I just realized that Hardlocke Island is both the tutorial zone for the game and the location of the chat zone in Issue 0. This is very interesting, at least to me, since they will supposedly be releasing pieces to us during Issue 0... so we'll be playing in the tutorial zone before the game launches.
Here is the link to the tutorial reference:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi5P-FejdQB/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1pi0r8g7vlv6n
—
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Is that the Easter egg we've been missing since July 4th?
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Oh no, the Devouring Earth already removed all the buildings!
Nope.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
CURSE THE FATES!!!! (sigh, foiled again.)
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Wait, isn't the tutorial a bank robbery? Why would there be a bank on a prison island? Or is the opening of the game (the bank) different from the tutorial?
Spurn all ye kindle.
What kind of heroes would we be if we didn't quietly sit in jail for our court date after being accused of partaking in the bank robbery? Or, if you're playing a villain, what kind of villain would you be if you didn't break out of jail after being accused of partaking in the bank robbery?
Tutorial =/= Starting zone
I presume that after creating a character you might want to learn how to drive the character (aka tutorial) before starting a potential character arc influencing scenario. It makes some sense since you wouldn't want to get caught up in not knowing how to interact with the game world while making semi-important decisions about how to handle a robbery. Plus once you learn how to drive your character in a tutorial, it is something that you can / should be able to skip. Based on what MWM has said about the Bank Robbery, I do not think it is something that you should / could skip.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Guess it depends which way MWM decides to go here. In the earlier version of the old game you could skip the tutorial but missed out on the xp level it granted. After Freedom the opening was the initial phase of the tutorial and allowed the character to choose either redside or blueside (with further tutorial arcs presented later in the game). So there would be precedent.
Spurn all ye kindle.
The tutorial teaches you the basics of gameplay (movement, NPC interactions, and combat mechanics), I don't think it will have any story-arch relevance. If that is the case, I imagine it will be 'skip-able' after you've done it once. It won't affect the bank robbery section either, I would imagine, as that is probably the first story-arch changing mission in the game. I'm not sure if they would 'force' players to do the bank heist mission, but I'm not against the idea. I think it would be a good entry point into the game being 'born' into the bank heist in contrast to CoH's beginning of just appearing in front of Atlas.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
That's what I thought as well - it was to supposedly culminate with you picking your travel power according to how you decided to exit the bank. Of course things can change and all that.
It travel power. It provides your first decision point in setting your alignment label.
The travel powers will have their own separate tutorial you can select to do.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Ahh - I must be confusing a couple different things then. Cool.
Decision points for alignment level. Remember, we have three alignment axis here, so each one has a decision point.
Do you help the police or the robbers?
Do you keep your word?
Do you use your fists or your brain out of a situation?
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
With that said, is Hardlocke a separate tutorial from the bank robbery, or is the island tutorial zone taking its place?
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/10.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
There is and never has been an island tutorial. The island is a district, one which happens to have finished terrain, layout and cleanup, so we can use it for social hangouts before the game is finished.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I hope there's a way (and I can think of a few, depending how these decision points are set up within the story) for a villain to help him/herself rather than the bank robbers, i.e. take advantage of the hullabaloo as a distraction. I wouldn't want the villainous paths to go down the road of the old game where we are always serving someone else rather than ourselves.
The more I think about this, the more genius I believe it is. It's an island, which supports the cut-off nature of the zone before Issue 1, but if some pre-I1 release adds combat powers so MWM can gather data, it wouldn't be hard to engineer a prison break to provide the mobs -- whether prisoners or guards...
Spurn all ye kindle.
Looks like jtpaull was wrong, then. Although that's a bit confusing with the #tutorialzone on the Instagram picture of the island.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Answer #1 Robbers.
Answer #2 Whatever's expedient to my goals.
Answer #3 Brain. (Psychic powers and whatnot. A Machine Mind.)
I think it will be fun to be on the evil overlord side of the fence for City of Titans.
By "help the robbers" think Joker in The Dark Knight - shows up, and truly is the guy running the show. So, helping the robbers would be saying things like "Ok boss, here's the situation".
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Nice!! Of course: how would a villain mastermind feel he could best help a bunch of bank robbers other than to take command of them? >:-)
Spurn all ye kindle.
Do you help the police or the robbers? [b]The Cops![/b]
Do you keep your word? [b]Leaning towards iffy, but pretty much I'll keep my word. [/b]
Do you use your fists? [b][u]ALWAYS![/u][/b]
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
For my main, Catherine: police, yes, fists. No question.
Looking fwd to taking the "robbers, no, brain" route with another toon though!
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
There should be a badge only available in this "tutorial setting" for us early birds.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Slowly backs away...
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
There should NEVER, EVER be badges that are limited/restricted by ANYTHING like this. A player who starts playing this game 5 years from now should be able to earn EVERY SINGLE badge that anyone who's been lurking around this project since 2013 could ever get.
The concept of "permanent exclusivity" in MMOs whether it comes in the form of "pre-order items" or badges that can only be earned ONCE during certain real world timeframes only serve to piss off any newer players and are totally unnecessary. They only promote a sense of "elitism" among the old-timers and newer players feeling like permanent second class citizens.
Frankly I fully believe the folks at MWM have already screwed this up with the "Kickstarter" and "11th Anniversary" forum badges. I honestly hope those badges either DON'T get transferred over to our PCs in the game or if they do that they'll ALSO be available to be bought in the in-game store so that their overall "relevance" will be fully negated.
At least Tannim had the good sense to back off of this one...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
What about anniversary badges?
Co* had a tooooon of those.
I literally just mentioned the 11th anniversary forum badge. *shrugs*
Out of over 1400 total badges CoH ended up with roughly 10 anniversary badges. That's less that 0.01% of all the badges in that game. Except for a couple of other oddball badges like [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Bug_Hunter_Badge]Bug Hunter[/url] and [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Passport_Badge]Passport[/url] those anniversary badges were just about the ONLY badges in the game that were based on limited, one-time-only real world timeframes. That was 10 too many.
I've talked at length about this subject over multiple posts for years. Basically a game like CoH or CoT could exist quite well WITHOUT this tiny handful of badges that essentially SCREW any player that hasn't been around since the beginning. I knew players back in CoH who effectively QUIT playing the game because they were always going to be without a few of those earliest silly badges. They are pointless reminders of REAL WORLD events that don't actually apply to anything IN the game and only serve as an excuse to lord over others.
They are "angst-generators" and at best serve as an instrument of shameful elitism. So yeah, the anniversary badges are equally as faulty for these very reasons.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
on the other hand, if it's not connected to the badge system, I'd very much like an acknowledgement of some sort of my character's age, much the same way the Guild Wars games do. It doesn't have to be anything special - maybe a random unlock from the cash shop that you haven't already unlocked - but it'd be a nice little way for the game to acknowledge your character having been around for a long time.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
A set of badges acknowledging a "character's age" as opposed to the "game's age" would be perfectly acceptable because they would be based on your character and not something that exists "outside" of the game. How old the game is in the real world has absolutely NO BEARING on characters and shouldn't be related/linked to them at all.
The key difference here is that "birthday badges" could be gained by a character no matter when the "associated player" started playing the game. Sure a Player X who started playing the game several years before Player Y might have characters with more birthday badges than Player Y has. But at least there is NOTHING PREVENTING Player Y from eventually earning as many birthday badges as possible because there's no connection to real world calendars and/or one-time events.
To be clear I don't technically have anything against a game like CoT celebrating an annual "anniversary" or having an anniversary event. I just don't think there should be anything like a "unique one-time only" badge associated with such an event.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think someone who regularly employs the "obvious sarcasm" defense would see TheOneEyedOne's remark as a similar attempt at a witty post. And you fell for it.
There was no long drawn out reasoning behind the idea/request. It could have been made more obvious by requesting more ridiculous stuff or putting a 'lol' on it or winky emoji.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Actually Cyclops has suggested these kinds "permanently exclusive" ideas before so I'll take it as a legitimate suggestion on his part. Even Tannim took him seriously.
Frankly even if Cyclops was in fact just "trying to be funny" I believe strongly enough about being 100% against anything like this that I'm willing to jump against it regardless. Like I said I actually had good friends QUIT CoH over this issue so I'm perfectly willing to look foolish when the issue is important enough.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
And this is why I “backed away slowly”.
In all seriousness, in my opinion anything like an anniversary badge should be an account-side badge not related to gameplay badges.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
And in the past I have accepted that as the "compromise" we're likely going to have to live with in CoT.
I honestly still don't like it, but if things like anniversary badges are still expected to exist I'd rather they be "quarantined" away and accounted for separately from character-based ("gameplay") badges. Even if these things are systematically isolated I'd prefer that the overall number of account-based badges be kept to an absolute minimum.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I actually fully agree with Lothic about the no 'permanent exclusive' thing. All it does is make new players get disappointed and wonder 'why not?' or make people not want to change characters. You can't have your serious badge hunting character be a Commander if the class isn't out when a bunch of exclusive limited time badges are stuck on a launch class.
In an attempt to bring the mood of the thread back to whimsy I love the idea of your toon having a birthday and getting a badge or title for it.
It seems like a great way of gauging people's commitment to their character plus provide a kind of scale for new players to see "yeah he has a level 100 character but he has been leveling them for 2 years so I shouldnt feel discouraged that I'm only level 10 after a week"
20041004-20120910
Anniversary Badge = NO!
Birthday Badge = Great Idea!
Yes this is actually another very good argument against the idea of having permanetly exculsive, one-time only account oriented badges tied directly to individual characters.
I knew a number of very serious badge collectors in CoH who were forced to keep some of their original characters around just to collect badges even if they never played them anymore for the single silly reason that those original characters were the only ones to have the earliest annverisary badges attached to them. Since their newer characters could never have those badges they could never make those newer characters their "official badgers" because even though they were "old-timers" as players the badges they wanted to keep were trapped forever on their oldest characters.
Case in point any CoV redside character was always going to be missing the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Celebrant_Badge]Celebrant[/url] badge so NO villain character could have ever been in contention for being the top badge earner on the third party badge collector websites. Too bad if you wanted to be a villain badge collector. This is exactly why both of my 1390+ badge collecting characters in CoH were original bluesiders...
At the very least Tannim's idea of maintaining "account-based" badges (i.e. annverisary badges) separately from character-based badges would elimante the need to worry about saving those old characters just to keep from losing those one-time only badges.
For the record my goal wasn't to make this thread "non-whimsical". I simply hate anything that's "permanently exclusive" in a MMO and I tend to say so any chance I get.
As I implied before having "birthday badges" for characters would be infinitely better than "game annverisary" badges. When you think about it you realize game anniversary badges have absolutely NOTHING to do with the individual characters in question. Do these characters even realize they are in a game? ;)
Exactly.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I love that this is a mini forum game now :p
For Galrithius:
Robbers...but neither ;)
Keep your word
Violent exit (minions not fists ;) )
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
For Asher
Police
Yes
Brain
I have no problem whatsoever with one-time only badges. Especially if those badges are rewarded to people like backers who donated their own hard-earned money for no other goal than seeing the game come to fruition. Rewards are just that: rewards. If the game publishers want to reward some people for services above and beyond, then I say go for it. Unique costume items, unique titles, or unique badges should all be fair game. Whatever they want to do so long as it does not effect competitive gameplay.
I understand that some players will have an unhealthy completionist obsession and in my opinion the game should deliberately NOT take their concerns into account. That would only be enabling the unhealthy obsession. Officially recognizing this unhealthy obsession could also have the unintended consequence of potentially driving the business model into actually creating more one-time only badges in order to take advantage of their obsession rather than less. (if at some future time a less honorable managing team were to take over)
The one very important condition I would have on one-time only rewards is that they are not counted towards any other accomplishments for badge collecting, because then they would and could never be completed. Making a one-time only badge part of a greater collection-style accomplishment would be unfair, nay cruel in fact, to any player with even a passing interest in badge collecting.
We have had debates on this topic before in other threads. The only reason I bring it up here is so that the opinions that have already been stated on the subject aren't the only opinions to be heard. This is not an invitation to debate, and I will not defend my opinion in this thread if someone were to ask me to. That would derail it even further. This is merely an attempt at making sure all counties have been heard from, so to speak.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Well said, Huckleberry, and I agree.
I ultimately donated four figures to this game and I absolutely HATE the concept of the one-time only badges that I'm apparently supposed to "appreciate" that I received (i.e. Kickstarter and 11th Anniversary) yet absolutely do not. YMMV of course.
I seriously wished those badges did NOT exist as the "one-time only" variety in this game and it was the very existence of the Kickstarter badge that was the only negative thing that made me almost consider NOT donating to the Kickstarter effort.
I have nothing against TEMPORARY exclusivity when it comes to rewards and thankfully the Devs came to their senses on this when they defined most of their "custom costume/weapon" offers to be just that (up to 4 Issues or a year). It's the PERMANENT exclusivity of things that sucks the testicles of any mammal you care to involve yourself with.
Oh, and BTW, if you are a [i]competitive[/i] badge collector (associated with the third party websites that catered to that sort of thing) then this kind of thing DOES effect your competitive gameplay.
Are you actually going to try to say that certain people who perhaps spend hours a day end-game raiding in MMOs (probably some kind of "obsession" I would think) are somehow more legitimate in their activities than those who choose to collect badges? Who the hell are you to judge what is or is not a "legitimate activity" for a player to enjoy in a game such as this?
Also as I've mentioned I've known people who actually QUIT CoH because the game had one-time only badges. How does losing dedicated customers factor into that so-called "business model" of yours?
Finally you talk about completionist badging as an "unhealthy obsessive" activity - don't you think a game that had NO one-time badges would be a healthier scenario because then there would be no overwhelming need to "grab" anything at any specific time? There would be no more rush or anxiety about "missing" a badge thus saving people who enjoyed the activity from having a stroke over missing anything. I would actually argue it's the fact that there were ANY one-time badges at all that made the activity "obsessive" in the first place.
Well at least you're empathetic enough to realize how stupid one-time only badges are from this point of view.
Oh I fully understand this will probably always be considered a "debateable" topic by a few people. I simply categorically dismiss every elitist-oriented argument ever made in support of having permanently exclusive one-time only badges in a game like this.
As I pointed out earlier CoH managed to thrive with well less than 1% of its badges being of this heinous variety and it could have easily existed without ANY badges of that kind. I have never seen anyone manage to prove that such badges actually IMPROVED the game by any significant degree yet people like me have offered multiple reasons why they are DETREMENTAL to these games. If your only serious argument in support of having them in the game is merely that you "have no problem with them" then no wonder you are reluctant to actually debate the issue.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'd be fine with an exclusive badge if it can only be obtained by reaching level 5 in the game . Badge title: "You're not a robot"
:)
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
"What's this CAPCHA badge?"
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
That's discriminatory against characters who are robots! :P
This is not reassuring to [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/49480#comment-49480][font=lucida bright]AIko[/font][/url] ^_^
[img=400x600]https://img00.deviantart.net/7a0a/i/2017/227/3/8/aiko_by_charles_logan_by_foradain-dbk7gku.jpg[/img]
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
.
Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
I'm a little confused and hoping someone can clear up all this talk about badges. Have I already missed out on acquiring an in-game badge just because I missed out donating to a kickstarter, that I didn't even hear about till after it was over?
At this point, a forum badge yes. The Kickstarter and 11-year anniversary badges are exclusive.
As for in-game, no official info, though whether or not timed exclusive badges should even exist is a topic of debate on the forum that pops up from time to time.
I was thinking about the bank robbery intro mission, and it raised a role-playing question regarding costumes. For RP purposes it might be nice if we could start in the bank in civilian clothes and then change to a super costume either during the mission or immediately afterwards.
In the old game, a starting character usually had only one costume slot so s/he couldn't easily switch to another, and it cost a good deal of inf (plus, in the old days, a high tolerance to risk when the closest icon shop was at the other end of Steel Canyon) to change the existing costume, so such a thing was either impossible or extremely difficult.
How will costume slots and cost for changes to costumes work in CoT?
Note that I don't consider this to be even close to high priority; just a minor nice-to-have thing for RPers. If it's not already accommodated I certainly wouldn't ask for it to be high on any list.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Ah, the Steel Canyon low-level costume pursuit run...
I haven't stopped by here much, never been one for conversation personally, but I'm glad to see it happening. I agree that having civies to start would be a nice touch, although braving my way north solo with a level 10 healer looking for a costume upgrade was always entertaining.
I'm not usually one that says things need to be streamlined or less complicated, but I don't think players should need to make their civilian identity at character creation. I also don't want any sort of civilian identity forced upon the character in the opening intro no matter how short. Some characters will be robots, others aliens, things that may well just not keep a civilian identity. We also know there's currently such secret identify system in the game, it was tried and the devs decided against it.
On a personal level, even an opening cinematic is a bit much. This is subjective, but to me the best opening is a cold one. I hit finish character, hit play, and I'm plopped in the city about a block away from the bank. I can see the blaring lights and hear the alarm and the first step is to walk towards it and let things unfold. The cool cinematics can start once I arrive, after I've adjusted graphic and keybind settings. If someone chooses to walk away or ignore the bank, there's your option to skip the tutorial. A lot of games want to give me this big sweeping intro where I'm told everything, in CoH/V I just appeared and got to explore it myself. I liked the latter better.
Oh yes, I wouldn't want anyone to be forced to do this. I'm just asking whether those that wish to do so will have access to more than one costume slot at the start of the game, or if changing one's costume will be cheap and easy. I definitely would not want this to be mandatory.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I'm with Lothic on the whole idea of exclusive content being obnoxious to players who find a cool game and want to get cool titles or cosmetics and then, whoops, big middle finger to you.
I understand how it is used to artificially cultivate a sense of value and urgency as a marketing (read: whale hunting) tool to generate short term revenue bursts but that only serves to further cheapen it in my eyes and damage long term health.
Let everyone buy everything forever.
If badges like "Kickstarter" and "11th year Anniversary" remained just as forum-based badges that would be bad enough but at least the "problem" would be contained to being only in these forums.
But if you go back to the Kickstarter page and look at the actual write-up for Bright Lights Big City ($25 pledge level) it has a relatively disturbing phrase that has been annoying me for years now. I've highlighted it here:
So unless a Dev wants to jump in and tell us otherwise my understanding of this has been that any "forum badge" we got here was going to eventually be "transferred" to our in-game account which would mean that badges like "Kickstarter" and "11th year Anniversary" might indeed already be permanently exclusive in that no one getting involved with this game today or in the future now has ANY chance of getting them.
I'm hoping the Devs might still come to their senses over this but yeah, if you didn't know about an amazingly obscure Kickstarter [b]FIVE YEARS[/b] ago you may already be screwed at this point. To coin a phrase it's frankly a [b]very shitty[/b] way to run a railroad...
For the record as one of the few super-hyper-lucky people who managed by dumb-luck to stumble over the Kickstarter and was able to throw at least $25 at it it would not bother me [b]IN THE LEAST[/b] if once the game is finally launched they sold access to badges like "Kickstarter" and "11th year Anniversary" in the in-game store. I consider their supposed value to me as being something "super-exclusive" for being an early backer to be totally bogus and would rather they be rendered effectively pointless by being accessible to "everyone". If MWM sold them for say $5 a pop the people who cared could buy them and MWM could probably make a few extra hundred bucks in the long run.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well that kickstarter quote is pretty disappointing, and really turns me off from the game. I'll still play it a some point when it releases, but it's gone from a day 1 buy, to maybe something I'll wait till there is a sale on before buying. I'm already missing out and the game didn't even enter open beta yet.
It astounds me the people are so passionate about badges that they will literally not play a game if there is a single badge that they cannot get. I guess I just don't get the draw of comparing your badges to someone else...or even the badges themselves. I mean, badges don't affect anything in the game. Sure, I agree with Lothic that there shouldn't be things in games, like badges, that are exclusive and if someone just happens to come late they are SOL, but I'm wracking my brain trying to understood the elitism point that was made if someone has a badge another person can't get. Seems like the devs could just *not* implement the badge comparison tool other games have that allow players to compare their badges to other people. What am I missing?
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
All I will add is I also hold the same opinion.
[b][color=red]Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.[/color][/b]
I personally don't get the badge collection either but I'd never tell anyone else they're having fun wrong.
There was, however, something in CoH which always annoyed me: The Prestige Power Slide for sprint.
I had several toons whose concept could have used it but because I joined late it was never available.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Yes, I should clarify I don't think we [i]shouldn't[/i] have badges, I just don't get the lure. People love badges so of course they should be in the game. I just find it surprising how important they are to people.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Badge collecting was a "big enough thing" in CoH that several thousand people registered with several third party websites built to track peoples' badge totals on every server. I have no reason to doubt the same won't happen when CoT finally launches. They even got sophisticated enough to employ clever automated "verification apps" that accessed the game's message traffic so that you could only register your badges with full verification (in other words you couldn't just say you had badge X, you had to run it through their verification process to 'prove' that you had it).
Anyway I don't really get why you'd be "amazed/baffled" that different people play MMOs in different ways and enjoy working towards different goals within the game. For instance there are those people who like to start playing a game and want to get a character to the level cap before anyone else. Sometimes those folks will play like 20 or 30 hours straight (or more) just to be able to say, "I finished first". Now much like your apparent attitude with badge collectors I might happen to think the people who "want to finish first" are idiots. I don't really understand the appeal of wanting to race to the top like that just to be first for 30 seconds longer than someone else. Seems rather pointless to me. But just because I "don't understand it" doesn't mean they shouldn't play that way or worse that I should try to stop them from enjoying the game the way they want to. YMMV as the phrase goes.
All I can tell you, whether you want to "accept" it or not, is that badge collecting was a very serious endeavor for a number of people who played CoH. I don't really have to "prove" that to you - it was a plain fact. I also knew people who started playing the game several years after Issue 2 (the issue that added badges to the game) and because they had missed out on several of the Anniversary badges they eventually became bummed out enough about that it one quit the game outright over it and the another found it to be a constant irritant and remained far more "vocal" about the issue than I've ever been.
The simplest course of action CoT could have taken was to simply not allow for any permanently exclusive badges in the game. As I've pointed out many times even CoH only had a tiny handful of them (less than 1%) compared to the overall number they offered and I strongly doubt anyone would have even missed their absence. At the very least I've never seen anyone attempt to claim that badges like the Anniversary badges were their "most favorite badges" in the entire game. Far from it actually.
But instead of learning their lesson the folks at MWM unfortunately appeared to double-down and tossed two such permanently exclusive badges at us almost from the very beginning (i.e. Kickstarter and 11th Anniversary) YEARS before the actual game even started. It's an unfortunate turn of events that at best will be taken with neutral apathy (like perhaps your reaction to them) down to loathing contempt (which many in the badging community regard them with). Permanently exclusive badges serve no "positive" purpose at all.
Bottomline you speak of not really understanding the potential "elitism" surrounding permanently exclusive badges. My entire point here is if there were [b]no permanently exclusive badges[/b] there would be no such thing as "badge elitism" in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Ironically even though CoH launched with several "pre-order permanently exclusive" things like the Prestige Power Slide effectively ALL of those things became available via other means as the game evolved.
By the end the Prestige Power Slide power was literally the ONLY thing left that remained permanently exclusive and for the life of me I never really understood why that was the case... *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Wow. You can be amazed and baffled by things other players find fun without thinking they are idiots, as you put it. I never implied that, nor did I imply that they shouldn't be able to play that way just because I dont see the fun in it. I was simply stating that I don't get the draw of badges and the high emotions surrounding them. I couldn't care less if a badge is exclusive or not as badges dont hinder the gameplay that I enjoy. But, as I said before, I agree there shouldn't be exclusive content closed off to some players and not others.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
If people didn't contribute to the Kickstarter or weren't here in the community for the CoH 11th anniversary, then why [I]should[/I] they get the badges? I mean I'm about 90% of the way there with you; badging was fun and I think timed exclusive badges should be kept to a bare minimum (pretty much only anniversary events IMHO), but making something like the kickstarter badge available to someone who [I]didn't contribute to the kickstarter[/I] makes NO sense whatsoever to me. None. To sell it off to anyone for a couple bucks is both a falsification and cheapens it's significance.
Yeah that throws me for a loop as well. I think that's starting to get into OCD territory.
For the record, the forum badges are not game badges. When we do tie the two systems together, the badges will by necessity be reset, and we shall be explaining the final system at that time.
Trying to go the other way became too complex very quickly, and as we all know, complex systems are fragile systems.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I suppose it's fine that the whole badge thing amazes and baffles you. As I mentioned I freely admit the "I gotta be first to do X" people still baffle me. I think most of us even at some unconscious level assume that if another person doesn't play the game the same way we do they are somehow doing it "wrong" regardless. It's a human nature thing. *shrugs*
I would just highlight that there are two main ways to generate "high emotions" when it comes to badge collecting: one positive, one negative.
The positive was when you finally earned some badge that was hyper-difficult to get. Arguably one of the hardest (top 5 at least) badges to get in CoH was the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Master_of_Keyes_Island_Reactor_Badge]Master of Keyes Island Reactor[/url] badge. This badge required 4 sub-badges that were each very hard to get. You had to have an entire raid sized group (12-24 people) manage practically flawless, split-second timed coordinated performances and even with entire groups of super-veteran players it could take dozens of tries to get any one of those 4 badges. The trial was such that in order to get one of the sub-badges you usually had to use tactics that made getting the other sub-badges effectively impossible during that given run so the idea of earning the entire master badge all in just one single run was likely -never- accomplished by anyone given my experience with it. Times like that when we finally got those badges made all the pain and effort worthwhile and will probably be among the longest-lasting good memories I have of the game.
On the other hand high emotions of the negative kind came where I saw people who had missed out on permanently exclusive badges for whatever reason. As you yourself might say the Anniversary badges served no real "purpose" that I could see other than to piss people off who didn't have them. Anniversaries of the game's launch had absolutely no direct relationship to ANY character in the game. Since when did a character "do" anything to make years IRL pass by? They were astoundingly pointless as "rewards" and worse yet really only served to foster a perverse form of elitism by being able to lord over other people that you might of had more of them than someone else. Bottomline I hate institutionalized elitism in games like this an permanently exclusive badges are the quintessential "poster boys" of that concept.
All I'm asking for is that we keep the "positive" and toss out the "negative" when it comes to badges.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
You should be asking yourself why should permanently exclusive badges like that even EXIST in the first place?
That's the point. I would have MWM sell those specific badges as a Mea Culpa for the mistake of putting them within the "realm" of the game to begin with. As long as MWM never releases another permanently exclusive badge they'd never have to do something ugly like openly sell badges to make up for their initial mistake.
I doubt any of us are worthy to judge "OCD territory" when it come to playing these games in general. Even if you tend to play these games more than a few hours a week some would consider that "excessive".
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This is a welcome "retcon" to what your Kickstarter says about this. I will be interested in learning the details of the "final system" when the time comes.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
How about ... just not calling them "Badges"? Put them in a special category, like "Supporter Honors". They could be functionally equivalent to badges, but not be badges. You could display a Supporter Honor as a display title, like you could for a Badge, but they would be tallied separately. Any player could get, say, 1000/1000 Badges, but not have many Supporter Honors.
It's a necessary one. When we began work on the game user profile, it became clear that integration from the forum to the game becomes very complex. On the other hand, going from the game to the forum is much simpler.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
There has long been talk of doing exactly what you're suggesting here but using the terms "account badges" versus "gameplay/character" badges. Account badges would be the tiny handful of badges that have nothing to do with individual characters (i.e. Anniversary badges, Bug Hunter, etc.) and the rest would be earned by individual characters and kept in their own "area".
At best this would be a workable compromise to the "lump them all together" system CoH defaulted to. Obviously my position is that permanently exclusive badges are still completely unnecessary. But if MWM ends up being dead-set on offering anything like that I'd much rather they be "quarantined" in their own area as you describe.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm way less concerned about badges and more concerned about things that are reflected in the game, such as cosmetics or power aesthetics. CoH had that prestige travel power that was mentioned, but the kickstarter quote from CoT specifically mentions exclusive costume sets that will never be available again.
Yes I was concerned about the other non-badge things that were being advertised as "would never be available again" as well.
But the "lesson" we learned from CoH was that (again with the exception of the Prestige Power Slide power mentioned earlier) [b][i]everything[/i][/b] that was initially offered as "one-time only" eventually came back in other forms (either as vet awards or in-game store items, etc.).
Based on that experience I honestly assume that CoT will "follow suit" and release those things in similar ways. Perhaps that's a bit of wishful thinking on my part but at least it's based on historical precedent.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
*points to the man*
Let me point out a bit of costume information. We don't have unlimited colors, but instead use a palette of up to 256 colors. But what sets the palette, you might ask. A very good question. The costume piece itself sets the palette, so variations on costume parts can be identical in every way but which colors are available for it.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I don't want to read too much into this but are you implying that certain groupings of colors on color palettes might be exclusive? For example everyone might get access to Cape X but only some people will be able to color it a certain shade of red because that version of red will itself be considered exclusive for some reason?
If my guess on what you meant is wrong then I'll freely admit I missed your point here.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yeah that's my read of it too.....
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
Pretty much it means we have more flexibility here. As someone who paid through the nose for a power slide unlock four years later, i know that annoyance.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Yeah I'm still lost
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
It seems that people are getting confused because they think I was talking about exclusives. I was just using lothics example of having multiple versions of a particular item And thought to discuss the ways that we have available to us to make multiple versions of any particular object. There are ways that something can be exclusive and still be available. Many collectible card games have exclusive and rare cards that there are non exclusive versions of those cards available as well. One option available to us is that the global unlock would be exclusive while the earnable unlock is not.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Doc, I believe that subject is in a different thread and think that issue has already been answered by, “All in-game items will become available in the cash store and available to unlock for free” (details etc...)
On the subject at hand: Exclusive Badges.
I’m hearing what Lothic has empassionately expressed repeatedly: exclusive badges are crap.
I, like many others, didn’t join CoX until late in the game (CoV release) and missed out on several old-school badges never to be available again, which kinda bummed me out. I didn’t quit the game because of it, but i was definitely no longer interested in pursuing the Badging Content, which, outside of “Gotta Catch’em All” led me on a few fun-time pursuits around the map before i gave up on them.
You may/may not choose to go Badge Hunting - But if they’re there, everybody should have equal access. These Third-Party Badging sites won’t care if you were unfortunate enough to have missed the “Launch Day 6” exclusive event badge, You Don’t Have One and never will.
Doc’s latest word on having to reverse to direction of Badges (Game to Forum v Forum to Game) sounds promising to overcoming Lothic’s fine-print find of Exclusive In-Game Badges. I look forward to those details as well.
Meh. Bah!
I think we're all off topic now, as heated a debate as this is. If people want to continue discussing this, it's own topic should be made, this is meant to be about Issue 0.
Being off topic is exciting. I feel like an intrepid explorer charting that dark unknown corners of the world. Fortune and glory could be around every corner. Or a gruesome death.
Eh, the issue of "permanent exclusivity" has been discussed both "in its own threads" and in threads like this multiple times over the years. There's really no point to making yet another thread about it. If people want to start talking about [b]other[/b] Issue 0 details (because as far as I'm concerned the topic of permanent exclusivity IS relevant to any "release" of the game including Issue 0) they'll do it of their own accord.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
We could get back to my question to the devs regarding how many costume slots we'll have at level 1... ;-)
Spurn all ye kindle.
This one's been covered in other threads as well but I like costumes so I'll throw out some more words here. ;)
As a baseline we know CoH started a character off with one costume slot. There's a pretty good summary on the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Costumes#Extra_Costume_Slots]Titan Network page[/url] describing how you could get up to 9 additional slots. Some were level gated and others you could unlock from the in-game store.
I figure it might be reasonable for CoT to allow us to have two costume slots to begin with; the extra one would allow people to have a "Secret ID" from the very beginning. I personally didn't mind getting a few slots unlocked via the level gates but I wouldn't mind if CoT changed how that works. I also didn't mind buying the extra slots from the in-game store for those people who cared to do that.
I guess the only question I have is do we need the maximum to be 10 slots (like it ended up being in CoH) or could the limit be raised to something that would be "practically unlimited" (like say 100 slots). Personally I have a few characters in mind who probably wouldn't mind having as many as 15 or 20 slots. I guess we'll see.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Practically unlimited.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Quick and to the point... nice. :)
Again I wouldn't mind having several be unlocked in the game (level gated, a Halloween slot, etc.) and others be purchasable via the in-game store. Any combination of those two methods would likely be fine.
That does actually leave Cinnder's question of "how many costume slots do characters start with by default?" unanswered. I would assume that initially a player could buy as many slots as desired but assuming a given player buys no extra slots how many slots will the "default" character begin with?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I got Power Slide from the Collector's Edition Box. My understanding was that Anyone who bought that box/disk/code could have Power Slide. Later, I went to one of the Fan-Gatherings, I got another disk/code, which let me gift Power Slide to a friend.
Later, I learned that some people had Ebay'ed their code for enough cash to buy the red-hot graphics card of the time. That offended me, and I was hardly the only one, but I decided to let it go because other peoples' behavior on the matter led me to understand that my alternative was to become a G. I. F.
No, I won't explain that acronym. I doubt you could find it with Google, unless you Knew already. Alright, a hint, Penny Arcade.
Be Well!
Fireheart
All I'll say to this is that if the CoH Prestige Power Slide power had NOT been designed (or remained) as a permanent exclusive then there would not have likely been an eBay transaction like the one you described. Clearly whoever bought that code for the price of a graphics card got screwed and whoever sold it for that price was likely a soulless opportunist. At least you simply gave a code to someone which was a nice gesture for what that's worth.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]