Brand X wrote:

Let's just make this easy on everyone. Everyone start using the metric system and speaking english :p

Counter-proposal: We start using the Moosetric System. The basic unit of length is the AntlerSpan. The basic unit of mass is the Hoof.

Zaran wrote:

Let me start by saying: Great video and great progress! I continue to be super excited for this game.

[i]However...[/i]

I watched most of the twitch video, and saw the facial sliders in action and now have to ask... are there going to be different head models? The amount of play I saw with the sliders seems great for fine tuning but not for significant shape differences, such as:

* Face shape: Round, oval, square, or rectangular face shapes.
* Facial slope: forehead forward or back relative to check bones, angle of forehead, lips forward or back
* Jaw size: broad vs narrow chin, underslung vs protruding jaw, tall vs short jaw, jaw slope
* Nasal ridge depth
* Nose size: width, depth
* Permanent damage: scars and deformations
* etc.

With the sliders that were demonstrated, I don't think we can achieve the kinds of variations we see in the world, let alone the kinds of significant distortions we see in comics, such as the Leader from the Hulk comics. Also, non-human heads such as lizardine or feline?

Simple answer: yes. All the components are in place for it. It's just been a matter of connecting things up properly.

And thanks for the compliments. It was nice for me to finally show off that stuff given the time me, Geeks, and the art team have spent trying to put it all together. I'm hoping we can have one of the art people can mess with in the next major video on the topic. I'm a code monkey more than an artist! :D

Awesome. Maybe people will be able to make "The Mighty Mooseman"-- measured via the Mooselian System, of course.

Mordheim13 wrote:

Awesome. Maybe people will be able to make "The Mighty Mooseman"-- measured via the Mooselian System, of course.

We have many Canadians working in the project. If we did not have a literal moose head available, I daresay we'd be withholding the namesake beer from the Americans. :)

We're going to run one more twitch, so we can show off doing it when we want to. It'll be tonight, 9 Eastern.
Same thing, with a little more audience interaction this time. Let's try some Twitch Plays Monster Factory.

warcabbit wrote:

We're going to run one more twitch, so we can show off doing it when we want to. It'll be tonight, 9 Eastern.
Same thing, with a little more audience interaction this time. Let's try some Twitch Plays Monster Factory.

After intro I'll be asking people to make suggestions on which slider to operate, etc. I will announce the person's name and their selection with their instructions for people who can't see the text chat in the future. I've improved my broadcast capabilities a bit better and things won't be appearing that shouldn't.

Fireman314 wrote:

This is what I have been waiting on personally. One the MAIN reasons I bought and played CoH/CoV was for the character creator (CC). You have captured the essence of that with this last update. Anyone who played CoH/CoV should be excited. Man this looks to good. Can't wait to see the female models. Keep up the good work. I'm buying a brand new Computer just for this game. MAN IM SO PUMPED. THIS GAME CANNOT GET HERE FAST ENOUGH.

Unless your computer is really really really ancient i'd hold off. Even if the devs cut corners and take shortcuts this game being on the unreal engine will run way more efficiently than coh ever could have. Hell I don't even think they could possibly make this game run bad on most machines even if they tried.

For those future idle poses MwM commented on I wanna be able to chew bubble gum, randomly blow and pop the bubbles with sound effects. I would also hope those bubbles could be color customized much like anything else. You might even be able to choose between how your character stands (relaxed, etc) while doing this.

Guess it will only be a matter of time before a suggestions thread for idle poses is created. I can't remember if we had idle poses in DC or if that was based off your travel power but in champions they started with a few but have only added 1 more during all this time.

Tonight's stream went very well. Some good testing and I think some good input from those who were able to watch.

I think a bubble gum thing would be best served as an aura. Probably pretty easy to do like that.

and for idle stances...we have 22 already?
I suggest headphones and a silent rocking out idle stance.

Fireman314 wrote:

I'm buying a brand new Computer just for this game. MAN IM SO PUMPED. THIS GAME CANNOT GET HERE FAST ENOUGH.

Noyjitat wrote:

Unless your computer is really really really ancient i'd hold off. Even if the devs cut corners and take shortcuts this game being on the unreal engine will run way more efficiently than coh ever could have. Hell I don't even think they could possibly make this game run bad on most machines even if they tried.

Well, another reason to hold off is that the whole cryptocurrency craze has had the side effect of seriously jacking up the prices of GPUs/video cards. Even low to mid-range ones have seen their prices double to triple in come cases. Kinda sucks to build a gaming PC at the moment.

desviper wrote:

Mordheim13 wrote:

desviper wrote:

On, imperial vs metric: it should be a fine of 1% a year's revenue to make something with customary units.

THIS is the problem I have. Forcing people to use one system or the other. The American in me growls at the idea. You might as well say people should be fined for clinging to that cursed Daylight Savings Time (which I would LOVE to see go away, BTW, but I wouldn't want to punish people for it).

Dude, people die over this shit :(

People die over a lot of things. We need to be careful how we use that excuse, before your car/alcohol/hiking/skiing/climbing/cell phone/etc. ad infinitum go away in the name of "It's for your own good!" or even more over-used: "It's for the children!"

Project_Hero wrote:

Mordheim13 wrote:

desviper wrote:

On, imperial vs metric: it should be a fine of 1% a year's revenue to make something with customary units.

THIS is the problem I have. Forcing people to use one system or the other. The American in me growls at the idea. You might as well say people should be fined for clinging to that cursed Daylight Savings Time (which I would LOVE to see go away, BTW, but I wouldn't want to punish people for it).

Daylight savings time is the worst.

It should be banished.

To some sort of horrible abyss, never to be seen again.

And then set on fire.

Just so, Sir. Just so.

I have enjoyed the latest streams, but I'm very much looking forward to an artist run stream, and am still hopeful for a stream about hair!

avelworldcreator wrote:

Just for the record the U.S. is [i]technically[/i] metric as all our units are defined using the metric system. Also if you drive in England they still use miles for distances between places (I know that from personal experience).

I suspect GB would still fully use the imperial system if the EU hadn't forced metrication. Pints and miles are the most common one used. Also with the weight of people the stone (14 pounds) is a common one.

Note that some of the UK measures are not the same as the US ones of the same name.

Mordheim13 wrote:

desviper wrote:

Mordheim13 wrote:

desviper wrote:

On, imperial vs metric: it should be a fine of 1% a year's revenue to make something with customary units.

THIS is the problem I have. Forcing people to use one system or the other. The American in me growls at the idea. You might as well say people should be fined for clinging to that cursed Daylight Savings Time (which I would LOVE to see go away, BTW, but I wouldn't want to punish people for it).

Dude, people die over this shit :(

People die over a lot of things. We need to be careful how we use that excuse, before your car/alcohol/hiking/skiing/climbing/cell phone/etc. ad infinitum go away in the name of "It's for your own good!" or even more over-used: "It's for the children!"

So a few hundred people happened to kick the bucket after we tried summoning No'mazz, Black Lord of the Deep. You can't just ban eldritch magic like that!

Is the Twitch banner still accurate, or is it currently showing last night's information?

Yeah, I did let the PR team know about the banner glitch. I'll remind them again. Technically I can edit but I think it's more politic for me not to.

Eep!

Yes. What's the point of a secret identity if some bureaucrat has access to it at will? Government databases NEVER get hacked, or lost track of, or deliberately put out there by a whistleblower.

It always made sense to me that the primary databases in government control in a supers universe would be looked after by a loyal AI or three. Unless another AI bumrushes it (and even then, it's entrenched with a lot of counter programs for that kind of assault) then it's probably the best way to make the system secure against intrusion, since Cyberwarfare is a big deal when you have mad scientists and rogue AIs running about. Give the caretaker AI a bigass server farm and payment for the job, and chances are it'll be happy as a clam.

That'd actually make for a really neat character to interact with ingame at some point.

More on topic but related, I really hope there's some options in the final character creator for robotic body structures. I really like the idea of playing a robotic character.

Huckleberry wrote:

Halae wrote:

More on topic but related, I really hope there's some options in the final character creator for robotic body structures. I really like the idea of playing a robotic character.

I hope so, too, as someone whom has already stated he wants to build one.

But since one of the Paragons is a robot named overclock, I have faith that there will be at least some minimal amount of robotic options available to us.

The below image is concept art for overclock.
[img=480x640]https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/340/546/cf80e2174892f03310b073e406430100_original.jpg?v=1455156228&w=639&fit=max&auto=format&q=92&s=c9d2cd30775e8fe47b7ba487fe1e849d[/img]

I seem to remember that MWM asked if they should keep the default UE4 character model as an option for costumes and that is was a resounding yes from us, so there is a high chance we get that one.

Huckleberry wrote:

Halae wrote:

More on topic but related, I really hope there's some options in the final character creator for robotic body structures. I really like the idea of playing a robotic character.

I hope so, too, as someone whom has already stated he wants to build one.

But since one of the Paragons is a robot named overclock, I have faith that there will be at least some minimal amount of robotic options available to us.

The below image is concept art for overclock.
[img=480x640]https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/340/546/cf80e2174892f03310b073e406430100_original.jpg?v=1455156228&w=639&fit=max&auto=format&q=92&s=c9d2cd30775e8fe47b7ba487fe1e849d[/img]

You do realize we showed the headpiece for Overclock in the video, right?

Doctor Tyche wrote:

You do realize we showed the headpiece for Overclock in the video, right?

I had not realized! I really should have.

I expect different areas of the body can have their own saves... given I'm the guy coding that stuff I'd say it's highly likey unless they people handling database stuff disagree (and I'm likely to be doing some of that too. :p )

Mordheim13 wrote:

Not sure I agree that any metahuman would automatically be snatched up by the government (or other sinister organization). After all, there have been a number of very intelligent, talented "normals" throughout history who rose to prominence without having been owned by a government, from Einstein to Bill Gates to Julian Assange.

I guess you've never heard of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip]Operation Paperclip[/url].

And by the way, the US got Einstein because he was visiting America from Berlin when Hitler and his antisemitism came to power.

Mordheim13 wrote:

Not sure I agree that any metahuman would automatically be snatched up by the government (or other sinister organization). After all, there have been a number of very intelligent, talented "normals" throughout history who rose to prominence without having been owned by a government, from Einstein to Bill Gates to Julian Assange. Indeed, a superheroic world requires this, otherwise you can't have Marvel or DC, only an Orwellian world. Reed Richards and Dr. Doom are equally impossible to exist by that standard. Reed would be forced to work for a government, Victor would be dead (Von Doom lackeys for NO ONE!). It is always a balancing act how much reality to impose upon a fictional world, because too little and it's just ridiculous; too much and it is oppressive and defeats the purpose of fiction (unless you are writing, as Orwell did, to point out reality through your fiction). Readers/Viewers must work with the creators by suspending disbelief to a sufficient degree to accommodate the fictional world-- or, perhaps, "expand their perceptions" is a better way to put it. To paraphrase John Lennon "Imagine there is room in the world for independent Heroes (or Villains). It's easy if you try."

Who said they'd be forced to do anything? In my view they'd be offered a position when their talents show themselves with some pretty good incentives. If they turn it down, well it's unlawful and unconstitutional to force them to do anything. And unless it's an organization that operates completely outside the law they're not going to do that.

Victor wouldn't be dead as he's an important figure of a foreign country and just offing him would have severe diplomatic penalties. Plus any time he's captured or beaten it's just a robot anyway.

If you want a believable government in a super setting you can't just have them be like ours. There needs to be laws that govern Superheroes, they'd have whole departments devoted to monitoring super powered people and possibly recruiting them if they could (like shield). It's definitely not unreasonable that in a world where super powered individuals have existed for any length of time, or in greater numbers than one, that the government wouldn't try to get on the bleeding edge of that.

Certain countries and governments would force recruit supers, likely by threatening loved ones, but usually that'd just be dictatorships, or fascist governments.

But you just know that a government would be recruiting super villains, especially evil geniuses. Or backwards engineering their tech if they could.

Without such things in place what do they do if a super goes rogue? Just pray and wait for some other super to take them out?

I could see a government agency that's a mix of normal agents (possibly using super tech weapons and gadgets like the M.I.B.), supervillains (suicide squad'd to join), and super powered heroes, or super powered people who wanted to be able to earn a living using their powers for good. Hell I think that's a really boss idea for a super team. You'd have a good dynamic of people butting heads, with normal agents, coerced super villains, super employees, and heroes who think working for the government is the right thing to do.

I think as a concept it adds to a setting. There's more stories you can tell with it's inclusion than without. Not having any government oversight makes the governments of the fictional world seem grossly incompetent. Which of that's the story you want to tell go for it. But I'll take my Cadmuses and Shields, thank you very much.

Who said there'd be no place for independent heroes? All I said was that a government likely wouldn't leave taking care of super powered threats only to independent heroes. Most independent heroes get to a scene early enough that only local law enforcement is on the scene. It hasn't had the time to move up the chain to get the army or any branches of the government involved.

A government super agency would likely only be mobilized when there's a large enough threat; a villain has taken over a city, alien invasion, giant monster, etc.

The suicide squad idea worked poorly in their movie, but worked really well in the JLU episode "Task Force X"

And yes, the registration idea in the civil war crossover event was poorly done. Even though the registration idea was pretty sound; IDs known only to the government, provide training, support, and pay for registered heroes. The problem arose with making it mandatory and not optional (that and trying to attack captain America before the act had even passed).

I have never stated that any of this would be a mandatory thing. No one would be forced. Heck even criminals could be asked to join up "time off your sentence if you play ball." They say no (or more accurately say "expletive you") then you move on and ask another, you just need either a team with them who could handle them going rogue (not optimal) and/or a way to shut them down if they do.

So yes, I agree that if a government in a super setting forced people to do things it wouldn't go well. I have never stated the opposite. Essentially saying "yeah, but if it was done badly it'd be bad" doesn't really have much to do with the conversation. Nor does automatically assuming that it'd be done in the worst way possible.

Pretty sure the team already hashed out the whole registration thing in CoT universe. I'm not good at remembering lore, but there was a thing about a court case of a meta where the court ruled he didn't have to register, and that created a precedent making registration optional.

As for the character creator, the body sliders look great, much more variety than I was expecting.
But the face sliders... the thing that worries me is that the facial sliders seem to not do much. There's lots of them, but they only do tiny changes. I'm hoping it's just because it's in early phase. The notice does say not all the sliders are hooked yet, but the ones that are don't seem to change much.

I realize you want to avoid a scenario where the face clips itself or whatnot, but it looks like it's falling into the same trap as CO. CO trap: everyone is "that one guy." So you can have wildly different bodies, but in the face, everyone is "that one guy."
Dude 1 is that one guy but with blue eyes and 2% wider eyes. Dude 2 is that same guy but with brown eyes and 1% lower ears. Dude 3 is that same guy but with stubble at a 2% longer nose. All their sliders are as far apart as possible.
Oddly enough, you could make a guy with a gigantic chin, but everything else pretty much looked the same.
You need to be able to change facial features more if you want to make more variety of characters. If I make a character who's genetic background is Kenyan, another who's Irish, another who's Japanese, and another who's Indian, I don't want them to all be the same guy with a pallet swap. Or, to use a more fantastical example, if I make a kemonomimi character, I should be able to make their eyes wider apart than human eyes can normally can be, to make their facial geometry slightly more cat-like.

In short: You can make the body all weird, but not the face, so it seems like two different chargens mashed together.

It's true that in comics, especially gold and silver age, all tough super-hero men had just one of about three faces and most women had just one face they all shared, but that doesn't mean it has to be true in comic gaming, even though it has been so up to this point in all mmo comic games, unfortunately. I'm hoping CoT can buck that trend.

BiotopeZ wrote:

Pretty sure the team already hashed out the whole registration thing in CoT universe. I'm not good at remembering lore, but there was a thing about a court case of a meta where the court ruled he didn't have to register, and that created a precedent making registration optional.

[url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/812507]Law and the Super[/url]
That's my favorite lore update so far. ^_^

I struggle with my position on this, Wolfgang. While I support giving players a lot of freedom, I share much of your feeling on this matter. I don't mind extreme-looking characters that have a reason for being that way, but characters designed just out of silliness affect my gaming experience as they do yours.

Usually bringing up this topic generates complaints about restricting character design freedoms as if only the designers' wishes carry any weight, and the viewers just need to suffer. I would like to think MWM can find a fair middle ground between players' ability to create the character they want and players' ability to enjoy a game without being subjected to visual assaults that break suspension of disbelief.

I seem to recall reading about an MMO that scaled back its chargen options because too many players were making complete monstrosities and ruining the general aesthetic of the game, but I can't find the article now.

If you can't have a giant head how are people going to make characters like the Leader and MODOK?

Instead of Silver Age goofiness or Watchmen deconstruction, the best guide for how we've aimed CoT is Kurt Busiek's Astro City series.

Hey, for those who watch the Twitch videos I did not realize I hadn't had a complete copy of the sliders database. That created an appearance of things not doing much. Obviously some are pretty fine details and don't do much on their own, but they add up. I'm in the middle of doing a lot of deep coding fixes and such to mitigate that problem in the future.

Also did any notice I fixed the Twitch banner? :D

Evil Peter needs a goatee.

Wolfgang8565 wrote:

Customization is great but I hope you guys hold back a bit on how exaggerated the scales are. I understand that it is a great option to have sliders to customize almost everything but a lot of people don't have an eye for symmetry or proportions. Or simply don't care. Some players will probably start messing with the sliders, give their character a huge head, maybe on accident or maybe on purpose to be funny, and jump into the game.

I know its not up to me what others like for their own characters, but it will really take me out of the rp experience if most characters look comical. With legs that go up to their head, or Pinocchio noses, and so on. That's one of the things I liked about COX, you had your characters that were non human like arachnos, warshades, peacebringers, and so on, but most of your dedicated player base were human-like.

And yeah, maybe some were shorter than others but for the most part they were all well proportioned and about the same height. And this might sound wrong but I don't know if I want to team with a freakshow. I wont take it seriously.

Cinnder wrote:

I struggle with my position on this, Wolfgang. While I support giving players a lot of freedom, I share much of your feeling on this matter. I don't mind extreme-looking characters that have a reason for being that way, but characters designed just out of silliness affect my gaming experience as they do yours.

Usually bringing up this topic generates complaints about restricting character design freedoms as if only the designers' wishes carry any weight, and the viewers just need to suffer. I would like to think MWM can find a fair middle ground between players' ability to create the character they want and players' ability to enjoy a game without being subjected to visual assaults that break suspension of disbelief.

I seem to recall reading about an MMO that scaled back its chargen options because too many players were making complete monstrosities and ruining the general aesthetic of the game, but I can't find the article now.

Why should one players' sense of aesthetics take precedence over anothers? If you, as a player, feel that teaming with another player that has, in [i]your opinion[/i], distasteful proportions breaks your immersion and decide against it, then so be it. That's [i]your[/i] choice. However, saying that MWM should limit the customizability so that it falls more in line with your specific preferences, well that's not really freedom anymore. And I certainly wouldn't curtail it when they're literally advertising 'Make Anyone' in their latest and greatest video release. I say bring on the sliders!

I haven't read Astro City, but if Busiek created it, it's probably pretty good. Not sure I can agree with Silver Age being silliness. it was certainly an age where people asked more from themselves, striving to be more like their heroes (if only a little bit better people, day-by-day), rather than demanding the Heroes be pulled down to their level or below, so they could feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, we're too morally lazy for that. "Be better" is being replaced with "Be nice-- unless the other person is using 'Hate Speech', which means whatever you disagree with." Maybe some of the characters were "unrealistic", but if all you want is "realistic", why read/watch anything but the news (granted, media gives pseudo-realism, but still...). Just my opinion, not saying anyone else needs to share it-- and most don't, I recognize.

TitansCity wrote:

avelworldcreator wrote:

Yeah. I found out why that happened over this weekend. I was doing that stream live and to say I was confused was not expressing just how frustrated I was. The guy hooking things up didn't know he needed to update a zip file that was used as part of the distribution. He knows of it now and I think we have that matter resolved at that end. It was really a pretty minor miss and our next showing should be improved considerably. I had set default ranges from 0 to 1 when data was missing so this caused the limited range that you saw.

Oh ok ! So, you should do another livestream... :D

We [i]might[/i] just do that! No promises, but I'd really like to see how this thing will work when fixed. I'd have to test it out first of course. Discovering issues in the middle of a live broadcast isn't much fun. I know it happed to both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs but it still ain't cool.

I've been working on that over the weekend as a matter of fact. I'm the guy who set up and is in charge of the software & assets repository. It lives in a server that is literally a few yards/meters ( :p ) away from in the basement. I set up a full web server stack and some controlling webpages I coded myself. It means if it hangs up or crashes I'm only a short flight of stairs from pushing the reset or power buttons.

avelworldcreator wrote:

Yeah. I found out why that happened over this weekend. I was doing that stream live and to say I was confused was not expressing just how frustrated I was. The guy hooking things up didn't know he needed to update a zip file that was used as part of the distribution. He knows of it now and I think we have that matter resolved at that end. It was really a pretty minor miss and our next showing should be improved considerably. I had set default ranges from 0 to 1 when data was missing so this caused the limited range that you saw.

If this were an isolated instance, it would be understandable and passable. But stream after stream, week after week one failure after another is preventing you from showing us what you want to show us. And this last stream was your most hyped and most prepared and even then you made three separate attempts at it.

This seems to point to a weakness at the integration/management level and that does not bode well for the future of the game being launched on time and technically sound. From a potential investor's point of view, this shows the project to be just too much of a risk.

But from an eager fan's point of view, I can still hope that you will somehow manage to pull it off. Because I really like what you are trying to accomplish and I want this project to succeed over all the others.

Wolfgang8565 wrote:

Im not stating they should completely limit the scales to human proportions. But cinnder makes a good point in that there should be some sort of middle ground. Make anyone, great. But to me, anyone is human like even if its an elf, ogre, cyborg. Not a pair of 6 foot legs with a tiny head and needle thin arms.

Trolls will find a way to troll wherever they can. On the other hand, pushing the base character model to the limits, then combining it with the right wearables, can produce some incredibly imaginative results. Any CO vets who remember Slapperfish and his army of gonzo alts know exactly what I'm talking about. He pushed that game's character creator in directions even Cryptic's own developers didn't think were possible.

This also makes a great case for costume contests. Whether it's making a crazy idea work, having an eye for color, or just possessing devastating beauty and taste, winners -- and judges -- of contests go a long way toward setting examples for the rest of the community.

SisterSilicon wrote:

Wolfgang8565 wrote:

Im not stating they should completely limit the scales to human proportions. But cinnder makes a good point in that there should be some sort of middle ground. Make anyone, great. But to me, anyone is human like even if its an elf, ogre, cyborg. Not a pair of 6 foot legs with a tiny head and needle thin arms.

Trolls will find a way to troll wherever they can. On the other hand, pushing the base character model to the limits, then combining it with the right wearables, can produce some incredibly imaginative results. Any CO vets who remember Slapperfish and his army of gonzo alts know exactly what I'm talking about. He pushed that game's character creator in directions even Cryptic's own developers didn't think were possible.

This also makes a great case for costume contests. Whether it's making a crazy idea work, having an eye for color, or just possessing devastating beauty and taste, winners -- and judges -- of contests go a long way toward setting examples for the rest of the community.

This seems like one of those kinds of things that [b]might[/b] become a problem, not is [b]certain[/b] to become a problem.

I think the current slider limits we've seen thus far should be allowed in the initial beta builds of the game. I'm sure most everyone will at least -try- making one or two silly characters just to see what the system will allow. But the real proof of the pudding will be to see how many people create and play silly/trollish characters once the game actually launches. If we find that we only see like 10-20% running around like that then there's really no problem with this. But if for some weird reason we see like half or more PCs all looking "overtly disproportional" only then would I think the Devs might need to scale back the possible limits.

Let's give the playerbase a reasonable chance to be "responsible" with the freedoms we may be poised to get with this system. If we collectively end up abusing it too much the Devs could always reign it back in future updates/nerfs as needed.