Red_Warlock wrote:

I am also the person who is building our landmarks and moguls, and building the streets and architecture on top of our landscaped maps.

In which case ... I have a recommendation.

I'm going to outline this notion as cleanly as I can so as to try and eliminate opportunities for misinterpretation. So if what I'm about to say feels like over explaining, that's because I'm reaching for clarity on "this not that" in communication (border guarding, as it were).

Ready?
Here goes.

We all know that there's is a tremendous difference between looking at a "map" screen to navigate From Here To There and the experience of actually walking/jogging/sprinting along those streets ... to say nothing of rooftop hopping and/or flying.

Looking at THIS ...

[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//f/f5/Splash_SkywayCity.jpg[/img] [img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//b/bd/Map_SkywayCity.jpg[/img]

Does NOT give you a sense of THIS (Skyway City) ...

[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//a/a8/Aerieplaza.jpg[/img]
[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//2/24/Thegruff.jpg[/img]
[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//4/42/Lagrangemedicalcenter.jpg[/img]
[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//9/92/Landofthelost.jpg[/img]

My point being that there is a tremendous difference between looking at a map of a city and wandering the streets of a city. The experience is quite radically different.
After all, it's perfectly possible to know where you are "on the map" and yet still be completely "lost" at street level looking around you, because what you're seeing at street level doesn't match what you would expect to be seeing from an overhead map view.

City of Heroes had multiple zones where this phenomenon was true ... mainly the more 3D maps, such as Perez Park and Eden (in "the maze" under the trees), Skyway City (almost the entire zone), some parts of Faultline (the tunnels to the reservoir specifically), parts of Brickstown (below street level), The Shadow Shard zones (to varying degrees), Mercy Island ([url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//0/06/M6_faded.ogg]twisting streets[/url] not oriented N/S), Cap au Diable (the [url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//d/df/M15_faded.ogg]Haven[/url] neighborhood with crazy pipes going everywhere), and of course ... Grandville ... due to the perverse delight in 3D designed into the zone.

So when we see a zone map like THESE for City of Titans ...

[img]https://cityoftitans.com/sites/default/files/nrd_streets.jpg[/img] [img]https://cityoftitans.com/sites/default/files/Alexandria-map.png[/img]

Without a PC perspective view of what it's like to "walk the streets" of these places, you can't get a "feel" for them or imagine yourself playing the game and enjoy being in those places.

I would argue that a tremendous amount of the nostalgia value a lot of us feel for City of Heroes is the familiarity of the sights (and sounds) of the city maps. Knowing the routes through Steel Canyon or around Independence Port or Cap au Diable was (for me at least) a matter of recognizing landmarks that I'm seeing in 3D in the game (and hearing the music cues when crossing neighborhood boundaries). For those PCs who were Superspeeders, "learning the routes" through every zone became something you HAD TO KNOW in order to get around, and your knowledge was indexed by the sights (and sounds) around you as you navigated through the landscape. Good navigation relied on knowing what to look for in the environment so as to spot familiar landmarks and basically "waypoint" your way across the map.

We don't have access to that kind of experience for City of Titans ... [b][i]YET.[/i][/b]

So ... Red_Warlock ... Environmental Artist and PR Editor ... here's where you can do something with your overlapping areas of responsibility that will not have a massive dependency on other members of the MWM staff.

I'm thinking that what you can do is have a premade template for video files that can be uploaded to Youtube.
Basically you've got the stock MWM intro and outro with the UE4 logo and all of that jazz as stock footage "bumpers" to go around the video content that changes every time.

All you have to do is pick a location on a city map ... and for 1 minute of new footage you have a PC move around the neighborhood.
Basically you can make a collection of Youtube #shorts for City of Titans.

Pick an "iconic" location in the zone and simply walk/run/leap/fly around for a minute, showing us the sights of the streets of Titan City (under construction).
The location simply has to be some place easy to recognize once we're able to play the game ourselves.

Because you, Red_Warlock, will be in control of this "guided tour" view of the city, you'll be able to steer the views [i]away from[/i] places that fall under the "please pardon our dust" heading of still being under construction.
I mean ... seriously ... why hasn't a video of getting to look around Phoenix Plaza from a character's perspective been released yet?
Do you have any idea of what just being able to see ONE MINUTE of running around Phoenix Plaza would do for interest in being able to GO THERE and see it for yourself?
What about walking around City Hall?
How about seeing the TCFD building from all sides, in-game?
What does NERD look like from street level? From on the skyways?
The Lighthouse ... as dawn breaks with the Sun cresting the horizon?
Ninja Leaping across rooftops in Old Bradford or Alexandria? In the day ... and at night ...
Do you have any mogul locations with finished exteriors? Turn a corner from down the street and jog up to the place and have a look around (so you don't start with a view of the Mogul at the beginning).

All of these things that I have outlined here give people a sense of PLACE and CONNECTION to the world of City of Titans that is being created. That sense of place and connection will really only happen through the experience of visuals and sound (don't forget music!) to cement the associations of LOCATION and PLACE in people's minds.

Right now, we don't have that.
What we have received in previous videos basically amount to ... tourist brochures ... advertising the city. Have a look.

[youtube]JrWYfeV2hCY[/youtube]
[youtube]JK6yYxtaWzk[/youtube]

These are good for giving you a broad overview of the places you're seeing, but they don't build any sense of "connection" with the places shown. For one thing, the views keep skipping around every 5-10 seconds so you're never able to build that feeling of being "connected" to any one place [b][i]because you're THERE.[/i][/b] Instead, there's a sort of distance or remove from all of the locations, like you're watching them on television instead of actually being there and getting to walk/jog/run around them and see them for yourself.

So those Welcome videos from over 6 and 18 months ago(!) were good as introductory previews of places around City of Titans, but they aren't the kind of thing that will align with the Player experience in any way of actually being in-game. When you're in the game and playing, your point of view doesn't skip all over the place every few seconds (for example) just to show you the highlights of the landscape, brochure style (even if you're Teleporting around). Don't get me wrong, brochure videos [i]have their place[/i] ... but [b]immersion into the setting[/b] is not their purpose.

What I'm asking for, Red_Warlock, is a format that is easily repeatable and even scalable (share the tools you use with other MWM staff so they can do the same thing too if they are so inclined) where all you need to do is record a session of gameplay on the Titan City maps (no need for combat, just wandering around will suffice) where the point and purpose is LOOKING AROUND just like a Player would for that sense of immersion (in the [b]You Could Be HERE[/b] sense) ... and then all you have to do is edit the clip down to 60 seconds of footage and post it as a Youtube #shorts video on the MWM channel.

Turn a corner and enter a public park.
Turn a corner and stroll along the docks.
Exit a door onto a skyscraper rooftop and look around and down from up on high ... before leaping off and transitioning into flight (end clip).
Exit the NERD monorail and stroll along the skywalks.
Chase a Rook (who is running away from you) through the streets and back alleys of Old Bradford.
Climb up the steps of the TC lighthouse (the one with wings) in the pre-dawn so as to exit onto the observation deck to see the sun rise on the horizon.
Ninja Leap across rooftops in Alexandria.

And that's just 6 ideas right off the top of my head that you could do. There are plenty of others that I'm sure spring to mind.
If you've managed to get Sit emotes to work with furniture (click on the furniture to automatically sit on it like World of Warcraft does), you could even have a PC walk into a Mogul (restaurant) and sit down at a table (presumably to be served) as a quick 60 second video.

In other words, the opportunities to create snippets of video experiences that will be IMMEDIATELY relatable to Player experience inside the game are only bounded by the imagination of the people willing to create them.
And if all you need is about 60 seconds worth of usable continuous (no edits inside of it) footage ... with administrator tools to control weather and time of day and so on, it might take you, what ... 30 minutes worth of work to toss off a quick video using the template like that (once you have the template built for it, of course)?

In other words ... give me a REASON to think that such an undertaking is beyond the capacity or capabilities of MWM PR staff.
Give me a REASON to think that releasing [b]1-2[/b] such short videos [b]per week[/b] would be a Bad Thing™ for MWM in either the short term or the long term.
Give me a REASON to think that demonstrating what you've been able to accomplish up to now, from an immersion experience friendly Player's point of view, is something to be avoided at all costs.

Build the template.
Create the content to fill that template.
If nothing else, MWM staff would be able to use the format to demo the work that they've done for other members of staff, in addition to being something that can be publicly shared (at a later date, after PR vetting). The all important "here's what it looks like when it works" stage of communicating between staff members.
Even "failures" wouldn't be a waste, so long as you can learn from them. Sometimes you need to demonstrate what a problem DOES in order to align perceptions on severity and priority for fixing things (all hail the [b]Almighty Schedule[/b], tyrant over all things!).
In other words, this format can serve internal communication purposes, not just external ones ... although presumably the internal communications would just be .mp4 demo files hosted internally where only staff can access them (go figure). But if those get approval for public release, slot them into the template and release them as a Youtube #shorts video.

Your move, Red_Warlock.

Lothic wrote:

Effectively you've got to let the game "sell itself" as much as possible.

Also, don't discount the value of being able to "binge watch" a pile of game snippets that can be selected a la carte to get a "feel" for what it's like to play in-game.
I know that I would rather queue up 30 videos from a pile of options for a half hour of viewing than having a single option of one 30 minute video to slog through (not knowing when the part I'm interested in seeing might come up).
Plus those 30 videos of a minute each can be cranked out over time, so they don't need to be a single omnibus release ... even if I wind up binge watching them all in one sitting.

There's a reason why people keep coming back to places like [url=https://www.youtube.com/c/CarbotAnimations/videos]Carbot Animations[/url] in order to see what the NEXT joke video winds up containing as part of a longer story arc. The DiabLoL series of episodes is an absolute riot for anyone who played Diablo 1 and 2 (and knows the memes), for example. The point being though that as more episodes accumulate, anyone coming in "late" to the party can enjoy a pile of content [i]if they want to[/i] about the game, which winds up having greater value over time than the mere sum of its parts (the running gags and in-jokes that accumulate over time are sometimes priceless).

The same kind of thing could be happening for MWM and Titan City.
It's not.

Why isn't this happening?
Red_Warlock? Would you care to comment?

Red Warlock wrote:

Redlynne - very interesting idea... let me think about that.

/em sustains Mind Control powers at lower power intensity ...

Red Warlock wrote:

I love the idea and have already been working on something kind of like it.

Commentary on the canal test video in the other thread.

Red Warlock wrote:

If you have been following the emails CoT has been sending out, I've created pages that are kind of 'deep dives' into the neighborhoods. Those pages focus not so much on maps and videos, but with lore attached to each landmark and mogul.

There's a difference between someone else "telling" you about a place, and actually BEING THERE in that place (in-game).
It's like the difference between giving someone directions and actually driving the route.

Lore is nice ... but it doesn't create a sense of attachment to a "place" all on its own. Lore can generate a feeling of interest in the history and backstory of a location, but it doesn't immerse you in that location the same way that being there does.
I can read an encyclopedia entry on the city of Amsterdam ... but reading that doesn't give me a sense of what it's really like to BE in Amsterdam and walk its streets.

There's a difference between SHOWING and TELLING.
Lore dumps will TELL you about a place, but they won't SHOW you that place.

Red Warlock wrote:

I'd love to add a video map feature to these neighborhood descriptions, but it would be a bit time-intensive and I need to consider how to balance the time for it. We are trying to get Alexandria ready for players to access, I'm almost finished with the last streets and final fixings for Old Bradford, and I've got about 30% more of Downtown to build before it will be ready for players... and doing the PR here too... BUT, it's a very good idea and if there comes a time where I feel like I can work on that, I'd love to do it. It's just a matter of balancing priorities...

This is why I'm thinking more in terms of "opportunity recording" that you might be able to do, which take relatively little time to complete individually and wouldn't need to be done all at once (pace yourself!). At a minimum, 1 short video every 2 weeks ought to be something that can be done. Ideally, you would want to have a pre-formatted workflow of being able to record a clip of in-game footage and then slot that into a short video template for release. Depending on familiarity with the tools involved, such an endeavor could possibly take as little as 20 minutes to complete (if everything goes right, which it usually won't, but that's just the way the empire crumbles, eh wot?). In other words, not a massive commitment of time and effort per video once you've got the workflow down for it. But if you can get in the habit of making them, as familiarity and skill increases, you can even build up a backlog of videos waiting for release so as to smooth things out when demands on your time are higher but you still have material available for release.

The best kind of gameplay involves lots of little decisions that each have consequences, letting the Player strategize their way through those little individual choices into crafting a grander strategy (and feeling good about their choices and investment in them along the way).
Why can't you do the same thing with PR work?

Lots of little snippets that are individually easy to create, but which overall combine into a greater sense of "belonging" in Players who want to live in the City of Titans in an escapist fantasy sort of immersive way.
You aren't going to get that from reading a piece of Lore in a posting somewhere.
But you could get it from standing on a street corner and seeing the city [i]around you[/i].

The point I'm trying to make for you here is that [b]Immersion Is The Objective[/b].
Your sense of attachment (and thus, loyalty) to a MMORPG begins with that feeling of immersion.
Other things, like understanding the Lore can deepen that sense of immersion ... but Lore cannot substitute for or replace that sense of attachment. Again, the difference between SHOW and TELL.

To use an example from World of Warcraft ... I can [b]TELL[/b] you that the mage city of Dalaran is [b][i]protected by an impenatrable dome of magic[/i][/b] ... and that can be true.

But then I can [b]SHOW[/b] you what that looks like, and the feeling you get from seeing it (as opposed to merely reading about it) is completely different.

[img]http://www.nebdaar.com/wow/wallpapers/wow-alterac-mts-dalaran-1280x1024.jpg[/img]

As with so much else ... [b]Seeing[/b] (and quite often, [b]Hearing[/b]) [b]Is Believing.[/b]

And you want people to BELIEVE in your project ... right?

So ... bottom line ... Lore is good for supporting immersion, but is not immersion creating/facilitating in and of itself.
BEING THERE is immersion creating, in and of itself, in an MMORPG setting.

So you can write all the Lore you want to ... but until we can GO THERE and SEE IT, it's just something that somebody else wrote about [i]their[/i] experiences. Written Lore is second hand knowledge, not first hand experience.

Your turn, Red_Warlock.

Darth Fez 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.

The fact that we’re spread across the planet, and not bumping into each other sharing info hurts too. There are lots of times when part of the team simply had months-old info because it hadn’t propagated to them yet.

Lothic wrote:

I currently work on a program that has people working literally on the opposite sides of the planet yet we still have meetings like that.

Is this your job or more of a side project or volunteer work you're doing? 'cause being available for an 0200 meeting when it's your job is one thing. Trying to schedule any kind of meeting or get-together for even a handful of people can be a chore when it's a "so, when does everyone have some free time?" situation.

Darth Fez wrote:

Lothic wrote:

I currently work on a program that has people working literally on the opposite sides of the planet yet we still have meetings like that.

Is this your job or more of a side project or volunteer work you're doing? 'cause being available for an 0200 meeting when it's your job is one thing. Trying to schedule any kind of meeting or get-together for even a handful of people can be a chore when it's a "so, when does everyone have some free time?" situation.

warlocc wrote:

You have a team of unpaid volunteers up all night with you and working a different job during the day?

Uhmm... The guys volunteering for CoT might not actually be "working" for MWM right now but isn't that the implict "goal" here? If the people involved don't even try to PRETEND that they're an operational game company now when is that EVER going to happen?

warlocc wrote:

Bingo. Some of us work nights, some of us work days, some of us work weekends, holidays, all of it. On top of that, we're in different time zones. Saying "We're going to have a meeting on this day, at this time", only a handful would be able to attend anyway.

As I implied it's not fun working on a global program with people living in multiple time zones (i.e. we have people on my job in the Eastern US, Tokyo, Singapore and Bahrain) but having periodic meetings keeps everyone on track and helps us DELIVER software in a timely fashion. You guys can't even manage to spare an hour or so every month or two for something like this?

Also, our team has really found a strong working groove (over the last six months especially). We have some new team members that helped us fill some gaps. What’s most important for the game is our productivity, and that is really impressive now (at least to me). So, we are cranking out the work and we all meet whenever and with whoever we need to.

I think Lothic brings up a good point, but probably not the point he was trying to bring up.

There is one milestone that is the elephant in the room no one has talked about. That is, there surely must be a plan in place for the ultimate monetization and incorporation of MWM. What is this dependent upon, are there key events or accomplishments that must be reached? Is there a minimum kickstarter monetary threshhold that must be reached? Is it going to be a just hiring people one at a time as you can afford them until you eventually have a full paid team? Is there ever going to be a jobs section of the MWM website where needed resources are posted, even if it is now just for volunteers? What's the PLAN? Backers would surely want to know.

Lothic wrote:

Red Warlock wrote:

We do have had periodic meetings with key groups. The art team, for instance, used to have regular Monday night meetings. Those have been helpful at times.

Despite some good value from those meetings, we changed those meetings to be more infrequent. I’m sure all of you have experienced the feeling at work that meeting for the sake of meeting is annoying and a waste of time. That’s especially true when it’s a group of volunteers. So, we hold those meetings now when we feel like it’s worthwhile because they have value, but only when we have stuff to talk about.

And with Discord, we are all talking to each other daily (no matter where on the globe we live).

So we do communicate. An all hands meeting would be tough with all of the volunteers (many who come in and out of working with us throughout their time with us). But key groups do call meetings based on need.

That's fine... Then why do you have people who have info that's months out of date? The point is not to have meetings just for the sake of having meetings. But if having periodic all hands meetings keeps the team working on the "same page" then there could be value in it. Just saying you're doing -something- wrong if people are remaining so "disconnected" like that.

Look I totally get that MWM is right now "just a bunch of good-hearted yet semi-random volunteers". But actual companies don't do things based on when they "feel" like doing them. I realize I keep saying this but one day you guys will need to rip the proverbial Band-Aid off and become a real company. Setting up a regular meeting schedule can help MWM ease its way towards full actualization.

It's a valid point, but my experience (as a manager in my day job with 8 direct reports, vs a volunteer for this group) is that a volunteer team just works differently than a hired team. You can very easily call an all-hands meeting with a hired team and everyone has to show up. We call a meeting with our group, and the people who show up are basically the people who are paying attention right now. And the people who are paying attention right now are not even necessarily the people doing the most work. We have hardcore workers for our team who have been with us for years who just need to drop out for a bit because they need to focus on life or daytime job stuff. So, we can be months behind on information because that worker (who will be back with us 100% in another month) just needed to drop off for a bit, and that worker was the one who had the most up-to-date info on a particular bit of work.

But the point is well-taken, group communication can and should happen when information is getting lost in the shuffle.

What about an often actively volcanic island in the Norwegian Sea?

Red Warlock wrote:

It's a valid point, but my experience (as a manager in my day job with 8 direct reports, vs a volunteer for this group) is that a volunteer team just works differently than a hired team.

I don't know how many times I need to say this but I understand that MWM is [b][i]currently[/i][/b] just a bunch of volunteers. That's [b]NOT[/b] the point I'm trying to make here.

If MWM is to ever get [b]past[/b] being just a rag-tag group of volunteers it's going to have to [b]transition[/b] into becoming a real company sooner or later. If you don't want to start taking the steps towards doing the things real gaming companies do right now (like having regular meetings even if you're not getting "paid" to have them) then [b]when[/b] is that ever going to happen?

This is a matter of customer perception and an indicator of intention here. All I'm getting back from the people who are defending the current loosey-goosey "we don't need to have regular meetings" status quo is that MWM is still no where close to becoming a "real" company and thus no where close to fielding CoT as a launched game. This makes me sad.

Please do not take this as personal criticism directed specifically at you. My "rants" like this one are almost never aimed at individuals working on CoT but at MWM as a collective whole. If everyone thinks it's fine to allow individual contributors involved this effort to effectively remain as integrated or isolated as they "want" to be then so be it. I simply predict that choice of "organizational policy" will ultimately be the cause of adding [b]YEARS[/b] of extra delay to this endeavor when it's all said and done.

All I'm suggesting here is if any group of people start "acting" like a real company then they probably have a better chance of "becoming" a real company. MWM has had 8+ years to exist as a "pseudo-company" already... just saying.