I was playing Champions Online today and for about the billionth time, I encountered the single thing I hate most about that game - all conversations are restricted to a zone.
In CO, they have a zone chat that lets all players in that zone talk to each other. As soon as you leave that common zone area, either to go to another zone, or to go into a mission, you don't "hear" that zone chat anymore. CO has the ability for players to make their own channels, but in the many years of that game's existence, no such channel was created that is commonly used. Players create one that is popular for a few months, then abandoned. Even when a player-created channel IS popular, it doesn't automatically push out to every new player.
In my opinion, that restricts the ability for the players in that game to REALLY bond as a community. I recognize that there is a community there, but I am arguing it would encompass a broader percentage of its players if they could chat in a common forum more easily.
In City of Heroes, for example, there IS a better system. I play semi-actively in both Homecoming and Rebirth. Homecoming has a channel I think is called "General" and Rebirth has one called "Rebirth." Both do exactly what I like. If people are just talking about cool movies or music or funny TV shows or spamming puns, I still get to tune in and participate in all of that, even if I am in a different part of the City or Heroes, or even in a mission. Whenever I see that such a channel does NOT exist in Champions Online, it occurs to me that the people who designed that game never assumed such a channel would be important.
I wanted to put in my two cents that I, personally, do feel like such a channel would be important. It is a HUGE part of why the original CoX game, as well as the currently run CoX games feel like a tighter community than that of Champions Online. I don't want this kind of communication to be taken for granted. Please make sure that a common chat channel, for use across the areas of the game, whether in or out of missions, is part of the automatically pushed-out channels for all players.
In a City of Titans context, this would amount to:
[list][*]District channels (1 per district)
[*]City channel (the entire city)
[*]Hero channel (alignment required)
[*]Villain channel (alignment required)[/list]
District channels auto switch when moving between districts.
City channel is the "everybody online" channel.
I can easily imagine the Hero and Villain channels being used most often to find groups for group content on blueside and redside, respectively.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm going to be pedantic for a moment, please forgive me.
Alignment in CoT has nothing to do with Hero and Villain. I think it is apparent and understood what you meant, but the term "alignment" means something specific in CoT and we should probably get into practice using it properly.
As for what we call a hero or a villain (or later, a Scoundrel or Vigilante); I think MWM has been using the term "Path," although I think that even that term is inadequate. I say this because we have been told there are several paths to choose from, some are hero paths and some are villain paths.
[url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/630570]Kickstarter update #18[/url] goes into more detail about paths.
But I think for our purposes, the term Path should suffice as the descriptor whether we are Hero, Villain, Scoundrel or Vigilante.
[hr]
Pedantrant aside, MMORPG chats are incredibly self-realizing. No matter what the developers intend for their use, the player base will use them for what they want or find most effective. A level 1 to 10 channel will become the recruitment channel will become the trade channel will become the lfg channel will become the... and so on[br]
I think CO and other games that establish local channels do so to not only foster local cooperation but to deliberately eliminate the bloat and nonsense that fills game-wide channels. Your experiences, @Hatut Zeraze, seem to reinforce this.
While I like the creation of player-made channels on prinicple, I don't think there's really any value to having them in the game IFF the game also includes chat channels by group. Chat channels by group would be team, league, raid, taskforce, etc., etc. Such channels would even encompass open world events that players can automatically join
The other matter that is far more prevalent now than when CoX, DCUO and CO were made is VOIP. Teamspeak was big for a while, but now Discord rules the roost. Most guilds in MMO today have discord channels and many require discord membership. I think it would make sense for this all-volunteer effort to outsource as much of their community building to third party apps like Discord as possible.
[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.
I'm sorry, I don't want to add voice to my game-work. There's already plenty of data to process, just in reacting to the in-game environment. I do not have enough brain-power to 'translate' voices into language, into meaning, into responses. Reading Chat is the 'barely takes an effort' thing, for me.
You see, I'm hearing-impaired. That means that Sound/Speech is almost always muffled and mumbled, so my brain has to filter and 'translate' what I hear into recognizable words and GUESS about the rest, to make intelligible language from the garbargle that my ears take in. Add the slurring that microphones and electronic transmission contribute and it's a wonder that I can use telephones at all! If there's a jet plane or a big truck going by, I just have to tell people I'll call back later, when it's quieter.
In-person, at least I can read faces, if not lips, to clue myself into Meaning, if not the words themselves.
So, to reiterate, I'm not interested in Voice-chat, because it makes playing and communicating Harder for me. It might be easier for most of the 'normal' people.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Paths are stories which are associated with Renown.
There can be multiple Paths created for each Renown.
Right now, we’re starting off with only a couple. More will be made after launch for the second-half of the game.
After that, the possibility exists to add more Paths for each Renown.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
That's a very good point I hadn't even considered. Soundscapes, sound effects and other audio aren't necessary to play the game. They [i]add[/i] to the experience, making it more visceral, dramatic or otherwise engaging and entertaining, but they aren't necessary. VOIP capabilities can also be [i]value added[/i] without being required. All the requirements for the game must be met without it. How much and to what extent MWM outsources chat to third party apps will have to be a judgment call for them; but I am with you, Fireheart, that you and any other hearing-impaired player should not have to sacrifice core gameplay to do it.
[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.
I was under the impression that renown was a measurement unit, yet you seem to be using it as akin to 'alignment' in the way Redlynne used the term alignment. Could you please clarify so we all know what terms to apply to what features?
[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.
I was using the term in the colloquial sense that would be immediately accessible to anyone reading these forums and not intimately familiar with game systems and terminology.
I wanted clarity of purpose rather than symmetrical congruence with the game's unique term for the function.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Renown is a base layer for “how their world viewed your character” such as Hero, Vigilante, Scoundrel, and Villain. This sets your initial faction rep for how NPCs will react to your character. It also will provide the options for which Path you can select.
Renown can then be improved as a form of how “popular” your character is.
Alignment is the true-axis system which is affected by decisions you make for your character at key points during your Path. It can affect how certain NPCs in your path relate to your character as well as affect some of the narrative of the Path.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I see. So its a 2-dimensional quantity (A vector quantity, actually, if you want to be specific)
Hero2 would be a magnitude 2 Hero. Villain8 would be a magnitude 8 villain. Both direction and magnitude are needed to define "Renown."
Do I understand you correctly?
[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.
Yes. Renown actually has its own progression. That info is found in the [url=https://cityoftitans.com/content/beyond-good-and-evil-2]Beyond Good and Evil 2 update[/url]
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
So, bringing this back to the topic at hand: Chat channels.
Pedant that I am, I've corrected Redlynne's comment.
[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.
Update accepted.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Not to beat an already beleagured horse, but for those who may need a slightly different perspective: Renown is PUBLIC Perception, multiple pluses for the heroic types, multiple negatives for the villainous types and everything between. Vigilantes and rogues would have mixed "reviews".
Alignment is based on your personal choices, either active or passive ones. This is the one that has 3 axis, correct? Loyalty, Agressiveness and Truthfulness(?).
I don't think that's how it works. If you read the linked discussion on [i]Paths[/i], it looks like you'll basically be given a curated selection of missions for a specific renown. I'm not sure how they're going about allowing us to switch paths once we've started down one or if we'll be able to increase different renown scores simultaneously at all. This is probably a topic worthy of a new update and a separate discussion thread.
As per the Update "Beyond Good and Evil 2," MWM states the following:
Last I heard it was Law, Honor and Violence.
[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.