firefox. IE and Edge are slightly more questionable. Pale Moon does not work.)

You did come in asking for an interview, and we informed you that we needed more than a few days lead time in order to schedule the appropriate people for such an interview. That you've gone ahead is certainly your choice, but it remains just that, yours. Now, your work with Daz3D and iClone is impressive, and demonstrates some talent with those tools. That said, in my own experience with those tools, those skills do not translate into what we are doing here. I do hope this answers these questions to your satisfaction. If you should have any more, I will answer them to the best of my ability. Have a good day.

Man, the Doctor is in today, folks! Nice post, very informative.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:
For those of you who missed this, Clicky Cape is our testbed game - we use it to test compiling, porting to new versions of the engine, and packaging. We've gotten it to work as a standalone executable for Windows and MacOS, and intend to compile it to Android and iOS when possible.
So... what's the status/possibility of Linux builds?
Depends on the plug-ins we need. We've been working with the vendors for this, but no promises.

Ok *fingers crossed*

Though native binaries is much preferred [url=https://www.winehq.org/]Wine[/url] should work satisfactory.

"As mundane as Civil Engineering"?

Engineers unite!

/em pitchfork

Empyrean wrote:

Yeah, that was a nice condensed recap of certain aspects of where MWM is with the game.

Aye, much of it stuff that any real reporter could have discovered with a modicum of research. This reminds me of when friends ask me questions that they haven't bothered even to Google.

Greyhawk wrote:

Limitless patience. This is why the good folks as MWM are building the game while I merely wait to experience the results of their hard work.
Well said, Doctor Tyche. Very well said, indeed.

Indeed. Much more than I would have in this situation. I doff my virtual hat to you, MWM, and Doc in particular. If there were a badge for patience, I'd give you three of them.

Opposite of don.

Hmm... maybe someday I should add a [lmgtfy] tag? We've got a [google] tag already, IIRC.

Jetstrange wrote:

okay so we made Another Video
Okay, Doctor Tyche there was something I wanted to ask you about your twitch video.
What level of the game were you making?

I just saw the beginning of your video. You and your partner are the ghetto-est reporters I've ever heard reporting on games. I was laughing when you said "I axed them...". Cmon man at least if you are going to fake it before you make it use proper English. And when your moma started blowing up your phone AND you actually picked it up in the middle of a recording for a supposed expose on project, I knew you were full of it. Oh, my favorite part was when you started hyping Ship of Heroes and tried to introduce the CEO of the company producing it but couldn't remember his name. You called him "the dude with the glasses". Freaking priceless. You also said that all we are getting is story, tons of story and that's not what people want. And that if you wanted to read a book that would be different. People don't want a book they want a game (paraphrased). The story we are getting is called lore and it is a very integral part of the game. Without it you have nothing. Every mmo out there spends shit-tons of months, even years on creating lore. The game you keep hyping, Ship of Heroes, has nothing close to as a good story as this game. I've been on their forums and read their material. None of it is interesting. Even the name is weak and unappealing. And this was from the first 7 minutes of your video. I stopped there because you kept "axing" questions that you could have easily found the answers to. Weak "reporting" only to hype a weak game.

This smells of fakery even duplicitous fakery on account of their consistent hyping of Ship of Heroes. I'm done with this. I won't be commenting anymore on this thread and I won't be watching his channel for any updates. Doc don't waste anymore of your time on this. Focus on making my gaming great again! lol

peace.

Jetstrange, at least, has the hallmarks of a member of this community. Better still, most of their questions are reasonable and phrased intelligently. Doctor Tyche (such an auspicious name) is giving clear answers to the good questions, so that all of us may be informed.

Still doesn't mean I'm going to lend any clicks to those videos.

Be Well!
Fireheart

meta brawler wrote:

...my favorite part was when you started hyping Ship of Heroes and tried to introduce the CEO of the company producing it...

Did he really? Interesting...

RottenLuck wrote:

I got to 23 mins of the new video. Lost count how many times they mentioned how ship of heros was doing better then CoT.

Also interesting... Conspiracy? If so, it's a pretty weak one. Perhaps the 3d Scammer group (all five of them?) have just decided they want to promote Ship of Heroes on their own and chose to do so by attacking CoT?

Still, I do find it odd. I guess the SoH videos got them so excited they couldn't control themselves. Young folk these days are so excitable.

Greyhawk wrote:

RottenLuck wrote:
I got to 23 mins of the new video. Lost count how many times they mentioned how ship of heros was doing better then CoT.

Also interesting... Conspiracy? If so, it's a pretty weak one. Perhaps the 3d Scammer group (all five of them?) have just decided they want to promote Ship of Heroes on their own and chose to do so by attacking CoT?
Still, I do find it odd. I guess the SoH videos got them so excited they couldn't control themselves. Young folk these days are so excitable.

More unprofessional mindset. A bit of hype over a new shiny this time Ship of Heroes. We saw it when Heroes and Villains started putting out the "models" but nothing much beyond that. Then it was Valiance Online and just like VO some people took them as a scam or fake. Now we are more friendly. Still, people compared them to the MWM group. Ship of Heroes might be shiny now but those that looked under the paint job have our doubts.

As much as the group that made the video got commented about. I wonder if they noticed few really say bad things about the other projects. I did hear them say we on these Forums say Ship of Heroes is too much Like a reskinned CoH. Yes, some people want that. At the same time, it's not a cut down to point it out.

They can have their views and opinions. What annoyed me is the unprofessional production of their video. Yes oddly what bugs me is not they have issues is that I couldn't even figure out what they were other than "I want to see pretty pictures of the game, and I want it Now! Oh, you can buy assets to do it faster!" At least that all I got from the 23 mins I listened to it.

I made it literally a single full second into the video and I saw a webpage for Ship of Heroes developers. I then thumbs-downed the video, and closed the tab. Afterwards, I came here and read all the remarks and I'm glad to see I didn't miss anything by suffering through the whole two hours of poor delivery and word pronunciation.

If this is the hype train for SoH, then they're just the proverbial hobos hitching a ride.

cyanpill wrote:

At about 55minutes in, they start talking about paragon chat, and assume it does have viruses, and that CoT is somehow responsible for it.

lol

That sounds potentially actionable against them.

Casey McGeever threw some passive-aggressive (and slightly hypocritical) trash talk at MWM in a Massively OP interview back around January. I made an untagged comment about it on Twitter, and some guy jumped into my mentions to defend them, claiming to be a developer on SoH. I've seen that same person comment on MOP and speak of SoH's dev team in the [i]third[/i] person. ????

My exit from Champions Online took the form of a heated argument over large scale software development and my years of personal experience in such things. Which is a polite way to say that the CO forums are a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and I got run off by an angry mob because I didn't conform to the groupthink that CoT and VO are "scams" and "vaporware". But nobody had an unkind word to say about SoH. ????

[i]These[/i] guys. ????

Regardless of who's how far along or who's ahead of or behind where they should be, MWM and CoT are the only successor project where I like what I see and hear.

I'd contribute to CoT today and believe they will produce a truly special game with it's own unique lightening in it's own shiny new bottle.