Wish I could do a poll. PC cars were always a thing for a future update.So no one ever got used to them.
For me flight was way to wonderful to trade down to a car.
Still a vehicle with a load of gadgets would be fun, especially wrecking in in a PvP situations. Why arrest a villain when you can run him over and torpedo him first.
This would also mean NPC cars in PvE areas would be used for evil and you could blow them up (with their occupants--sorry hostages. didn't know you were in the trunk). Reading the rights to a charred villain you just pulled from a burning getaway car has never been so fun.
I might get a Falcon car just to use the high explosives, but what about you? Is having a bat-car better than the subway?
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
it would be kinda cool, I guess...but given many superheroes have their own methods of transportation just not sure how often it would be used. perhaps if it was part of a gadget power pool? "click" and preseto...your own vehicle appears for usage as transport. weaponwise...I am not a fan of this...at least in the sense that the vehicle has it's own set of attack and defence powers. just translate the abilities of the player to the vehicle.
I dunno...just having visions of Car Wars occurring in the streets of Titan City... I think I would rather see them work on something else....perhaps make vehicles a future update kinda thing.
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
Don't drive 88 miles per hour.
Perhaps the most important "keep Players honest" factor you could do with vehicles (like cars) in City of Titans would be to "transform" the PC into the car ... complete with larger hitbox (this will be important) and set up the rules such that the PC-now-vehicle can only drive where there is no other obstacles (including other moving objects, such as NPC cars or NPC people on sidewalks) and that there are acceleration/deceleration factors to consider (ie. lowered friction, much like Fly had) as well as turning radius limitations. The bigger hitbox and restricted movement rules ought to be enough to discourage (although not prevent) most absurdities of behavior ... although weaving through traffic should be expected.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Grand Theft Hero
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I'd like to have this sort of thing available, but I'd expect restrictions to avoid griefing (accidental or otherwise). [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/vehicles]This thread[/url] seems to be the largest discussion of this subject.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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This is the best quote I have seen on the other thread so far. And probably the most realistic idea. But I don't agree with the part about not being able to personalize it. You can create your "Own" customized vehicles(cars ships helicopters) and those will be the vehicles that appear in the instanced missions. Instead of a generic vehicle that everyone would see.
I am playing GTA 5 now and I love the abilities to buy places and garages and all that jazz. I would not mind to be able to buy a garage/hangar and then be able to buy a car and have access to "Car" missions, or buy a helicopter and have access to "Heli" missions. And so on...
This way it doesn't make Titan City a mess but it gives you more immersion as to "living" in the city. You have your own place with your own vehicles that you take on your own missions. Or that you can take your friends/other players on.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
One way to prevent the "cluster o' cars" parked in inappropriate places, such as around Contact NPCs, would be to give those NPCs a PBVoE "vehicle nullification field" around them so as to prevent such antics. It would be akin to being forcibly "dismounted" from horses when going places horses ought to not be going in fantasy games.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
But then my villain (or hero) can't drive 88 miles an hour through a crowded Mall...guns blazing.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Auto Assault was a very innovative and interesting MMORPG. It featured everything mentioned here so far. Three factions, each in their own PvE only zone, with a central zone between them that was PvP.
The beta test went well, I thought, but the game went live before they resolved several key problems. Probably because they partnered with NC Soft and NC Soft has a long history of "launch it and fix it on the fly" game design. As I recall, it did not even last one full year before NC Soft killed it.
As for customizable vehicles for CoT, I gotta say, the idea does not appeal to me. If enough people like it, then I suppose eventually it will have to be added, but I don't ever see myself taking advantage of it.
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Hey ... that sounds like Elder Scrolls Online ... except with cars ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I wouldn't forcibly dismount, I would do something like in GTA where it brings a pop-up saying "You can't park here" when in the NPC Contact buffer zone.
The only issue is how you are going to want to drive as a player is most likely "against the law" so would driving recklessly give a negative impact on your alignment?
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
I hate vehicles. I said it..
BUT (And I've made this suggestion before) if there is to be a vehicle use in City of Titans, I'd like them to use something like this system:
https://youtu.be/FcxA_xYnHZ8?t=9m41s
This is native to UE4 and although the demo there is ONE demonstration of how they could work, I hope you take from that the general gist.
- -
Some say it's too "grand theft auto" but frankly most people will be running/flying/teleporting/jumping so the people who want to look cool driving, I think it should be simple, non-complicated, non-custom and NOT take dev time making new vehicles outside of use for Map Creation.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
But, you're the one who started the other thread.. lol
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
It would be nice if they could be integrated as a travel power option so you can match your characters theme. All I can say is after using Ghost Riders motorcycle in Marvel Heroes, I would LOVE to use it in a City of Heroes/Titans like game. Looks good, sounds good and you blow stuff up wherever you go. [b][i]Sooooo fun!!![/i][/b]
Unfortunately it sounds like it could be a lot of work if you can't use travel powers inside a mission. What do you do? Make them unusable in missions or create all missions capable of handling travel powers? I do remember using them quite often to get around large maps in various missions. The combat movement powers would not be enough unless everyone is ok using something like Ninja Run where it didn't cost a power choice.
Oh, well after actually reading more of the thread, i wasnt' thinking of vehicles that are permanent but just appear or have some intro animation when activating them such as a van pulling up or a hovercraft descending. Think of the scanner missions animation when looking for one to play, something like that to call your vehicle.
[b][color=red]Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.[/color][/b]
The alternative is having invisibly defined "vehicle traffic" volumes which specify which types of vehicles can be used where. Needless to say, that quickly becomes more trouble than it's worth.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Again it might be worth mentioning how Elder Scrolls Online handles its "vehicles" and how that might apply to a game like CoT.
Currently ESO only has mount type critters as vehicles (a bunch of horses, a couple of large tigers and a couple of two-legged lizards). They can only be used in outside locations and "non-mission" locations. This means they aren't allowed even in big instanced missions that technically have "outdoor" areas. While riding the characters on top retain their standard sized "hit box" so that they can be tagged by enemies, but conversely they cannot attack while riding. With these limitations it's clear that mounts in ESO are intended for pure non-combat mobility and/or initial "charging into combat until you jump off to fight or get knocked off" maneuvering.
It might be easier to approach the question of vehicles in CoT as extensions of "flight poses" from CoH. Maybe instead of allowing for say actual motorcycles you instead have an "animation pose" for Super Speed that simply makes you look like you're on a motorcycle. It would all be emote-based - it worked well enough for the Rocket Board and Flying Carpet. That would be far simpler than worrying about vehicles as actual objects in the game with their own physics and what-not. Sure this "emote pose" idea to simulate vehicles probably wouldn't be perfect in all cases but it'd be better than nothing.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
All this speculation is fun but will one of the devs please let us know:
Are you planning to have vehicles or not.
If we are we can go on speculating about how they might work
but if not. what's the point?
I'd really like to know.
In case it matters, I would like vehicles.
But it wont destroy any of my characters if we don't have them.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Since when has knowing what the Devs plan to do ever stopped anyone in this forum from speculating regardless? ;)
If the Devs are working on "vehicles" of some kind they likely don't have them finished yet so they might still be open to some degree of speculation one way or another.
If the Devs have no current plans for vehicles they might always reconsider them for an "after launch" update so hashing some of it out in the forums might actually help them with some initial thinking about it for the future.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Vehicles are a consideration but most likely a post-launch feature. Concepts range from the easier to implement auto-transportation power with various skins (either from current location to specific map point via auto-pathing, or with brief animation of leaving - load screen with possible picture of said vehicle or not - arriving) to much more difficult to implement actual vehicles with world rules set up for where they can / can't go, how to handle the pathing AI of npc spawns and vehicles with a road chock-full of player vehicles moving or parked, vehicles in combat and so on. Until then, speculate away!
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Vehicles mess things up -- Champions has it. I think if you want a vehicle game, there are a lot of choices out there.
For that matter, making a separate fight world for vehicles, where vehicles are much more powerful, but keeping it in the same game world makes a mockery of superheroes.
There are many vehicle games where you trick them out with weapons already. I have no problem with vehicle-as-travel power, but fighting vehicles reserved for an in-game fighting world, because heroes aren't strong enough, forget it.
I hear there's a game called World of Tanks, capable of literally millions of viewers watching the championship. Look into that, vehicle fighting lovers.
Or Mechwarrior Online. Or Star Wars The Old Republic space battles. Or Champions, for that matter, to see how it messes up the superhero feel by turning you into your vehicle...to say nothing of other superheroes standing around. Eve Online, etc.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
There might be a way to eventually incorporate actual physics-based vehicles in a game like CoT - but I fully accept that it would be hard to do properly and I honestly wouldn't want the CoT Devs to even bother attempting it until well after launch, if ever. I understand many people have wanted their own "superhero vehicles" like that for years in CoH but we must remain realistic to the situation at hand. It's going to be hard enough for MWM to produce a workable superhero game without the huge amount of extra work adding vehicles of any kind to the mix.
Gorgon mentioned other games like World of Tanks or Mechwarrior Online where vehicles have been fully implemented. That's great for those games with their focused venues (tanks, giant robots, etc.) but one thing that's not been brought up here is that in a "superhero" based game we'd need to have access to practically any kind of moving object you could imagine all the way from flying surfboards to invisible jets to anything in-between. Think of every vehicle you've ever seen in a comic book and you'd realize we'd need a system that could provide effectively any form of car, plane, boat, horse, spaceship, and so on. No matter what the Devs managed to provide they would always be leaving something out which is going to upset someone's character concept. It's almost a no-win scenario as far as the Devs are concerned until someone creates an infinite vehicle generator.
The compromise idea I mentioned of coming up with various animation emote/skins for the more traditional travel powers like Flight or Super Speed will probably be the most likely workable alternative we'll ever get. These things worked well enough in CoH to give us things like the Rocket Board and the Flying Carpet. The CoT Devs can expand on that idea to provide "skins" that'll make it look like were riding/driving other types of vehicles without having to worry about the actual physicality of objects like in-game cars, planes, etc. The added bonus of implementing the concept of vehicles in this way is that the Devs may eventually allow us to design our own versions of these things (the same way they allowed the Kickstarter folks to design their own costumes and weapons). It would be far easier for the Devs to allow us to modify existing "vehicle skins" than it ever would be to get our own unique physical vehicles.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I have no problem with travel power vehicles, as I mention. Champions has many cool kinds of travel powers -- flying carpet, flying disc, etc. If some are larger (motorcycle or even car) and could allow one or more teammates on them (this is a great idea!)
A car with seats would have slots to take up for riders, so to speak. A flying carpet, if you can fit on, the more the merrier! Build its physics right, from the start, and fun things all fall out naurally!
I'm speaking of a fighting vehicle concept qua alternative aspect if you. Nothing like a Giant Monster showing up in the city in Champions, and half the people are there in their vehicles pew pewing. Sigh.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
I would love to work on such a flying carpet.
- Hop on, you are on a stable ground relative to you, even if it moves relative to the world. You can walk and jump and run on it, within its small limits.
So can anyone in your group.
- As it flies around, it banks, and bodies bank too, staying perpendicular to the pseudo-ground, that being the combined vector of gravity + banking centrifugal force.
- Carpet bends and curves as banking or curving to ascend or descend. Again, bodies bank or asjust standing accordingly, as if standing on a mountain side or mogul or hillock. This should be part of the physics already.
I already have computationally trivial implementation details in my mind on this.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
The emphasis on power customization is already leading CoT more towards giving us "animation skins" for things like functional Fly Poses. I'm simply suggesting it would be far, far easier to get a "skin" for Super Speed that makes it look like you're sitting in a "virtual car" than it would be for the Devs to actually create physically unique cars with their own physics and animation details. Yes that might make it hard for other players to "sit" with you in cars that don't actually exist in the game world. But I'd rather give up that bit of realism to have "emote/pose based vehicles" than to never have any kind of vehicles at all.
Besides these "skin based" vehicles would have no combat capabilities so you wouldn't have to worry about half the playerbase sitting in their cars pew-pewing anything.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
[url=http://www.gearsonline.net/series/mospeada/mecha/human-mecha/mospeada/f.html]MOSPEDA[/url]
[img]http://www.gearsonline.net/series/mospeada/mecha/human-mecha/mospeada/mospeada-01.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.gearsonline.net/series/mospeada/mecha/human-mecha/mospeada/mospeada-10.gif[/img] [img]http://mokman.rubberslug.com/gallery/img_b.aspx?ImageID=251072&Pass=[/img]
[img]http://www.gearsonline.net/series/mospeada/mecha/human-mecha/mospeada/mospeada-20.gif[/img]
Let me guess ... not "superheroic" enough to qualify?
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
+1 to this idea, except for the falling out part. ^_^
I like this one, too!
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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I think we should be able to pick other people up and carry them no matter what travel power we're using.
Vehicles would have a lot of limitations so carrying extra people around would be a great way to balance them.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Flying "platform" (made of carpet or mystical energies or whatever you want) = Group Fly
Ground vehicle (cars, etc.) = Group Superspeed
"Energize!" = Group Teleport
Pogo Stick [b]of Doom™![/b] (capacity +3) = Group Super Jump
For a "Group Swing" vehicle, all I can think of is this ...
[img]http://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/BAhbCVsHOgZmSSI7dXBsb2Fkcy9wbGFjZV9pbWFnZXMvN2ZhNDY0ZmNmYWJmNzE1YmQ5X1AxMjEwMTY5bG8uanBnBjoGRVRbCDoGcDoKdGh1bWJJIgp4NDAwPgY7BlRbBzsHOgpzdHJpcFsJOwc6DGNvbnZlcnRJIhAtcXVhbGl0eSA5MQY7BlQw/image.jpg[/img]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I would *love* a vehicle skin for appropriate travel powers (motorcycle especially) but I agree with those who would not want to see this turned into a whole sub-game, as they did in CO.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Again keeping power customization in mind I could see where each of the four classic travel powers (Fly, Super Speed, Super Jump and Teleport) could allow for a specific animation that could account for one person being "carried" by someone else. As examples the Flyer could carry a second person in their arms (i.e. Superman and Lois Lane), the Super Speeder/Jumper could have someone on their backs (like a human backpack) and the Teleporter could hold hands with someone else or the like. All of these sound reasonably doable.
The problem seems to come when you try to do any kind of "group" travel power. For whatever reasons the "Group Fly" and "Group Teleport" powers were two of the worse implemented and/or most hated powers of CoH. It's always possible that the CoT Devs might finally figure out ways to make those kinds of powers work well but the track record from CoH is not promising. In fact if the CoT Devs could make the "one person carry another person" idea work I'd almost suggest they not even bother with "group" versions of any travel power. It just seems like it'd be far more trouble than it'd ever be worth.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I had one of these in a Champions PnP game. The way vehicles worked in that game was that vehicle-based powers only cost 20% normal (and of course automatically had many limitations like Bloody Obvious Power Focus and Where Do I Park), and it was the only way I could even get near the main, munchkin characters in the game.
Which made it hilarious when, years after the game ended, one of the munchkins mentioned in passing that my vehicle was actually illegal because it used more than 20% of my total character points. Never mind that the "guy in power armor" concept makes no damn sense if only 20% of the points were in the vehicle.
This also happened to be the same game where Redlynne first went to town with variable power effects pools.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Now you're making me wonder where my Robotech MMO is?!
Group fly was hated because if you got too far from the person with the power you fell, but the limit wasn't visible.
some sort of visible limit, or a tether that makes it impossible to move out of range would solve the problem.
Group teleport was hated because people would teleport you around without your permission.
then once people remembered to auto refuse all the time both powers became useless.
A vehicle would be different because you'd be choosing to get into the vehicle. No one could force you unless you were unconscious. no wondering outside and falling either. The only problem would be if someone wouldn't stop when you told them to and you couldn't get out. But that's kidnapping and should be something that turns you to the dark side.
Also group flight and group teleport were totally worthless if no one wanted to go with you, after all regular flight and teleport were separate powers. But people want vehicles for a variety of reasons and carrying other people is just a bonus that makes up for not being able to use them in a lot of places.
By the way. I'd love to see large vehicles, docked in our superhero bases, that are made for the whole team.
Things like busses, vans, airplanes, submarines or space shuttles.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//a/a3/Arachnos_flyer.jpg[/img] [img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//c/ca/Longbow_Chaser.jpg[/img]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
The biggest hurdle to having physical 3D vehicles in CoT is not having them exist in the game sitting somewhere motionless.
One of the biggest problems would be having to come up with "vehicle control mini-games" that would be almost equivalent to Microsoft's Flight Simulator and (hypothetical) Microsoft's Motorcycle Driver Simulator, Microsoft's Bus Driver Simulator, Microsoft's Submarine Driver Simulator, and so on.
This is the huge reason why having "vehicles" in a superhero based MMO game would be so hard to do - once you support one type of vehicle you really have to allow for ANY kind of machine/device that was ever designed or imagined to transport people because virtually ANY kind of vehicle is fair game in comic books. It would almost be preferable to not have ANY vehicles than for them to implement a few and have a bunch of people start whining "Well you gave us X and Y so why not Z?"
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm going to dispute this assertion insofar as I'd expect any sort of "vehicle control mini-games" to essentially be variants of the already existing Travel Powers in the game, just with the added wrinkle of "slaving" the movement of the characters to a platform in/on the vehicle in question so as to increase the carrying capacity beyond merely 1.
You don't need a flight simulator when you've already got the rules for Fly worked out. There could be limitations/variations on that Power applied to make the movement more "vehicle-like" such as reduced friction for even sloppier movement control and momentum/inertia, "full speed ahead" only with limited speed in reverse, turning rate limitations, and so on. Essentially, those are just tweaks of the already existing values for a Fly Power.
Likewise, you'd do something similar for ground-bound vehicles (and disable jumping, meaning any "leaping" with a vehicle will require use of a stunt ramp or a cliff). Submersibles would just be a further variation of Fly.
In other words, it ought to be possible to [i]finesse[/i] the already existing frameworks for Travel Powers to accomplish these tasks.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Group fly was useless to a Mastermind -- your minions were always lagging too far behind, so you had to fly in fits and starts or else they'd fall.
With the exception of a few maps (e.g. Grandville or Oroboros) you fortunately didn't need it because their follow ability was fantastic and they all had super-super jump to leap up to you.
In Oroboros, they could fall off the islands or middle, and run around in the water, but the leap back up was too far for even them.
In Grandville it was even worse because, when in the high tower, they would fall so far they disappeared from your pet list, but weren't actually destroyed.
Indeed, there was a brutal kill pets command the devs put in to counteract a long-term pet bug when zoning, but even it couldn't repair this situation. You couldn't create a new pet because the old one still existed in some phantom way.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
So you're assuming that instead of having players directly "pilot" vehicles that the vehicles themselves would become surrogates of the characters bodies? Using an airplane as a example you'd rather control the airplane in the 3rd person as if it were a replacement for the character's original body than have a representation of a cockpit where the point of view is of a pilot steering a plane?
In that case would it be like you're literally "switching bodies" from a fleshy human shaped one to a mechanical, metallic based body with a completely different set of hit points, DEF values and combat capabilities as if you were like a "self-aware airplane" or would the game still consider you a fleshy human shaped body encased in a flying metal tube? In either case how would things like aggro and combat targeting be handled? Could the player shoot at things outside the plane directly or would he/she be locked inside the plane with no ability to directly interact with the outside world? The latter might make sense if the vehicle is a Learjet but the former might make more sense if the vehicle is a witch's broom.
Frankly once you start down the slope of trying to implement a "vehicle mini-game" like this for a wide range of vehicle types a huge set of unexpected issues start to snowball out of control. Still not entirely convinced it would ever be worth it - it would still always be far easier to implement "vehicles" as varations of emote-like pose animations than as physical objects.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If going into "vehicle mode" works like using a Mount in a game like Elder Scrolls Online, where you can't attack while mounted, a huge amount of the problem you describe simply gets handwaved away. Of course, that then leads to a variety of interesting "dismount" conditions (particularly in the case of Flying vehicles), up to and including the phenomenon of "Bear Bombing" as practiced by Druids in World of Warcraft, thanks to being able to shapeshift, to forcibly dismount other Players in flight, causing them to fall to the ground (often resulting in fatalities).
Simplest solution I can think of would be to have the vehicle "destruct" in a forced dismount situation, hurling the occupants out of it at the vehicle's former vector, while a voluntary dismount would skip the "destruct" animation. Sure, it doesn't take care of every single edge case ever imaginable, but it would be adequate to cover most of them ... so Good Enough as opposed to being Perfect.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Even if you can "handwave" away all the combat oriented problems related to all kinds of vehicles (land, sea, air, space, etc.) how do you handle the multiple passenger problem? Are their bodies physically represented in a given vehicle or are all vehicles just treated as "black boxes" with a max passenger limit? How do you handle people wanting to get on or off moving vehicles? How do you handle the UIs related to these loading/offloading scenarios?
I have no doubt that in a perfect world clever Devs could eventually solve all these issues and could even provide for the specific details of dozens (hundreds?) of different kinds of vehicles. But clearly the circumstances of MWM's development situation is not going to be conducive to all that. I will continue to favor emote/pose based passenger-less vehicles (i.e. CoH Rocket Board) if for no other reason than that they are far more likely to happen in CoT than anything else being talked about here.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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+1
Well, initially at least. ;)
Simple. The "vehicle" is a moving platform. So long as everyone stays on the platform, everyone stays in/on the vehicle. Step off/out and you're no longer a part of the group movement. Izzy already posted the answer to this question in the [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/90482#comment-90482]Truck Surfing[/url] thread:
[youtube]AfwmRYQRsbg[/youtube]
The only thing you might want to do beyond that is write "conditionals" such that in order to get onto/in the platform your character avatar needs to be doing a specific emote (such as /sit to be in a chair). After that, it's just a matter of letting a Player "drive the platform" around according to whatever rules pertain to that vehicle's mode of transportation.
So at the most sophisticated level, you could have characters "mounting" up into cars, trucks and busses, or onto bikes, skateboards, surfboards, etc. and then driving (or simply riding in the case of public transportation) the "vehicle" platform around. So a 2 seat car could have the driver plus 1 passenger, and both characters are doing a specific /sit emote inside the vehicle (to avoid clipping). You could extend this to NPCs such that truck drivers could drive on the roads ... PARK the truck ... AND GET OUT of the truck and start walking on the sidewalk to go to a building and enter a door.
No, I'm not angling towards a Grand Theft Hero sort of implementation where PCs can steal any unoccupied vehicle parked on the street, but you can get a very large subset of that functionality using the tools available to Unreal 4.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
This was my transportation room, consisting of teleporters, on the lower left, and the small Longbow fliers on the upper-right, seen hanging underneath the deck, in storage.
One is currently being serviced and prepped for use in the upper-right (partly blocked by a hanging lamp), floating in a little notch bay, awaiting launch through the dilating eye door on the wall.
Hey, NCSoft, this is the hundreds of hours of hobby you clobbered when killing City of Heroes. If you let CoH be resurrected, you should include the customer databases.
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Here's a giant wheel you use to open the iris.
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Everything checks out!
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__________________
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Agreed. Do not want transforms.
Vehicles will exist as game assets. It's MUCH easier to just use the existing rules for those assets and simply switch it from NPC contolled vehicle to Player controlled vehicle. No "new" programming needed. Very limited combat use (limited by what it can do as an NPC.. )
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Some folks would love nothing more than to PLAY not-batmobile, or not-invisible-jet, or the drone from furious 7, or that hovercycle Hawkeye never got around to fixing up. Hell I probably wouldn't roll a single cape, but I'm on the far-end of that spectrum: Just a fleet of those police drones, mechs and other things the NPCs got to be in CoH!
Just driving a car around would be boring unless you can fight the bad guys in a more... shall we say "GTA" fashion?* But imagine zooming around in your little police-bot, stretching the limits of anyone's ability to claim the animations don't look wrong, drop-kicking and flurry-punching people with nothing but your engines, hull and nose-gun. Where do the legs come from for this kick? Only the Shadow knows!
*This is in no way a recommendation against vehicles, it's simply an explanation of what needs to happen when batmobile meets bankrobber at full speed. Or, if you're a villain, bladed bumpers and wheel-spikes.
edit: Also, while being limited to what an NPC could potentially do is probably fine, let us not forget that said NPC vehicles can probably involve lasers, rocket pods and telefrag beacons!
An alternative for 'vehicles vs on foot' could be building it as a "sidekick", with its own options. Of course you can't take it into an office building - well not all of them anyways - but outdoors and in the larger 'indoor' maps, go wild. If power's an issue, it could quite simply halve rewards in exchange for being fairly more powerful. To use CoH as an example of why this could be fine, or "fine", with controllers being 100% safe in the majority of fights, though at (until inherents) the cost of taking things down at like half the speed. Vehicles would just replace "kill speed" with "levelling/grinding speed" instead when dealing with things that are not vehicles, in exchange for being significantly tougher and nastier than the hero on foot. Meanwhile a regular, proper follower or teammate would offer more actions per second, etc, and can follow you into tiny rooms.
why limit it to technical vehicles? how about animals for vehicles too....Dragons, Battlecat (from he-man), Pegasus, Griffons, Horses, etc....
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I believe that's already been suggested along with magic carpets as well.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I got no problem with those, though I'd like to point-at and remind everyone of that first total war game where knights were a turret sitting atop their horse-tank when you looked closely.
In other words, the animations could get problematic when one guy's got a Roc and the other's riding siamese-twin camels.
I don't think Vehicles and Mounts should be piloted by PCs, but rather act as swift-travel between areas in the game. So they'd just be various 'skins' on a 'Taxi' system, where you summon your ride, select your destination, and animate off into the sunset. Batmobile, flaming motorcycle, or flying carousel-horse, it's just a matter of stylistic choice and we won't be seeing these things crowding the walkways or bumping into each other on the road.
Be Well!
Fireheart
That's not a bad idea, Fireheart. Instead of having "flight points" where you'd hop a flying taxi in World of Warcraft ... instead you'd just go to a parking lot and let the "vehicle taxi" auto pilot you to another parking lot. Same principle applies if using helicopters. Just go to a helipad and then select the destination helipad to go to and let the game taxi you there. Same deal with bus stops ... or trains/subways.
By reducing it to what is essentially a taxi service between pre-defined locations, you whittle the problem down to being one of mere traffic management (can't take off at the same time as there is incoming, can only ride the service when the bus/train/subway arrives, etc.).
Expand the idea of a "personalized taxi service" (as opposed to a public transportation taxi service) just a little bit further and you'd have what amounts to a Temp Power which you could then customize the appearance of (ie. pick the appearance of your vehicle) which requires you to "rent" the Temp Power, in effect, forming an IGC sink.
/em applause
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yeah actually it is a bad idea
If it can't be done right there's just no point
it has to be an animation for a movement power
We want vehicles we can ride around in and fight in
not something we only see when we're getting in and out of it.
if that's all it does I'll just take a real movement power
and use the train if it's too far.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
The problem with vehicles is, no matter how they actually work in game, they [I]should[/I] be as customizable as your character's costume; different body styles, paint jobs, accessories, etc. - at least if you want to do it [I]right[/I]. This would mean a lot of work - practically another kind of costume builder - so I would not expect to see this till WAY after launch.
I really could not care less about vehicles. Just weighing in here....although a flight animation that mimics a flying carpet would be very thematic =)
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.