Remember Longbow enemies? How they ranged widely facial appearance, sometimes even in unusual tones (Wardens anyone?)
Now, my understanding is that literally several different Longbow Guardian and such models were made, each with a slightly different face.
I think there's a better way, a Random face option in the costume creator. Maybe two, "Random Natural Face" and "Random Face", where each Sprite generated has a random set of features within a reasonable set of "natural" or "random but not too random" costume options. E.g., random may not include a Samurai Helmet.
Even better, but more programming-intensive, create a checklist of items that each sprite generated randomly chooses from. This may be random set of Hair, Eyes, Face, Facial hair, etc, or, a random set of created faces: randomly selects Face A, or Face B, etc.
These option could come in handy for making henchmen that are more generic, rather than the CoH options which were 1) make one henchmen and have all Aryan henchmen (or whatever), or 2) making several NPCs, each with a variety of features, while still being "generic Longbow Guardian".
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Random powers could also be neat. Again, going back to longbow, making one NPC with "random set of powers within set A and random set of powers within set B" is a lot easier on the creator than making 20 Longbow Wardens. Now, the latter has its advantages: making separate NPCs makes sure each is an appropriate difficulty, making a random SS/Inv Brute could become very difficult or very simple.
Here again I'd suggest a checklist, but it'd be more complicated.
This could make generics a bit more unique. For example, having a Chaser gang each with a random set of melee powers (Martial arts kick, super stomp, etc.).
Noting the power scheme for CoT, I believe it'd be the Theme that'd be random, maybe not the whole power(set) in the above case.
Either way, thoughts?
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Can u put all the powers in the system inculdeing masterys
I have similar thoughts on our NPC Creator using our Avatar Creator with additional inputs to create random NPC appearances using a library of preset values that have been created for specific factions. We wouldn't want our normal human-proto-military faction to have men with pointy ears and long hair with glowing eyes. Each time a spawn of a specific faction needs to be created, the NPCC would generate the spawn using the faction parameters and randomize appearances. Of course some factions may not have very random of an appearance either - this is all decided by our Comp team of course.
Random powers so far as creating our NPCs probably won't happen. For one, Comp writes out what abilities they want for various factions which already places a limiter on what is used. Tech and Game Play put together they actual specifics of how those powers operate. It may be possible once we have enough art and in-game models to work with to have some factions with random appearance of powers - like a street gang with several different types of pistols instead of the same one over and over again. That could be a parameter used. One thing that is important is that players be able to recognize what is going on when encountering factions, getting used to what they are seeing, how things operate, and so forth if factions had widely randomized powers it could mess with the metrics of encounter difficulty, lose adhereance to the look and feel of a particular faction.
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Do not forget to leave room for weights. For some group you may want to put on weights for certain colors or appearance. For example a para military group may have an emphasis on crew cuts and bald operatives but some of their members may have mohawks, or more rareley pony tails or even rarer still long hair.
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Adding a randomization type routine to character creation somewhere down the line may appeal to some, forcing them (their choice) to play something they may not have done before... Maybe even a choose random power within a powerset / theme instead of choose it yourself option... I dunno how easy that would be, perhaps already on drawing board for initial release...