So what are we looking at in terms of the body. Will there be a set selection. Like, Tall, Average, Hulk. Short. Medium. Tall. No chest. Comic Book Busty. With some slight sliders mainly to add some muscle or no muscle appearance. Or like DCUO where there is no body customization. Or is the editor just going to have sliders for everything. I'm not a coding person but I always figured that the reason some costumes pieces don't appear or don't work or conflict with each other is simply because they alter depending on the sliders. Having a character run around with elongated limbs seems to make pieces change or act weird. I always thought that just having a fix set (short, medium, tall) would allow for more and better costume pieces since the conflicts from the sliders wouldn't be there.
Sidenote. Would be kind of cool to make a toon that had no actual legs and sort of just hovered. Like Lord Blackthorne in UO. His whole lower body looks like a drill or something and he just floats. Toons running around with missing limbs would be an interesting bit of tragic backstory to them. o.o but I guess then you'd have to alter a lot of powers and such in the event that toons that use melee weps are all right handed but the toon has a missing right arm. Too much additional coding.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
In a perfect game there should be hundreds of sliders allowing players (if desired) to tinker with every square millimeter of their character's appearance and have all costumes adjust accordingly. But obviously with software there will always be trade-offs and limitations based on design costs and/or complexity. Bottomline I think it's reasonable to expect that since this new game is supposed to be an evolutionary successor to a game that was initially designed over 10 years ago that it should have at least more flexibility and options than the CoH costume creator had.
Optimistically I'm hoping City of Titans will offer a character creator that has all the options that some of the latest Korean MMO's are offering (like ArcheAge) but again as long as CoT is an obvious improvement over CoH I'll probably be happy.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Sliders: it is certainly on the internal spec, and at least *some* forms of body shaping can definitely be controlled through the engine. Exactly which ones, and how extensively they can work without causing severe distortions in the costume meshes, is something that will require more experimentation to pin down.
As for non-legged characters, all I can say is that we expect to be able to offer just about anything that appears on an NPC to the players as well. That particular variation may or may not be in the cards for launch, I don't know (and even if I knew *now*, I couldn't know how it might change). But several things of the sort are in the list of long-term possibilities to be considered.
[hr]
[color=#ff0000]Developer Emeritus[/color]
and multipurpose sheep
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Would be cool to be able to create an actual Skeleton toon. One thing that erks me in the CO creator is that you can give ya toon all these skeleton pieces or exo skeleton pieces but you get to the waist and its still normal and you can't change it into a skeleton waist. Ends up looking really silly. Theres no waist piece that helps sort of match up with having one skeleton leg or both or just being all skeleton. I would have liked though to finally be able to make a Skeleton toon and still be able to place clothing on it. I could have an undead Pirate xD!!!
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
I have to veto skeletons. They would make the game far too spooky for me to play. /s
The world is a mess and I just ... need to rule it.
What if it's a Pink Skeleton.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
What about Dancin' skeletons?
White, blue and yella' ones?
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
What is this?
[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130522021806/disney/images/thumb/4/4b/Jackskellington.jpg/258px-Jackskellington.jpg[/img]
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Given that one of the pictures on the KS showed a skeleton-like character, that costume set seems likely. Will they also do holiday themed bonuses during the year later on like City of Heroes did?
Holidays? Most assuredly. At launch? Not so sure.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
One thing that I know I would definitely like to see is the ability to make females that are muscular. I'm sure that if we all stop and think, we can come up with at least one female hero or villain from the comics that has, at one time, been portrayed as being muscular. Off the top of my head: She-Hulk (Red and Green), Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Big Barda, Elseworlds Supergirl, Rampage, Knockout, etc.
It always irked me that the guys in CoH could be buff and ripped to shreds, but females could only be "thick". I'm sure I'm not the only one that felt this way.
[color=#FF7F50]Putting yourself in another persons shoes emotionally is something that everyone has to experience eventually. It's part of learning to be a human being. Roleplayers do it for fun.[/color]
Creating a new toon in CoX was one of my favorite things about the game. I quite liked having sliders, and a LOT more choices than WoW or Aion or NWN. It was a fun challenge to see what you could come up with given the array of choices. If Titans improves/expands on that then huzzah! That said, I agree with Xselcier, it would be nice to have a wider choice of body types available, especially for the women.
Four-legged body types?
[i]*American Pit Bull wags his tail furiously*[/i]
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Maybe some kind of half human half something else, like the snakes off of CoV. For some reason CO isn't doing that .
I would like to be able to make something really unique in the character creator, something that other MMOs dare not do or maybe just to lazy to do in character making. . . .and I can't seem to be able to post up a picture of a "Snakes Elder boss" or Elder Cobra. But yeah, ever since I saw the snakes I wanted to make a character with a lower half and armor like theirs.
http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Snakes
Hehe. Would be funny to see a snake toon hovering in the air. It's snake tail just dangling there. xD! I vote for snake halves just cause moments like that would make me giggle. ^_^
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Oh, OH! and sliders for hornes and back spikes plz, and try to add "Godzilla" type back spikes that arc over the chars head and a slider thing to adjust the size so there will be no need for a small or large port in the char creator, like with CO. Wanna look like a godzilla-esk-snak/cobra elder that breaths atomic fire/lazers on people and try to have them run away from me in mass saying "RUN, ITS GODZILLAAHHH!" and panic breacks out. xD
Trying to think of what else CO and DCUO are lacking that I can throw out, other than a great community that CoX had that actully hooked me in RPing for shits and giggles.
Almost for got about sliders for fins too, back fins,head fins, arm fins, leg fins, tail fins. CO has just small or large of the same fins, sliders on that stuff will make the creation tabs a bit easier to navigate with that sort of clutter gone.
You wouldn't need sliders for horns and back spikes. All those would do would be to take and really warp the base skin texture of the deformed area and look really weird.
You'd want horn options for the head and a spike/spine/scute/fin/frill option for the back. And possibly as an add on to a tail or something of the like.
I posted a thread not too long ago with me wondering how non-human legs would be handled.
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/digigradenon-human-legs
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
So there will only be sliders for body pars and not add-ons because of that? Like hands,feet,arms,chest,legs,etc.
Oh and boob sliders, lets not forget about them.
Yeah, sliders (usually) don't add new polygons or anything, they usually take what's there and change the shape or size of it.
Though there very well could be sliders that would control the shapes of certain things beyond general body proportions.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
How about 2.5 D body selection. . .That would be neat, along with the running animation being something like shuffling around place to place. Would be cool to use for those that make a Imp character based off of "DooM" Or a Shyguy toon. :3
Oh, and 2.5D bullets and rockets. . . .and knives/swords n'stuff.
. . .2.5D chainsaw. . .what else am I missing?
hehe. boob sliders are important in todays games. Lots of them have them. Heck even The Sims 3 has boob sliders now.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
That's one thing I've never seen anyone demand be asymmetric.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
I concur! I'd give you two thumbs-up, Puppy if I ... um ... had thumbs!
*mopes away and finds a few Naughty Spawns on whom to take out her frustration at her lack of opposable thumbs!*
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
Only if they can be taken down to an A cup as well as up to a DDDDDDDDD.
Since people are so up and excited about boob sliders for women. . .can men get like a camel toe slider. . .or pair of balls sliders???
Just a question.
Women gotta have something to look at too, right?
Oh, One more thing I almost forgot to plop into this post, if this happens, will the camel toes take on the texture of the selected body type?
Like if Sailboat picks his lower half to be a horse then his camel toe/balls would match that. Or if I select my char's lower body to be a snake tail would it be a smooth camel toe that looks like it belongs on the belly side of a snake, or would this feature only apply to male toons in pants, shorts, or underwear?
Long hair options for the menfolk would be sexier than a big "package", imo. Buns of super-advanced Cybertronian alloy are usually pretty well available, deliberately or not, so I'm not too fussed about that. ;D
And re boob sliders I'll second Col. Kernel on having a reasonable A cup option. Would be nice, to go with the athletic/muscular build. There's nothing wrong with running around with anti-grav watermelons if that's what you want; it's about having a choice in the matter. :)
Oh, and different types of lizard skin to pick from like, smooth serpent/ amphibious like skin, to scaled snake, to something plated/ dragon-like. Then maybe an exo-skeleton. . .like tyranids, or "Star ship trooper" style buggy exo-skeletons. Throw something out If I am missing something people.
Keeping the 'family friendly' nature of this game - I would agree that there should be a male 'pelvis' or 'duffle' or similar slider. I'm sure the community input could be garnered on max appropriate size in-game.
My wife is very much in agreement with this idea as she has expressed long before now the issue that she is (was) tired of being able to create all sorts of busty to not-so-busty characters, but all of mine were 'same ol' same old' down there. :)
Although not entirely related, she just told me over the shoulder to please make sure to include the sexy women's walk. For the umpteenth time. Whatever variations the girls want is great, but she loves the CoH girl's walk. As a man, I'm not about to try and argue that point. I love it. As nuts as I know that may drive some of the ladies here... no offense is meant. I simply love that sexy stroll - probably because I am a lucky man in RL too, but anyway.
Yea sexy walk would be nice. Don't want to walk around like ya trying to step on bugs or can't remember how to walk. Could make the walk and run types dependent on the stance you pick. Sexy stance has a sexy walk and run. Default stance has a generic walk and run. Stuff like that.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Would we have the available option to make a child? I'm thinking of my daughter's tribute character, Volcano Goddess. In CoH I got her as well as I could to look like a little girl except I couldn't not give her breasts. DCUO is similar. My little girl's only 6 - the longer I can keep her a little girl, the better, right? I had someone tell me they guessed that the reason why there are no "children" is that it would change the rating of a game to have children in harm's way. Sure, I suppose I can understand that, but still, youth in comics are nothing new. So how young can I make my little girl, or am I going to have to have her as a teen again? Thanks. :-)
Can you use the (horror of horrors!) male body type?
(Just don't let her know!)
I mean, dresses might not be available, but with a little longer hair, increase the head size and puff the cheeks a little...
Although at one point, CoH had kilts that would work!
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
Technically Penny Preston was the only official pre-teen female child in CoH and she was a special one-of-a-kind NPC.
There might have been some truth to the theory that there were no other children in the game (player character or otherwise) because they didn't want to worry about possible violence against children. But I suspect the actual reason we never got a true "child" body type was the same reason we never got a "huge female" body type - the Devs simply didn't want to spend the effort to create an entirely new body type with all of its related animations and costume tweaks. The fact that people might have abused or been offended by seeing children running around was probably only a secondary concern which conveniently fit the reality that providing them in the game would've taken too much development time and effort in the first place.
Having said that I still hope we will at least be given the option in the new game to have females with relatively flat chests. Again I believe the main reason we did not have that option in CoH was that it was too hard graphically to make all of the costume options flexible enough to span between flat chests and Power Girl sized without major clipping issues. In effect it was an engineering compromise to make the smallest chest size in that game -not- be flat. Hopefully the new game will not be so limited graphically as to once again force that compromise.
At one point I had a teenaged girl character have as one of her extra costumes a "huge male" costume that I worked up as a huge anime-styled robot that was much larger than her normal body. I roleplayed that it was her "battle armor" that she actually got into when she wanted to fight big battles.
Other than that the idea of using a small sized "male" body to simulate a young girl left much to be desired. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
CO pretty much has enough sliders that you can pretty much make children sized toons in the game. One of our sisters looks like a pre-teen character. She's supposed to be but she also looks the part as well.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
While true.... they always end up being either small adults or big headed, bug-eyed creatures..
...with B-Cups.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
CO offered a few evolutional advantages over CoH as far as body sliders go, but it was far from perfect in other aspects. I tried my best to give CO a try but the overall "cartoony" look of the character graphics was one of many reasons I finally gave up on that game.
Ultimately I will continue to hope that CoT manages to offer a costume/character creator that is superior to any of the superhero games that came before it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Ugh, I hate CO's character models. They look like malformed muppets (said with apologies to muppets) made from Tempur-Pedic mattress material.
I'd also like a wider range of height options from about a foot tall to scraping the ceiling indoors.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
No. That wouldn't work. The male chest is too muscular. Then there's also the ... um ... y'know.
We *need* a breast slider which goes *all* the way to the left so that breast size can render a pre-teen or cat body. It's embarrassing trying to play a non-nursing 100% cat character and have 36C be the *smallest* size.
*hacks a furball*
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
Well, you'd be severely restricted to certain costume styles; no tight spandex, for one, I agree.
One problem I see is the depiction of kids committing violent acts and being the recipients of same. Especially when equipped with guns.
I've heard that it would also affect the marketability in some countries.
I'd really like one of the devs to chime in about this.
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
Obviously there's a concern about "the depiction of kids being involved in violent acts in a video game".
But let's look at this from the point of view that games like CoH and CO allowed players to create characters that looked like young/small boys for years and as far as I'm aware there was never a major backlash against that. Could it be that people would only have a problem seeing young GIRLS running around like that? Maybe.
Even if it's some kind of "boys OK, girls not" political correctness issue going on here that doesn't dismiss the reality that some post-pubescent females are effectively flat-chested. Am I seriously not allowed to create a 30 year old woman with A-Cups simply because people are worried about me also coming up with a 10 year old Hit-Girl clone?
I also understand there might be an engineering/clipping issue that makes it hard to allow for flat-cheated females software-wise. But that's something that should eventually be solved as an engineering challenge instead of allowing the "fear" of POSSIBLE abuse of young girls hold them back. If the fear of violence against children was the only issue going on here the character creators of these respective games wouldn't allow us to create any character less than 6 feet tall just to be safe.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The game will fit the standard "T for Teen" rating.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Oh, I hate the PC crap as much as you do. When I looked up T for Teen, all I could find was a list of games that had said rating, no parameters as to what would apply or what wouldn't.
I was worried that if some ruling caused an entire country, say, Australia, to ban the game because of a few people that wanted something.
I, too, hope this is not the case. I'm just paranoid. :)
For all I know, it could be that the number of polygons required for big boobs means that they can't be reduced below a certain size...
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
For the [url=http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp]ESRB[/url] it's:
The [url=http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/33/]PEGI[/url] that would apply is '12':
Note that Going Rogue had a PEGI 16 rating while it still fell into ESRB's Teen rating.
ETA: As the description of the two ratings suggests, it's worth being aware that in Europe (excessive) violence is more likely to be edited out of movies than is nudity, at least for values of "nudity" that fall in the vicinity of bare breasts.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
CoV was PEGI 16 Rated for Violence and Bad Language.
CoH was PEGI 12 Rated for Violence and Bad Language
This. My yellow lantern in DCUO in the black Biker pants had what my wife called "The Balls of Terror". Dont know if it was my vid card or the shadowing but seriously the entire front of my characters pants were graced with what at first glance looked like a front-butt. But the longer you stared...... my mom blushed.
Yeah, that sounds like a Jedi. Massacre a whole room full of people, then stand around apologizing for it. - Swtor NPC
Unfortunately, said standard confuses me so much. How can Devil May Cry (All 4 too! (..what reboot? There never was a reboot. Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?)) get an M for Mature rating when it's just about as bloody as EDF 2017 (yeaaah.. THERE'S AN OBSCURE ONE!) and violent as most fighting games?
On the flipside, how the hell did Rise of the Imperfects (another obscurity..) get a Teen one? Just.. play it some time and ask that.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
Those ratings aren't just by violence. And also violence has diff types. T titles contain more moderate, cartoon, or fantasy violence, moderate blood/gore. Where as M rated contain more blood and gore than the Teen rating would accommodate, and intense violence.
EDF is labeled Animated Blood, Mild Language and Violence.
DMC 4 Is Labeled Blood, Language, Sexual Themes, Violence.
had DMC had the funny blood effects that EDF had, and didn't swear so much and didn't have the girls, then it would have had the same rating as EDF.
^_^ but none of this is about the body and sliders.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
...4 had Language? Where? You mean the tame, rarely said "damn you" that every game seems to have nowadays (Shadow the Hedgehog said it pretty much every other scene.. and that was E 10+)
Sexual Themes? Besides Gloria's single scene that was a parody of "erotic fighting" (camera angles showing off the assets of women who fight, even though you see little of the actual action), and Lucifer's intro (the greatest double entendre ever). And again, Imperfects had way... WAY worse. Especially Wink.
Blood I understand. Violence I'm still saying Imperfects was way worse in it. Name another Teen game that lets you vomit corrosive material on an enemy as a finisher, AND you watch as they break down screaming (Hazmat's).
None of them (save for that imaginary reboot people keep insisting exists) are "bad" or "adult". They're over the top and awesome at the same time without having to resort to extreme language or cheap laughs.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
I'm not 100% sure, but i think that the Unreal engine might not support Bone scaling/stretching, so being able to just increase the muscle tone by scaling a bone associated to the skin mesh might not be possible. http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/968409-Bone-Streching
Dont take my work for it, but maybe Morph Targets could be used? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRu_zTLe1Bk
Have the original 3D Model with medium (50%) muscle tone. then make 2 copies... one with 0% muscle tone... other with 100% muscle tone.
Then Blend between those 2 morph targets / muscle tones?!?
I have no clue if CoH actually manually modified the vertices when you moved the sliders, but i suspect they did, since one of the sliders allowed you to change the length of the legs. :P
I dont think that will be easy to add in Unreal, but im no expert. I just started reasarching UDK 2 weeks ago. I hope im wrong. To be honest, we dont really Need to stretch the legs as much. ;)
Hmmm.. i wonder if certain vertices like the ones for the Face can be selected... so we can also change the jawline. :)
Wait, i think it might be possible. I recall seeing something called Face FX. :)
If thats possible.. then we might be able to use the same method to morph the hips, chest, shoulders, and even feet and Hands.... like Champions Online does. Well, i dont know if we can elongate the fingers or the whole hand though. But, who cares!! ;)
Blender seems to call it Shape Keys: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tcDBRT0cl4&t=7m47s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZcmAWL2jA&t=4m56s
From what I've seen and heard with other Unreal Games lines up with what Izzy says. For the most part the Unreal 3 games i've seen do not stretch polygons and instead are putting (usually pre-established) changes over established shapes.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember hearing the same with DCUO and Tera (and Marvel Heroes but there's no customization there) which use the Unreal 3 engine.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I'm putting together a bunch of Questions for the Avatar Builder Survey at:
http://izzy.limequery.net/index.php/228873/lang-en :)
Well, you have my answers as apparently the first taker of the survey.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
submitted to the survey
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
sorry Izzy but i like to maintain anonymity and am unwilling to give out personnel info. so i am posting my answers here
1 fat - OK
2 V fat - OK
3 V skinny - OK
4 arm/leg - yes
5 hand/feet -OK
6 flat chest - yes!
7 - indifferent
9 child - yes!!
8 teen - yes
i would like to see under 4 ' tall to.
Thanks all.
You can see the results (Pie Charts) here:
http://izzy.limequery.net/index.php/statistics_user/action/surveyid/228873/language/en
I hate to complain after all the work you did, but the way the colors vary in meaning from one chart to the next is baffling and distracting. Yellow is "very important" on the first chart, but on the second chart [i]green[/i] is "very important." It would be MUCH more useful if the colors held the same meanings across all the charts.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
As always when it comes to "statistics" the question ought to be was changing the colors an accident or was Izzy intentionally tying to confuse/mislead us? ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I do wish more than 12 had participated in the survey, though I am hardly surprised by the results as it seems to mirror what I've been hearing in the forums.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
You mean like this?
[img]http://media.melty.fr/article-1254144-ajust_930/chloe-grace-moretz-est-hit-girl.jpg[/img]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm going to sound like a tool when I say I don't want kids in this game..
It's not that children do not belong in superhero lore.. its that it affects your ESRB *rating (a major point imho) and also because this is an MMORPG that has a HUGE value on its community. I'd rather that community not be known as a perv haven.
We all know that Mature (Adult) ERP exists in any MMORPG. People have exotic flavors (furries not excluded) and want to play them out on a virtual platform. I'd rather people just know flat out.. THIS IS NOT THAT GAME.
~JayBezz
* Thank you.. See what happens when you work in finance.. lol. No more posts while going through proposals.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant the ESRB rather than the maximum suggested retail price. >.>
I also don't see any particular need to have children available as PCs, though there are undoubtedly people who would use the freedom to create child-sized characters to have child PCs (which, when given presentations such as 'The Incredibles', is not cause for alarm). On the other hand, there are people on this forum who have specifically requested the ability to create (more) child-like characters for their own children to play.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Cryptic Studios is already on record with respect to Star Trek Online as having deliberately made the decision that Female characters simply can't set their chest sliders "small enough" to reach flat/A-cup/B-cup for the specific reason that if such an option were available then players creating "Alien" captains (which is the "free form" archetype) would be able to create "children" ... and they REALLY don't want to deal with the issues that would open up! And although ERP is a consideration in that decision, another component is the "violence against kids" angle plus the "violence perpetrated BY kids" reverse angle.
Now, to be fair, the "idea" of a [i]child[/i] being put in charge of a starship in the Star Trek system is one of those "it shouldn't work that way" kinds of things (at least for humans!). The thing is, in the Star Trek milieu you've got "aliens" who potentially could LOOK LIKE "children" but who are "actually adults" for their species (or whatever). Bear in mind that this [i]was actually done[/i] in [url=http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Corbomite_Maneuver_%28episode%29]The Corbomite Maneuver[/url], one of the earliest Star Trek episodes ever released in the original series! Remember Balok, who offered to share tranya with Captain Kirk?
[img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090302052209/memoryalpha/en/images/0/07/Balok_laughing.jpg[/img]
Unfortunately, this sort of thing produces some rather uncomfortable social consequences for humans (like, say, the people who play the game). In any event, this is totally a [url=http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rule%2034]Rule 34[/url] situation because players are ... (*ahem*) ... "inventive" ... with the tools they get to play with.
The real answer to this ... problem ... is that there needs to be a group of people (usually Game Staff) who are able to respond to abuses of the game. In other words, you can't have an "unpoliced" game environment. That means that Players need to be able to Report abuses of the game, and the GMs who receive those tickets need to be able to examine the evidence provided and have the authority to make a judgement call [i]and then have the power[/i] to engage in an Enforcement Action against the offending Player. In order to do that, you need to have a "robust Reporting system" built into the game so that complaints can be lodged, and have a process and standardized procedure for how to handle those tickets. In a lot of ways, this sort of thing ultimately becomes a Customer Service issue, rather than being a strictly "tech" issue, where the people responsible for the game's content (both Developers and Community) [i]collectively[/i] "decide" where the boundaries of Poor Taste will lie, and what the penalties should be for crossing them.
Any tool that can be USED is also a tool that can be ABUSED. The trick then is to create a set of community norms that say that ABuse will not be tolerated, even if the underlying tools the game makes available enable and make that abuse "possible" (as opposed to making it impossible by design).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
well, the simplest solution is to
A) officially deny the existence of children of any kind inside city of titans (thus covering everyone's butt regarding ratings issues)
while at the same time...
B) keeping the avatar creator broad enough in scope to "simulate" a child-like character to some reasonable degree, while not officially being 'child' in description.
That's the approach we saw in CoX
Obviously you don't want to cater to pedophiles or anything, but it's silly to make broad sweeping restrictions on a what-if basis. What if someone used this toothpick to stab someone in the eye? should we not offer toothpicks in our restaurant then?
Two of the more fun characters I had in CoX were basically children in concept, both of them actually were a kind of back from the grave revenge-motivated character in the japanese "scary girl" style remeniscent of the ringu/grudge/hellgirl/etc. (Black Roses, and Doll Parts, the former being more ethereal in nature and a plant dom, the latter a brute with a meat cleaver which I managed to give a 'stiched together' look with some creative use of the stitched leather texture pieces).
I think DeepThought essentially nailed it here.
CoH tacitly allowed for people to create shorter characters who could be, at the very least, roleplayed to be children for well over 8+ years. As far as I'm aware there was never an incident related to that which was significant enough to threaten the overall ESRB rating of the game.
As DeepThought said the reasonable compromise here is not to have the Devs go out of their way to inject the concept of children into the game but at the same time not do anything arbitrary to prevent them either. The character creator should not offer a specific "child" body type (the way CoH had Male, Female and Huge) but it should let you create a 4 foot tall male or female character who looks like they could be like 10-12 years old.
We all know that there are plenty of "politically appropriate" superhero world depicitions of children just as we all know that there are also people out there who will try to abuse any game system regardless of what measures the Devs try to take to stop it. Heck I'd bet somebody could push the bounds of social decorum in this game even if we were limited to characters who were shaped like Rubik's Cubes.
Forcing female characters to never have anything less than a B-cup sized chests doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything potentially lewd or socially unacceptable in a game like this. All it really does is prevent hundreds of people from being able to create legitimate fairies, Hit-Girls or first-season-Buffy-styled Willows.
As Redlynne said the final answer to character abuses (of any kind) is effective "policing" of the game by in-game GMs and/or customer support. If any problems arise they should always be reported and harmony will be maintained. The irony when it comes to the question of having child-like characters in the game is that the Devs should be treating us like adults, not children, and give us the benefit of the doubt that the vast majority of the time nothing even remotely "bad" will ever come from this.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Just a follow-up thought, CoX was rated T (teen 13+) by the ESRB. the teen rating includes:
"TEEN
Content is generally suitable for ages 13 and up. May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language."
Honestly, it's difficult to make a game that has a lower age rating than teen, since most games have conflict and violent conflict resolution. I mean tom & jerry cartoons would get rated T if they were a video game.
I may be wrong, but it stands to reason to my thinking that if a 13 year old can play the game, then they can probably safely use a 13 year old appearing avatar in the game... no? At any rate, all CoT has to do is *not* be like Tera Online...
Anyway the T rating is the set of parameters which the CoT should be mindful of. And then people aren't forced into having boobs & being tall, or conversely you could slide up to really buxom, and you can throw fireballs at enemies who appear to fall to the ground motionless, and you can say something other than "gee wiz" in team chat when you fail a timed mission... I think in CoX there was 'infrequent' cussing in the NPC dialogs, or am I wrong?
if the game goes for an age rating lower than teen though, count me out, i beta tested hello kitty online... no more of that for me. (what? hello kitty is cute! makes a horrible game though...)
One small but noticeable thing I'd like to point out would be the inclusion of *both* waist and hips sliders. A lot of MMO character creation engines don't seem to care which is which or attempt (poorly) to combine the two. This often leads to Barbie-like proportions on female characters, and also cartoon-like effects on avatars in general. As I think of it, Star Trek Online's creator allows for pretty reasonable and realistic body shapes, so it isn't as if it can't be done.
One could even argue that the traditional notion of strictly keeping children out of violent Teen-Rated entertainment is evolving. For instance the Harry Potter franchise throws its young teen protagonists against some pretty dark conflict. Then you have Hunger Games pitting children against each other in gladiatorial death matches. The Kick-Ass movies gave us Hit-Girl. And even the nearly-opened Sci-Fi movie Ender's Game puts children in charge of interstellar warfare/genocide.
Obviously even though attitudes are clearly shifting there will still be limits enforced by effective policing of the game. No one is advocating depicting or allowing activity against child-like characters in the game that would be universally accepted as being inappropriate or immoral. On the other hand Hermione Granger wasn't even quite 12 years old when she first went to Hogwarts...
[img]http://watsonemma.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/firstyear.jpg[/img]
Why shouldn't I be able to play a generic character that looks convincingly similar to her in a game like this?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
HAHA,, thanks. Made correction
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I think there is a difference between children being in a position to act violently or have acts of violence done to them, and random kids walking down the street with the random adult NPCs. That's where I want the kids, not in the character creator, not getting blown up by Dr. Jerk as he rampages down the street, But just part of our random invincible NPC population.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Respectfully I think my opinon on this is almost exactly the opposite of yours.
I have no real desire to see "innocent" NPC kids walking around acting as potential victims to the nefarious activities of "Dr. Jerk as he rampages down the street". But if some player wanted to create a young Hit-Girl clone who was actively fighting evil and was a willing participant in the superhero action happening in the game then I can easily accept that character as "mature for her age" and no longer a helpless child that needs to be shielded from evil, grown-up things.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Here's a thought, which I'll tie into all the posts I've been making about Tabula Rasa's system of having Control Points, and how that concept could be leveraged in City of Titans using Phasing Tech so as to alter entire neighborhoods.
If the Heroes hold a Control Point in the neighborhood, a playground in the neighborhood will have children playing in it, unmolested (yes, I choose that term deliberately) by any Villain Group NPCs.
If the Villains hold a Control Point in the neighborhood, a playground in the neighborhood will have Villain Group NPCs "goofing off" in it, and all the children will have fled.
If neither the Heroes nor the Villains hold a Control Point in the neighborhood, the playground is deserted.
That way, you can "legitimately" say that Heroes "being heroes" are making the neighborhood "safe for kids" in a way that actually AFFECTS THE WORLD. Sure, it'll be a *temporary* kind of world change, rather than a permanent one, but still ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm not sure if you're aware of this (or mentioned it already) but CoH had a PvP zone (Reculse's Victory) which had some simplistic Phasing Tech which caused it to look differently depending on well the Heroes or Villains were doing in the zone. I always thought it was a neat idea and certainly wouldn't have any problem if CoT expanded on it in general.
As far as how NPC kids might appear in the game your suggestion (based on phasing zones) seems fairly reasonable.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Right now the idea that is being bandied about is for open world PvP to happen in its own instance, so the control point idea would be great for that aspect of the game but would not be visible in PvE. Unless I'm mistaken and the idea is that only NPCs would need to be defeated, similar to the situation in Firefall, which would essentially mean that the control points are passed back and forth on a timer.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
It's true that CoH's example of zone phasing tech was based on PvP activity. But nothing says it couldn't be applied to some kind of PvE mechanisms such as people completing certain missions or trials.
Also there has already been talk from some of the CoT Reps of allowing Heroes and Villains to be in the same zones and interact in ways that are not directly PvP oriented. For instance there might be Secret ID "spy" missions that could be connected to zone transitions.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Not to hijack this thread any further than I already have, since it's ostensibly supposed to be about body selections and sliders, not PvP vs PvE ... but ...
At this point I'm thinking of Control Points purely in terms of being a PvE experience FIRST, so as to get them tested, balanced and "settled" before even starting to think about using them as a PvP environment. That said, being able to utilize a PvP "victory" in an instanced PvP Zone for one of these as an "override" of which side has "ownership" of that particular Control Point in PvE would certainly make for an interesting way of allowing PvP to "influence" the PvE world, without directly invoking PvP in a PvE zone. Do you follow me?
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
That is an interesting idea which, obviously, would have to be carefully managed to prevent the influence from becoming overbearing. Related to that, my first thought was that it would be tricky to set up such targets without having them pass back and forth almost automatically (hence the timer comment) and yet not hit the point that the other side needs to bring overwhelming force to bear to 'liberate' it. But these are stories for another time and thread.
I have no problem with seeing child NPCs in the game. In CoH the NPCs/civilians were only potential targets or victims in an abstract sense, since the worst that would happen to them is that they'd run around in hysterics.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I think One Google Docs folder will have All the Surveys.. and you can pick which survey you want to take.
Link to All Surveys: http://goo.gl/oXeu38 (google shortened url, lasts a long time)
[img]http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/76/vp4o.png[/img]
That's the point though they would NOT be victims. They would not be the NPC's actively threatened or having their purse's snatched. Would they run scared from the bad guys? Sure, just like the adult NPCs do. And I don't see how that could in any way could raise the rating above T.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Whether the NPC kids would be programmed to safely run away like the CoH adults did is actually not really my point here. My point was as NPCs they'd have no CHOICE in the matter one way or the other.
Again I'll stress that I have no problem whatsoever with child-like PCs precisely because they are, by CHOICE, putting themselves into the action much like countless modern examples of kids being the main protagonists or antagonists in stories. Children as PCs are not being exploited or acting as "innocent victims" in these situations which to my mind makes them far more legitimate and reasonable than having children serve as helpless NPC victims randomly running from harm's way.
To once again be perfectly clear even though I have no overt DESIRE to see NPC kids running around it probably would be something I could tacitly tolerate. What actually bothers me is to have my choice to run a child PC restricted because some people somehow see that as wrong despite the countless Harry Potter and Hunger Games examples I could easily cite in support of the idea - all of which I might add sit squarely within the realm of being Teen-Rated.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Sounds like a perception issue. ;)
Interesting. The ideas so far seem to be..."I have issues with CoH not allowing me to make such and such body, but don't allow this and that type of body, because I have issues with it."
:p
It's really more a matter of priority. I actually have relatively little problem with having either PC or NPC kids in the game.
I just take a much stronger issue with people who don't mind having innocent NPC kids running around who are effectively victims of their surroundings but for some reason don't like the idea of empowered PC kids actively choosing to involve themselves in danger. That hypocrisy makes no sense to me whatsoever.
If anything I'd allow for PC kids in the game a long, long time before I'd put NPC kids in - but in the long run if they got around to putting NPC kids in as well I could probably tolerate that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Go download and play with the character creator in [b]APB Reloaded[/b] ([url=http://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/]website here[/url]), then come back and request, nay, [b]demand[/b] a full assortment of sliders.
B)
I would suggest Eve Online (www.eveonline.com) as well as a *good* character builder. It doesn't use sliders either. It won't produce (due to what it was designed to do), "aliens" as it were, but it is another method of character designing without having to resort to sliders.
Haven't played with Eve Online personally (yet), but my point was the range of possibilities in APB, not its absence of sliders. And actually I find the lack of sliders in APB a little frustrating. :(
The eve Online one is "push and pull your model", as if it were direct modelling of your character. About the only sliders are the ones for age, muscularity, and a a few other things.
I tend to find sliders hard and annoying especially if they cover a *wide* range of selections (ie 100 different styles), and there is no direct number input to get back what you wanted.
True. From what I've seen of video made of the process, sliderless can be done. As long as it's done well, I don't have a problem. :)
Sliders are just a means to an end. When people say they want more sliders in games like this they really just want as many OPTIONS for character creation as possible. If somebody can figure out a good GUI that makes it easy to select and modify as much about our character's shape and look as possible WITHOUT sliders I'd be perfectly fine with that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
As I told my SG, I don't need lots of sliders and body options, as long as I get the look I want for my main. >_>
What if the look you want for your main requires a lot of sliders and body options? Just saying ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Doesn't have to, if they just make it one of the options hehe
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