Unless there's a spaceship overhead beaming down invading parties, it makes no sense for spawns to just materialize. How about having them come from places that make sense? Zombies don't climb up out of the street, but out of a manhole makes sense. Criminal organizations have an HQ, make the bad guys originate from the clubhouse. I know you want to have enough spawn points to avoid players just camping at a couple spots, but if you need corner gang members refreshed in a neighborhood, have a vehicle buzz around dumping them out or something.
Personally, I would love to see a motorcycle gang headquarters, where you could kick over the parked bikes out front and watch dozens of mobs come flowing out of the doors, windows, off the roof, etc.
Thu, 10/10/2013 - 12:01
#1
Spawning spawns
Not a unique idea... the mobs in Tabula Rasa would teleport in (and in the early zones, you would see the drop ship fly in to drop them off).
I do like the idea, as it adds more to the general feel of the map/zone.
Would add even more life seeing a van drive around the area and stop at a spot and mobs climb out and the van drives off.
----------------------------------------
Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
It's a bit of a peeve of mine to have something like (huge) drilling vehicles come up through the ground, disgorge troops, and disappear, leaving you to wonder why there isn't a tunnel you could drive a car through. I'd be just as happy if such things didn't happen. Submarines, drop ships, black helicopters, etc. are just dandy.
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
One thing I've mentioned in Missions is having runners trigger other mobs as they run for help. I would MUCH rather have a mob show up (even just running around a corver) than just fade in. Unless they're a hi-tech group then fading in is totally appropriate...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Having ambush mobs show up from more 'realistic' places is a good thing. CoH did this well (mostly) in instanced missions because you triggered an ambush when the spawn point was around the corner.
We'll keep these ides in mind.
However, it's also important to remember that in a MMORPG there are certain conventions that are flat out unrealistic for which we suspend disbelief. E.g., unlimited arrows or 'holstering' a Titan Weapon or zombies clawing up through... concrete.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I don't think drills don't work that way, Darth Fez. In order to have a tunnel you have to get the stuff drilled out in front of you through the entirety of the hole you've been drilling through. So a single drill-based vehicle would just be dumping the pulverized rock/dirt/dust from in front of it behind it. In order to have a clear tunnel, you need to, pretty much, have machinery essentially as long as the hole you're making.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
If I recall correctly, CoH also had a feature where once a spawn of mobs was defeated, their replacements would not respawn if a player was within a certain range (default view range, I think). This would get overridden if too much time passed, but for regular 'beat the bad guys and move on' play is was rare to see a mob actually spawn in plain sight.
The only place I ever saw normal mobs just "pop" in was in PI, But at least they did so with a graphical effect.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Yea. :) in CoT, we will overlay Cracks in the road 1st, THEN...etc... ;)
Its beleavable since its dirt under the concrete, and if they dig enough, wider area... the road Can become structualy weak. Pot Holes! :D
Another potential winkle in not having mobs materialize in plain sight: If you have them spawn on the rooftop, there is then the person flying (climbing, jumping) over - or fighting (or passing) through rooptops- who could end up seeing them spawn instead. (Or alternatively, whom the mobs have to avoid spawning in front of.)
Personally I think the idea of mobs coming out of the obvious spawn point IE doors, was underused in City of Heroes. (I wonder if that was because there was no warning of mobs exiting the doors. Then again, maybe you rig it so they only come out of doors with no one in 25 virtual feet of the door?)
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
Have a van pull up, mooks spill out as it speeds off again. High Tech guys drop in from a helecopter (which you could shoot down if you were fast / powerful enough?). Zombies come out the man hole covers / storm drains or even doors to buildings!
Doin't have people appearing and disappearing willy-nilly (unless, of course, they're supposed to). I liked in CoX that when you saved someone, they ran to a door and entered a building, de-spawning in a way that was believable.
Have groups of bad guys attack someone walking past rather than them spawning mugging someone.
Also, give something for going out of your way to stop a mugging, even if it's a point of prestige or something minor (if you're higher level than the zone, you should still get 'something' for doing the right thing - you're a hero after all!)....
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]
Except when they turned and ran into the door for your mission that you knew was full of nasty bad guys!...
I always got a kick out of that.
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
Good point - I forgot about that.... :)
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]
I liked it when you stealthed to the hostage and freed them. They then ran to the mission exit right through about a hundred of the faction that captured them.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Even better was when, on a stalker, you stealthed to the end of the mission and free them only to realize you needed to lead them out. Not. The one thing I'd like to see if we're going to include stalkers is some consideration of the way stalkers are played.
I think CoX did really well on that already, no phase-spawn in plain sight, let alone in a fight, people coming from doors, single baddies luring you to a door that springs open for surprise ambush in the Hollows, no unreasonable over-population of rooftops... was credible and fun.
That said, arriving vans and such replace the one problem "How do I make a mob spawn without letting it phase in in plain sight?" with three: "How do I make a vehicle spawn without letting it phase in in plain sight?", "How do I make a vehicle despawn without letting it phase out in plain sight?" and "How do I plot a credible path for the vehicle without colliding with any other objects, players, npcs, or other traffic?".
rah.
Ummm..
[img]http://www.rajmurthy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/122207_nyc_manhole_cover_520c.jpg[/img]
Manhole? :)
Counts as "door" to me, and I totally agree. :)
rah.
- Manholes
- Skylights (complete with falling glass)
- Windows
- Any wall via C4 or via some faction-specific Juggernaut guy
- Floor grating
- Wall vents
- Hiding in plain sight (disguised as civilian NPCs like automatons but without their weapons drawn, or disguised as cops, or disguised as a random hero/villain)
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
This brings to mind how cool it would be to phase shift through a building or maybe crash through a wall and keep on going through the whole building juggernaut style! Would help out when cornered by a purple mob chasing you down!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
Who's gonna pay for the insurance on "random hero crashes through my Dry Cleaning store, followed by giant monster"?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Property insurance rates are sky-high in Titan City.
A hearse comes tearing down the street and skids to a stop. Forty clown zombies get out.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
This is something I've actually been thinking about a lot, and we'll be trying (within reason of course) to make it more "realistic" so you don't just have people spawning out of thin air :) Especially the zombie clowns thing, what's more realistic than 40 zombie clowns getting out of the same hearse?
[color=#ff0000]Gameplay And Content Team[/color]
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/24ypdt0.png[/IMG]
CoH did [i]some[/i] of that; in the built-up area of Port Oakes, for example, the Marcone spawns on the street would mostly come out of a nearby door when they respawned to take up their place on the sidewalk. This appears to have been a special case, though, because the mobs that were hunched behind cars having a gunfight, all of the non-Marcone spawns, and the Marcone spawns not near a door (the ones out in the field south of the building on the cliff at the NW end with the sub in the water below it that was the mission door for many of the missions that took you into Paragon City) all had the 'fade in out of nowhere' respawn.
It seems to me that the solution to that would be to take the 'make someone else invisible' power and let you use that on rescued NPCs, so that you could cloak them and lead them out that way. Of course, the invisible NPC would have a lower stealth value than you do, because they don't have any training in things like walking silently, how to move so that edge effects aren't noticeable, etc., so you'd have to take more care with the route you took to lead the NPC out or they'd attract the attention of a spawn as they go by.
Great googly moogly ... how I miss Tabula Rasa! Richard Garriott was [i]just so RIGHT[/i] about mandating that mobs in Tabula Rasa needed to spawn in using "believable" means, rather than just materializing out of nothing. So you had critters that would drop out of trees or burst out of bushes, you had the aforementioned drop ships that would come down, teleport in a spawn of Bane and fly off again. And then there was the grandaddy of them all, the ballistic impact of the the Stalker mob that fell like a meteor from orbit and then proceeded to "unpack itself" once it was on the ground! Man, talk about epic!
As for City of Titans ... something to put on the (virtual) whiteboard would be ... paratroopers for a high tech Foe Group (ala Malta), which could even involve them arriving at their destination via [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASE_jumping]Base Jumping[/url] off tall buildings, deploying a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragliding]paraglider parachute[/url] and (literally) "dropping in from the sky" to reach their designated destination point (kind of like how some of the Mercenary Pets arrived for Masterminds). Heck, even having a Paraglider Power or even a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingsuit_flying]Wingsuit[/url] sort of power be part of a Jumping Pool would be an awesome complimentary synergy, where you can "slow" your rate of descent but not necessarily stop it in a sort of limited controlled Flight mode. Alternatively, you could do something like this as a Gliding Pool where the Paraglider is the counterpart to Hover (ie. slow) and the Wingsuit is the counterpart to Fly (ie. fast), and set up a "linkage" of some sort between the Gliding Pool and the Jumping Pool. Heck, you could potentially even enable something like this as a form of Temp Power with limited charges (ie. 1 per) that lasts until the character reaches the ground or water (however long that might take).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yep, it made it all more believable to be sure... the Stalker dropping in was a definite eye opener when it happened.
And as you said, it all made sense as to why they were coming in that way. The base assaults were epic in terms of numbers of mobs involved as well (in that it wasn't uncommon to be outnumbered 20-1 in them...
*edit* if not higher odds
All that is well and good for special activity spawns, but it doesn't address the few thugs way out in the middle of a park. It would be silly to have a couple of guys running in from offstage to take up their position for mugging. I think some spawns are just going to have to fade in.
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
This happened for the *normal* spawns in TR, not just the "special occasions".
*side note* I do believe that some "warped in" without the drop ship, but the drop ship was used more often than not, and not just saved for "special occasions".
It fitted in with the setting, so even if a drop ship was *not* present to warp them in, due to ships being used very early on in the game life, you knew that with the "teleport" effect that was present, you know how they came in.
The Xanx mobs also tended to dig themselves out of the ground so that added another avenue for them to appear.
Sure, this is all "fading in on you", but it is presented differently, and so makes it seem more organic.
Some mobs in Guild Wars 2 are the same. The spiders will drop down from the trees instead of just fading into view right in front of you.
For the most part, I thought CoX handled that pretty well, most of the time when I was street-sweeping or even just traveling around I did not see the respawn happen, and out of sight, out of mind. The only times I can really remember a spawn (outside of an invasion invent) popping up was ocasionaly in PI where a single Malta/Carny/Nemesis troop would teleport in, and even then it was just in the area outside Portal Court.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
You could see mobs spawning in via teleporter effect (single mobs, not whole spawns, although there would generally be three or four at a time) on the sidewalks all over Peregrine Island, down to about the open gateway into the parking lot around the ferry landing on the SW side. Always on the sidewalks, though; the regular spawn replacements were "fade in when no one's looking".