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Discuss: Run. Jump. Fly. Port. Cling? (Tech)

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Cyclops
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Hellwreckage wrote:
Hellwreckage wrote:

Hello fellas. Just wanted to drop this as well. Here is the music made for the trailer and for the future, Enjoy.
https://soundcloud.com/hellwreckage/city-of-titans-velocity-preview

LOVE it! Great music to game by.

Everything about this game is beginning to gel and it looks great any way I look at it.
Thank you!

avelworldcreator
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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

avelworldcreator wrote:
The idea of suggested distance is not a bad one but hard to communicate - note that you had to explain it yourself. An issue I also have to consider with matters of color and color blindness is having high contrast. I was cautious with my "fade" as a consequence.
I'm thinking of dropping the mannequin entirely and the rings. Retaining the platform disk and creating a white, elongated "flash" reminiscent of Star Trek..
I appreciate the suggestions and criticism though.

I had to explain the notion because I was taking something which originally belonged to a completely different context and wanted to be unambiguous in my communication of the notion.
To clarify, you could even do something as simple as combining the basic iconography I gave you to come up with something more obvious. Combine the underlying images of these two things:
+
Bottom left, you have a mannequin (large).
Top right, you have the same mannequin (small).
In between the two silhouettes, you put "speed lines" implying movement into the distance in a line of sight transport.
The problem, of course, is that you're dealing with a circular field instead of a square one, so you don't get to make use of the corner spaces in this fashion, but that's a basic idea/outline of something you could try. At a very basic level, you're trying to suggest a transfer towards the horizon line without "moving" through the intervening distance.
So I'm thinking that a twin mannequin, one large in the foreground, one small in the background, with speed lines between them, ought to do the job of supplying the iconography you need.
And on a similar note, for any sort of Group Teleport, you could use something akin to this for the icon ... ... especially if one of the animation options is Stargate Transport Rings.

I think we are just going with a "flash" effect for the teleport. You've got good concept but I'm wondering how well it will fit into a 47 pixel circular area. I also have to be careful about using other peoples icons unless they are clearly in the public domain. The Star Trek Online's iconography makes me nervous in this respect. And good show for thinking of "Group Teleport". We haven't even begun to touch on that transport power (or of any other transport power variants). How's your art skills? Are you comfortable drafting out a crude sketch of your ideas? I'd be quite happy to look at them and see if I can make them come out right.

Oh, I hope I didn't come off as too cranky in my last reply to you. I realized I was overtired at that time and I'm not sure if my exhaustion came through the wrong way.

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Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

Yeah, I'm on a work computer so that probably has something to do with why I can't see it.
But yeah, I was going to say I for one played it mainly with the keyboard keys and usually memorized the attack keys. What I was thinking was to have it be able to have a quick pop up button("Alt" for example, or the clickable tab) that will bring it back up if you need to view the powers. I think semi-transparent tabs give a more neat and accessible/customizable way of storing things like the powers, maps, inventory.
The tab would turn a solid color when hovered over with the cursor(or when holding down Alt), and if hovered over or held down for a short time it would bring up a hint box saying what it is. The different styles of tabs could be color coded. Powers - Purple, Inventory/Money - Green, Map - Yellow (this can be completely customizable to make it easier to differentiate for those with sight ailments). To go even further with that point, you could have options to set it up to play different sounds when you go over the different tabs. You could give slider options to the transparency as well from 100 down to 0 for those who didn't want them to appear(and even a disable check box for those who don't want to render them)
If you go with the 4 bars of powers, You could do something like this so you could easily access whichever tab you want. Clicking it again would put it back into "tab" mode
"Alt" = 1st Bar
"Alt + ," = 2nd Bar
"Alt +." = 3rd Bar
"Alt +/ = 4th Bar
(Customizable of course)

Not dumb ideas.. But the way CoX did it was the Alt/Shift/Ctrl key with the specific number key. Holding the state change button made the specific tray appear unless the player had it locked open. It saved a keystroke or mouse click.

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avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

...I'm wondering how well it will fit into a 47 pixel circular area.

*tries to make a rough circle with an area of 47 pixels, realizes this is too small, then copies the task bar Avel posted back here and sees that a diameter of 47 pixels was meant. Snags one of the blanks to use as a template. ^_^*

So, I think this is a crude version of what Redlynne was suggesting.

avelworldcreator wrote:

I also have to be careful about using other peoples icons unless they are clearly in the public domain.

I think the IP Release email referred to here covers any rights I may have in that image. ^_^

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avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

I think we are just going with a "flash" effect for the teleport. You've got good concept but I'm wondering how well it will fit into a 47 pixel circular area. I also have to be careful about using other peoples icons unless they are clearly in the public domain.

Foradain wrote:

So, I think this is a crude version of what Redlynne was suggesting.

Foradain nails it in concept terms. Plenty of room for refinements, naturally, but that's the basic underlying notion right there. Large mannequin bottom left, identical but smaller mannequin top right, with speed lines in between to imply motion from foreground to background.

avelworldcreator wrote:

The Star Trek Online's iconography makes me nervous in this respect.

As it should, if used without any alteration at all. However, it was an easy reference for me to SHOW as well as TELL the outlines of what I was thinking. One picture vs thousand words and all that.

avelworldcreator wrote:

And good show for thinking of "Group Teleport". We haven't even begun to touch on that transport power (or of any other transport power variants).

Bad habit of mine ... thinking holistically like that. I'm not just thinking of ONE thing at a time, usually, but instead trying to understand the relationships between All Of The Things™ ... whether that be art assets or game mechanics or even story continuity, and how everything fits together as a collection of moving parts. I've been told (repeatedly) that this is rather unusual, and I keep having a hard time believing it is that unusual, because for me it's just typical/ordinary rather than unique.

Ye ken hoo i'tis.

avelworldcreator wrote:

How's your art skills? Are you comfortable drafting out a crude sketch of your ideas? I'd be quite happy to look at them and see if I can make them come out right.

20 years ago I was an amateur photoshop jockey. I understand the application has undergone a few updates (*cough*) since then, but I still know how to make use of the tools. Right now, the most sophisticated graphics software I've got to work with is Preview on my iMac. I'd rate my art skills as being "fair" to acceptable for conveying concept via crude sketches deserving of Proper Refinement by a decently skilled artist such as yourself. If Foradain hadn't gotten there first, I would have done something similar if you'd needed me to.

I also liked to think of myself as a "decent" Base Decorator when we still had access to City of Heroes. I'd give tours of my Hero Base and "wow" quite a lot of the visitors with my spatial compositions featuring accessibility and use of all of the available 3D volume.

It also doesn't hurt that I was an Art Major for a while at university, until I made a rather unfortunate discovery. I went in thinking I could be an artist and came out realizing I was a much better critic than an artist. In a lot of my art classes, I wound up being a de-facto TA simply because I could critique other people's work in ways that everyone understood and could easily grasp, while at the same time struggling along with everyone else to actually do the assignments.

Perhaps the most interesting assignment I ever participated in was a sort of "round robin" of building up pictures by trading them to group partners. Sort of a "fresh cup, move down" kind of thing where we'd do something for about 3 minutes and then hand off what we'd done to the next person and start working on theirs for the next 3 minutes. Round and round it went, essentially doing artistic accretion in layer upon layer on each other's work. I was in a group of 3 people, and when we got done, not a single mark that I had made on ANY of the pictures was visible, because the other 2 students in my group didn't have my "lighter touch" on what we were doing. And yet EVERYONE in the class could look at the 3 pictures my group of 3 had worked on and everyone INSTANTLY knew that I had been a part of THAT group. In effect, although the "marks" I had made on the page were swamped by the other 2 in my group, the SENSE of what I had been doing and adding to them was unmistakable. With most of the groups, it was hard to know who had done what in them, but in mine, it was obvious that I was a part of it, even though there wasn't anything clearly visible that I had "done" to the works everyone was looking at.

Side effect of being an anime otaku before anime was "cool" I guess ...

So to answer your question as honestly as possible ... I'd say I'm about as good as the tools I've got available will let me be. Which is to say ... adequate ... in this case. I'd also say that I'm better at "applied creativity" than I am at "pure creativity" (if that makes sense). Give me something to start with and I'm off and running. Give me a blank page and I can be stumped for where to go or what to do in order to get rolling. If you want to know more, we can take this to PMs.

One thing I will give you for free though is that I am "a vast repository of completely useless human knowledge" ... hence why I can reference things like STO icons for (re)purposes like these as conceptual starting points.

avelworldcreator wrote:

Oh, I hope I didn't come off as too cranky in my last reply to you. I realized I was overtired at that time and I'm not sure if my exhaustion came through the wrong way.

Right back at'cha (in reverse?). If anything, I was more worried about offending YOU than being offended BY you. Having met the Devs for both City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa in person and gotten to talk to them, I have a reasonably fair idea of the sorts of pressures people in your position can be under.

So ... cranky? No, not in the least one of my concerns! If anything, I'm probably giving you more leeway than you're expecting, so fear not. I'm an old hand at pure text communications, going on almost 30 years now. The mere fact that you chose to engage, rather than ignore this discussion thread earns you heaping helpings of respect and accommodation, both now and going forwards. You're also allowing us to participate in the creation of iconography for the game ... which is no small feat, even if we're only talking about a mere 8 icons.

Good on ya, mate!


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hehe... i know it might be

hehe... i know it might be just me, but when i see that icon:

my mind wanders towards electric stovetops:

go figure! :P

Kiyori Anoyui
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+1 to Red

+1 to Red

I do like the look of that, you could probably use the icon that you have and incorporate it into that design

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avelworldcreator
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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

avelworldcreator wrote:
...I'm wondering how well it will fit into a 47 pixel circular area.
*tries to make a rough circle with an area of 47 pixels, realizes this is too small, then copies the task bar Avel posted back here and sees that a diameter of 47 pixels was meant. Snags one of the blanks to use as a template. ^_^*

So, I think this is a crude version of what Redlynne was suggesting.
avelworldcreator wrote:
I also have to be careful about using other peoples icons unless they are clearly in the public domain.
I think the IP Release email referred to here covers any rights I may have in that image. ^_^

Good start! But if you really want to play here is the template that I use (it gets shrunk down later):

And if you want to really play with it I've created a toolkit for anyone to try out their designs right here:
Button Generator

There is an enclosed "ReadMe.txt" file in the above zip. Hopefully my instructions are simple enough. I really hope you enjoy this little toy I've made for our supporters.

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DISCLAIMER: I tried a search

DISCLAIMER: I tried a search for this because I know it's been discussed, but the Search function won't work on my mobile for some reason and I'm traveling. I apologise if this has already been answered somewhere.

What's the word on possible vehicle/mount animations for certain travel powers?

I would assume not for launch, obviously (or the first year or so I'd imagine), but is it a possibility? And, if so, is it in the plans for the future, or just a distant possibility?

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

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They're on the big board of

They're on the big board of 'stuff we'd like to do after we get the stuff we need to do done.'
The technology for awesome motorcycle-like things exist, both flying and driving.
Horses are a little harder cause of the legs and suchlike.
Integrating them into the system would take a little time but it _seems_ doable.
But... we're focusing on making the game.

PS: Skateboards/hoverskateboards are in the same vicinity.

They'd actually be their own travel power, because they'd behave slightly differently.
(This is how things are vaugely planned right now, this statement is not intended to be binding, etc, etc.)
We have a lot of plans, but the rule is, make the core game first.

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desviper wrote:
desviper wrote:

"Fuck you, poor people"
But seriously, making some changed to the game to increase the "people who can't afford 1200$ gaming rigs" marketshare is wise.

Woooow I am not saying that at all! The point I was making was in regards to MWM being afraid to scare away people with low end machines. I understand that. But at this stage of development where you want to begin generating interest and start thinking about getting the wave of excitement to start, showing off progress videos that are one extra Google Chrome tab away from being a slide show isn't a good idea. You can't please everyone. You just can't. Or you'll never get out of development. And you don't need a $1200 rig either. You can get something decent for $500, cheaper even if you are prepared to buy online. If you can't afford to pick up a machine that will run a game on low settings, you've got other things to worry about besides this game.

Currently trapped inside the Speed Force...

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avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

robopez wrote:
Wonderful update.
Cool flypose.
Is the toon hovering after each BAMF? Is that what that was showing?
Five square miles of map space? Eight minutes to traverse across? That will be awesome.
I got an inkling of a hint we might be able to see the space populated with buildings/terrain...?
Sometimes I think about the old game, how I would look forward to playing it on certain days.
I look forward to playing this game!

Yes, I believe our hover time on teleport is about 5 seconds.
Our map currently breaks down into 19x23 sections each 1009x1009 data points. Right now I'm having a problem with extraneous data points in each file I'm needing to clean up each tile (8 points on two sides) so practically 1001x1001 points. Each point represents 1 meter I believe so (1001x18+1009)x(22x1001+1009)/10000/2.5899752356 should give you the square mileage. I may be in error and the data points represent centimeters instead of meters, but I'm pretty confident based on the results. (13 miles x 13 miles roughly). I'm not sure all of it will be immediately playable but we are striving to do just that.

*puts on Dev Emeritus hat*

At least the originals were 1m horizontal resolution, 1cm vertical (although it would be fair to ask what the *sampling* resolution was, vertically, but most of the spots where it matters shouldn't actually be terrain anyway). 1000m on a side for the original data, adapted (well, "hit with a medium-size hammer") to the fact that Unreal wants a vertex-based sample and the common sampling method for LIDAR is column height. So basically everything is off by 0.5m from where it would be if it were Right™, in exchange for being able to skip the "interpolate the entire map in ways that could get rather odd around the edges" stage, and was plenty close for a first test pass. Especially since there was a presumption of non-trivial amounts of manual editing once assembly of the "real" copy began.

Vertical range is roughly ±300m from "baseline", but there was some significant (and, as of my retirement, ongoing) discussion as to whether it made sense to bias that to something more like a 75/25 split, rather than a 50/50. To be more precise, Unreal supports 16 bit unsigned integer sample values, so at a 1cm scaling that's 655.36 meters total vertical space.

The original plan was to use only the subset of "tiles" that could be seen from within a given district, based on maximum line of sight distance (a.k.a. "far clipping plane") and district border geometry. Even those would end up being baked down as part of building the "level" file for the district, and would include optimizations that let the engine know that, for example, everything on terrain chunks X, Y, and Z would never be seen from closer than, say, 300m (to pick a mostly-but-not-entirely random number), so it could do a bunch of detail culling and LOD calculation work "up front".

I cannot speak to what any *current* plans may be, however. While Unreal has support for automatic "origin shifting", that only really works in single-player games; since it is currently built around single-precision floats for positions, once you get out past the 20-30 kilometer range (distance from origin), you can start to get some epsilon artifacting that is noticeable to a human player. For those playing along at home, that would be "jerky movement", where you seem to be moving forward in little jumps rather than as a smooth motion. The slower you go, the more noticeable it is. To compare to another game that may be more familiar, this is why "The Farlands" came to exist in Minecraft; worlds were getting big enough that folks started seeing the jitter effect.


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avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

Not dumb ideas.. But the way CoX did it was the Alt/Shift/Ctrl key with the specific number key. Holding the state change button made the specific tray appear unless the player had it locked open. It saved a keystroke or mouse click.

*puts on future player hat*

If this isn't there in the launch UI, it will be the first UI mod I write. My standard layout, even before I had a large screen, had my first two bars permanently showing (mostly so that I could see things like recharges), and a third set for pop-on-key (what you describe). Fourth and fifth were permanently open but shaped unusually and not docked with the rest, as they had stuff I cared about much more rarely and didn't need keybinds for.

And that was with *none* of my Mastermind keybinds showing on the bars, I just had those memorized (and laid out in a way that made them intuitive to me, of course).

I will point out, in a broader note, that with UE4 adding support for mods the *only* really sane way to address some of this stuff is to simply make sure it is structured with a clean architecture that stuff can be plugged into (which you're going to need anyway if you want to not kill people two or three years in), and make it simple to add UI mods.

But dear $deity please *do* keep the "docking" concept.


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warcabbit wrote:
warcabbit wrote:

They're on the big board of 'stuff we'd like to do after we get the stuff we need to do done.'
The technology for awesome motorcycle-like things exist, both flying and driving.
Horses are a little harder cause of the legs and suchlike.
Integrating them into the system would take a little time but it _seems_ doable.
But... we're focusing on making the game.
PS: Skateboards/hoverskateboards are in the same vicinity.
They'd actually be their own travel power, because they'd behave slightly differently.
(This is how things are vaugely planned right now, this statement is not intended to be binding, etc, etc.)
We have a lot of plans, but the rule is, make the core game first.

Conveniently, both Vehicles (think "wheeled" or at least "act vaguely like wheeled", i.e. jetbike) and "flight with props" (hoverboard, etc) are not only pre-built systems, but have lots and lots of examples, even just in the stuff from Epic. The hoverboard, in particular, shouldn't be much more complex than having the following features:

  • Support alternative flight animations (i.e. "more than one")
  • Support animations that involve props
  • An animation that consists of not much more than "standing in a hoverboard-riding pose"

I'm not saying that is *all* there is to it — there are a few bits like tweaking the physics blending to get the right mix of motion as you corner, etc — but it is pretty much the first set of steps beyond "use purely built-in mechanics" (running, jumping, and so on) or "use no mechanics" (teleport). In fact, a *good* flight setup is at least as hard, quite possibly harder.


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Zerohour wrote:
Zerohour wrote:

desviper wrote:
"Fuck you, poor people"
But seriously, making some changed to the game to increase the "people who can't afford 1200$ gaming rigs" marketshare is wise.

Woooow I am not saying that at all! The point I was making was in regards to MWM being afraid to scare away people with low end machines. I understand that. But at this stage of development where you want to begin generating interest and start thinking about getting the wave of excitement to start, showing off progress videos that are one extra Google Chrome tab away from being a slide show isn't a good idea. You can't please everyone. You just can't. Or you'll never get out of development. And you don't need a $1200 rig either. You can get something decent for $500, cheaper even if you are prepared to buy online. If you can't afford to pick up a machine that will run a game on low settings, you've got other things to worry about besides this game.

Something that folks should be aware of: it is fairly clear that most if not all of the videos shot so far are being shot from within the editor (it may in some cases be Play-In-Editor (PIE) mode, but still, in the editor). When playing in the editor, you frequently *don't* have most of your baked assets unless you've already done a lot of the asset development. That means that performance in that mode bears basically *zero* resemblance to not just 'what actual play would look like", but even "what this would look like if distributed as a 'playable' game, right now".

That said, I'm not sure it makes sense to try to show things running on an old machine, for the exact same reasons — it isn't actually showing anything that conveys useful information, as compared to using a faster machine. Once things are happening in a more realistic setup, with cooked assets and a wide variety of all that good stuff, then the "pair of videos" idea makes more sense, potentially, for a couple of reasons. But until then… to be honest the result of having a choppy video is just that it makes me (at least) not care to watch it again, or even watch it very closely the first time, simply because it is physically distressing to try to do so. And I'm sure as heck not going to subject anyone else to it as a "hey look at what they've achieved".


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Kiyori Anoyui
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Thanks for the toolkit avel!

Thanks for the toolkit avel! I'll probably mess around with it when I get home from work and see if I can make anything good :)

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DeathSheepFromHell wrote:
DeathSheepFromHell wrote:

avelworldcreator wrote:
Not dumb ideas.. But the way CoX did it was the Alt/Shift/Ctrl key with the specific number key. Holding the state change button made the specific tray appear unless the player had it locked open. It saved a keystroke or mouse click.

*puts on future player hat*
If this isn't there in the launch UI, it will be the first UI mod I write. My standard layout, even before I had a large screen, had my first two bars permanently showing (mostly so that I could see things like recharges), and a third set for pop-on-key (what you describe). Fourth and fifth were permanently open but shaped unusually and not docked with the rest, as they had stuff I cared about much more rarely and didn't need keybinds for.
And that was with *none* of my Mastermind keybinds showing on the bars, I just had those memorized (and laid out in a way that made them intuitive to me, of course).
I will point out, in a broader note, that with UE4 adding support for mods the *only* really sane way to address some of this stuff is to simply make sure it is structured with a clean architecture that stuff can be plugged into (which you're going to need anyway if you want to not kill people two or three years in), and make it simple to add UI mods.
But dear $deity please *do* keep the "docking" concept.

You mentioning the UI mod is something that makes me take more interest in a game. Because to be honest, I want my information laid out/relayed to me slightly differently, and whilst the base UI *should* be all you need, you cannot take into consideration *everything* that a player might want to do.

As an example: In Wildstar you have a normal button for your mount. And you can choose to select your companion pet (purely cosmetic) from a separate game window. World of Warcraft has the same.

City of Heroes *could* Have used something similar just for the costume powers (I had numerous ones and they ended up being squeezed into an incredibly long list under temp powers..... something that was not always the easiest to deal with.

There is *nothing* wrong with that. I mean, it isn't every person who wants a different mount each time they click the button or a random companion pet to be summoned.

But the fact that someone took their time to *write* the UI mod (with the random selection from pets that you can use) for these was very handy.

Hell, even something as simple as a "chat box mod", which whilst you might think most chat systems *might not* need... could be useful... especially for Roleplayers (Killroy for example in Wildstar allows you to use a different font for "RP text" (the base chat client can display/filter chat based on "RP tags", but doesn't alter its font), so it useful, and something that the developers might have thought about, but gone for the "take to long to implement for the number of people who use it"

There are the other UI mods that allow you to have your ability buttons laid out *however* you want [1], even if you want to place them down to the pixel on in a pentagram design (not that anyone would, but it is possible with a UI mod).

Not everyone uses these, but the fact that *some* people do, and might well *swear* by them show how the game UI has *failed* them in one fashion or another.

The other thing to remember, is that if you (as developers) treat your UI itself as a "set of mods", then it should make it easier to add more features/tweak as needed over time, instead of rewriting the whole UI up from scratch again... something that wouldn't surprise me if the CoX developers wanted to do, but couldn't for various legacy reasons.

If people want to spend their time coming up with layouts/mods/enhancements for the game which they could share to others, the more likely that they are going to be to *Stick* with the game.

[1] Someone actually wrote a "spellslinger " ability bar mod, which put each ability button into the barrel of a gun... the spell slingers weapon is a pair of pistols.

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DeathSheepFromHell wrote:
DeathSheepFromHell wrote:

Conveniently, both Vehicles (think "wheeled" or at least "act vaguely like wheeled", i.e. jetbike) and "flight with props" (hoverboard, etc) are not only pre-built systems, but have lots and lots of examples, even just in the stuff from Epic. The hoverboard, in particular, shouldn't be much more complex than having the following features:
Support alternative flight animations (i.e. "more than one")
Support animations that involve props
An animation that consists of not much more than "standing in a hoverboard-riding pose"
I'm not saying that is *all* there is to it — there are a few bits like tweaking the physics blending to get the right mix of motion as you corner, etc — but it is pretty much the first set of steps beyond "use purely built-in mechanics" (running, jumping, and so on) or "use no mechanics" (teleport). In fact, a *good* flight setup is at least as hard, quite possibly harder.

Well, I want to be able to grind on things with the hoverboard/skateboard, maybe ollie, fakies, few other things. I mean, not full on Tony Hawk, but a few moves. And you have to be able to ramp the motorcycle, burnout on the rear tire, skid sideways to a stop, wheelies.

I mean, you don't _have_ to, but it'd add a little fun. It's very, very doable, so doable I'm gonna say we can do it no problem, it's just 'yeah, later, after the serious work is done, or when someone gets bored in the middle of everything.'

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I'm not talking about mod

I'm not talking about mod design for the UI at this stage. It sounds like a good idea, I'm just not going to commit to it till we get a little farther into the project. I know we'll be completely revamping the UI at least once post-QA, and that's when I've got it penciled in.

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Zerohour wrote:
Zerohour wrote:

desviper wrote:
"Fuck you, poor people"
But seriously, making some changed to the game to increase the "people who can't afford 1200$ gaming rigs" marketshare is wise.

Woooow I am not saying that at all! The point I was making was in regards to MWM being afraid to scare away people with low end machines. I understand that. But at this stage of development where you want to begin generating interest and start thinking about getting the wave of excitement to start, showing off progress videos that are one extra Google Chrome tab away from being a slide show isn't a good idea. You can't please everyone. You just can't. Or you'll never get out of development. And you don't need a $1200 rig either. You can get something decent for $500, cheaper even if you are prepared to buy online. If you can't afford to pick up a machine that will run a game on low settings, you've got other things to worry about besides this game.

Another thing MWM needs to consider when establishing the overall hardware requirements for CoT is how much of a long term future do they want to account for. Remember that this game, once launched, could potentially run for 10+ years. One of the biggest problems CoH had in 2012 was that it was seriously starting to look like what it was: a game that was created in 2004. Even if it had not been shutdown it would be looking very ancient by now.

Now I agree it would probably be a bad idea if CoT required everyone to have extremely high end hardware to even hope to play the game when it launches. But the capabilities of a monster desktop machine that costs $3,000+ in 2016 will probably only cost about $500 in 2021 and likewise will probably be able to be fitted into a $20 wristwatch by 2026.

My point is that pushing the envelope as far as hardware requirements go is not really a question of "f*cking over poor people" as much as it's trying to set the bar high enough so that this game will last as long as possible. Frankly I'd rather this game ALMOST be too graphically bleeding edge when it launches just so that by the time 2020+ comes around it'll still look reasonably good and worthwhile.

This all ties in with what I was saying earlier in this thread about trying to make these demo videos look as good as possible. Everything that we see about CoT needs to look good not only for say 2016, but for some years into the future as well.

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So guys, I heard the

So guys, I heard the Character Creator will be up late this year, so will that be up in December?

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CaptainSabalan wrote:
CaptainSabalan wrote:

So guys, I heard the Character Creator will be up late this year, so will that be up in December?

I've seen a few "vague hints" by the rednames that the standalone Character Creator could be out "by the end of the year". To be honest as much as I'd like to see that happen as soon as possible I'm not sure we can really hold MWM to an exact declaration/expectation that it will be out precisely by December 31st 2015.

Still I would hope that we'll get at least some kind of initial "beta version" of it in the next few months. Time is ticking along and the sooner we get tangible deliverables to play around with the happier I'm sure everybody will be.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Another thing MWM needs to consider when establishing the overall hardware requirements for CoT is how much of a long term future do they want to account for. Remember that this game, once launched, could potentially run for 10+ years. One of the biggest problems CoH had in 2012 was that it was seriously starting to look like what it was: a game that was created in 2004. Even if it had not been shutdown it would be looking very ancient by now.
Now I agree it would probably be a bad idea if CoT required everyone to have extremely high end hardware to even hope to play the game when it launches. But the capabilities of a monster desktop machine that costs $3,000+ in 2016 will probably only cost about $500 in 2021 and likewise will probably be able to be fitted into a $20 wristwatch by 2026.
My point is that pushing the envelope as far as hardware requirements go is not really a question of "f*cking over poor people" as much as it's trying to set the bar high enough so that this game will last as long as possible. Frankly I'd rather this game ALMOST be too graphically bleeding edge when it launches just so that by the time 2020+ comes around it'll still look reasonably good and worthwhile.
This all ties in with what I was saying earlier in this thread about trying to make these demo videos look as good as possible. Everything that we see about CoT needs to look good not only for say 2016, but for some years into the future as well.

Plus people keep forgetting that UE4 was intentionally designed from the ground up with an eye towards performance and optimization--even for old rigs. On top of that, MWM has been doing the same thing in designing CoT. And THEN add in highly adjustable settings!

Once it gets to the point where it's time to address performance, I doubt MWM is going to have any trouble giving us pretty much the best of both worlds.

It just doesn't look like it's likely to be a problem. Not with what we know at this point.

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Pretty cool stuff.

Pretty cool stuff.

As usual, the Youtube page is filled with negativity, lol, its all good though.

Some interesting stuff is being mentioned in this thread, grinding and vehicles would be cool, never thought grinding would be considered in any MMO. The only non-skate boarding game that comes to mind which had grinding is Sonic Adventure 2 with Shadow's rocket skates; It adding a fun dynamic to the game.

Not sure if this has been done before in an MMO, but it would be cool to play as animal character, on all fours that is. Have been waiting for a MMO to have an all fours option, with animations for the all four people as-well as the two legged folks.

Champions Online just has the all fours running motion.

Waiting for the day were players can be heroes whom fight on all fours like Red from FFVII, etc.. This is probably waaay ahead of its' time to be honest.

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http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/MetalGarurumon

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Darrcuiln_%28NPC%29

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That was funny when you said,
Phararri wrote:

Some interesting stuff is being mentioned in this thread, grinding and vehicles would be cool, never thought grinding would be considered in any MMO. The only non-skate boarding game that comes to mind which had grinding is Sonic Adventure 2 with Shadow's rocket skates; It adding a fun dynamic to the game.

That was funny when you said, "never thought grinding would be considered in any MMO". It took me a few seconds to realize what "type" of grinding you were talking about. Since this is a forum about an upcoming MMO I naturally assumed your were talking about grinding as it usually applies to MMOs, not skateboarding. ;)

Phararri wrote:

Not sure if this has been done before in an MMO, but it would be cool to play as animal character, on all fours that is. Have been waiting for a MMO to have an all fours option, with animations for the all four people as-well as the two legged folks.

CoH had a temp travel power that would turn you into a coyote while you ran faster than normal, but you could only run like that - you couldn't really do anything else. I'm pretty sure we are going to be limited to basic human forms when this game first launches, but if it lasts long enough they might introduce true animal shapeshifting eventually.

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Phararri wrote:
Phararri wrote:

*snip*Not sure if this has been done before in an MMO, but it would be cool to play as animal character, on all fours that is. Have been waiting for a MMO to have an all fours option, with animations for the all four people as-well as the two legged folks.
Champions Online just has the all fours running motion.
Waiting for the day were players can be heroes whom fight on all fours like Red from FFVII, etc.. This is probably waaay ahead of its' time to be honest.
p>

You're not alone in wanting quadrupedal player-character avatar forms. Not sure how far down this would be on the Devs' "to do" list...

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Significant technical

Significant technical investment to mix and match with all power sets. Possibly a variant future power set. Technology is there, but there's a lot of effort for the amount of return.

Most likely to wind up in a shapeshifting power set, full game plus one year. Zero promises.

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Ah, ok, its' cool.

Ah, ok, its' cool.

I knew there was most likely a ton of effort associated with this, such as travel/power sets for both two leg players, and the all-four people. Did not expect a yes, nor a clear cut answer, just wanted to throw that out there.

Not really a fan of the shape shifting, because the forms are cannot be customized. A full on four-legger would be sweet though, as in a avatar that can be customized from the character creation screen.

Oh well, still a lot to be excited about.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Phararri wrote:
Some interesting stuff is being mentioned in this thread, grinding and vehicles would be cool, never thought grinding would be considered in any MMO. The only non-skate boarding game that comes to mind which had grinding is Sonic Adventure 2 with Shadow's rocket skates; It adding a fun dynamic to the game.

That was funny when you said, "never thought grinding would be considered in any MMO". It took me a few seconds to realize what "type" of grinding you were talking about. Since this is a forum about an upcoming MMO I naturally assumed your were talking about grinding as it usually applies to MMOs, not skateboarding. ;)
Phararri wrote:
Not sure if this has been done before in an MMO, but it would be cool to play as animal character, on all fours that is. Have been waiting for a MMO to have an all fours option, with animations for the all four people as-well as the two legged folks.

CoH had a temp travel power that would turn you into a coyote while you ran faster than normal, but you could only run like that - you couldn't really do anything else. I'm pretty sure we are going to be limited to basic human forms when this game first launches, but if it lasts long enough they might introduce true animal shapeshifting eventually.

Lol, took me a moment, but I got what you were saying, MMO grinding as in repetitive chores/tasks. You guys may have been like "What MMOs has this guy been playing." lol.

I was referring to a true animal form, as opposed to shape-shifting. Like an avatar that can be created from scratch.

That would be a ground breaking character creation option, what other MMO could say they have a human and an animal forms that can be customized from the jump?

Most only have power-sets associated with them, such as DCUO's nature tree. That has been done, not really a fan of that, cause the animals are rather bland and my character looks much cooler.

Would be a task, cause travel powers and power-sets would have to carter to both the human and animal crowd. Mounted back grapple hooks ftw i guess lol......

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Hmm.. even when CoT adds four

Hmm.. even when CoT adds four legged animals, it might not cover a whole spectrum of the different types.
The most generic type that might appear 1st is the Wild Cats type.
ex:

This doesnt mean, you can make your very own* ThunderCats though! ;D

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I think we'd be more likely

I think we'd be more likely to do horses first.

They always want to be the centaur of attention.
(insert sad trombone noise)

Ahem. So... who says you can't customize your shapeshifted power set? Don't write limitations into things till they're done.

Still, we'll have to see what happens. It'd be a _lot_ of fairly expensive work.

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This doesnt mean, you can
Izzy wrote:

This doesnt mean, you can make your very of ThunderCats though! ;D

I actually had all the toons of thundercats made on the Freedom server, it was a lot of fun trying to match all the powers up with the characters. What wasn't fun was trying to get the names to work because they were used so many times lol

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warcabbit wrote:
warcabbit wrote:

I think we'd be more likely to do horses first.
They always want to be the centaur of attention.
(insert sad trombone noise)
Ahem. So... who says you can't customize your shapeshifted power set? Don't write limitations into things till they're done.
Still, we'll have to see what happens. It'd be a _lot_ of fairly expensive work.

Hey... howd ya how i was a Centaur? :o *runs and hides, locks doors, hides under the beds, waits for someone to whisper softly "Theeey're Heeereeee!.!.!"*
:<

Hmmm... so Mounts are a priority... versus primarily Player created/controlled quadrupeds? ;)
+1. :)

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I know Amerikatt is eager to

I know Amerikatt is eager to bust out with all four paws.

Be Well!
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I would love to seed

I would love to seed Superspeed like this in City of Titans https://youtu.be/0cCGFtBSnUk

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CaptainSabalan wrote:
CaptainSabalan wrote:

I would love to seed Superspeed like this in City of Titans https://youtu.be/0cCGFtBSnUk

I do think running across water with super speed would be a really cool feature

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Lothic wrote: My point is that pushing the envelope as far as hardware requirements go is not really a question of "f*cking over poor people" as much as it's trying to set the bar high enough so that this game will last as long as possible. Frankly I'd rather this game ALMOST be too graphically bleeding edge when it launches just so that by the time 2020+ comes around it'll still look reasonably good and worthwhile.
This all ties in with what I was saying earlier in this thread about trying to make these demo videos look as good as possible. Everything that we see about CoT needs to look good not only for say 2016, but for some years into the future as well.

Plus people keep forgetting that UE4 was intentionally designed from the ground up with an eye towards performance and optimization--even for old rigs. On top of that, MWM has been doing the same thing in designing CoT. And THEN add in highly adjustable settings!

Another thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what "able to play CoT on a $500 laptop" means. While I imagine that the game will be playable, I also expect that it will be a suboptimal experience: comparatively poor graphics and probably < 20 FPS (and quite likely City of Slideshows if on a larger team).

E.g. I was never a fan of teleport in CoH, but when I first began playing the game it was right out as a travel power. My machine simply wasn't up to it. By the time my character completed the TP and I could click again, he was already falling. I would have had to have picked up hover simply to avoid TP being an exercise in frustration.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I've seen a few "vague hints" by the rednames that the standalone Character Creator could be out "by the end of the year". To be honest as much as I'd like to see that happen as soon as possible I'm not sure we can really hold MWM to an exact declaration/expectation that it will be out precisely by December 31st 2015.
Still I would hope that we'll get at least some kind of initial "beta version" of it in the next few months. Time is ticking along and the sooner we get tangible deliverables to play around with the happier I'm sure everybody will be.

Considering that the costume creator beta was originally promised for Christmas 2014, I would think a whole extra year to come through on that is pretty generous already. Having said that, by the sheer lack of costumes and character models etc that have been teased up to this point, my hopes for anything released to play around with over the holidays are pretty low right now.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Lothic wrote:
My point is that pushing the envelope as far as hardware requirements go is not really a question of "f*cking over poor people" as much as it's trying to set the bar high enough so that this game will last as long as possible. Frankly I'd rather this game ALMOST be too graphically bleeding edge when it launches just so that by the time 2020+ comes around it'll still look reasonably good and worthwhile.
This all ties in with what I was saying earlier in this thread about trying to make these demo videos look as good as possible. Everything that we see about CoT needs to look good not only for say 2016, but for some years into the future as well.

Plus people keep forgetting that UE4 was intentionally designed from the ground up with an eye towards performance and optimization--even for old rigs. On top of that, MWM has been doing the same thing in designing CoT. And THEN add in highly adjustable settings!

Another thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what "able to play CoT on a $500 laptop" means. While I imagine that the game will be playable, I also expect that it will be a suboptimal experience: comparatively poor graphics and probably < 20 FPS (and quite likely City of Slideshows if on a larger team).
E.g. I was never a fan of teleport in CoH, but when I first began playing the game it was right out as a travel power. My machine simply wasn't up to it. By the time my character completed the TP and I could click again, he was already falling. I would have had to have picked up hover simply to avoid TP being an exercise in frustration.

Clearly no matter what year you're talking about (whether it be 2002 or 2022) when it comes to games a "$500 laptop" is not likely going to be as capable as a "$3000 desktop". The very fact that at any given moment one of those machines is "worth more" than the other pretty much highlights that fact.

So when the rubber meets the road whatever a "$500 laptop" is typically capable of doing in 2016 is likely not going to run CoT as well as whatever a "$3000 desktop" will be capable of in 2016. That's the reality everyone's going to have to deal with regardless of what MWM does. It may prove to be the case that by the time the game launches it will only be "a suboptimal experience" on the laptop. That's not really going to be MWM's fault - that would the simple limitation of the technology in 2016.

The main point that I'm stressing is that it would a mistake for MWM to cater too much towards trying to make the 2016 "$500 laptop" experience be somehow equivalent to whatever the 2016 "$3000 desktop" will provide simply because the technology will never allow that to happen in the first place. Unless something crazy happens a Ford Focus will never deliver an equivalent driving experience to say a Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce Roadster. Apples and Oranges.

So if we can accept that playing a game on a "$500 laptop" will likely never be as nice as playing it on a "$3000 desktop" the only thing MWM can do is "future proof" their game as much as possible. We can reasonably expect that a "$500 laptop" made in say 2021 is likely going to be much more equivalent to a "$3000 desktop" made in 2016. The nature of technological progress allows us to make a reasonable prediction like this. So knowing that I'd rather CoT barely work on a 2016 "$500 laptop" so that it'll work well on a 2021 "$500 laptop" (and consequently work VERY well on a 2026 "$500 laptop"). If CoT was geared downward so that it worked flawlessly on a 2016 (or older) "$500 laptop" then by the time 2026 came around CoT would likely be considered so dated and antiquated it'd be like trying to accept Pong as a "modern" game today.

I want a game that'll be relevant and playable 5 to 10 years from now - not one that's stuck with the mindset that it's always going to be 2016 and things will never progress from that. I don't ever want the low-end hardware player to feel "frustrated" by playing CoT. But by the same token I don't want CoT to seem simplistic and/or dated before it's barely a few months/years old either.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Zerohour wrote:
desviper wrote:
"Fuck you, poor people"
But seriously, making some changed to the game to increase the "people who can't afford 1200$ gaming rigs" marketshare is wise.

Woooow I am not saying that at all! The point I was making was in regards to MWM being afraid to scare away people with low end machines. I understand that. But at this stage of development where you want to begin generating interest and start thinking about getting the wave of excitement to start, showing off progress videos that are one extra Google Chrome tab away from being a slide show isn't a good idea. You can't please everyone. You just can't. Or you'll never get out of development. And you don't need a $1200 rig either. You can get something decent for $500, cheaper even if you are prepared to buy online. If you can't afford to pick up a machine that will run a game on low settings, you've got other things to worry about besides this game.

Another thing MWM needs to consider when establishing the overall hardware requirements for CoT is how much of a long term future do they want to account for. Remember that this game, once launched, could potentially run for 10+ years. One of the biggest problems CoH had in 2012 was that it was seriously starting to look like what it was: a game that was created in 2004. Even if it had not been shutdown it would be looking very ancient by now.
Now I agree it would probably be a bad idea if CoT required everyone to have extremely high end hardware to even hope to play the game when it launches. But the capabilities of a monster desktop machine that costs $3,000+ in 2016 will probably only cost about $500 in 2021 and likewise will probably be able to be fitted into a $20 wristwatch by 2026.
My point is that pushing the envelope as far as hardware requirements go is not really a question of "f*cking over poor people" as much as it's trying to set the bar high enough so that this game will last as long as possible. Frankly I'd rather this game ALMOST be too graphically bleeding edge when it launches just so that by the time 2020+ comes around it'll still look reasonably good and worthwhile.
This all ties in with what I was saying earlier in this thread about trying to make these demo videos look as good as possible. Everything that we see about CoT needs to look good not only for say 2016, but for some years into the future as well.

This is where an art style comes in VERY handy.

And it is quite possibly as to why the "highly stylised" games tend to age better than the ones that aim for graphical realism.

I recently started watching a whole load of speed runs from gaming marathons, and whilst you might complain about the art style of "The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker"... it is already 12 years old (released in 2003) and its art style still stands up today. In fact when they did the HD re-release of it, they just updated the textures (to be HD) and the lighting engine.

That was it. And it STILL works fine today. The art style stayed the same. Infact, even playing it on a game cube and it works well.

However, compare that to a game like F.E.A.R. It was released 3 years later (2005) and because it went for the realistic art style... whilst the *stationary* stuff works (tables chairs, basic wall textures)... the actual character models and animations DON'T hold up. And this is even on the "high end gaming PC". You can see where the problems arise.

Side note: Yes, I know that I have compared a console game with a PC game... not exactly the best idea. I could have chosen a game like Braid, or Bastion or Transmission instead. Games where they are not exactly "old" games, but with an art style that ages well.

It is why World of Warcraft worked for a long as it did (although the starting zones are showing their age, and are in need up of updating with the new textures that are shown in the newer zones), and why Wildstar sings to me with an art style that borrows heavily from the film animation of exaggeration. It isn't perfect, and sometimes you wish that they had even high resolution textures (housing plot for example, you can scale a toilet roll from normal size to over 1000 times its size if you wanted. Still using the same base texture), but it is still good.

But that is my own personal opinion on how they look and work.

So you can sometimes avoid going for "Bleeding edge" if you choose a non-realistic art style. Side note: Transformers: Devastation will age relatively well, because its art style is a call back to the cartoon/comics of the original series.

It will age *better* than if they went for a similar look to the Michael Bay movies (Oh wait... look at THOSE games, and see how they have aged).

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Frankly, you're making a

Frankly, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Checking to see that the game will run on a less powerful machine is scarcely the same thing as optimizing it to run on less powerful machines. That post comes across as quite alarmist.

Zerohour wrote:

Considering that the costume creator beta was originally promised for Christmas 2014...

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Zerohour wrote:
Zerohour wrote:

Lothic wrote:
I've seen a few "vague hints" by the rednames that the standalone Character Creator could be out "by the end of the year". To be honest as much as I'd like to see that happen as soon as possible I'm not sure we can really hold MWM to an exact declaration/expectation that it will be out precisely by December 31st 2015.
Still I would hope that we'll get at least some kind of initial "beta version" of it in the next few months. Time is ticking along and the sooner we get tangible deliverables to play around with the happier I'm sure everybody will be.

Considering that the costume creator beta was originally promised for Christmas 2014, I would think a whole extra year to come through on that is pretty generous already. Having said that, by the sheer lack of costumes and character models etc that have been teased up to this point, my hopes for anything released to play around with over the holidays are pretty low right now.

Obviously it will take a while before there are hundreds/thousands of costume items for CoT. But I must admit after a couple of years one would think we might have seen at least a few pics of some generic "spandex unitard" type outfits worn by the basic male/female body models.

At this point they should have some initial versions of the body models and some idea of the GUI they want to introduce to allow us to "play with the sliders" to customize the models. As I implied having a huge number of costume items to play with is not really critical at this point. I'd be happy enough to get some kind of beta version of the GUI with just a couple of tops and bottoms to swap around just to "prove the concept".

I hope they aren't approaching this from the idea that they have to maximize the number of costume items BEFORE they release the creator app itself. Again having millions of items on Day One is not the priority - making sure the body models and sliders look good should come first and some near term open beta testing could help with that.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Frankly, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Checking to see that the game will run on a less powerful machine is scarcely the same thing as optimizing it to run on less powerful machines. That post comes across as quite alarmist.

I'm assuming this was in response to my post...

My point is that people shouldn't become so hyper-concerned in case CoT doesn't end up running "perfectly" on low end machines in 2016 because almost by definition no game runs "perfectly" on low end hardware. People wouldn't bother buying or selling high end machines if lower end machines were always adequate for everything. By the time 2021 or 2026 comes around the "$500 laptop" of the day should be more than capable of running CoT on what will then be considered "full" settings.

CoT should not be geared down so much that it works wonderfully on all machines at launch at the sacrifice of making it look too dated and antiquated just a few years later. If anything this game should shoot for the technological realities of 2020, not 2010.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

... the game will run on a less powerful machine is scarcely the same thing as optimizing it to run on less powerful machine*.

I kinda like that statement.

So, the only sure thing thats expected is that PC's that were purchased 2 to 4 years from the games release date will be able to run the game smoothly, even if its at slightly lower resolutions/graphics settings.

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:
... the game will run on a less powerful machine is scarcely the same thing as optimizing it to run on less powerful machine*.
I kinda like that statement.
So, the only sure thing thats expected is that PC's that were purchased 2 to 4 years from the games release date will be able to run the game smoothly, even if its at slightly lower resolutions/graphics settings.

That's my expectation as well. If you want to run a game released today at "full" settings then you're going to have to pay for a certain level of technology for that. If you don't pay for that threshold then you shouldn't be surprised to have to run the game at lower settings.

The key to future proofing a game is to make sure you don't set that threshold too low. A game should be set for the mid-range expectations of what hardware will be like during its mid-life point, not its starting point. Most games (like modern console games) assume they are only going to be "relevant" for a few months after release. You have to plan differently for games like CoT that might still be around 5 or 10 years from now. As I said before I'd rather CoT be hypothetically "geared" for 2020, not 2010.

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Yea, They have that feature

Yea, They have that feature in DCUO and it is fun to run on water. Running up or down sides of buildings are fun too

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CaptainSabalan wrote:
CaptainSabalan wrote:

Yea, They have that feature in DCUO and it is fun to run on water. Running up or down sides of buildings are fun too

That is awesome, but it does bring up the problem of "balancing" travel powers (I know... can of worms).

This is why fly was always so slow in CoH. Whether anyone likes it or not, it's not JUST about theme (and I'm a theme-first kind of player), it's about efficacy in travel and combat.

If Super Speed can run on walls at Super Speed, but Parkour and Crawl cover the same surfaces at a slower pace, then SS is better as a travel power "unless" Crawl or Parkour include other features that give them advantages over Super Speed, or unless Super Speed's "wall running" has some significant disadvantages.

But what could these features be? A mini "Super Jump" or Gliding, Grappling or Swinging? But if those are already similar to separate powers we have access to and we can run two or more travel powers simultaneously, this really mitigates the advantage of those "hybrid" movement modes. And what could SS's wall running's DISadvantage be? Lack of control, maybe? Limited height like Super Jump?

Now, travel powers can never be more balanced than anything else--which means at most only somewhat balanced--but I'd love to hear from a Dev about how they intend to keep all travel powers decently balanced so that some aren't just brokenly good or bad when it comes to travel and combat compared to others.

PS- On the graphics issue, I think MWM has it under control.

As for older rigs, as I said UE4 and CoT are both designed to be kind to older rigs, AND the art style has been stated to lean towards the classic comics graphics style (too lazy to find a citation, correct me if I'm wrong).

AND then there will be adjustable settings.

As for the other side of the coin, longevity, again, a more graphic style tends to give that, AND MWM went through all the hassle of switching to UE4 specifically to be bleeding edge in their engine choice and capabilities.

It really looks like we should be right around the sweet spot in both directions--both playability and longevity.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

*snip*But I must admit after a couple of years one would think we might have seen at least a few pics of some generic "spandex unitard" type outfits worn by the basic male/female body models.

Like at the beginning of the "A New Dawn" video?

And then there was the "How We Make the Costumes" art update:

So it's not like there haven't been updates on the Avatar builder front.

I'm not worrying about dates; they'll get it to us when they get it to us. It may just be my memory playing tricks on me, but from the Kickstarter on anytime a date was mentioned it seems it was either in the past (as in "We accomplished this today, or last week, or...") or an estimate.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

Lothic wrote:
*snip*
But I must admit after a couple of years one would think we might have seen at least a few pics of some generic "spandex unitard" type outfits worn by the basic male/female body models.

[...]
So it's not like there haven't been updates on the Avatar builder front.
I'm not worrying about dates; they'll get it to us when they get it to us. It may just be my memory playing tricks on me, but from the Kickstarter on anytime a date was mentioned it seems it was either in the past (as in "We accomplished this today, or last week, or...") or an estimate.

While you have technically proven that they have "technically" shown us "something" of the Avatar Builder even you'd have to admit that an easily-forgettable single minute's worth of video six months ago and a few other pics don't really serve as an in-depth detailed overview of the entire Avatar Builder system. I'll stand by my position that for all intents and purposes we have still not really seen any serious public "reveals" for this area of the game yet.

And as I implied before I'm not going to assume we're going to be getting the Avatar Builder on any specific date. As you point out the folks at MWM have been careful about not locking themselves to any specific future dates for anything and that's fine. But I'll again stand by my position that if we don't get to see anything significant related to the Avatar Builder before the beginning of the year then I think at the very least someone at MWM should provide a current overview as to how things are progressing in this very important area of the game.

It's been 6+ months since we've had any significant updates in this area - surely someone can spare a new word or two on the subject by now.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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After that video, I'm hyped,

After that video, I'm hyped, but I got one question: is that an example of original music to be used in-game?

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Foradain wrote:
Lothic wrote:
*snip*

But I must admit after a couple of years one would think we might have seen at least a few pics of some generic "spandex unitard" type outfits worn by the basic male/female body models.

[...]
So it's not like there haven't been updates on the Avatar builder front.
I'm not worrying about dates; they'll get it to us when they get it to us. It may just be my memory playing tricks on me, but from the Kickstarter on anytime a date was mentioned it seems it was either in the past (as in "We accomplished this today, or last week, or...") or an estimate.

While you have technically proven that they have "technically" shown us "something" of the Avatar Builder even you'd have to admit that an easily-forgettable single minute's worth of video six months ago and a few other pics don't really serve as an in-depth detailed overview of the entire Avatar Builder system. I'll stand by my position that for all intents and purposes we have still not really seen any serious public "reveals" for this area of the game yet.
And as I implied before I'm not going to assume we're going to be getting the Avatar Builder on any specific date. As you point out the folks at MWM have been careful about not locking themselves to any specific future dates for anything and that's fine. But I'll again stand by my position that if we don't get to see anything significant related to the Avatar Builder before the beginning of the year then I think at the very least someone at MWM should provide a current overview as to how things are progressing in this very important area of the game.
It's been 6+ months since we've had any significant updates in this area - surely someone can spare a new word or two on the subject by now.

Well they do have at least 2 versions[1] (if not 4 versions[2]) of the Avatar Builder to get sorted. And that is on top of the getting the beta of the actual game sorted for mid next year as well (supposed date that they are aiming for).

So I can totally understand your worries.

[1] iOS and Android were stretch goals for the kickstarter that were achieved.
[2] assuming that they are doing iOS, Android, Windows AND Mac versions of the builder[3]
[3] Not including linux support as well...

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

Well they do have at least 2 versions[1] (if not 4 versions[2]) of the Avatar Builder to get sorted. And that is on top of the getting the beta of the actual game sorted for mid next year as well (supposed date that they are aiming for).
So I can totally understand your worries.
[1] iOS and Android were stretch goals for the kickstarter that were achieved.
[2] assuming that they are doing iOS, Android, Windows AND Mac versions of the builder[3]
[3] Not including linux support as well...

Porting apps/programs for different hardware/OSs is a tiny fraction of the work involved with creating anything now-a-days. It's not ABSOLUTELY trivial, but it's simple enough that the overall total work to get an app like the Avatar Builder to work under ANY single OS compared to getting it to work under multiple OSs is almost the same. In other words having it work under 4 systems doesn't increase the time and effort needed by 4x - it's more like maybe 1.05x the effort for all 4.

Having said that I'm not implying the Avatar Builder itself will be trivial to make, especially considering the limited budget MWM is operating under. But one of the few things we have been told by MWM is that they planned to have the Avatar Builder released as a standalone app long before the beta of the actual game was going to be dealt with. If they are still shooting to start the game's main beta around mid-2016 then the Avatar Builder pretty much has to arrive sometime in the next few months give or take.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Shard (not verified)
Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Please bear in mind none of the UI art assets from this video came from the UI team nor the art department. They are tech provided placeholders of ( to me ) Unknown origin.

Shard (not verified)
Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Porting apps/programs for different hardware/OSs is a tiny fraction of the work involved with creating anything now-a-days. It's not ABSOLUTELY trivial, but it's simple enough that the overall total work to get an app like the Avatar Builder to work under ANY single OS compared to getting it to work under multiple OSs is almost the same. In other words having it work under 4 systems doesn't increase the time and effort needed by 4x - it's more like maybe 1.05x the effort for all 4.

I presently expect this to be more of a testing and validation issue than a porting issue.

Lothic wrote:

Having said that I'm not implying the Avatar Builder itself will be trivial to make, especially considering the limited budget MWM is operating under. But one of the few things we have been told by MWM is that they planned to have the Avatar Builder released as a standalone app long before the beta of the actual game was going to be dealt with. If they are still shooting to start the game's main beta around mid-2016 then the Avatar Builder pretty much has to arrive sometime in the next few months give or take.

I do not expect that at this time.

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Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

CaptainSabalan wrote:
I would love to seed Superspeed like this in City of Titans https://youtu.be/0cCGFtBSnUk

I do think running across water with super speed would be a really cool feature

I think we've discussed it. Don't remember the outcome for sure so don't quote this as official, but I think the answer to that was "yes".

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Shard (not verified)
avelworldcreator wrote:
avelworldcreator wrote:

Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
CaptainSabalan wrote:
I would love to seed Superspeed like this in City of Titans https://youtu.be/0cCGFtBSnUk

I do think running across water with super speed would be a really cool feature

I think we've discussed it. Don't remember the outcome for sure so don't quote this as official, but I think the answer to that was "yes".

It is an ROI issue.

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Gluke wrote:
Gluke wrote:

After that video, I'm hyped, but I got one question: is that an example of original music to be used in-game?

I believe so. The person is part of our sound team and we've been using that track internally, so I'd say the signs point to "yes" :D

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Yea, i should have not put

Yea, i should have not put words in your mouth, but most transformations does not involve deep customization, so I should have not assumed that would be the case with a game still in development.

An all four form does sound like a ton of work and resources, personally, I would like cooler beast movements and stances, akin to CO.

That beast run is horrible though, as-well as the stances in CO, lol.

Anyway, keep up the good work guys, liking the progress, hopefully we can get our hands on that creator.

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Shard wrote:
Shard wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Having said that I'm not implying the Avatar Builder itself will be trivial to make, especially considering the limited budget MWM is operating under. But one of the few things we have been told by MWM is that they planned to have the Avatar Builder released as a standalone app long before the beta of the actual game was going to be dealt with. If they are still shooting to start the game's main beta around mid-2016 then the Avatar Builder pretty much has to arrive sometime in the next few months give or take.

I do not expect that at this time.

Just to be clear, which of the following do you not expect at this time?

  • The Avatar Builder will be released as a standalone app
  • The Avatar Builder will be released before beta is launched
  • Beta will start around mid-2016
  • The Avatar Builder will arrive sometime in the next few months
Shard (not verified)
Plexius wrote:
Plexius wrote:

Beta will start around mid-2016
The Avatar Builder will arrive sometime in the next few months

Either of these. But I was speaking specifically to the AB expectations, which are at best, inaccurate.

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Shard wrote:
Shard wrote:

Plexius wrote:
Beta will start around mid-2016
The Avatar Builder will arrive sometime in the next few months

Either of these. But I was speaking specifically to the AB expectations, which are at best, inaccurate.

Soo... the closer CoT gets to a Releasable version of the AB, the more video examples we will see with PC's made with the AB?
Sorry, I'm just twisting your replies, but thats where my mind drifts. :(

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Well if that is the case

Well if that is the case about the AB, I don't mind the wait, but please do regular updates on it if possible please(even if it is as small as, Spandex suit is working and looking good) :)

Shard wrote:

avelworldcreator wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
CaptainSabalan wrote:
I would love to seed Superspeed like this in City of Titans https://youtu.be/0cCGFtBSnUk

I do think running across water with super speed would be a really cool feature

I think we've discussed it. Don't remember the outcome for sure so don't quote this as official, but I think the answer to that was "yes".

It is an ROI issue.

Thanks for the response, well a ROI would be if you could run on water, then you could glide on water, and if you can glide on water, you can travel like frozone!!

1:30 Running, 1:50 Gliding on ice

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Woo, I found my fanboy fez.

Woo, I found my fanboy fez.

While I'm also eager to see the AB sooner, rather than later, this may be a good time to recall the two major realities with which MWM, and by extension we, are faced: a very limited budget and a volunteer effort. The Kickstarter ended a little less than two years ago. MWM is not immune to the inevitable problems and delays that any project faces, and the devs cannot work on this project full-time. As often as we wish we'd get more information and could see more pretties, we ought to be amazed that they're as far along as they are.

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Shard wrote:
Shard wrote:

Cyclops wrote:

Please bear in mind none of the UI art assets from this video came from the UI team nor the art department. They are tech provided placeholders of ( to me ) Unknown origin.

This is entirely correct, they are tech provided placeholders. The final UI should look better, but we're in a fast-iteration stance and trying to see what fits. We've already learned one huge lesson about, er, bugs.

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You will _see_ Avatar Builder

You will _see_ Avatar Builder working before you get your hands on it. Unless we decide to release an early, early prototype, which we might, being all proud of ourselves, with all due caveats about 'this will possibly blow up your computer', all the technical parts inside it will function considerably before we get the durability testing, QA edge case testing, and, er, consumer grade UI on it.

Think of it as the difference between 'a box with a touchscreen and electronics' and an 'iPhone'. They may both have the same features, but one of them may slice your hand since it's made out of metal we bent into shape, and the other will last ... well, at least a few years unless you sit on it.

... maybe a bad example there, but you follow my meaning.

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Shard wrote:
Shard wrote:

Plexius wrote:
Beta will start around mid-2016
The Avatar Builder will arrive sometime in the next few months

Either of these. But I was speaking specifically to the AB expectations, which are at best, inaccurate.

Well that does make it interesting (At least on the beta front) seeing as it wasn't all that long ago when it was pushed out by another Redname that mid 2016 was the date that you guys were all aiming for.

So... err. Maybe you guys want to take this out back and discuss who what and how rednames communicate on issues like these to prevent this from happening.

I mean, is it an internal thing that you have already scrapped mid 2016 as a "lets try to get stuff ready for then" date... or just a personal opinion?

Because there ARE differences on this front.

And it is also why some people (like me) might question as to which developer is actually correct when they handed two pieces of information that whilst not *definite* assertions, are just enough to introduce doubt as to what is actually happening and who to believe.

/derail

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Gangrel, thank you for your

Gangrel, thank you for your comment. I would like to say that it is, as always, appreciated in the spirit in which it was written.

We continue to make progress towards an Avatar Builder, and it will be done when it is done.

There is, as always, going to be a dynamic disagreement between people who want to reward backers by getting it out as fast as possible, and people who want to hold back until it is as polished as possible. We will keep you guys up to date with the best news we can, without hype we can't back up. I think you will all be pleased with our progress.

We have not officially moved any dates from the last time it was officially communicated. Shard is not on the PR team, and it would be a PR team member that would make official notice of us moving a date.

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warcabbit wrote:
warcabbit wrote:

Gangrel, thank you for your comment. I would like to say that it is, as always, appreciated in the spirit in which it was written.
We continue to make progress towards an Avatar Builder, and it will be done when it is done.
There is, as always, going to be a dynamic disagreement between people who want to reward backers by getting it out as fast as possible, and people who want to hold back until it is as polished as possible. We will keep you guys up to date with the best news we can, without hype we can't back up. I think you will all be pleased with our progress.
We have not officially moved any dates from the last time it was officially communicated. Shard is not on the PR team, and it would be a PR team member that would make official notice of us moving a date.

Obviously in this environment even "vaguely possibly suggesting a future proposal for potential initial public announcement of anticipated upcoming releases" of anything are going to be pounced on and hyper-overanalyzed with multiple conflicting interpretations. There's really nothing you can do about that.

That said there have in fact been several ballpark timeframes mentioned by the rednames of CoT for when the Avatar Builder and/or game beta might be publically released. Those timeframes have involved things like "end of 2015" and "mid-2016". Sadly even when you throw out super-vague ideas like "could happen sometime next year" eventually the end of that "next year" creeps up on you and you'll be cornered into admitting whether you're going to hit (what has become in the minds of the players) that "milestone" or not. Basically you're damned no matter what you say and again there's not much you can do about it.

Not really sure what I could suggest to help you with any of this. The more you tell us the more you "lock" yourself into fantasy schedules decided by public opinion but the less you reveal you run the risk of losing peoples' overall interest. It's always nice to get pics and vids - maybe you can keep us "wolves" happier by tossing out a few random pics a week instead of a few pics a month. *shrugs*

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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(No subject)

If you want it to be more opaque:

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Kiyori Anoyui
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Here is my quick mock up of

Here is my quick mock up of the teleport power button, I wasn't sure how to use the program that you gave avel so I just used photoshop, let me know what you think of it

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Somebody asked me for a

Somebody asked me for a citation as to when they said Christmas 2014 for a beta of the costume creator. I've spent the last day or so looking everywhere I can to find proof of that and other then the odd comment here or there I couldn't find anything 100% official. But I am positive that I read that when the initial timeline of events was released from the kick starter campaign. And I remember people being upset when nothing was released when that date came and went. We got that 12 days of devmas instead which disappointed quite a few people who were expecting the costume creator to be the final gift.

One thing I did continuously come across from developers in various interviews and updates was the fact that the costume creator was the number one priority in terms of what they were going to bang out and release first. Time and time again it was iterated that they wanted that out as quick as possible so people could start creating their heroes in anticipation of the beta being released.

I do agree with the sentiment that we are due for another state of the game update, especially if another Christmas is going to come and go with no costume creator to play with.

Currently trapped inside the Speed Force...

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Thank you, Zero.

Thank you, Zero.

While I understand your desire to discuss this, it's the wrong thread to do it in - this is the travel power update.

Again, the schedule has not slipped, and if you care to look back a few weeks, you'll see where we were then.

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Here is another(little better

Here is another(little better) example of the tab option. I think this would be a nice option so you don't have to remember a ton of different shortcuts

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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That's something I've had

That's something I've had under consideration - the character creator is currently designed to work that way, actually, to fit more controls on the screen. Let's see how that works!

Thanks for the screenshot!

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As long as you are taking

As long as you are taking teleportation examples from star trek why not just take something similar to the shiny sparkle effect from a star trek teleporter and simply apply it to a person icon. The result would be broadly recognised as a teleportation ability.

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I guess our posts get deleted

I guess our posts get deleted now

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Seahawk: Is that you, PSH, or

Seahawk: Is that you, PSH, or some other guy?
Zero: What?

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have played a lot of games

have played a lot of games and will have to say that the UI is a very important aspect to most players. During active SWTOR play we would have raid nights are our home and there were no two screens alike. One I recalled did a CNTL V to remove all commands and overlay. Wildstar has the most configurable housing set up of any of the games. I built several styles of staircase. built a pub for my guildies even. put in floors, lights, etc. that UI idea for the anything anysize and anywhere grid came from a panel forum regarding a sneak peak with the closed alpha test team. Another improvement in Walatiki Temple came from closed beta, group 1, of which I was a part of. The cave on the sides of the bases were added as well as the random mask spawn from the original concept.

Kiyori Anoyui
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Seahawk25 wrote:
Seahawk25 wrote:

As long as you are taking teleportation examples from star trek why not just take something similar to the shiny sparkle effect from a star trek teleporter and simply apply it to a person icon. The result would be broadly recognised as a teleportation ability.

What do you think of this?

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Izzy
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Striped look?


Striped look?

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Added a glowing base effect, seems to help the particles pop as well

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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I have to say, relying on a

I have to say, relying on a colored effect strikes me as a bad idea for UI.

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Alright warcabbit and Izzy,

Alright warcabbit and Izzy, how does this strike your fancy?

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Here's one with a black base

Here's one with a black base

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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I took that and shunk it down

I took that and shunk it down, and do not like how it comes off, it isn't necessarily identifiable what is happening on a small icon in on a large screen.


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Izzy
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hmmmm...

hmmmm...

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Is it the lines Tannim? I

Is it the lines Tannim? I could make them bigger if that helps?

That's a good one Izzy. I also made this one

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Not bad..

Not bad..
..gave* me an idea.

what about this:

edit:
a tad clearer:

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I feel like that could be the

I feel like that could be the cover of a band album lol

But seriously, I like that alot!

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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warcabbit - i posted

warcabbit - i posted something in response to you saying that this thread wasnt the place to discuss timelines. now its gone. dont wish to hijack the thread, so im going to assume that with all these teleportation icons floating about, my post somehow got sucked into one of them

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