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Kickstarter Update Reference List

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Winter
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Kickstarter Update Reference List

I thought it would be nice if we had a condensed easy-reference list of all the Kickstarter updates containing information about Titan City and the game! Below I've included links to all updates containing such information, and they have been categorized by their information type. I hope this will provide some easy access to the little information we currently have about the game. I'll attempt to keep this topic updated with applicable updates as they are released.

DISCLAIMER: As many of the updates disclaim for themselves, any info about the game's lore or mechanics presented in these updates should be taken as goals and/or prospects, not reality. Things are subject to change prior to the release.

Content Releases
244. Now Released: Avatar Builder and Second Chance
247. Stocking Stuffers: Happy Holidays 2019 Updates to character generator, and Holiday Mission on The Island
258. December Patch 2020
260. Mac Milestone and More Avatar Builder updates as of 5/18/21 and Mac Client release
268. Lift Off - Fly Today In Titan City
269. What We Heard About Flight Player feedback on flight and current/intended changes.
283. Explore Titan City Now! 8 large city districts, with 42 unique neighborhoods, ready to explore!

Progress Updates
66. Here We Stand (i.e. Art/Design progress through mid-February)
69. Greetings from Composition (i.e. Composition progress through mid-February)
72. Art from Our New Artists (3/12/14 Art Update)
73. City of Titans to use Unreal Engine 4
86. State of the Game, June 2014
105. Catching up on the Kickstarter (a.k.a. where Kickstarter rewards stand now, and moving forward)
137. Business Leads the Horse to Water (Business)
139. A New Dawn I.E. First demo of character creator and combat, with explanation.
143. State of the Game, June 2015
159. Holidays, Brotherhood, and... Oh Yeah, Gameplay (Tech, Video)
163. This was not easy. And it's not finished. (Prototype) (Our first video look at what the executable game file may look like, and LOTS of character sliders.)
166. Never Let Them See You Sweat (Assessment, Business) i.e. Kickstarter hindsight
171. Happy 4th of July.. and a whole lot more! July 4th, 2016 update
218. Who We Are: Happy 4th of July, 2018 A stunning video using real, in-game footage and playable characters
222. What We Do: Progress Update as of 9/30/18
228. Where We Are: End of Year 2018
241. Where We Are: Testing
242. What It Means: Alpha and Beta
243. What Is Coming: First Release
245. Where We Stand: Second Chance at Two Weeks: An Explanation of how the second round of fundraising will be allocated.
248. Happy New Year 2020 - With Video!
251. Letter From Lockdown
253. July 2020 Patch and Game Function Update
255. October 2020 Avatar Builder: Instant Preview
257. November 2020 Patch
259. 2020 Recap and a Look Ahead to 2021
266. Happy 4th of July 2021 Flight nearly ready for the Island, and a look at combat animations.
276. New Year's Message from Dr. Tyche
280. Unreal Engine 54321 Ignition Updating the game to Unreal 5, and what that brings to the game.
281. Spring if for Spawning Villains - Practical combat alpha against enemies
282. Mac Access Today, and Looking to the Future - Mac client launches, recap of in-game controls, and announcing player integration as the next step.

Meet The Devs
1. Meet Quinn
71. Meet the New Boss (Introducing Dr. Tyche and other members of new administration)
88. Script for: In The Spotlight: Season 1, Episode 1 (a.k.a. Meet Tiger)
92. In the Spotlight: Doctor Tyche
185. Meet The Titan: Hunter Robins Hair Designer for CoT
204. Meet The Titan: Gerard Michael 'Witchikin' Tupaz Character Concept Artist
209. Meet The Titan: Kayla 'Z06' Bianchi Costume and Interior Map Designer
246. Meet The Titan: Tal Kliger Sound Designer/Composer
271. Engineering Powers: Interview with AmieEvil
272. Behind the Keyboard: Interview with Tannim
273. Building the Neighborhoods: Interview with Red Warlock Includes progress of city architecture construction.
274. Music, Visualization, and More Interview with Don "MrArtstrong" Armstrong

Design and Mechanics
3. I Love Instanced Content
7. A Glorious Noise
10. Conceptualizing the World One Piece At A Time
12. Flash And Substance (a.k.a. Character customization/creation info)
13. Serving Up Servers
15. Let's Talk Music
17. Beyond Good and Evil (a.k.a. Character alignment info)
18. How many roads must a man walk down? Forty-Two (a.k.a. Endgame info)
22. Location, Location, Location: More about Instances
25. Missions without Minions
26. Base Relief
28. PVP
29. Costumes and Concepts
30. More, much more than meets the eye (Costume Design cont'd)
33. Choose Your Own Adventure
37. You Have the Power (Mini-Update)
44. How To Design a Memorable Enemy Group
45. How The Plaza Comes To Life
48. A Quick Jaunt To The Store
50. Missions Without Contacts
60. No Sense In Wasting Time (a.k.a. Character Modeling with Houdini)
76. The Real Tech Update (a.k.a. Preliminary particle effects demo)
79. Nearing The End of Pre-Production
81. Writing for City of Titans: The Process
82. Once Upon a Time (a.k.a. Marketing Strategy)
85. Mastering Your Character - A Primer on Masteries
95. Superior Fashion Sense - A Doctor Tyche Requirement (Tech) (a.k.a. Costuming examples as of 8/1/14)
98. Highway to the Danger Room (Game Tech) (i.e. Power Augmentation Intro)
101. Art! T-Shirts! and Secret Origins! (Art is first half.)
103. Proving to the Producer (Tech, Video)
108. Building The Backbone (Tech) (Server and Firewall explanation)
112. When Fist Meets Face - Momentum
117. Merry Christmas! (12 Days of Devmas, Day 1: Art)("The" Beard and Odo)
118. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 2 (Art) (Combat Slide Rule)
119. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 3 (Art) (Top Hats)
120. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 4 (Art) (Keytars and music)
121. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 5 (Art, Video, Tech) (Firefairy wings)
122. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 6 (Art, Video, Tech) (Ninja-to sword)
123. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 7 (Art) (Shoulder dragon)
124. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 8 (Art, Video) (Mutton backpacks)
125. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 9 (Art) (Nine-tailed fox tail)
126. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 10 (Art) (Hammers)
127. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 11 (Art, Video, Tech) (Paint brushes)
128. 12 Days of Devmas, Day 12 (Art) (Mechanized cockroach vanity pet)
129. 12 Days of Devmas, Day... 13? (Art, Present) (Party Art Download
131. Idea, Build, Test, Repeat - Rapid Prototyping (Tech)
133. The Test Zone - Developing the Basics (Art)
135. How a Tree Can Make All The Difference - Map Optimization (Tech)
141. This Update Has Nothing New (Tech) a.k.a. Textures and patterns to spandex costume layers
144. How We Make The Costumes (Art)
146. Mission Missive (Tech)
148. Having A Ball (Art/Tech) a.k.a. How putting a ring on a sphere yielded myriad costuming options.
150. Freedom to Play - at No Extra Cost (Design) a.k.a. How MWM is making the game playable for all
152. Run. Jump. Fly. Port. Cling? (Tech) i.e. Our first real look at travel powers!
153. The Machine Makes the Video (Tech) i.e. Update 152 footage on different grades of machines.
155. Moving On Up - Maps
157. Maps - The Resolution (Tech)
160. Bones, Muscles, Flesh, Rig... IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE! (Tech, Art)
167. Should You Choose To Accept It (Prototype, Tech) a.k.a. 1st look at instanced missions
169. Pieces of a Game (Video) a.k.a. A better look at combat fluidity, and why development is split among multiple instances.
175. In Just Seven Days, I Can Make You A Man (Tech: Body, Costumes) 9/1/16 character model update
177. You're Not Super... Til You Put On The Cape (Tech, Video) 9/28/16 Capes update!
179. Halloween 2016: Time To Put On Your Costume (Tech, Prototype) Character Creation video, showing all options.
183. Devmas 2016: Let It Snow: (Tech, Christmas, Videos, Surprise!) I.E. Santa dances while we see snowfall, twinkling lights, and moving clouds.
187. Where We Stand - The Builder Demo video and Explanation of how roads and buildings are constructed.
189. Where We Stand - The SpandexHow the costume creator is being approached from concept to implementation.
190. What We Can Do - Archetypes
192. What We Can Do - Powers (Anniversary Special) A description of the modular power-to-animation design, with video and pictures.
194. What's The Plan: Finances How Missing Worlds Media plans to keep the game paying for itself, without hurting the players.
195. Developer's Workshop: Animating While Holding How and why animations will not clip with props.
196. How We Made: Rook Slicer Costume What goes into creating a custom costume for NPCs, using the Rook Slicer as an example.
199. Developer's Workshop: Animations Between Male and Female
200. Where We Stand: The PAX West Presentation The video and talk given at PAX West 2017.
202. How It Works: Powerset Designs i.e. The structure of power sets, and up-to-date (10/12/17) list of power sets per archetype available at launch.
203. Developer's Workshop: Animation Blending How Unreal allows for nearly seamless transitions between character animations.
205. Making The Content: Episodes, Tips, and More i.e. What types of instances we'll see, and the specifics of creating Tips.
206. How It's Made: Weighting the Model Before and after gifs of how fine tuning the character model makes all the difference.
207. Where We Stand: Landmarks In-game lore and pictures of some famous buildings coming to Titan City.
208. Living The Story: Paths The Path mission system explained.
210. Pre-Alpha Chargen: Make Anyone
212. What We Can Do: Augments and Refinements Detailed description of how upgrading powers will work, plus a Cape Teaser video.
213. Developer's Workshop: Hair Movement i.e. Balancing hair physics with processing power demands.
215. How It Works: Masteries
217. How It Works: Control Mechanics How "mez" attacks will work in-game.
219. Enemies and Unlocks: The Apkallu More details on Character Creation options, using the new Apkallu enemies as an example.
220. How We Do: Costume Unlocks
221. Sneak Peek: Auras
227. Who We Are: First Costume Contest, Meet the Winners The top submissions from MWM internal testing of the limits of the character creator.
230. Where We Stand: The Avatar Builder
237. Design Evolution: UI Gameplay The design evolution of the UI for gameplay.
238. Design Evolution: UI Avatar Builder The design evolution of the UI for the Avatar Builder.
239. What We Can Do: Reserves What the "Reserves" system is, and how it works.
249. Beyond Good and Evil: An in-depth description of how Renown, Reputation, Bias, and Alignment work together in the game.
252. What We Can Do: Rewards
261. Next Step for Building City of Titans Future build plans for the game 5/18/21
263. Flying High - Travel Powers Preview
264. Doorways to your Lair - Entryways to Housing and Bases
265. Sounds of Titan City Music of the game as of 6/11/21
267. Sounds of Titan City 2
275. Let's Get Ready To... Our first look at combat in motion
278. Introducing... New Items coming to the Avatar Build

The City Itself
6. Launch Day - Districts (Part One)
11. Building a Skyscraper City: What's Special About Titan City's Downtown
20. Getting a Feel for a District - Northeastern Research District
23. A Tour of Clarkstown
27. Launch Day - Districts (Part Two)
38. A Guide To Titan City (2013 Edition), Page 56
89. A Titanic Glossary (a.k.a. update to In-Game, Character, and frequently used terms and their meanings)
110. Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and You! (Art) (a.k.a. Mogul level backer rewards explanation)
161. Landscaping The Lore i.e. The thought process of building the feel and culture of Titan City.
165. Business Update: Local Flavor
181. A World of Titans i.e. World Map description and development process, links to Titan City neighborhood descriptions.
188. What We Know: Downtown Description of downtown, its inhabitants, and its history.
229. Where We Stand: Landmarks and Moguls
232. Where We Stand: More Landmarks and Moguls
233. Where We Stand: More Moguls part 2: Old and New Bradford
234. Where We Stand: More Moguls part 3
235. Moguls and Landmarks: Revisiting Alexandria
240. Where We Are: Construction Zone
250. The City Lives: Alexandria Construction Update
270. Spotlight On Downtown Landmarks and Mogul buildings in the Downtown district

Lore, History, and Characters
19. Gabby Cabbie (Cabbie Tour 1)
21. TCPD Alert: The Aether Pirates
32. "Meet Edentech" Promotional Interviews
36. Interview with Shannon Wharton
42. Ephesus Lecture Series - History of Titan City Overview
43. Ideology of the Arcane Sentinel, Book 1, Chapter 3
46. Fire of 1908 Emergency Response Case Study - Page 1
47. Oswald Lawrence's Speech, December 1908
54. Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things (Fire Fighters' Memorial)
56. More Tales From Gabby Cabbie (Cabbie Tour 2)
59. And a Cabbie New Year (Cabbie Tour 3)
62. A Saturday In The Park with Cabbie (Cabbie Tour 4)
64. The Big Game
74. Where To Go When It Is Dark And You Are Bored (Cabbie Tour 5)
78. Law and the Superhero
84. Interview with an Old Man on the Street (a.k.a. History of the Briggstone neighborhood)
87. Tales of the Titan City Police Department - Day One
91. Tales from the Underworld: One Night in Charleston
97. Vril - Urban Legend or World Domination?
99. Tales from the TCPD: The Ironport Fiasco
101. Art! T-Shirts! And Secret Origins! (Anthem's origin is the second half.)
102. Cabbie Goes To A Con (Cabbie Tour 6) (Also: DragonCon 2014 recap)
104. How The Staff Made The Paragons - Lore
106. The Abandoned Mountainview Sanitarium (Lore, Seasonal)
107. Ghost Train (Lore, Seasonal)
109. Happy Halloween from the Team - and the Weird Sisters
111. Tales from the Underworld: Burns
113. I'm Thankful For...
114. Heroes to Watch For
115. Paragon Holiday Special, Part One
116. Paragon Holiday Special, Part Two
130. The Patchwork Profile!
132. Tales from the TCPD: Up in the Air (Lore)
134. It's freaking cold out there! (Cabbie, Lore)
140. Tales from the Underworld: The Edge (Lore)
142. What You Know About... CAP (Lore)
145. One Fourth of July For Anthem (Lore)
147. Tales from the TCPD: The Trial (Lore)
149. What You Know - Tyrosine Corporation (Lore)
151. What You Know - The Unforgiven (Lore)
154. What You Know - The Regency (Lore)
156. Tales of the Underworld: Trial by Combat (Lore)
158. The 14th Annual Titan City Superpowered Snowball Fight (and why it never happened) (Lore)
162. The Twelve: 1-4 (Art, Lore) (i.e. A look into the origins of Anthem, Lady Latoki, Pale Ride, and Overclock)
164. Tales from the TCPD: Armor (Lore)
168. What You Know About: The Deadly 7 (Lore)
170. Tales from the Underworld: Hideout (Lore)
174. What We Think We Know - Scorpion (Lore)
176. What You Know: Paranormal Investigations and Tracking
178. Tales From the TCPD: Manhunt (Lore)
180. What You Know: The Rooks (Art, Lore)
182. What You Know: The Five Dragons
184. What You Know: Captain Orbit
186. Tales of the Underworld: The TCPD vs. The Underworld
191. Tales of the TCPD: Tea and Sorcery
193. What We Think We Know: Scorpion, Part 2
197. Tales from the Underworld: The Murderer of Detective Aragon
201. Tales from the TCPD: Finale, Legacy of Shadows
211. What We Think We Know: Scorpion, Part 3
226. Where It's From: Lore Inspriations
231. Tales from the City: A Morning Stroll in Zukunft Park

Misc. of Note
80. Happy 10th Birthday, City of Heroes!
83. Kickstarter Desktop Background: News (as of May, 2014)
90. This Is Our Independence Day (i.e. 1st demonstration of buildings and effects made solely by MWM)
96. Art - T-Shirt of the Month (and Anthem's new look!)
136. Missing Worlds Media announces New Management For City of Titans (Business) APRIL FOOLS! (2015)
172. A Terminal Device Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does (Side Project) Anthem cosplay and the creation of the Anthem Terminal Device (prosthetic hand)
173. Introducing HiJinx! MWM Publishing! and a FAQ!
198. Did You Know: Twitch Stream
214. We're On Instagram!
216. Instagram Recap: June
222. Social Media Compilation: Collection 2
225. CoT Presents: Characters at the Con First look at some fan-made characters from NYCC 2018, using an alpha-version character creator.
236. City of Titans: A Primer A basic breakdown of the game and build process, made for a recent increase in community members.
254. One Shot: Patchfix 0.2.0.1 is Live July 2020 Character Generator Update
256. One Shot: The Eyes Have It Explaining that eyes can draw on the same pattern database as the costumes.
262. Under the Hood: Target Test Dummies
277. 2022 Next Steps for City of Titan, Interview with Warcabbit
279. Twitch Review 2022
284. Hearing From Players Exploring Titan City! A photo compilation of player submissions from their explorations of the available game areas.

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

Lin Chiao Feng
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Thanks for putting this

Thanks for putting this together!

Now if only there were an automatic dev tracker...

[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]

Cinnder
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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Thanks for putting this together!

+1

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Now if only there were an automatic dev tracker...

+1

Spurn all ye kindle.

Winter
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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Now if only there were an automatic dev tracker...

I agree, I miss the Dev Digest (I think that's what it was called). Unfortunately, that would be a little hard for me to set up without access to the forum code :P

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

Gangrel
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Winter wrote:
Winter wrote:

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Now if only there were an automatic dev tracker...

I agree, I miss the Dev Digest (I think that's what it was called). Unfortunately, that would be a little hard for me to set up without access to the forum code :P

Or even an RSS feed facility for forum sections...

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

Pengy
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Fixed a link:

Fixed a link:
19. [url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/631801]Gabby Cabbie (Cabbie Tour 1)[/url]

Automatisch
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This is going to be handy in

This is going to be handy in the flagship discussion.

I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.

Automatisch
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This is going to be handy in

This is going to be handy in the flagship discussion.

I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.

Winter
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Pengy wrote:
Pengy wrote:

Fixed a link:
19. Gabby Cabbie (Cabbie Tour 1)

Thanks Pengy. I had to screw ONE of them up, haha! OP is fixed.

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

umbralwarrior
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I've been doing something

I've been doing something similar on the Watchfire forums. Didn't think to do it here too... :P Nicely done.

We all have it in us to be a hero to someone,
Super powers are optional.....

Part of the Phoenix Rising Initiative.....

Proud to be a hero. Prouder still to be a member of [url=http://www.watchfire-online.info]Watchfire[/url]

Winter
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umbralwarrior wrote:
umbralwarrior wrote:

I've been doing something similar on the Watchfire forums. Didn't think to do it here too... :P Nicely done.

Heh, just trying to keep information easily organized :)

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

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I almost forgot about this

I almost forgot about this list. It would have been a lot easier to send to a friend of mine than digging through the articles myself. :)

Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program

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I notice Update # 75 is

I notice [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/795643]Update # 75[/url] is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a "Laughs" section is needed?

Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
.
Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]

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Is there a "sticky" function?

Is there a "sticky" function? And, if so, why isn't this thread a sticky?!?!?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

Winter
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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

I notice Update # 75 is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a "Laughs" section is needed?

Admittedly, when I compiled the list, I skipped a number of updates. I was focusing only on updates that contained information specific to the game development, team, or lore, so that new members (who probably were not around when the Kickstarter was in progress) would not have to sift through all of the updates to find the information they were looking for.

Empyrean wrote:

Is there a "sticky" function? And, if so, why isn't this thread a sticky?!?!?

Because I don't have mod options ;).
If the powers-that-be deem this relevant/important enough to be pinned, wonderful! If not, I'll just try to keep it toward the top of the page by posting when a new update is added.

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

doctor tyche
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Winter wrote:
Winter wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Is there a "sticky" function? And, if so, why isn't this thread a sticky?!?!?

Because I don't have mod options ;).
If the powers-that-be deem this relevant/important enough to be pinned, wonderful! If not, I'll just try to keep it toward the top of the page by posting when a new update is added.

*grabs the duct tape*

Technical Director

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

Empyrean
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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Winter wrote:
Empyrean wrote:
Is there a "sticky" function? And, if so, why isn't this thread a sticky?!?!?

Because I don't have mod options ;).
If the powers-that-be deem this relevant/important enough to be pinned, wonderful! If not, I'll just try to keep it toward the top of the page by posting when a new update is added.

*grabs the duct tape*

Yay!

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

Nyghtshade
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This is a great resource.

This is a great resource. Thanks for putting all the updates together like this.

Winter
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Nyghtshade wrote:
Nyghtshade wrote:

This is a great resource. Thanks for putting all the updates together like this.

You're welcome! I'm glad people are finding it useful.

[hr]
[center]
[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
Ice Man of [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/phoenix-rising-initiative-0]The Phoenix Rising Initiative[/url]
[/center]

DesViper
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So, i'd taken a project of

So, i'd taken a project of the last few days of going over all the KS updates and summarizing them in a Google Doc. Maybe that could be merged with this thread, or made into it's own. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PdfLX58KSW0RzwqYDf9THYSCa3tyti3qhnApTK9h3yI/edit?usp=sharing

Warning: it has stronger focus on mechanics than it does on Lore. It also glosses over KS-related updates, since i missed the boat on that and couldn't access them.

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Nice I like how you have

Nice I like how you have everything in order

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I'm a kickstarter supporter,

I'm a kickstarter supporter, not sure how I get my 'K' on my account.

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I'm in the same boat, I've

I'm in the same boat, I've been in since the beginning but no special K on my account

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message me or with the email

message me or with the email associated with your KS pledge and I can look it up.

Technical Director

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Wow that was a lot of work.

Wow that was a lot of work. And Thank you for doing it, much appreciated :)

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This is an absolutely GREAT

This is an absolutely GREAT idea! Thanks, Winter!

EKL

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Kid_Comet wrote:
Kid_Comet wrote:

This is an absolutely GREAT idea! Thanks, Winter!

You're welcome, Kid_Comet! I'm glad it has come in handy for people.

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Hi there I got a problems. I

Hi there I got a problems. I forgot the log in name and my gmail account back in 2012 I cannot log in to my old account due to the fact I lost all the information. user log in ame and password and the gmail I have ot have a phone call who ever its in charge. I called Amazon and they have a record of it. and that is all they can say. I aksed for the email and the log in. its a angry phone call with Amazon. they are very rude. yelling at me about log in fist. well how the hell do I do that when I lost the information! God its like teaching a brick all to sing and dance while at the same time teach a dog to drive a F1 racer around a track at 200 miles per hour. Kill it!
I go on the kickstarter reguardingthis COT then made a new account. ask questions. no one answered no a one. I had been ask this questions for about 2 years now.
get me a phone call ok. email me and ask for my phone number or leave a phone number. I want to talk about it. its 50.00. something I cannot get back
going to Amazon is a stupid mistake. I know what kind of people they are. and I had to deal with it. What do I do cancel the transaction or what do you want me to say about it?

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one other think Google also

one other think Google also have the worst phone service. there instruction is log in first. no phone support. how do I log in a gmail account when I lost all the information of the log in name and password? the recovery system is the worst. I do not have the date when I made the account and the date when I last log in. they only demand for information that I lost. how many people are going to put down every little detail of every little thing? No one!

Winter
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savecityofheroes wrote:
savecityofheroes wrote:

Hi there I got a problems. I forgot the log in name and my gmail account back in 2012 I cannot log in to my old account due to the fact I lost all the information. user log in ame and password and the gmail I have ot have a phone call who ever its in charge. I called Amazon and they have a record of it. and that is all they can say. I aksed for the email and the log in. its a angry phone call with Amazon. they are very rude. yelling at me about log in fist. well how the hell do I do that when I lost the information! God its like teaching a brick all to sing and dance while at the same time teach a dog to drive a F1 racer around a track at 200 miles per hour. Kill it!
I go on the kickstarter reguardingthis COT then made a new account. ask questions. no one answered no a one. I had been ask this questions for about 2 years now.
get me a phone call ok. email me and ask for my phone number or leave a phone number. I want to talk about it. its 50.00. something I cannot get back
going to Amazon is a stupid mistake. I know what kind of people they are. and I had to deal with it. What do I do cancel the transaction or what do you want me to say about it?

Hey savecityofheroes,

I want to let you know that I am not actually a staff member with Missing Worlds Media. As much as I'd like to be, I'm just a guy who had some free time and categorized the Kickstarter updates. I tried to tell you that after your previous private message to me, but you blocked me before I could. (I do not blame you, considering how frustrating your situation is, and considering that I failed to answer your question.)

Warcabbit, who [i]is[/i] a staff member with Missing Worlds Media, made it sound like he was prepared to help you in [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/71441#comment-71441]this post[/url], which was a reply to the topic you posted last week requesting the same help you are requesting here. I would drop him a private message, or reply to that topic you started, and he can probably help you out much better than I can.

Hope that works!

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Thanks for being polite to

Thanks for being polite to savecityofheroes, Winter. I'm doing my best to help him.

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Hi Winter,

Hi Winter,

Just wanted to say thanks for compiling this list. It is a big help when I am trying to reference previous kickstarter communications.

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Greyhawke wrote:
Greyhawke wrote:

Hi Winter,
Just wanted to say thanks for compiling this list. It is a big help when I am trying to reference previous kickstarter communications.

Hey Greyhawke! You are welcome! I am glad you and others have continually found it to be a useful resource.

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<<

<<< Applauds Winter's efforts to keep up-to-date in the face of a veritable storm of updates this Devmas season. ^_^

Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

<<< Applauds Winter's efforts to keep up-to-date in the face of a veritable storm of updates this Devmas season. ^_^

Ha! Thank you. There were a few times I updated 3 at a time, but I think that's the furthest behind I was at any one point :P

[hr]
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[size=15][b][i]A cold front is heading toward Titan City[/i][/b][/size]
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Is there a beta or any way to

Is there a beta or any way to play the game? Has it come out yet? I have been searching for a couple of hours to see what happened to COV and COH because I stopped playing in 2007 because of my age at the time and I just found out that it has been shut down :( is this game close to completion? I have so many questions lol

I miss COV

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bighomiegreg wrote:
bighomiegreg wrote:

Is there a beta or any way to play the game? Has it come out yet? I have been searching for a couple of hours to see what happened to COV and COH because I stopped playing in 2007 because of my age at the time and I just found out that it has been shut down :( is this game close to completion? I have so many questions lol

Hi Bighomiegreg, and welcome to the forums. As a disclaimer, I do not actually work with/for Missing Worlds Media (the team behind City of Titans). I just made this topic because I had some time on my hands one day, and I knew it would be useful, so I keep it up to date as updates are published. With that said, I'll try to answer your questions!

As far as the development progress of City of Titans, nearly everything we (the anxious awaiting players) have been told can be found in the Kickstarter updates listed in this topic. The game is far from "close to completion" though.

The first thing we will see is the game's Avatar Builder (character creator), which is being designed rather cleverly: it will be a stand-alone program/application (available for Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS) that will allow us to make characters outside the game, then upload them to the game later. It will be a nice appetizer to the game, and is great for those moments when you have a character idea, but do not necessarily have the time (or ability) to log onto the game and create it. We haven't been given a release date for that (no one wants to make promises they cannot keep, and who can blame them), but I believe the goal is for some time this year.

As for when the game will go into alpha and beta testing stages, no one knows. Since Missing Worlds Media is comprised entirely of volunteers, the progress all depends on how much of their time is available to devote to the game. All we can do is encourage them and have patience.

Definitely devote some time to reading through the Kickstarter Updates, specifically the ones under the "Design and Mechanics" heading. That will give you a good idea of some of the wonderful things planned for the game.

[hr]
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Thank you! I am defiantly

Thank you! I am defiantly going to check it out!

I miss COV

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Winter, kudos to you for

Winter, kudos to you for putting this thread together and for patiently helping others in their quests for more information. I would be very surprised if our Titan Team didn't contact you about encouraging you to join the PR department. Thanks for your efforts!

They also serve, who only stand and wait.

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Update # 75 still seems to be

[url=http://cityoftitans.com/content/april-1st-technical-update]Update # 75[/url] still seems to be missing.

Not sure why I was thinking of it today... ^_^

Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Exceedingly helpful reference

Exceedingly helpful reference list, thanks!

Flim-flam artist, occasional author and reknowned altoholic.

[url=http://www.amazon.com/Masons-Order-Gordon-Gross-ebook/dp/B009CHBVQ4/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8][img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517tN7NOGQL._AA160_.jpg[/img][/url]

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radientone wrote:
radientone wrote:

Winter, kudos to you for putting this thread together and for patiently helping others in their quests for more information. I would be very surprised if our Titan Team didn't contact you about encouraging you to join the PR department. Thanks for your efforts!

Thanks, radientone! I'd be flattered and honored by such an opportunity. Just happy to help out.

Foradain wrote:

Update # 75 still seems to be missing.
Not sure why I was thinking of it today... ^_^

I foresee this becoming an annual exchange :)

Genghis wrote:

Exceedingly helpful reference list, thanks!

You're welcome!

[hr]
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Thanks for the list, it's

Thanks for the list, it's awesome to see how it's all coming together!

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Thanky you very much for the

Thanky you very much for the reference list, it is really nice

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Good day Winter. Thank you

Good day Winter. Thank you for this list. Every time I forget something this is my Go-To!

with my +1 I think you are now somewhere around +25? We need more people Reading and posting and giving you the thumbs up that you deserve for your efforts.

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Kiyori Anoyui, Sealdy,

Kiyori Anoyui, Sealdy, StellarAgent: Glad you guys are getting use out of it! And S.A., the thumbs up are appreciated. It is a relatively easy task to keep it up to date, so as long as it continues to be useful, I am happy to keep it going. That said, it is always nice when people chime in to remind me that it is still a good resource. So thanks :)

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Winter: Thanks for taking the

Winter: Thanks for taking the time to compile such a nomtastic list for your fellow forumites!

*wends her way around Winter's ankles in a Figure-8 pattern*

*purrs appreciatively*

[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]

Winter
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Amerikatt wrote:
Amerikatt wrote:

Winter: Thanks for taking the time to compile such a nomtastic list for your fellow forumites!
*wends her way around Winter's ankles in a Figure-8 pattern*
*purrs appreciatively*

You are welcome, Amerikatt! Thanks for chiming in, as well. With the new structure of the website, it is easier to access the Kickstarter Updates, so I was beginning to wonder if people were still finding this topic helpful. I am bolstered to know that that is still the case!

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Winter, thanks for posting

Winter, thanks for posting this and updating it!!

Now the real challenge would be for someone to go through all of it, and highlight the following:

1. All of what was posted that is still planned for the game
2. All of what was posted that got canned
3. All of what was posted that is expected at launch
4. All of what was posted that devs have said, through posts, are "post-launch" features

Haha there are probably not enough days in a month to do all of that, though..

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What update had the guy run

What update had the guy run an just flip off the top of the building?

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I am unsure. My advice would

I am unsure. My advice would be to check the latter updates in the "Design and Mechanics" section since that sounds like something they would have been demonstrating as proof of work being done. The other place it might be is "Progress Updates."

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The character is tentatively

The character is tentatively named "Rottweiler" but needs to be changed due to copyright. (How can a dog species name be copyrighted for a comic book character?)

https://cityoftitans.com/forum/special-release-vigilante-night

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Grumble wrote:
Grumble wrote:

The character is tentatively named "Rottweiler" but needs to be changed due to copyright. (How can a dog species name be copyrighted for a comic book character?)

https://cityoftitans.com/forum/special-release-vigilante-night

“Dog” is a species. A Rottweiler is a breed.

It’s not just the name that’s subject to copyright, it’s the entire character. I’m sure if MWM made little girl with a laser gun dressed up like a circus clown and named her Rottweiler they’d be okay, but this character and the other character are just similar enough that a copyright lawsuit might be plausible.

If you think you can’t copyright a character just because the name Rottweiler is too generic... What about an actual species, like a Wolverine? Do you think you could create a comic book superhero who fights with claws under that name and Marvel/Disney won’t sue you once you start being successful? A species name is more generic than a dog name...

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They could keep the name

They could keep the name Rottweiler, I believe the problem was, the characters actually look pretty close to each other as well.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

They could keep the name Rottweiler, I believe the problem was, the characters actually look pretty close to each other as well.

They could, but I believe the point of searching for a different name was because they liked the look and wanted to keep it.

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And, as I recall, the creator

And, as I recall, the creator of the existing superheroic character was/is a friend, so they didn't want to commit an infringement on a friend.

Better to find a different name.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Grumble wrote:

The character is tentatively named "Rottweiler" but needs to be changed due to copyright. (How can a dog species name be copyrighted for a comic book character?)

https://cityoftitans.com/forum/special-release-vigilante-night

“Dog” is a species. A Rottweiler is a breed.

It’s not just the name that’s subject to copyright, it’s the entire character. I’m sure if MWM made little girl with a laser gun dressed up like a circus clown and named her Rottweiler they’d be okay, but this character and the other character are just similar enough that a copyright lawsuit might be plausible.

If you think you can’t copyright a character just because the name Rottweiler is too generic... What about an actual species, like a Wolverine? Do you think you could create a comic book superhero who fights with claws under that name and Marvel/Disney won’t sue you once you start being successful? A species name is more generic than a dog name...

Thor is uncopywritable. but a character named thor with these certain appearances is copywritable. its complicated.

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ivanhedgehog wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
Atama wrote:
Grumble wrote:

The character is tentatively named "Rottweiler" but needs to be changed due to copyright. (How can a dog species name be copyrighted for a comic book character?)

https://cityoftitans.com/forum/special-release-vigilante-night

“Dog” is a species. A Rottweiler is a breed.

It’s not just the name that’s subject to copyright, it’s the entire character. I’m sure if MWM made little girl with a laser gun dressed up like a circus clown and named her Rottweiler they’d be okay, but this character and the other character are just similar enough that a copyright lawsuit might be plausible.

If you think you can’t copyright a character just because the name Rottweiler is too generic... What about an actual species, like a Wolverine? Do you think you could create a comic book superhero who fights with claws under that name and Marvel/Disney won’t sue you once you start being successful? A species name is more generic than a dog name...

Thor is uncopywritable. but a character named thor with these certain appearances is copywritable. its complicated.

Exactly. Thor is not an original character. Marvel derived the character from Norse mythology. Being a god wielding lightning from Asgard and a magic hammer named Mjolnir is all copied from legend. They can’t copyright any of that.

A blonde guy in a winged helmet, with a red cape, who is on a team called The Avengers... Those are all aspects of Marvel’s intellectual property that they developed and they can copyright it.

Just like the name “Rottweiler” is the name of a dog breed. You can’t copyright that name and its association with dogs because you didn’t make it up. But if you come up with an original character inspired by the dog breed, you can copyright your original ideas regardless of what the inspiration was. And if MWM comes too close to your creation, you might have a case for copyright infringement.

It is indeed complicated.

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Just popping by to thank OP

Just popping by to thank OP for keeping this up :)

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desviper wrote:
desviper wrote:

Just popping by to thank OP for keeping this up :)

You're welcome! Happy to do it, and it always helps when folks let me know that it is still a useful resource.

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Just wanted to mention that

Just wanted to mention that his has been super helpful for PR writeups :)

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I am glad it has helped the

I am glad it has helped the team!

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Kinda thinking, the last few

Kinda thinking, the last few updates are probably more "Progress updates" than "Design and Mechanics" ;)

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I just want to pass on my

I just want to pass on my thanks to the OP for keeping up this thread for the last few years, It's been super helpful and I'm sure many of us appreciate your efforts!

~ If your going through hell...Keep going!!! #Winston Churchill

Cybin Monde
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BUMP!

BUMP!

I noticed that the last Kickstarter update was "What We Can Do: Rewards" on May 21. As it's been more than a month since then, i was wondering if we should be seeing any updates soon. I understand there may not be much to update currently; however, it would be nice to see something we can chew on for now. I'm just feeling a bit "in the wind" and am hoping for something to indicate progress.

Until after now,
Cybin

Until after now...

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I can say that on the

I can say that on the official Discord server (yes, I went to Discord, I try not to) and they have lots of streaming content posted there. No formal “updates” but they haven’t been quiet.

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All of the streaming is

All of the streaming is either music or Artstrong making an outfit, just fyi.

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

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Dark Cleric wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:

All of the streaming is either music or Artstrong making an outfit, just fyi.

True, but it’s [i]something[/i].

It’s the equivalent of a music- or art-based update.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:

All of the streaming is either music or Artstrong making an outfit, just fyi.

True, but it’s [i]something[/i].

It’s the equivalent of a music- or art-based update.

Lol it is definitely NOT equivalent to an update of the same type. A glove, to you, is good enough for an update? A shoe? Really?

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

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I agree with Dark Cleric that

I agree with Dark Cleric that a game declaring itself worthy of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment capital should be capable of a modicum of program management. It should be able to establish milestones and a plan of action, and be able to update the investors with progress along that POA&M.

Having said that, however, the developers are still mostly volunteers; and more importantly, so are the managers. There is a limit to how much leverage a manager has over an enterprise's human resources to motivate them to meet deadlines when they are volunteering their time and effort and can leave at any time when their priorities change (e.g. Charles Logan) or they no longer feel like it's a labor of love (e.g. how many others?).

Without the ability to reliably stick to any plan the management tries to establish, I imagine they are not sharing anything until they have it in their hands to show. This way they avoid giving ammunition to naysayers who could poison the pool of potential investors. I suppose in their minds, no update is better than a poor update. I can understand that. It's not how I would do it, but I can certainly understand it.

So, in lieu of a program update, we get these Armstrong updates that serve a very important purpose: They prove to us that every day progress is made, however little, and that the team still intends to reach the end goal. That is a very important message, especially to people whom have already invested.

[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

So, in lieu of a program update, we get these Armstrong updates that serve a very important purpose: They prove to us that every day progress is made, however little, and that the team still intends to reach the end goal. That is a very important message, especially to people whom have already invested.

That's basically my point. It proves to people that the game is still in development and isn't dead.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

So, in lieu of a program update, we get these Armstrong updates that serve a very important purpose: They prove to us that every day progress is made, however little, and that the team still intends to reach the end goal. That is a very important message, especially to people whom have already invested.

It also gives Artstrong a chance to show his work!

Be Well!
Fireheart

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The list itself is a very

The list itself is a very useful reference, thank you. But if you wander to the Kickstarter page, you will see many, many, many negative comments from backers (non-backers cannot post) about their loss of confidence in the project, their unresolved requests for refunds for what they now consider vaporware, and the very negative experiences they have had with MWM employees who actually responded.

Yes, every day minute progress is made. Yes, these devs are volunteer amateurs. Yes, professionally developed games take a long time. Yes, games rushed to release are invariably horrible failures. But it's been EIGHT YEARS since CoX folded. In the meantime, the leading pirate servers have gone public and there has been NO backlash from NCSoft. Other superhero MMOs have come and gone. You cannot expect people not to think that TOO MUCH TIME has passed to seriously consider that this game will ever release when the majority of your updates are only about graphics.

As I've said many times to many people, it doesn't matter how pretty a game is if the mechanics are not satisfying. The bulk of MWM updates are all about graphics. Most info we're getting about mechanics has been coming from random and extremely vague forum posts from Tannim, and the implication is that they are dropping what they've developed and starting over again whenever a cool new idea comes along. This is not how to develop a game that began development eight years ago.

At this point, I don't care if it looks like a crude version of CoX -- Hells, I don't even care if it's black and white stick figures. We need CONCRETE progress updates on mechanical development. Frankly, there is nothing here to instill confidence on that front.

About three years ago, I posted on the forums that I couldn't see an ALPHA before 2025, and I've seen little since to convince me otherwise. On the contrary, I think we won't see one now before 2028. In 2025, I would have been 61 years old (I was 39 when CoX was released). I no longer have the reflexes to be competitive in shooters now, and expect that by the time I'm 63 I'll have to start withdrawing from MMOs in favor of single player strategy games (not that I'm complaining, I enjoy those too, and it's because I spend so much time in MMOs that I currently have no time for them). In other words, my monetary support will have been completely wasted on a game I will not be able to play effectively when (or if) it ever is released.

We need less on the graphics development, and more concrete info on mechanical development. You also need to be playing the PR game, because original and Second Chance backers are (and will continue to be) demanding refunds for good-faith contributions to a game that many people now believe will never be released. Flaming them in personal emails because they no longer share your vision is NOT an appropriate response to this problem, and it matters not one whit that you are all part-time volunteer amateurs. Bad PR is bad PR, and you do NOT want it at this late stage of the development game.

And the kicker? The reason I was over there at all was because I was considering contributing a little more money. The sheer volume of negative comments convinced me not to do so. Also, despite no announcement on the Kickstarter site that Second Chance is closed, there appears to be no actual way to contribute, either on Kickstarter or on this site (on this site, it insists I'm not logged in even though I am, and when I try to relog, it insists my valid credentials are unrecognized even though I successfully used them just minutes ago), which is very, very bad for PR. Announcing and meeting deadlines, open avenues for contribution are your friends. Being three years late with a semi-usable character builder and being vague about game mechanics is not.

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Superpersonage wrote:
Superpersonage wrote:

The list itself is a very useful reference, thank you. But if you wander to the Kickstarter page, you will see many, many, many negative comments from backers (non-backers cannot post) about their loss of confidence in the project, their unresolved requests for refunds for what they now consider vaporware, and the very negative experiences they have had with MWM employees who actually responded.

Yes, every day minute progress is made. Yes, these devs are volunteer amateurs. Yes, professionally developed games take a long time. Yes, games rushed to release are invariably horrible failures. But it's been EIGHT YEARS since CoX folded. In the meantime, the leading pirate servers have gone public and there has been NO backlash from NCSoft. Other superhero MMOs have come and gone. You cannot expect people not to think that TOO MUCH TIME has passed to seriously consider that this game will ever release when the majority of your updates are only about graphics.

As I've said many times to many people, it doesn't matter how pretty a game is if the mechanics are not satisfying. The bulk of MWM updates are all about graphics. Most info we're getting about mechanics has been coming from random and extremely vague forum posts from Tannim, and the implication is that they are dropping what they've developed and starting over again whenever a cool new idea comes along. This is not how to develop a game that began development eight years ago.

At this point, I don't care if it looks like a crude version of CoX -- Hells, I don't even care if it's black and white stick figures. We need CONCRETE progress updates on mechanical development. Frankly, there is nothing here to instill confidence on that front.

About three years ago, I posted on the forums that I couldn't see an ALPHA before 2025, and I've seen little since to convince me otherwise. On the contrary, I think we won't see one now before 2028. In 2025, I would have been 61 years old (I was 39 when CoX was released). I no longer have the reflexes to be competitive in shooters now, and expect that by the time I'm 63 I'll have to start withdrawing from MMOs in favor of single player strategy games (not that I'm complaining, I enjoy those too, and it's because I spend so much time in MMOs that I currently have no time for them). In other words, my monetary support will have been completely wasted on a game I will not be able to play effectively when (or if) it ever is released.

We need less on the graphics development, and more concrete info on mechanical development. You also need to be playing the PR game, because original and Second Chance backers are (and will continue to be) demanding refunds for good-faith contributions to a game that many people now believe will never be released. Flaming them in personal emails because they no longer share your vision is NOT an appropriate response to this problem, and it matters not one whit that you are all part-time volunteer amateurs. Bad PR is bad PR, and you do NOT want it at this late stage of the development game.

And the kicker? The reason I was over there at all was because I was considering contributing a little more money. The sheer volume of negative comments convinced me not to do so. Also, despite no announcement on the Kickstarter site that Second Chance is closed, there appears to be no actual way to contribute, either on Kickstarter or on this site (on this site, it insists I'm not logged in even though I am, and when I try to relog, it insists my valid credentials are unrecognized even though I successfully used them just minutes ago), which is very, very bad for PR. Announcing and meeting deadlines, open avenues for contribution are your friends. Being three years late with a semi-usable character builder and being vague about game mechanics is not.

Some of that, like the technical stuff and stuff towards Tannim, he'll have to handle. Missing deadlines and spending too much time focused on the wrong stuff, I even agree with personally. There were a number of updates that have explained what happened with those, if you care to read them. The rest of your concerns, I can handle now.

Kickstarter refunds... We refunded quite a few people some time ago, and still refund incorrect/other problem purchases in our store, but the original Kickstarter was years ago. You can't get a refund from Walmart 8 years later- it's the same with Kickstarter. Further, that original contribution was a donation, not a pre-order. Kickstarter spells that out pretty clearly. I know, I made a donation myself.

Most of those comments on Kickstarter talking about Facebook messages and reaching out to us, I don't recognize the names, and I've been in charge of the Facebook for some time, same here on the forums, and in our Discord. If they spoke to someone, it was someone that hasn't been in our PR department in a long time.

Lastly- the Second Chance is still active, with a number of ways to contribute.
There's no way to purchase anything on this site- you want https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/, sign up with either your forum email or with your original Kickstarter email, and purchase what looks good. If you use your original Kickstarter email, it will even sync up with any Kickstarter contribution you may have made.

[color=red]PR Team, Forum Moderator, Live Response Team[/color]

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I'm just going to offer a

I'm just going to offer a couple of quick commentaries about what Superpersonage recently mentioned.

I turned 50 a few months ago. I was 33 when I first played CoH. I bring this up only because Superpersonage mentioned possible ages they might be when CoT is ready to launch. I'm not going to quibble about how long a game like this should/will take to finish. But like Superpersonage I have actually wondered about my own mortality vis-à-vis getting to play this game. I realize it might be a bit morbid to wonder if I'll still be alive to play this game but all joking aside none of us are getting any younger and measuring the time to completion of a computer game in significant fractions of decades is not exactly reassuring.

The other thing I'll poke at is the common misuse of the word "investment" when it comes to giving money to game developers on Kickstarter. It's simply laughable to expect to get refunds for any money anyone ever tosses down the Kickstarter rabbit hole for anything. Sure I'd like to have access to a fully functional CoT right now and (if worse comes to worse) I'd love to be able to get my money back if this game actually does fail to materialize. But I went into this knowing there was always a chance I'd effectively get nothing from it and I didn't give a penny more than I could easily afford to otherwise piss into the wind at the time. No one ever "invests" in a Kickstarter. In CoT's case it was a lottery ticket I bought 7+ years ago that still might be worth something someday - nothing more, nothing less.

At least we know Superpersonage still cares about this game else they wouldn't have written such a long post about it. ;)

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Superpersonage wrote:
Superpersonage wrote:

As I've said many times to many people, it doesn't matter how pretty a game is if the mechanics are not satisfying. The bulk of MWM updates are all about graphics. Most info we're getting about mechanics has been coming from random and extremely vague forum posts from Tannim, and the implication is that they are dropping what they've developed and starting over again whenever a cool new idea comes along. This is not how to develop a game that began development eight years ago.

We have quite a few updates that discuss mechanics of multiple systems. And yes, I have given some explanations in discussions. I believe that open communication (or as open as possible) between developers and players helps build a healthy community.

We have been pretty focused as far as our mechanisms and combat systems are concerned. I don’t know where these implications of our game play team dropping things and starting over is coming from. There is always a danger in development of adding to scope (bloat) or wanting to hold onto a baby you’ve created instead of letting it go because it doesn’t work in the current environment (or at all). As I am leading your game play development, I can assure you that I have not been looking for the “cool new thing” and focusing on “let’s get our thing done.”

Heck, when Epic announced UE5 and stated that everything in UE4 will be directly portable, internally we basically said “that’s nice” and went back to work. We aren’t even looking at, or asking for access, or anything related to their new engine. We’ve been there before.

Superpersonage wrote:

At this point, I don't care if it looks like a crude version of CoX -- Hells, I don't even care if it's black and white stick figures. We need CONCRETE progress updates on mechanical development. Frankly, there is nothing here to instill confidence on that front.

I get it. You want to see videos in combat and missions systems. I want to show that too. However, you talk about PR and playing the good PR game and then talk require we show the ugliness of game development. Most common people don’t like seeing the ugliness. They don’t understand what they are looking at. I’ve seen so many games, even some of our fellow hero based game developers show off early stuff and outside of their immediate fan base, the response from other websites and forums is all negative because of how “unpolished”, “janky”, “ugly”, and insert more negative phrases and terms, they say things look.

Doing this makes things worse for our PR team, not better. I want to show stuff happening when it looks good enough to show - not perfect, but good enough. Something that will be proud to show. And yes, that is “graphical” in nature - because that is what most people outside of development see - they look at how things look, not the underlying functionality.

In order to show the public mechanics, you also need to show it in a way that is at least, pleasing and representative of what and how they expect a game to look.

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- Combat Mechanic -
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I think it would be perfectly

I think it would be perfectly acceptable to show work in progress to backers only, with an NDA associated with it. I think most, if not all, of the criticism you've gotten from fans has been from backers who have not been given assurances that their money is being spent wisely or that any meaningful development is happening. I'm not here to argue whether or not development is happening, I'm here to make a case that in MWM's desire to not let peripheral entities see ugly work, you are leaving your financial backers in the cold dark.

[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I think it would be perfectly acceptable to show work in progress to backers only, with an NDA associated with it. I think most, if not all, of the criticism you've gotten from fans has been from backers who have not been given assurances that their money is being spent wisely or that any meaningful development is happening. I'm not here to argue whether or not development is happening, I'm here to make a case that in MWM's desire to not let peripheral entities see ugly work, you are leaving your financial backers in the cold dark.

For what it's worth I've been writing code in both professional and non-professional capacities for almost 40 years now. I also been playing and creating rules for games for at least that long. I suspect based on that tangential experience I'd be able to give MWM the benefit of the doubt if I saw some half-finished "ugly stuff" related to an unpolished test build of a game like CoT. Just saying...

Tannim mentioned, "Most common people don’t like seeing the ugliness." Sure most people don't really care how the proverbial sausage is made much less have any understanding how the raw sausage bits become the final product. I'd simply offer there are people here in this future playerbase (likely some far better suited than me) who could maturely handle seeing a "work in progress" right now and provide usefully significant feedback about it.

I'd have no problem with signing an NDA for exclusive CoT access/testing. I've worked with/under NDAs for the government and various companies for decades. The main problem I'd specifically have is the relatively small amount of free time I could spend on it, but considering the current volunteer nature of MWM I don't see that alone being an issue.

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warlocc
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I think it would be perfectly acceptable to show work in progress to backers only, with an NDA associated with it. I think most, if not all, of the criticism you've gotten from fans has been from backers who have not been given assurances that their money is being spent wisely or that any meaningful development is happening. I'm not here to argue whether or not development is happening, I'm here to make a case that in MWM's desire to not let peripheral entities see ugly work, you are leaving your financial backers in the cold dark.

Thanks to huge leaps we've made this year, we were going to start showing more off regardless of backer/non-backer status. We showed some quick clips of combat in the last update, and we've been trying to get more screenshots and videos of things coming together that we can put into future updates.

Part of the problem is for a long time, showing off work in progress would literally be taking screenshots of code, or visual script builders. Stuff that even the most devout backer would be disappointed looking at.
I'm going to risk taking some heat from the tech team and show a couple things that they were recently working on.

[img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/646774923918049291/863639611816542229/unknown.png[/img]
[img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/646774923918049291/863628279277944832/unknown.png[/img]

Could we take those and make an update? Maybe. But even if we provided context for that, only a small handful of people would even care to read it. Of that small handful, even less would understand it. Most everyone else would be angry or disappointed. Since we'd need to stop the devs from doing what they're doing to provide us with the context, it's been decided up until now that their time is better spent actually working vs explaining what they're working on.

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Obviously when someone asks
warlocc wrote:

it's been decided up until now that their time is better spent actually working vs explaining what they're working on.

Obviously when someone asks to see a "work in progress" there's always going to be the question of exactly what you would show and at what point during the effort does it even make sense to show it.

For example if you paid someone to make a wooden table for you would it be helpful to show it at the point where it's just a pile of wood or would you show it only when you had the legs attached but before you've sanded/polished it? In that case the "pile of wood" version of the table probably wouldn't be that interesting or useful to look at but the "pre-polished" version might be worthwhile because the table maker could get input about what kind of polish to use.

That analogy is totally applicable to CoT. Sure it's vaguely interesting to me to see some of the "under the hood" stuff just because as I pointed out in my last post I've been tinkering with code for years. But I would totally accept that most people who want to play CoT will not care about seeing the game so early in its development that all you have to show is the code itself. Basically what you showed in your post was the "pile of wood" version of CoT. If you literally do not have anything else to show at this point then I'd probably have to sadly agree it's not worth showing -anything- at this point. I say 'sadly' only because after close to 8 years it would seem that you ought to be far closer to the "pre-polished" version of CoT and actually have something worthwhile to show.

I get that MWM's been making more progress recently but you can only keep saying "we're almost there" so many times without showing more. The general working assumption you're dealing with here is that if you really are "almost there" then you also ought to have a version of a "work in progress" that's actually worth showing by now. You can't have one of those things without the other.

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Please forgive me for playing

Please forgive me for playing Devil's advocate here, but it looks like MWM is playing a shell game. They talk about developing mission maps, or the city, or combat animations, or movement abilities and we ask to see it and the answer we get is "we won't show you because some people will not understand it is a work in progress." So we ask they show it to just the backers, and the answer we get is "it's all code anyway, so what's to show? You wouldn't understand it." So MWM keeps moving the goalposts, offering whatever excuse is convenient at the time that serves to purpose of justifying why they don't show us anything. To an objective observer these are the same symptoms of a scam operation.

A well managed program will have metrics. Metrics are important for stakeholders and financial backers, yet we have not seen anything close to metrics except for one single, but inadequate, attempt at the end-of-year 2020 update. Now, I understand this is an all-volunteer effort still and the program managers probably believe that if they air the laundry of how little the volunteers are actually accomplishing it may discourage them. It is better to accept a few meager efforts from a larger number of volunteers than it is to set goals and try to hold the volunteers to them. Running a volunteer effort must be an extremely difficult proposition. It appears to me that CoT is surviving by the heroic efforts of just a few individuals and those individuals would rather spend their time working on the game than summarizing what they've done to the rest of us. Trust me, I've managed enough programs to recognize that. Hell, I've been guilty of that myself. "Let my finished work tell the story" I always thought. But when an organization and stakeholders are depending on the status updates in order to plan all the other efforts and even to provide you with the extra help you might need to meet your goals, being reluctant to share your progress has serious negative effects.

In this case, the lack of transparency has surely cost a number of potential backers.

I look forward to seeing this "big" update you are all telling us is coming. But I'd be even more encouraged if it could be delivered as a metrics snapshot, telling us how far along you actually are. You don't need to make it calendar-based. Just tell us how far from finished all the moving parts are and give us an idea of what is going to come first and what comes last.

[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Please forgive me for playing Devil's advocate here, but it looks like MWM is playing a shell game.

Even if we take MWM at face value and assume (for at least the sake of argument) that there's no element of "scamming" going on the snips of info we've gotten so far is leading me to think that at best CoT still only exists as several sub-units being developed in isolation by a number of volunteers that have yet to be integrated into a single working baseline. The problem is not that the game is being developed in "chunks" that are meant to seamlessly work together - the problem is that I don't believe they've even gotten to the point where they've tried to put those sub-units together to see if they're going to work as a whole. It's all still "theoretical" even 8 years after they started. That's where the proverbial "rubber is going to meet the road" with this.

At some point all the efforts of all the various volunteers are going to have to rise from their respective basements and be linked together into something approximating a workable game. As you say it'd be nice to get "ballpark metrics" to show where MWM thinks they are with all this. I don't need to see Gantt charts with exact timelines, but something more than "effectively nothing" but Soon(TM) would be appreciated after 8 years. I know there's always going to be the argument that "the volunteers would have to waste precious time reporting on their progress that could be better used to make more progress". Sure that argument makes sense if we potential players were unreasonably demanding minutes from weekly IPT meetings, but we're not... far from it.

Sooner or later MWM is going to need to cross the threshold of becoming a real "big boy" gaming company. Sure it'd be nice if they could have CoT 100% finished before that happens. But I'm starting to suspect they are going to have to settle for 80 or 90% to have any chance of "priming the pump" and getting this thing launched before the house of cards collapses. Ripping off the proverbial Band-Aid may not be pretty or ideal but it may be necessary.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Please forgive me for playing Devil's advocate here, but it looks like MWM is playing a shell game. They talk about developing mission maps, or the city, or combat animations, or movement abilities and we ask to see it and the answer we get is "we won't show you because some people will not understand it is a work in progress."

To play devils advocate to your devils advocate... they've shown us all of that recently. Maybe not as much as we want... but they have.

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

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Dark Cleric wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:

To play devils advocate to your devils advocate... they've shown us all of that recently. Maybe not as much as we want... but they have.

Understood, but you only need to see posts #76 to #79 of this thread alone to see an example of what I discuss. And that's just one example.

Perhaps this is all water under the bridge now. Perhaps the age of being treated like a mushroom is over. If that's the case, I will be the first to commend them.

[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

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Part of the context that

Part of the context that needs to be kept in mind is that MWM doesn't have anyone who's dedicated to putting together updates and, as Lothic also reminds us, they're not an entity that's sitting together in one office. I couldn't begin to guess how long it took to put together the last update, for example, but spending a few hours on such an update takes on a different dimension when those few hours might be all the work one or more people can put in on the game, in a given week.

Much as I'd like to have such (more regular) updates, myself, I've seen enough information from MWM to trust their judgement on these things. And yeah, I'm sure more than once their reasoning has been, "Just... no, not this week." More than once, even. And I'm still good with that.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Part of the context that needs to be kept in mind is that MWM doesn't have anyone who's dedicated to putting together updates and, as Lothic also reminds us, they're not an entity that's sitting together in one office. I couldn't begin to guess how long it took to put together the last update, for example, but spending a few hours on such an update takes on a different dimension when those few hours might be all the work one or more people can put in on the game, in a given week.

Much as I'd like to have such (more regular) updates, myself, I've seen enough information from MWM to trust their judgement on these things. And yeah, I'm sure more than once their reasoning has been, "Just... no, not this week." More than once, even. And I'm still good with that.

Again, for what it's worth, I've kept in mind the volunteer nature of MWM when considering my latest posts on this thread. I even acknowledged the classic argument that continues to come up that "time spent providing status could be used to actually work on the game" and I'm completely mindful of that concept.

But I will point out that while there may be such a thing as Devs "wasting too much time providing status" there's also the evil twin concept of "not providing enough status". I get that everyone's definition of "how much effort MWM should be spending telling the public what they're doing" is going to be different. Again I'm not asking for constant daily/weekly status, but it's very debatable whether what we're getting is enough considering the time invested. Remember MWM has had a year or two shy of a [b][i]decade[/i][/b] to get their proverbial ducks in a row for this. At the very least maybe it's time to have someone strictly "dedicated" to putting together updates for periodic release even if that means actually "paying" someone to do that. MWM will never become a game company until they start -operating- like a game company.

Unfortunately it's hard not to notice other recent games in the last few years that have vaguely similar features (e.g. expansive character/costume creators and superhero-style combat systems) that have been developed by tiny, independent developers and are already well on their way with early access deals at venues like Steam and such. I understand that it's hard to compare "apples and oranges" when it comes to different games but I'm just saying there have been at least several comparable games to CoT that have already launched in far less than 8 years with effectively the same kind of "no corporate investor budget" Kickstarter type deals. We know what MWM is attempting to do development-wise [b]can[/b] be done because [b]OTHER[/b] people are showing that it's possible.

To be clear I still believe MWM will eventually launch CoT in some form or another. I'm simply stressing that they don't have the luxury to continue to function under the radar as a "pseudo" game company forever.

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Lothic][quote=Darth Fez wrote
Lothic][quote=Darth Fez wrote:

Again, for what it's worth, I've kept in mind the volunteer nature of MWM when considering my latest posts on this thread. I even acknowledged the classic argument that continues to come up that "time spent providing status could be used to actually work on the game" and I'm completely mindful of that concept... But I will point out that while there may be such a thing as Devs "wasting too much time providing status" there's also the evil twin concept of "not providing enough status".... At the very least maybe it's time to have someone strictly "dedicated" to putting together updates for periodic release even if that means actually "paying" someone to do that...

So, I have been the person dedicated to putting together the last six updates as well as the monthly emails that have been going out with additional content in them. I asked to do PR updates because PR is my day job, and honestly, I can whip material out pretty fast because I am trained to do it. I hope people can see the work that has happened in PR over the last several months. Between updates happening every other week, and emails going out once per month, that's outreach we've been delivering three out of four weeks every month - which I hope people are finding value in...

I am also the person who is building our landmarks and moguls, and building the streets and architecture on top of our landscaped maps. So, for us volunteers, part of the balance becomes a question of 'who has skills that can handle which area our work the strongest, fastest, done with solid quality.' If I ever feel like my work on Titan City environment is being slowed by this PR work, I'll step back. For now, I enjoy switching it up and doing both.

As far as 'the plan' for moving forward, I hope people look back on our update we did in April on 'Next Steps for Building Titan City". That update shared some of the near-future things we plan on completing to get this game going. If you look back on the list in that update, we have already shown progress on several of the steps in that update, and more work on those steps will be coming soon. When those next steps are complete, we think the experience of what's available in the game for players will feel very different from what's available in the game now. And that question of 'how all the pieces will work together' should look more clear when we finish work on those pieces outlined in that next steps update.

I'm literally wrapping up tomorrow's update (which will share more 'transparency' of work behind the scenes, but not flight yet tomorrow). While I'm wrapping that up, I'm shifting gears to go build some more moguls and street fixings in Downtown. The good thing about a volunteer crew is we can work like crazy and still very much love this project. I actually finish one project and am motivated to get to the next.

All of us behind the scenes are excited about the progress that is happening for the game, and we look forward to sharing each step with you all.

[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I get that MWM's been making more progress recently but you can only keep saying "we're almost there" so many times without showing more. The general working assumption you're dealing with here is that if you really are "almost there" then you also ought to have a version of a "work in progress" that's actually worth showing by now.

Let me tell you, I've been in some real arguments internally because there's been stuff I [i]have[/i] wanted to show, and they wouldn't let me. Ten minutes ago I threw a fit because one dev just said "Oh, it turns out [spoiler] is nowhere near ready, we can't show anything for a while." Luckily, they were wrong and it got cleared up. We're still on track like we've been talking about, and I think people will be pleased with our next software update. More than just showing, we're going to be giving stuff to players.

Huckleberry wrote:

Please forgive me for playing Devil's advocate here, but it looks like MWM is playing a shell game. They talk about developing mission maps, or the city, or combat animations, or movement abilities and we ask to see it and the answer we get is "we won't show you because some people will not understand it is a work in progress." So we ask they show it to just the backers, and the answer we get is "it's all code anyway, so what's to show? You wouldn't understand it." So MWM keeps moving the goalposts, offering whatever excuse is convenient at the time that serves to purpose of justifying why they don't show us anything. To an objective observer these are the same symptoms of a scam operation.

To reply to this, you're taking stuff out of order. Up until recently, it's been a lot of code, which is why we haven't shown it. Which is what I said in that post. Now that we're starting to plug it all in, we can start showing it. Which you saw in those gifs in the last update.

That said...

Huckleberry wrote:

I look forward to seeing this "big" update you are all telling us is coming. But I'd be even more encouraged if it could be delivered as a metrics snapshot, telling us how far along you actually are. You don't need to make it calendar-based. Just tell us how far from finished all the moving parts are and give us an idea of what is going to come first and what comes last.

I actually agree with you, more than partly. I'd love if we could have a solid road map of what's going on, constantly updated. Last time we made one though, a lot of people didn't care. Some people straight up called us liars. For the most part, it turned out to be wasted effort. On top of that, if you had asked me, this time last year, to predict where we'd be now, I would have been way off- underestimation. That's that volunteer thing again, which really hurts our ability to give predictions or make decent progress reports. We don't actually have a consistent work speed. I have to give a shout out to Iathor though; Retired, he's been like a full time dev for us, and the difference in having someone full time is really starting to show.

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Ok, here's what's going on.

Ok, here's what's going on. Flight? One hundred percent ready to go, we're loading it in.
The problem? We were redesigning Chargen to do some stuff better and more cleanly, and it got in the "spread open all over the garage" stage of the project just as Flight got ready.

We're having an internal meeting about what we can do about it, but it's delaying the chargen patch because as much as we want to give you flight, it's not much good if chargen itself stops working. (again, because we're upgrading it)

We had a lack of internal communications, just two people didn't think of talking to each other on exactly the wrong day, not a systematic issue, thank goodness. I checked.

Current status: Trying to think of a way to get it out, was not possible to even have that conversation yesterday.

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warlocc wrote:
warlocc wrote:

Let me tell you, I've been in some real arguments internally because there's been stuff I [i]have[/i] wanted to show, and they wouldn't let me. Ten minutes ago I threw a fit because one dev just said "Oh, it turns out [spoiler] is nowhere near ready, we can't show anything for a while." Luckily, they were wrong and it got cleared up.

This is the other thing that needs to be kept in mind. Working on CoT is business as usual, which is to say that it's not somehow magically better than any other job. People throw fits. People make mistakes.

Never mind having to deal with the reality that there's always at least [i]someone[/i] who thinks they know more about what's going on than the people who are actually doing the work.

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Red_Warlock wrote:
Red_Warlock wrote:

All of us behind the scenes are excited about the progress that is happening for the game, and we look forward to sharing each step with you all.

Your efforts are appreciated. I'm specifically aware of your efforts since you worked with me some months ago to iron out some finishing details on my Mogul so I'm directly aware progess is being made on this game. Things are still happening with this game regardless of how "obvious" it appears from the outside.

warlocc wrote:

More than just showing, we're going to be giving stuff to players.

I simply wanted to voice my opinion and POV as someone who is standing outside the process looking in. When you have a group of people working on a project it's often easy to lose "big picture" perspective - it's happened to me multiple times over the years.

One of the more telling things I keep seeing is when we have people pop up here (or on you Discord page) every couple of weeks asking "Is this game live?" or more importantly "Is this game still being worked on?". I know there will always be silly, troll-like people on the Internet but these questions do highlight the point that people [b]shouldn't[/b] have to be [b]asking[/b] such fundamental questions - somehow, someway it should be [b]absolutely obvious[/b] what the answers to these questions are via some kind of page banners or "latest status" pages. If I'm a potential player who's genuinely curious about wanting to play this game I shouldn't have to ask random questions like that only to be met by silence because very few people lurk around these pages anymore. It's simply "bad optics" for the reputation of this game.

Again I totally realize most of the concerns about "getting enough status" will likely evaporate once new updates actually appear. It's just hard to be an "independent advocate" for this game when we've only gotten significant code updates every 6+ months or so. Telling us what's coming is nice, actually releasing tangible content is obviously far better.

Death Fez wrote:

Never mind having to deal with the reality that there's always at least [i]someone[/i] who thinks they know more about what's going on than the people who are actually doing the work.

What?!? This idea is totally preposterous! The very notion that there could be a so-called "armchair quarterback" among us who would pontificate about matters of game software design without being directly involved is completely inconceivable. Who around here would even be dastardly or despicable enough to fit that description? *looks around at [i]everyone else[/i] very suspiciously*

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