Announcements

Join the ongoing conversation on Discord: https://discord.gg/w6Tpkp2

Please read the current update for instructions on downloading the latest update. Players with Mac versions of the game will not be affected, but you will have a slightly longer wait for your version of the new maps. Please make a copy of your character folder before running the new update, just to make sure you don't lose any of your custom work.

It looks like we can give everyone a list of minimum specs for running City of Titans. Please keep in mind that this is 'for now' until we are able to add more graphics and other system refinements. Currently you will need :
Windows 10 or later required; no Intel integrated graphics like UHD, must have AMD or NVIDIA card or discrete chipset with 4Gb or more of VRAM
At least 16GB of main DRAM.
These stats may change as we continue to test.

To purchase your copy of the City of Titans Launcher, visit our store at https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/ A purchase of $50 or more will give you a link to download the Launcher for Windows or Mac based machines.

Degree of Character Costume Freedom

76 posts / 0 new
Last post
So_So_Desu_
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 4 months ago
Joined: 05/05/2019 - 09:35
Degree of Character Costume Freedom

Sup, everyone ! New to the community and I just want to know if I want to make my character's costume look similar to an established hero's costume, will that be possible ? Like, say I'm not too good at designing characters from scratch, could I take the general design from Superman or Wonder Wonder's costume and add my own touches on it ?

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Oh I'm sure superman+ could

Oh I'm sure superman+ could be done ;)


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Cyclops
Cyclops's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 8 months ago
11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 04/10/2015 - 17:24
So_So_Desu_ wrote:
So_So_Desu_ wrote:

Sup, everyone ! New to the community and I just want to know if I want to make my character's costume look similar to an established hero's costume, will that be possible ? Like, say I'm not too good at designing characters from scratch, could I take the general design from Superman or Wonder Wonder's costume and add my own touches on it ?

Yes to both questions.

You will not start with a set superman option costume. But just start with a basic spandex option, add a cape and wala: you have your starting point.
Though to be honest, there will be costume sets available...it would not hurt to explore the creator. Further, the creator will be released first so you will have lots of time to experiment and come up with a perfect avatar.

So_So_Desu_
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 4 months ago
Joined: 05/05/2019 - 09:35
Cool ! Many thnx for the

Cool ! Many thnx for the feedback.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
There's nothing wrong if you

There's nothing wrong if you want to make a costume in CoT that looks "similar" to an established hero's costume or using the "general design" of something that already exists in another venue. But be aware that Marvel actually sued CoH back in 2004 on the basis that the game allowed you to create "copy-cat" Marvel characters. Basically if too many people start creating too many "clone" characters it could potentially cause somebody to sue MWM for it.

As a response the GMs of CoH stepped up their efforts to "generic" people whose names were too close to established character names and they even banned some people's costumes that were inappropriate for all sorts of reasons just to protect the game. I would assume they would be just as protective in CoT.

Now there are obviously several easy ways to avoid any problems with this. First off don't even try to NAME your characters anything even close to an established IP. Even something like "SuperUberMan" would probably be stupid to try. Next you can always switch up the basic colors used. For example we all know Wonder Woman's basic costume is a red top, blue bottoms with gold highlights. For CoT you could have the same costume but in white/silver or some other basic scheme.

Just be smart about what you do. Again there's nothing wrong with creating an homage character but avoid attempting to make identical clones with exact powers/names. I'll leave you with an example of something I did in CoH that was an homage to Supergirl that lasted in the game 7+ years without ever getting banned/genericed once. This character looked just about as close to the following as the costume creator would let me get:


Now the reason I "got away" with doing it was a combination of the following:

1) Her name in CoH was nothing even remotely close to "Supergirl".
2) My character didn't have a big red "S" on her outfit (I used a star symbol).
3) Instead of making her some kind of Invulnerable Tank I made her an Electric Blaster.

So basically while looking like Supergirl she was pretty much anything but Supergirl character-wise.

Again just be smart about it and you'll be fine.

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

Wraith_Shadow
Wraith_Shadow's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: 02/18/2015 - 14:46
one of the things i like to

one of the things i like to do, if we have multiple costume slots, is to have at least one "homage" costume. Just that one look that is clearly made to look like an established hero they might be inspired by or similar to. I'm really looking forward to seeing what "legally non-established existing characters" I come across in game, as well.

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
I do similar but it's homage

I do similar but it's homage to a previous version of the character :p


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
avelworldcreator
avelworldcreator's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 weeks 18 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 12/04/2012 - 12:19
We should have multiple

We should have multiple costume slots.

-----------

Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

We should have multiple costume slots.

Was that feature ever in question for CoT? lol

I'm being deadly serious when I say I consider having multiple costume slots for each character such a fundamental feature of this game that I'd seriously consider NOT playing CoT if it did not support it. That's how important it is to me at any rate. Both CoH and CO provided for multiple costume slots at their launches - I simply do not see it as a "if we can get around to it" kind of thing.

Now how the extra slots are earned/unlocked can be implemented as the Devs see fit but their very existence should NOT be in question here.

P.S. Obviously having multiple costume slots might not make it in for "Issue 0" or any other "pre-launch" build. I'm specifically saying they need to be there by official launch time.

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

avelworldcreator
avelworldcreator's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 weeks 18 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 12/04/2012 - 12:19
I'm just being cautious in my

I'm just being cautious in my statements. I'm pretty sure about multiple slots - I just don't know how many to start, when they become available, and what the limit is. I think CoX had, what? Five? Six? It's been so long. :(

-----------

Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.

Cobalt Azurean
Cobalt Azurean's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 months 2 days ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/03/2013 - 16:39
Six initial, four earnable.

Six initial, four earnable. At level 20, 30, 40 you get the Icon mission to unlock a slot, plus whatever you open with the Halloween Event. Someone today mentioned in Help that you can switch sides and get their earnable costume slots too.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

I'm just being cautious in my statements. I'm pretty sure about multiple slots - I just don't know how many to start, when they become available, and what the limit is. I think CoX had, what? Five? Six? It's been so long. :(

Sure, I guess at this point it's still hard to be "definite" about any feature for the game.

As FYI CoH launched with 4 slots. You had to unlock the 2nd slot at level 20, 3rd at 30 and 4th at 40 via the Icon missions. Eventually a few years later they offered a 5th "Halloween" slot. Then they finally allowed people to buy from 1 to 5 additional slots in the cash store so the final possible max was 10 slots.

Again the details of how players in CoT will earn/unlock them should be up to however the Devs want to handle it. I'm just stressing that they need to be there in some form/fashion from the very beginning.

Although I would obviously consider having a HUGE number of costume slots important I understand that having a "absolute max limit" would make things easier to code software GUI-wise. I would think that having a tip-top limit of say 20 slots per character would not be an impossibly unreasonable long-term goal. I would suggest that the game give people at least two slots as a starting minimum (one for a basic superhero outfit and one for a "casual secret ID" outfit). After that any extra slots could come as a combination of mission rewards and/or buying them from the cash store.

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Six initial, four earnable. At level 20, 30, 40 you get the Icon mission to unlock a slot, plus whatever you open with the Halloween Event. Someone today mentioned in Help that you can switch sides and get their earnable costume slots too.

So I assume that's how the current rogue CoH servers are doing it. Sounds like they are just giving the 5 slots you used to have to buy in the cash store directly to starting characters for free. If you're correct about the "switching sides to earn their slots too" thing that seems like that would add up to 13 slots. A weird number but why not...

If the rogue CoH servers are set up to offer 13 slots then it shouldn't be a huge leap of imagination for CoT to offer some larger number like 20 slots. CoT needs to do "something" better than CoH after all. ;)

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

Project_Hero
Project_Hero's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago
Joined: 10/09/2014 - 11:21
Man, in Champions Online I

Man, in Champions Online I think I had around 14 costume slots or maybe close to 20. I love my characters having multiple casual outfits so they don't need to wear the same thing all the time or be like a cartoon character have like 10 sets of the exact same clothes. Or sometimes, in CoH, I'd go to icon to change my casual outfit (if I only had the one extra because of level) a little bit just to look like a different outfit, it's amazing how easy it is to do just by changing colors and/or chest symbol.

Not that I think anyone ever noticed or cared that I made sure my character didn't wear the same outfit multiple days in a row. Just a personal preference thing.

If you give me additional costume slots to buy, I will buy them.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
I do hope we're launching

I do hope we're launching (Issue 1) with at least 5.


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Man, in Champions Online I think I had around 14 costume slots or maybe close to 20.

Ironically one of the few innovative things that CO did right was to offer extra costumes slots for sale in their cash shop. It took CoH almost two whole years to finally "copy" that feature from CO.

Project_Hero wrote:

I love my characters having multiple casual outfits so they don't need to wear the same thing all the time or be like a cartoon character have like 10 sets of the exact same clothes. Or sometimes, in CoH, I'd go to icon to change my casual outfit (if I only had the one extra because of level) a little bit just to look like a different outfit, it's amazing how easy it is to do just by changing colors and/or chest symbol.

Not that I think anyone ever noticed or cared that I made sure my character didn't wear the same outfit multiple days in a row. Just a personal preference thing.

When I had the 10 slots in CoH I had a mix of superhero outfits and casual outfits on most of my characters. On one character I actually used them as a sort of poor man's "shapechanging power" by having each slot be radically different so that I could simulate being able to shapechange at will. Having that many slots would also be great for a "werewolf" type character that might go through several incremental changes from human to werewolf form.

There's a whole bunch of things you can do when you have lots of costume slots to work with like that.

Project_Hero wrote:

If you give me additional costume slots to buy, I will buy them.

Yes, I too will likely buy as many extra costume slots as the game will allow. :)

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

I do hope we're launching (Issue 1) with at least 5.

I too would hope that starting on launch day (Issue 1) we would have access to as many costume slots as possible, even if many/most of them start off needing to be earned/unlocked before they are usable. As the game progresses there might be the opportunity to add more potential costume slots (like how CoH added an additional unlockable slot for the Halloween Event).

As I mentioned a few days ago I think as a bare minimum every character ought to start the game defaulted with two costume slots; one for a basic "superhero" outfit and one for a "casual secret ID" outfit. By having two slots to begin with it'll make people aware they can have more than one slot in the first place. In effect it'll be like a "tutorial via example". Obviously there would be no need to use/edit the second costume slot if you had no desire to mess with it.

After that I would of course like to be able to earn/unlock as many costume slots as reasonably possible.

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Good point on Tutorial by

Good point on Tutorial by Example!

However I don't like the halloween slot. Such a huge thing for a character to lock out for most of the year....


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Tranquil Flower
Offline
Last seen: 5 months 1 week ago
Joined: 08/16/2017 - 08:53
On a related note, I don't

On a related note, I don't believe we're any further along on confirming whether you can customise a separate set of power effects to go with each costume slot, although it certainly sounded like it's on the list of things MWM would like to implement eventually.

It just occured to me that if you cannot do this, you probably have to have the same props across every costume, or at least the same type of prop in every costume.

That would make the relationship between weapons/tools and costume slots pretty much identical to CoH: you could have different sword styles on your different costumes, but you have to have something that works with your chosen animation set in every costume. I appreciate the underlying architecture isn't actually the same, so even if we're locked in at the start it could become less restrictive down the road, wheras weapons were directly coupled to powersets in CoH, so they kind of had to be inherent in every different costume for the same character.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Good point on Tutorial by Example!

However I don't like the halloween slot. Such a huge thing for a character to lock out for most of the year....

At least the Halloween costume slot was unlockable every year (not only one particular year) but yeah I'd agree that getting an extra costume slot like that should NOT be restricted to an event that only happens once a year. Let's just say it was an "interesting idea" that probably shouldn't be repeated in CoT.

Instead of restricting such a costume slot unlock to a once-a-year event it could be tied to a particular repeatable mission or trial. An obvious idea for this is to have some mission related to an "evil fashion designer" that you have to defeat and as a reward you get an extra costume slot. Clearly this means we need a CoT version of Mugatu we can defeat:

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tranquil Flower wrote:
Tranquil Flower wrote:

On a related note, I don't believe we're any further along on confirming whether you can customise a separate set of power effects to go with each costume slot, although it certainly sounded like it's on the list of things MWM would like to implement eventually.

It just occured to me that if you cannot do this, you probably have to have the same props across every costume, or at least the same type of prop in every costume.

That would make the relationship between weapons/tools and costume slots pretty much identical to CoH: you could have different sword styles on your different costumes, but you have to have something that works with your chosen animation set in every costume. I appreciate the underlying architecture isn't actually the same, so even if we're locked in at the start it could become less restrictive down the road, wheras weapons were directly coupled to powersets in CoH, so they kind of had to be inherent in every different costume for the same character.

Yeah nothing about this is going to be trivial to implement.

In CoH we were eventually allowed to pick A) the color of our primary and secondary power effects and B) one of a small handful of hardwired animations for each power. Any associated weapons/props were locked to the powersets we were using but the things we could change were uniquely definable for each costume slot.

The main difference between that and what CoT hopes to do is to allow us to pick the colors of ALL powers (including tertiaries) and provide a larger selection of animations and/or power emanation points including selection of props. It's basically everything CoH gave us but "more".

I'd have to hope that all of these things will be uniquely configurable per costume slot in CoT. If they aren't then it'll represent a step backwards in capability. Again not saying that'll be easy for MWM to do, but something they should at least be shooting for.

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
At end of CoT you had

At end of CoT you had customization sets and weapons for each costume slot, so I assume CoT will be at least as good :)


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Atama
Atama's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 3 months ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/09/2013 - 22:32
I’d like to see holiday

I’d like to see holiday costume slots that you can configure with unique holiday-themed pieces that are only active during that holiday (maybe the week before/after the day). It’s Christmas time, you can wear reindeer antlers and a Santa suit. Halloween, put on the Jack O’ Lantern head. Valentines Day, put on your tiny Cupid wings and you can activate the heart-shaped power projectiles.

Everyone gets those slots for free at character creation and they can modify them whenever they want. They just can’t switch to them out-of-season.

That makes more sense to me than “it’s Halloween, here’s a new permanent slot for whatever”.

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Or just two free tailor

Or just two free tailor sessions each holiday (one in and one out).


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Project_Hero
Project_Hero's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago
Joined: 10/09/2014 - 11:21
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Good point on Tutorial by Example!

However I don't like the halloween slot. Such a huge thing for a character to lock out for most of the year....

At least the Halloween costume slot was unlockable every year (not only one particular year) but yeah I'd agree that getting an extra costume slot like that should NOT be restricted to an event that only happens once a year. Let's just say it was an "interesting idea" that probably shouldn't be repeated in CoT.

Instead of restricting such a costume slot unlock to a once-a-year event it could be tied to a particular repeatable mission or trial. An obvious idea for this is to have some mission related to an "evil fashion designer" that you have to defeat and as a reward you get an extra costume slot. Clearly this means we need a CoT version of Mugatu we can defeat:

Something I just thought of, in regards to holiday events, is if for holiday events you got some kind of generic holiday token (as opposed to a holiday specific one) which you could then exchange in some sort of holiday event shop for past and present holiday rewards. That way something like a costume slot could be offered but you wouldn't need to wait a full year for it to come around again. Also would be good if a new event didn't offer you anything you wanted this time around as you'd be able to put the tokens towards holiday swag you missed out on when it came around.

Hopefully I explained that well, for I am tired.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Good point on Tutorial by Example!

However I don't like the halloween slot. Such a huge thing for a character to lock out for most of the year....

At least the Halloween costume slot was unlockable every year (not only one particular year) but yeah I'd agree that getting an extra costume slot like that should NOT be restricted to an event that only happens once a year. Let's just say it was an "interesting idea" that probably shouldn't be repeated in CoT.

Something I just thought of, in regards to holiday events, is if for holiday events you got some kind of generic holiday token (as opposed to a holiday specific one) which you could then exchange in some sort of holiday event shop for past and present holiday rewards. That way something like a costume slot could be offered but you wouldn't need to wait a full year for it to come around again. Also would be good if a new event didn't offer you anything you wanted this time around as you'd be able to put the tokens towards holiday swag you missed out on when it came around.

Hopefully I explained that well, for I am tired.

Your idea here is actually not too far off from a concept that Fallout 76 has been introducing literally in the last few weeks. Basically they are adding new "faction stores" that require "faction currency" much like your idea. The only real difference is that they are permanently active without being linked to any periodic event that comes and goes like a holiday. I'll explain one of these ideas as an example that might be reworked for something that could apply to CoT.

In FO76 they now have a faction called the Pioneer Scouts. It's basically a complete copy-cat ripoff of the Boy Scouts but with a post-apocalyptic twist. Since there's practically no "normal people" left in the world the robots left behind that run the organization now let anyone of any age join. In game terms once you join the Scouts you are allowed access to a new system of earning scout badges. The idea from here is pretty straightforward: By earning these new badges (which serve as the "faction currency") you can spend those badges in the scout store (which only accepts those badges) to get special clothes, plans, backpacks and other items that you can only get in the scout store.

So in essence the Pioneer Scouts thing is a pretense to have a unique subset of items that can only be purchased with a unique type of currency. It's basically your "generic holiday store" idea without being limited to certain days of the year.

I could see this kind of thing being reworked into CoT terms fairly easily. You could have a "black market" that serves the shady side of town that requires you to earn "demerits" or whatever to get special items. Or there could be a magical faction along the lines of Dr. Strange that sells "magic" oriented things. There's no reason why CoT couldn't manage to have several different systems going like this to cater to all types of characters.

This idea is not completely revolutionary for a MMO (heck even CoH flirted with this idea with the Incarnate merit vendors) and it has the advantage of not being "locked" behind certain days on a calendar. Players would be able to earn these things whenever they wanted.

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

Project_Hero
Project_Hero's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago
Joined: 10/09/2014 - 11:21
Having it available for

Having it available for holiday items would be good though, that way if you missed getting something you can get it next event rather than next year.

Having various other faction currencies and rewards would be fine, though to save on clutter and such possibly just having faction rewards at certain reputation levels might be better.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
In fewer words: holiday

In fewer words: holiday tokens could be better used as faction tokens. Kinda like Merits in CoH, but less about difficulty and more about reputation.

Idk, I find unique faction currency kinda silly. Every uses USD :p Black Market, The Kamar-Taj, Tyrosine, the Regency. Errbody needs to eat.


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

In fewer words: holiday tokens could be better used as faction tokens. Kinda like Merits in CoH, but less about difficulty and more about reputation.

Idk, I find unique faction currency kinda silly. Every uses USD :p Black Market, The Kamar-Taj, Tyrosine, the Regency. Errbody needs to eat.

Eh, maybe as Project_Hero implied these "faction stores" could work on some combination of different currencies based on reputation. Maybe if your reputation with a certain faction is high enough you have better/cheaper payment options (i.e. "We like you so you have good credit with us" or "We don't trust you so you have to pay us in untraceable quatloos") or whatever.

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

avelworldcreator
avelworldcreator's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 weeks 18 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 12/04/2012 - 12:19
As far as I know costume

As far as I know costume slots will be a complete costume. Our costumes and such are a simple JSON text string and storage should be fairly trivial. We just pass the string to a given character and it "dresses" itself. That string should be able to include all the auras, props, etc. for that character costume slot. The number of initial slots and so on is unknown to me at this time.

-----------

Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

As far as I know costume slots will be a complete costume. Our costumes and such are a simple JSON text string and storage should be fairly trivial. We just pass the string to a given character and it "dresses" itself. That string should be able to include all the auras, props, etc. for that character costume slot. The number of initial slots and so on is unknown to me at this time.

Thanks for the info. I never assumed the "data storage" part of costumes would be an issue. I figured the "message transmission" part might be more of an issue, especially when considering whether you'll need to impose an arbitrary "costume change timeout" like there was in CoH. It was a 30 second timeout in CoH and while CoT may still need some kind of timer like that I'm hoping it can be much less than 30 seconds and still serve its purpose.

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Yeah that was a long 30s :p

Yeah that was a long 30s :p


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Yeah that was a long 30s :p

I get that there probably ought to be a costume change timeout of -some- length just to help prevent network lag griefing. But I suspect that a timeout of say 5 or 10 seconds would actually serve the same purpose without being horrendously overly annoying.

The worst part of the 30 second timeout in CoH was when you were changing costumes and you accidentally picked the wrong one. It was during those times when those 30 seconds could seem like a virtual eternity...

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

Project_Hero
Project_Hero's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago
Joined: 10/09/2014 - 11:21
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Yeah that was a long 30s :p

I get that there probably ought to be a costume change timeout of -some- length just to help prevent network lag griefing. But I suspect that a timeout of say 5 or 10 seconds would actually serve the same purpose without being horrendously overly annoying.

The worst part of the 30 second timeout in CoH was when you were changing costumes and you accidentally picked the wrong one. It was during those times when those 30 seconds could seem like a virtual eternity...

Especially if you switched into something more risque than usual/you meant to. Or something special, or something weird, i guess.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

Halae
Halae's picture
Offline
Last seen: 3 years 8 months ago
11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 09/17/2014 - 09:37
I feel like 15 seconds is

I feel like 15 seconds is probably the maximum for a "it feels good" cooldown timer. Long enough to prevent any kind of network mishandling, short enough that by the time you realize you screwed up or want to change again, a third of the time is already gone, and at that point 10 seconds is far more palatable than 25

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".

Cinnder
Cinnder's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 weeks ago
Gunterkickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 08/26/2013 - 16:24
Halae wrote:
Halae wrote:

I feel like 15 seconds is probably the maximum for a "it feels good" cooldown timer. Long enough to prevent any kind of network mishandling, short enough that by the time you realize you screwed up or want to change again, a third of the time is already gone, and at that point 10 seconds is far more palatable than 25

Interestingly enough, on the Homecoming servers the wait time has been changed to 15 seconds.

However, given that MWM has said it would be too burdensome on the engine to allow costume changes in combat, I suspect despite the simplicity of the JSON format here we might still be looking at some timing issues.

I do wonder how much money my family would save on clothes, though, if we could dress ourselves with just a string. ;-)

Spurn all ye kindle.

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Especially if you switched into something more risque than usual/you meant to. Or something special, or something weird, i guess.

I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about with that...

Even if an accidental costume switch in question was not "embarrassing" it was still very annoying to wait that long to fix it.

Halae wrote:

I feel like 15 seconds is probably the maximum for a "it feels good" cooldown timer. Long enough to prevent any kind of network mishandling, short enough that by the time you realize you screwed up or want to change again, a third of the time is already gone, and at that point 10 seconds is far more palatable than 25

If MWM can't figure out another way to avoid the costume change timeout completely then having it be set to 15 seconds would obviously be better than 30.

Cinnder wrote:

Interestingly enough, on the Homecoming servers the wait time has been changed to 15 seconds.

Thanks for sharing that information. I think it's ironically funny given how often the suggestion to reduce that timer came up on the old CoH forum (and not just from me, multiple people periodically brought the topic up over the years) that it took a bunch of people running "post-shutdown" servers to finally listen to the playerbase and make that change. Oh well, better late than never. ;)

Of course this pretty much means if the old game can handle having a 15 second costume change timeout then CoT is really going to have a hard time justifying not being able to do the same or better.

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

Culach
Culach's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 10 months ago
11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 11/11/2013 - 18:12
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

There's nothing wrong if you want to make a costume in CoT that looks "similar" to an established hero's costume or using the "general design" of something that already exists in another venue. But be aware that Marvel actually sued CoH back in 2004 on the basis that the game allowed you to create "copy-cat" Marvel characters. Basically if too many people start creating too many "clone" characters it could potentially cause somebody to sue MWM for it.

As a response the GMs of CoH stepped up their efforts to "generic" people whose names were too close to established character names and they even banned some people's costumes that were inappropriate for all sorts of reasons just to protect the game. I would assume they would be just as protective in CoT.

Now there are obviously several easy ways to avoid any problems with this. First off don't even try to NAME your characters anything even close to an established IP. Even something like "SuperUberMan" would probably be stupid to try. Next you can always switch up the basic colors used. For example we all know Wonder Woman's basic costume is a red top, blue bottoms with gold highlights. For CoT you could have the same costume but in white/silver or some other basic scheme.

Just be smart about what you do. Again there's nothing wrong with creating an homage character but avoid attempting to make identical clones with exact powers/names. I'll leave you with an example of something I did in CoH that was an homage to Supergirl that lasted in the game 7+ years without ever getting banned/genericed once. This character looked just about as close to the following as the costume creator would let me get:


Now the reason I "got away" with doing it was a combination of the following:

1) Her name in CoH was nothing even remotely close to "Supergirl".
2) My character didn't have a big red "S" on her outfit (I used a star symbol).
3) Instead of making her some kind of Invulnerable Tank I made her an Electric Blaster.

So basically while looking like Supergirl she was pretty much anything but Supergirl character-wise.

Again just be smart about it and you'll be fine.

I just remember Jim Butcher having Harry Dresden genericed multiple times in CoH. I would hope that CoT could find a way to prevent that from happening to individuals who actually DO own the rights to a particular character name and look.

On the topic of homage characters: I created a character I named Dr Dresden that was an amalgamation of both Harry Dresden and Doctor Strange. His appearance was a mashup of the two as well: red trenchcoat, black shirt and pants with boots and he had the goatee and Hairstyle of Doctor Strange. Also, my namesake was originally an homage to Deathstroke and Deadpool (who was originally a rip-off of Deathstroke), but all I did was take the powersets (BS/Regen) and then made a costume that looked nothing like them. I also had a character, Mighty Mite, that was a combo of Superman and Abe Sapien (from Hellboy).

My real point here is that you can approach homage characters in ways that don't cause your carefully crafted homage character and costume to suddenly become a pink and yellow clown suit with the name GenericMan7266.

1. You can use a similar costume, but use a different powerset
2. Use the same powerset, but create a unique costume
3. Mash 2 or more characters together to make something new

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Culach]I just remember Jim
Culach wrote:

I just remember Jim Butcher having Harry Dresden genericed multiple times in CoH. I would hope that CoT could find a way to prevent that from happening to individuals who actually DO own the rights to a particular character name and look.

Well to be fair I'll bet that most people who GM games like CoH never expect the person who actually OWNS the IP rights to a given character would also be the same person trying to play those characters in a third party MMO game. For what it's worth if I ever created a famous comic book character and wanted to use that character in a MMO it would be annoying to have some random well-meaning idiots constantly try to generic me for doing that. ;)

I honestly doubt this scenario will be a "huge" problem in CoT regardless.

Culach wrote:

My real point here is that you can approach homage characters in ways that don't cause your carefully crafted homage character and costume to suddenly become a pink and yellow clown suit with the name GenericMan7266.

1. You can use a similar costume, but use a different powerset
2. Use the same powerset, but create a unique costume
3. Mash 2 or more characters together to make something new

Exactly. The key is to not copy something 100% identically. The trap is when you try to combine an existing name, costume and concept all together in the same single character.

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Am I dumb or is recreating a

Am I dumb or is recreating a established character (in costume and powerset) a total non-issue?


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Am I dumb or is recreating a established character (in costume and powerset) a total non-issue?

As I mentioned earlier in the thread CoH was actually sued by Marvel over this very issue. Luckily for CoH the lawsuit was eventually deemed more or less frivolous and settled without much impact to the game. But CoT is still going to be vulnerable to the same kinds of threats and more than likely there will be GMs employed by MWM who will be "on-call" to police things like this once CoT is up and running.

Basically as long as it doesn't happen too much I doubt it'll be a big deal for CoT. But if people start trying to churn out hundreds of Superman and Wolverine clones every day the news of that will spread and it might lure the various IP owners into slapping MWM around with legal troubles they can't afford to deal with.

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

Hablaguy28
Hablaguy28's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 10 months ago
Joined: 10/04/2018 - 10:45
Instead of making clones,

Instead of making clones, make homages where you take inspirations from the characters set and make it a unique twist and have it set in COT.

Like, let's make a quick homage character, Batman.

Instead of a bat with no powers having losing his parents in crime alley.

He is instead a non-themed animal that may have the name of Nightfall and has night like abilities or shadow control limited, and his parents are an evil cult that are alive.

But brings few Batman inspirations like, he is insanely rich and has gadgetry that protects the city from criminals at night.

"Science is the gift of humanity that we all should treasure."

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Am I dumb or is recreating a established character (in costume and powerset) a total non-issue?

As I mentioned earlier in the thread CoH was actually sued by Marvel over this very issue. Luckily for CoH the lawsuit was eventually deemed more or less frivolous and settled without much impact to the game. But CoT is still going to be vulnerable to the same kinds of threats and more than likely there will be GMs employed by MWM who will be "on-call" to police things like this once CoT is up and running.

K, I'm not a lawyer, but the suit would be pretty short: "hey, in Marvel vs Cryptic, they agreed that this is frivolous."


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Costume change cool down

Costume change cool down timers will be determined based on testing for guaranteeing decent performance for how low end system specs and for maintaining stability for mass costume changes over time.

If that has to be 10s or 1 minute it will be what it is. Feelings about what is the right or wrong cool down time has very little to do with it. It’s all about maintaining performance.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Halae
Halae's picture
Offline
Last seen: 3 years 8 months ago
11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 09/17/2014 - 09:37
Well yeah, and I think we'll

Well yeah, and I think we'll all deal with it if you guys need to set it to a specific time.

We're just discussing what would feel right to us.

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".

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Costume change cool down timers will be determined based on testing for guaranteeing decent performance for how low end system specs and for maintaining stability for mass costume changes over time.

If that has to be 10s or 1 minute it will be what it is. Feelings about what is the right or wrong cool down time has very little to do with it. It’s all about maintaining performance.

Obviously testing will determine the right value for this game. But if for some reason the value for the "costume change cool down timer" in CoT has to be LONGER than CoH's original 30 second length I would consider that a seriously disappointing step backwards considering the software technology involved is now approaching 20 years more advanced than the previous game. I hope you can honestly understand how "unintuitive" it would be to have the newer game preform WORSE in this regard.

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Halae wrote:
Halae wrote:

Well yeah, and I think we'll all deal with it if you guys need to set it to a specific time.

We're just discussing what would feel right to us.

I have always assumed and accepted that there would likely need to be a costume change timeout of SOME length in CoT. I simply continue to be boggled by the possibility that CoT's timeout timer might potentially have to be LONGER than CoH's original semi-ridiculous 30 second timer. If it were deemed necessary to make it that long in CoT I would sadly have to categorically consider that to be a fundamental failure on MWM's part. Sorry, that's just how I feel. *shrugs*

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Am I dumb or is recreating a established character (in costume and powerset) a total non-issue?

As I mentioned earlier in the thread CoH was actually sued by Marvel over this very issue. Luckily for CoH the lawsuit was eventually deemed more or less frivolous and settled without much impact to the game. But CoT is still going to be vulnerable to the same kinds of threats and more than likely there will be GMs employed by MWM who will be "on-call" to police things like this once CoT is up and running.

K, I'm not a lawyer, but the suit would be pretty short: "hey, in Marvel vs Cryptic, they agreed that this is frivolous."

Even if such a future lawsuit against CoT was equally frivolous it would still force MWM to deal with the legal fees and hassle of handling it. I don't think we'd want MWM to waste any additional time or resources with such problems.

Basically I would expect MWM to take the same proactive measures CoH did to prevent the most obvious violations. Expect the character name filter to prevent you from using the most obvious names (i.e. Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) and expect people to get reported and "generic'd" for creating "exact clones" of existing IPs. I'd rather MWM police their game instead of giving people like Marvel or DC easy excuses to sue MWM into the dirt.

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Costume change cool down timers will be determined based on testing for guaranteeing decent performance for how low end system specs and for maintaining stability for mass costume changes over time.

If that has to be 10s or 1 minute it will be what it is. Feelings about what is the right or wrong cool down time has very little to do with it. It’s all about maintaining performance.

Obviously testing will determine the right value for this game. But if for some reason the value for the "costume change cool down timer" in CoT has to be LONGER than CoH's original 30 seconds was I would consider that a seriously disappointing step backwards considering the software technology involved is now approaching 20 years more advanced than the previous game. I hope you can honestly understand how "unintuitive" it would be to have the newer game preform WORSE in this regard.

Direct comparisons fall apart rather quickly when you consider how much more advanced our costumes are as well.

We’ve done our best to reduce draw calls, but we have also added more than many games (yes even over CoH) have to handle as well. Tech may have advanced but so has what we are doing with that tech.

If we were aiming to replicate CoH but on modern machines, then yes, obviously we could improve the cool down timer.

Butt saying anything else is a failure by using a single comparison fails to compare everything else involved. If it has to be a minute then it’s a minute and wha a 20 year old game did or didn’t do has no bearing on our game’s performance goals.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Costume change cool down timers will be determined based on testing for guaranteeing decent performance for how low end system specs and for maintaining stability for mass costume changes over time.

If that has to be 10s or 1 minute it will be what it is. Feelings about what is the right or wrong cool down time has very little to do with it. It’s all about maintaining performance.

Obviously testing will determine the right value for this game. But if for some reason the value for the "costume change cool down timer" in CoT has to be LONGER than CoH's original 30 seconds was I would consider that a seriously disappointing step backwards considering the software technology involved is now approaching 20 years more advanced than the previous game. I hope you can honestly understand how "unintuitive" it would be to have the newer game preform WORSE in this regard.

Direct comparisons fall apart rather quickly when you consider how much more advanced our costumes are as well.

We’ve done our best to reduce draw calls, but we have also added more than many games (yes even over CoH) have to handle as well. Tech may have advanced but so has what we are doing with that tech.

If we were aiming to replicate CoH but on modern machines, then yes, obviously we could improve the cool down timer.

Butt saying anything else is a failure by using a single comparison fails to compare everything else involved. If it has to be a minute then it’s a minute and wha a 20 year old game did or didn’t do has no bearing on our game’s performance goals.

It would still be a horrible outcome from a PR point of view. I'm sorry Tannim but you're never going to be able to talk yourself past this one despite the fact that you've tried in several other threads over the years. No one will buy your "you can't compare the two games" explanation - all they are going to see is that CoT is doing something WORSE than CoH did regardless of the reasons for that. *shrugs*

I suppose for CoT's sake you will eventually figure out some way to make that timer 30 seconds or less...

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Costume change cool down timers will be determined based on testing for guaranteeing decent performance for how low end system specs and for maintaining stability for mass costume changes over time.

If that has to be 10s or 1 minute it will be what it is. Feelings about what is the right or wrong cool down time has very little to do with it. It’s all about maintaining performance.

Obviously testing will determine the right value for this game. But if for some reason the value for the "costume change cool down timer" in CoT has to be LONGER than CoH's original 30 seconds was I would consider that a seriously disappointing step backwards considering the software technology involved is now approaching 20 years more advanced than the previous game. I hope you can honestly understand how "unintuitive" it would be to have the newer game preform WORSE in this regard.

Direct comparisons fall apart rather quickly when you consider how much more advanced our costumes are as well.

We’ve done our best to reduce draw calls, but we have also added more than many games (yes even over CoH) have to handle as well. Tech may have advanced but so has what we are doing with that tech.

If we were aiming to replicate CoH but on modern machines, then yes, obviously we could improve the cool down timer.

Butt saying anything else is a failure by using a single comparison fails to compare everything else involved. If it has to be a minute then it’s a minute and wha a 20 year old game did or didn’t do has no bearing on our game’s performance goals.

It would still be a horrible outcome from a PR point of view. I'm sorry Tannim but you're never going to be able to talk yourself past this one despite the fact that you've tried in several other threads over the years. No one will buy your "you can't compare the two games" explanation - all they are going to see is that CoT is doing something WORSE than CoH did regardless of the reasons for that. *shrugs*

I suppose for CoT's sake you will eventually figure out some way to make that timer 30 seconds or less...

People will be people and they will make whatever comparisons. They want. It doesn’t mean they are right. Opinions and feelings and all that.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

People will be people and they will make whatever comparisons. They want. It doesn’t mean they are right. Opinions and feelings and all that.

Oh I would completely agree with you that it would be "totally unfair" to MWM if people complained about such a timer being longer/worse than CoH's timer without taking into account the actual differences involved. But do you honestly believe the average player is going to be "forgiving" about such a thing?

I totally understand that the amount of "costume data" being transmitted on the CoT networks is likely substantially larger than what CoH handled thus raising the "possibility" that the timer involved will have to be huge, or at the very least longer than 30 seconds. But the unwashed masses aren't going to care about "the wonky details" no matter what you say.

I'm simply being brutally honest with you that people would in fact scream bloody murder about this because on a simple "gut level" all they are going to see is that something that only takes 15 seconds (now on the rogue CoH servers) might take as much as a minute in CoT and that's simply going to LOOK BAD no matter how you try to rationalize it.

I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make here. As you yourself said "opinions and feelings and all that"...

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

warlocc
warlocc's picture
Offline
Last seen: 14 hours 55 min ago
Developerkickstarter
Joined: 09/20/2013 - 16:38
I'm with Tannm on this one.

I'm with Tannm on this one.
You can't design a game thinking "Well, other game had X, so we need to have Y!" on every decision, especially one as minor as this. If it's possible to do that it's nice, but if you frame every decision that way, you're just going to limit yourself. Sometimes new systems come with new parameters. This very well could be one of them.

PR Team, Forum Moderator, Live Response Team

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
How about we cross that

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server)


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
warlocc wrote:
warlocc wrote:

I'm with Tannm on this one.
You can't design a game thinking "Well, other game had X, so we need to have Y!" on every decision, especially one as minor as this. If it's possible to do that it's nice, but if you frame every decision that way, you're just going to limit yourself. Sometimes new systems come with new parameters. This very well could be one of them.

I'm not really being that "nit-picky" here. In general I think it should be a guiding principal that NOTHING about CoT should be worse or work less well than an equivalent feature from a 15+ year old game. I really don't think that is too much to ask for. If you really don't mind MWM giving us a game that has inferior qualities to CoH we might as well ask them to give us a remake of Pac-Man.

You talk about limiting your outlook on things like this. Accepting out-of-hand that some feature might have to be twice as bad is a "limitation" as I would define it. *shrugs*

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

Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server)

Again I'm more than willing to let testing inform the values necessary for CoT. But I'm still going to consider features in CoT ending up being "less effective" than they were in CoH to be a "bad thing" worth avoiding if possible.

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server)

Again I'm more than willing to let testing inform the values necessary for CoT. But I'm still going to consider features in CoT ending up being "less effective" than they were in CoH to be a "bad thing" worth avoiding if possible.

I bolded part of this quote for emphasis. It isn’t as if I’m saying we are aiming to have something like costume changes take forever. I’m just saying, testing will determine what is best for both server and low end systems maintaining decent performance.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
DesViper wrote:

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server)

Again I'm more than willing to let testing inform the values necessary for CoT. But I'm still going to consider features in CoT ending up being "less effective" than they were in CoH to be a "bad thing" worth avoiding if possible.

I bolded part of this quote for emphasis. It isn’t as if I’m saying we are aiming to have something like costume changes take forever. I’m just saying, testing will determine what is best for both server and low end systems maintaining decent performance.

Right... and on the same token I'll say one more time (bolded for emphasis) if you guys, for whatever reason, are forced to let something like this end up being WORSE than CoH then IT'LL LOOK BAD FOR YOU, period. I'm not trying to scare you; again just being brutally honest.

Perhaps instead of wasting our time here telling us MWM MIGHT fuck this up why don't you collectively spend more time making sure MWM DOESN'T fuck this up in the first place. Shockingly I'm actually the optimist here - I'm the only one here who seems to think MWM just -might- be smart enough to pull off a reasonable length costume timer. On the other hand we have you effectively telling us to expect the worst. Sorry, I'm not willing to give up on MWM just yet. ;)

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
How about we cross that

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server).


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

How about we cross that bridge when we get to it (enough people to properly stress-test a live server).

We hadn't talked about costume change timers for almost two weeks even in this thread. Not entirely sure what Tannim was trying to accomplish tonight other than restating the obvious:

    The CoT costume timer values will be determined by testing.

and my perfectly obvious and reasonable response:

    If those values end up being worse than CoH it'll be "a bad thing".

As I implied we've actually hashed through this several times in earlier threads. Not sure anything of substance got added here...

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

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
No one's saying "worse than

No one's saying "worse than CoH" would be a good thing....of course tech team will work to get a timer as low as possible. Can you ask more?


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

No one's saying "worse than CoH" would be a good thing....of course tech team will work to get a timer as low as possible. Can you ask more?

Obviously we can assume MWM will try to make the timer as low as possible. I don't really need to be "told" that - I can assume that as a reasonable given.

But I can ASK that the timer not be worse than CoH's timer and I can describe the likely blowback (legitimate or not) MWM will get if they can't accomplish that. It's not me people will be yelling at if this CoT timer is worse than CoH's, they'll be yelling at MWM. I'm just the messenger here...

***************************

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
I only state caution because

I only state caution because it is possibly warranted. It is one ting to say CoH had a 30s timer on costumes changes and we have to match or exceed that. It’s another thing to say that our costume system does a much, much more than CoH, somethings are handled very differently as a result of what is offered and therefore the metric that CoH used is no longer directly applicable.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Dark Cleric
Dark Cleric's picture
Offline
Last seen: 11 hours 12 min ago
Joined: 05/14/2018 - 12:26
Begs the question...how much

Begs the question...how much of the rest of the game is going to be 'capped' because of the large costume draw? Or is it only things that deal with the costume specifically? Like costume change and loading screens? Will it cap the number of players per shard? If so....will shards always feel empty of other players?

Im just curious if there are other areas being noticeably affected by the amount of 'draw' needed for costumes?

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
We don’t have shards. We use

We don’t have shards. We use a mega-server approach with multiple instances. We have reduced the number of draw calls compared to CoH which helps significantly with this issue.

NPCs don’t use the same costume pieces as PCs. We have to make the PC versions that are purchased / unlocked separately.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I only state caution because it is possibly warranted. It is one ting to say CoH had a 30s timer on costumes changes and we have to match or exceed that. It’s another thing to say that our costume system does a much, much more than CoH, somethings are handled very differently as a result of what is offered and therefore the metric that CoH used is no longer directly applicable.

*****************************************

You speak of "caution" yet you continue not to heed my warning. I've already told you IT DOES NOT MATTER that CoT might be amazingly different and/or more complex than CoH ever was. The ONLY THING people would see if CoT's timer is say one minute long is that it's TWICE AS BAD as CoH was *************************************

Would it be fair for people to say you messed things up if the CoT timer is a minute long? Of course not; yet that's exactly what will be said of this REGARDLESS of your ********* constant repetition that "CoT is more complex". People AREN'T going to care about the "whys", they'll only care they've got a stupidly long timer to deal with.

Please heed my sensible warnings and develop your game accordingly. ********************************************

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Your warning is understood. I

Your warning is understood. I do not offer excises, but merely state the reality of the situation. The timer will be whatever it has to be to meet expected minimum performance. Of course we will want that as low as possible. Whatever it is won’t be set by what another game did or is doing.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Your warning is understood. I do not offer excises, but merely state the reality of the situation. The timer will be whatever it has to be to meet expected minimum performance. Of course we will want that as low as possible. Whatever it is won’t be set by what another game did or is doing.

*sigh* If you don't realize CoT WILL BE COMPARED to CoH in every last detail then you clearly DON'T understand my warning. CoT's benchmark is CoH no matter how many times you stamp your feet and say something else.

CoT's timer length will be whatever your testing dictates. But if it's longer than CoH's it will be a black mark against MWM. **********************************

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Your warning is understood. I do not offer excises, but merely state the reality of the situation. The timer will be whatever it has to be to meet expected minimum performance. Of course we will want that as low as possible. Whatever it is won’t be set by what another game did or is doing.

*sigh* If you don't realize CoT WILL BE COMPARED to CoH in every last detail then you clearly DON'T understand my warning. CoT's benchmark is CoH no matter how many times you stamp your feet and say something else.

CoT's timer length will be whatever your testing dictates. But if it's longer than CoH's it will be a black mark against MWM.

I'm not trying to talk out of anything. When you talk yourself out of something, it is because you are indeed guilty of something done wrong. Perception of wrongdoing is one thing. The reality of a situation is another. Yes, people will make comparisons. It doesn't mean their opinion or feelings about the subject are correct either. The timer will be whatever it has to be according to our situation and our metrics.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Lothic
Lothic's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/02/2013 - 00:27
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Your warning is understood. I do not offer excises, but merely state the reality of the situation. The timer will be whatever it has to be to meet expected minimum performance. Of course we will want that as low as possible. Whatever it is won’t be set by what another game did or is doing.

*sigh* If you don't realize CoT WILL BE COMPARED to CoH in every last detail then you clearly DON'T understand my warning. CoT's benchmark is CoH no matter how many times you stamp your feet and say something else.

CoT's timer length will be whatever your testing dictates. But if it's longer than CoH's it will be a black mark against MWM. Sorry, you can't talk yourself out of this.

I'm not trying to talk out of anything. When you talk yourself out of something, it is because you are indeed guilty of something done wrong. Perception of wrongdoing is one thing. The reality of a situation is another. Yes, people will make comparisons. It doesn't mean their opinion or feelings about the subject are correct either. The timer will be whatever it has to be according to our situation and our metrics.

***** I've said about 10 times it won't matter if "their opinion or feelings about the subject are correct" or not. Of course they will NOT be correct; but they will be your CUSTOMERS. Their "faulty perception" of your game is something you're going to want to care about.

They will assume you've made something worse than CoH no matter why you did it good, bad or otherwise. ********************** ***************** **********************

You could keep saying "we had to make it that long because of X, Y and Z" until the cows came home and no one would listen to your well-reasoned excuses.

*********************************************

P.S. Just remember you unilaterally decided to jump back into this thread with this discussion. I'm still trying to figure out why.

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

Tannim222
Tannim222's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 days 22 hours ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
I didn't jump back in this

I didn't jump back in this thread. I didn't post in this thread until last night. I did so because despite what you may assert, your opinion of what others may or may not, including yourself say about how we are screwing things up, doesn't mean we have to adhere to a metric set by any other game.

We aren't beholden to "that's how CoH did it". If what you say is true, we should go back and remove a ton of features built into the costume system, the power design, the combat mechanics, and so on. If CoH is the absolute gold standard in every single aspect of design, then we shouldn't be making this game at all then.

It is not as if we are setting out to make switching costumes arbitrarily long. The timer will be whatever it has to be according to our metrics. If that's 5 seconds for 50, it will have to be what it is. People may disagree no matter what we do or say, they have that right to complain until the cows come home. But once we set the performance limit after testing, it will be what it is until we decide to raise the minimum specs and the standard of performance, if ever.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Lothic, please refrain from

Lothic, please refrain from personal insults in the future.


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember
Cobalt Azurean
Cobalt Azurean's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 months 2 days ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/03/2013 - 16:39
Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I didn't jump back in this thread. I didn't post in this thread until last night. I did so because despite what you may assert, your opinion of what others may or may not, including yourself say about how we are screwing things up, doesn't mean we have to adhere to a metric set by any other game.

We aren't beholden to "that's how CoH did it". If what you say is true, we should go back and remove a ton of features built into the costume system, the power design, the combat mechanics, and so on. If CoH is the absolute gold standard in every single aspect of design, then we shouldn't be making this game at all then.

It is not as if we are setting out to make switching costumes arbitrarily long. The timer will be whatever it has to be according to our metrics. If that's 5 seconds for 50, it will have to be what it is. People may disagree no matter what we do or say, they have that right to complain until the cows come home. But once we set the performance limit after testing, it will be what it is until we decide to raise the minimum specs and the standard of performance, if ever.

Well said.

Interdictor
Interdictor's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 5 months ago
11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 08/22/2013 - 05:26
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

But do you honestly believe the average player is going to be "forgiving" about such a thing?

The average gamer....likely won't give much of a crap. It's only a tiny minority of people that would have any need of constantly flipping between costumes every few seconds. 99% of people likely wouldn't even notice, even if it is one minute (though I HIGHLY suspect that it will end up being much shorter than that - they just can't/won't make any promises).

So_So_Desu_
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 4 months ago
Joined: 05/05/2019 - 09:35
I have another set of

I have another set of questions related to the one I asked before. What types of distinguishing features can players add to their character ? For example, will scars, beauty marks/moles, tattoos, cleft chins, high cheekbones, wrinkles, facial hair, unibrows, piercings, etc. be available ? Are there going to be any limits regarding how much detail can players add to our characters' looks ?

DesViper
DesViper's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Developer11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 03/10/2014 - 00:55
Hmmm, not sure if that goes

Hmmm, not sure if that goes in Hair and Attitude or Costume request. Good things to check on though :)


PR, Forum Moderator
My Non-Canon Backstories
Avatar by MikeNovember