Passionate people do passionate things. They work passionately, love passionately and, on occasion, they fight passionately. This passion comes from within, from something inside them that drives them on, that drives them to do what they believe to be right. However it would be wise for ALL of us to remember that right can be subjective.
I read these forums daily, sometimes several times a day. I'm lucky enough to have time to do that. Of late I have noticed our Forumites becoming more and more divided. I understand and accept that with this many people, this many PASSIONATE people, we won't agree on many things. That's how life works. There SHOULD be different points of view. However one thing that we should NOT do is burn down the palace we're trying to build for ALL OF US.
At last count we have several very heated debates going on involving KB, Healing, PvP or no PvP, Immersion (specifically as it relates to costumes but in general) and some fundamental changes in the way CoH did Powers, Enhancements and slotting of same. I'm sure there are others so if I missed your pet topic I'm sorry.
All of our opinions are exactly that: opinions. It's very hard to quote facts when designing a game set in a fictitious place dealing with super-powered people with a preponderance for spandex. I see lots of posts from every corner of the Forums speaking for collections of players who, quite frankly, don't exist. CoT HAS no players yet because there isn't anything TO play...yet. PLEASE stop acting (and even worse, posting) like you're the crusader for all the people who ever played a superhero MMO ever. Posting in absolutes (every player blah blah) not only is false but it diminishes the strength of your argument. Ranting and acting childish is just as bad or worse.
The game will not exist or survive without players. Not all players will feel how we feel, want what we want or play what we play. Unless a specific facet of the game comes into direct conflict with what you consider fun...just let it go. Our culture is made up of many divergent people and whether we agree or not, we need each other to make CoT work. None of us can operate in a vacuum. I'm sorry if the guy changing his costume on the corner breaks your immersion. It doesn't break his and he pays his sub just the same as you do. That makes his fun just as valid as yours as long as he's not deliberately griefing someone.
Change happens...anyone who claims otherwise is deluded and should seek therapy and possibly medication. CoH launched nearly a decade ago. A decade...for a computer game. That's like several generations for some things. In the ever-changing world of computer games that's a LONG time. Yet here we all are, trying to revive that which was taken from us, because we enjoyed it so much. It won't be like it was. It SHOULDN'T be like it was. As much as we loved it CoH had some gaping flaws that would never have been corrected. We're here trying to rebuild the game and the community we loved but we're also trying to fix those things that were broken before. Will we disagree on exactly what needs to be fixed and how? Sure we will. We SHOULD disagree at times. Its part of what makes the process work. But once we hear all the viewpoints and state our opinions then we need to have faith that the Devs will make good decisions. If we don't have that then we're all just wasting our time here.
As much as I respect the opinions of others I don't want this project to be divided or bogged down over minutia or pointless bickering. There is SO MUCH that needs to be done and the sooner we all get started, the sooner it goes off the rails and the sooner we can put it back on. If you have an opinion, state it. If you have actual facts, state them too. If you have suggestions, make them. But PLEASE, don't present your opinion as anything but that...YOUR opinion. Don't claim that you are somehow endowed with the ability to know what 'the players' think, feel or want. Doing so might make your otherwise valid argument seem diminished.
Let's ALL try to work together and rebuild what they took from us. Let's show them that we matter. Let's have fun.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Uhm...no other words for me besides...Amen! :)
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/10.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
I have no problems with my fellow super-brethren, only with the positions they take and defend, seemingly without reason. Any rancor you see displayed is not personal.
I Agree with you, that there is no point in fighting each other. There are much more important things to fight.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I am a relativist, at heart.... I've argued much the same thing in the threads I've been a part of, and done what i could to address when/where It seemed others were not quite hearing each other in arguements.
It is always important to remember, for oneself, and others....
What is true to me (or you), IS true for me (or you)
too often the options are "my way or the highway" or "opinions are like assholes"... when the reality is, neither is accurate. My beliefs are the most vital components of my expectations and understandings and hopes.... yours are yours. It is true everyone may have opinions, but EVERY opinion is important, EVERY opinion is vital to someone. It is unwise, damaging even, to devalue opinions as "just" opinions. Unless we're all Platonists, here.... opinions are all that we really have. there is no one Truth, no one Fact, no Objective reality to be discovered, here. Trying to imply factual bases for our opinions are flaws of rhetoric, not proof of the invalidity of our ideas.
Everyone has an opinion, sure... but each one of those opinions is sacred. it explores, exposes, or defines reality for someone.
The way I see it, these forums exist as a means of these ideologies to be explored, tested, forged. For some issues, a level of compromise might be achieved, for others, compromise is impossible.... but we are not debating to convince our rivals, we are expressing our views to influence the developers...
No matter how divided we may seem as a forum community, we leave judgement in the hands of the developers of the game. it is for them to decided what will be adopted and what will be ignored... what adheres to the ideals they hope to present, and what runs counter to those goals they hope to achieve.
it is true that a house divided cannot stand..... but try to keep in mind, that we're hanging out on the lawn, the devs are inside, or perhaps on the porch. They observe, or they carry on unawares... but our fight is not inherently THEIR fight.
...So, take to heart the feelings of your fellows.... and champion your beliefs.... all in good measure, with integrity and humanity.
....and let what comes, be grand.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Yup.
The statement have been made "...going to fix what was wrong with COX" but how can one do so while at the same time pretending there is or never was any complaints?
Same thing with the common "well I don't see no problem with it, so it wasn't broke. And since it wasn't broke then why fix it?" Well the person just told you what issue they had and just because one like it the way it is doesn't mean it's perfect and cant be improved. I bet you can hand 10 people a pile of dog crap and 9 people probably will wonder why they have to eat that stuff and there will be that one person telling everyone to shut up because they like dog crap and see nothing wrong with it that means no one else should see anything wrong with it or else they are whining and fussing for nothing.
If we cant even respect each other, how will be possible to get the gaming community to take us seriously? Even within these forums people said they left other games because of the community wasn't up to par and tense, and unfriendly. Left the game regardless of how good the actual game was but the community was deciding factor in whether one stayed or not in those cases. Is it thought that this community is immune from that and cant ever be viewed as a place where differing opinions are not respected?
Forums for a game that doesn't exist yet are often the best breeding grounds for the kinds of posts you are lamenting. Folks see it as their opportunity to get it "done right" if they can just make sure their position is presented. Other people see the position and feel they need to weigh in against it... and then the first person feels they need to defend it, and it goes from there.
I like game design discussions, and I used to test games regularly when I had more time (a job switch brought a much longer commute, which ate a chunk of my free time), so I've ended up on a lot of forums like that over time. The habit I ended up trying to cultivate was to state my opinion in a thread when I thought I had something to say about the subject of the thread, and then to set a pretty high threshold on whether I would ever hit the Save button on any subsequent posts to that thread. That doesn't mean I don't -write- more replies, it just means that most of the time I decide, after reviewing them, that I should just copy-and-paste them into a local file rather than hitting "Save" to submit them to the forum. The occasions where I let it go through are sometimes because I was weak, but more often because I was giving an opinion on something else in the thread, or I thought I was clarifying a fresh (iow, not repeated) misinterpretation of what I said before.
It may be a vain hope that the dev company folks who are looking through the threads will consider my opinion in that thread, even though I only made it in a single post there, and not a whole series of posts essentially repeating the opinion over and over. The thing is, that is just one of many, many things I am already hoping the dev company folks will do, so the more the merrier. The alternative is usually getting into a repetition match with someone else, and that is not my favorite way to spend my time.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
Part of the problem here is that some don't want to have an intellectually honest debate. They have an agenda, or just very strong opinions. And it's when someone isn't willing to engage in an intelligently honest debate that the forum starts looking like a junior high school.
I've stepped out of at least one such debate simply because the alternative was to take the argument to an emotional level (the level they were on) and humiliate them until they shut up.
Instead, I chose to step out and trust that the devs are not utter morons on the subject (i.e. they were too smart to listen to this person).
That doesn't mean it wasn't a frustrating experience though. And one I'll handle differently next time. Because given the current state of the forum, there WILL be a next time (I'm sorry to say).
We are divided because there are two camps:
One wants the game to be more or less like CoH with only minor changes
One wants the game to honor memory of the CoH but use mode modern design principles
Then there's division inside these groups as to what exactly counts as a minor change or as a modern design principle. For example there are those who want full twich, those who want mobile combat but not twitch, and those who want it exactly like in CoH. We know it won't be full twich and we know it won't be exactly like CoH but since all terms are open to interpretation and everyone has their own idea what counts as what there can't be consensus until a developer comes out and says "it's like this". However they usually can't say that because they don't know the answer.
Anyhow. The problem is that there are people who aren't willing to admit my opinion is the only right one. If everyone admitted that I am right and they are wrong then there wouldn't be any division. So blame the people who don't agree with me!
oh, i totally agree with northie! ;P
but i honestly thing most of the current brand of 'hostility' is nothing more than the expressed angst of a lack of direction. the community doesnt KNOW the answer to the question "how like cox, will titans be?"
honestly, right now, the devs probably aren't even sure...
but once hard details come out, and the community sees what titans will actually be.... i assume the focus will shift back to the usual 'community vs. devs' attiude that reigns in all mmo communities.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
"But once we hear all the viewpoints and state our opinions then we need to have faith that the Devs will make good decisions. "
Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah it was in another game I spent eight years trying to propose what I thought was positive change with next to nothing in terms of success. Some of my views at the time didn't seem all that radical (stuff like let's fix what's obviously broke or let's present a professional, grammatically correct product come to mind). And yet... the result was the devs did what they wanted (their choice no worries) and I was made to feel like I was "too passionate", "too impatient", and "unknowing of the complexities of the situation". Well that game is gone. And I'm still here looking for an mmo that wants to live up to its potential for greatness. Am I in the right place?
"If we don't have that then we're all just wasting our time here."
Exactly.
uh... aren't we all wasting our time here, no matter what?
isn't recreation a time-wasting endevor?
we're not being paid, this is not a job (hell, even the development team isnt being paid, for the most part).... this is something we do in our free time, for a game we will play in our free time.
so lets not get too attached to our rhetoric, and make blanket statements that seek to condemn the core of what we are actually doing, in an attempt to validate and add greater value and importance to our own actions and contributions.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Hey sorry but isn't asking what this game is going to be a legit question? I mean... what do you want? A rehash of CoX (the good, the bad and the ugly) ? What is the core of this game? Bring back the same thing that we had before? The same clicks? The same blind eye to some significant sub-communities and the way they were treated (the base builders, the pvpers, the soloist, the non incarnate grinders, etc, etc.)? If so, then it's not good enough for my subscription. Thanks for the info up front. It's time for me to move on.
I'm a simple guy. And I think in simple terms. I have put down real money in support of this effort. So what gives? Believe me, I have no illusions of my self importance or contributions to anything. All I've ever done is think for myself, speak for myself and call them the way I see them. Sorry if I ever gave the impression I did otherwise (P.S . I very much admire those who do the same).
I'm an extreme zealot. Don't question that.
My arguments however I try to structure in a the form of a debate or legal setting to be sure they are attacking the case for which I am fighting (or fighting against) and not the counsel representing said case.
If you feel at any time I'm attacking you personally (and not your ideas) please feel free to tell me and your forum moderator.
- -
I am putting a lot of financial and emotional backing to this game because I want it to succeed. But having done that in previous games has left me completely unsatisfied. For this reason I am trying my best to get this game in a trajectory that I want to play 5 and 10 years from now. For this reason I've taken up two major banners: 1) Crowd Control and 2) Enemy AI
There are many other things I would like and am passionate about but in the time that this game is in pre-alpha and discussions these are two tenants that I am pulling hard for. If we disagree, fundamentally on any of these issues.. I want to tell you now, I will listen and try to understand your opposing view but will likely not change mine. Once our positions are clearly stated without misunderstanding I will leave the argument for the developers.
In many cases on forums arguments are about popularity of thinker as much as popularity of thought. For this reason I do not attempt to persuade people to cosign my ideas (tho it is welcome) and make my appeals directly to those with he power to change it. This can from time to time seem dismissive to opposing counsel; please do not misinterpret my intentions as I do not intend to be dismissive.
Post Script:
I do not run a tally on who I do and do not like. In fact I barely notice forum handles of the posters. If for some reason (on this forum, on another forum, or in real life) you have had any experience communicating with me I hold no bias.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I know our focus in general - in a VERY broad sense - is on community and fostering community interactions.
We would LOVE to accommodate every play style imaginable. Obviously, this is not truly possible. We're building things in specific orders to get products out there as we develop the tools to make the next set of products. Avatar builder, chat engine, base designer, game...
I've suggested in the past developing a PvP system first, while we're playtesting and otherwise developing power sets, as a way to create balanced systems for PvP which can translate smoothly to PvE. Not because we're pushing for this to be a strongly PvP game, but so that we don't have to create a segragated setup which punishes PvE players for wanting to try out PvP. (I'm of the opinion that anything built so that PvP is balanced can translate to PvE more easily than building for PvE and trying to adapt the other way. Think about Final Fantasy and damage numbers to see one of the more blatant examples.)
We're going to do our best to accommodate as many play styles as we can by having a cleanly but deeply built game. Letting us know what you'd like to see is great! Even proposing ideas on how to do it. Letting us know why you think something might impede your enjoyment of the game is likewise welcome. We want to keep such things in mind. But don't jump on each other. "If it goes that way, it's totally ruined and I won't play it!" is throwing down a gauntlet more than it's providing constructive feedback. Let us know WHY you think something will cause harm. Work with each other to come up with solutions to capture what you really want without making it hurt others' fun.
At least, that's my advice.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
@Segev
The problem with PvP in an MMO is there are too many variables to truly balance it out between character classes. Pretty much the best you can hope for is to make it rock/paper/scissors and attempt to balance it for teams.
The only thing in the arguments I have read that I truly object to are statements of the type "I insist on change XYZ from the old COH, and if you oppose that then you need to go find some other game..."
That's really hostile. And unhelpful. There is no game yet. Suggesting that community member go somewhere else is over the line in my view.
On the other hand, lots of the arguments we are reading in the forums are good -- I've changed my mind on several issues based on what I've read.
Of course CoT can't get everything right. Heck CoH didn't get everything right. Hence why there is not One Plan Z project, but three. Each looking at building a new home each addressing problems and concerns in different ways.
Like Consultant said. There is no game yet. The reason the projects have such support is that nothing else is working for us. Everything is up to what the Devs can get done and even they said that not everything they want will be at launch. No matter what the item is if they can't get it done in the time frame it won't be there at launch. We must wait and see how CoT, H&V, and VO develops and grows.
Right now in truth the only thing that is set in stone is this. It will be a Superhero/villain MMO. Everything else still up to what can be done.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Exactly. i think most of us feel that the most exasperating part of the project is that we have to wait. But we do have to wait.
Sigh.
I completely agree. Creating character powers first and the intractability betwixt them should indeed come first and the the Enemy AI built around that. It is simply smarter programming to lay out the variables first.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
the enemy that can challenge the weapon, rather than the weapon that can defeat the enemy....
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
While I disagree that it can't be balanced in an MMO, I don't think it will be much more than rock/paper/scissors in the planned CoT build we know of.
Except the real 'weapon' in this case is a Player and players will ALWAYS find a way to surprise you. Throw a hundred players at a problem and they will find a way to trivialize it - unless you make it inherently 'unfair' or OP.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I don't think you can balance it based on every other game I've played. If you don't start off with absolutely equal characters you add too many variables to be able to balance them. Plus you'd either have to have designed everything from day 1 or your 5 year later vet reward suddenly becomes a pvp game changer.
Players can do some balancing - if your opponent brings a tank, you bring a debuffer. Organized teams try to max something and close any given holes. All I'd hope is that if PvP somehow, magically, is fun for a massive bunch of people, nobody comes along and "fixes" it like CoH did. Leave it alone, us PvErs are never going to like PvP, don't listen to us.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
PvP is not chess.... it will never be balanced or 'fair'....
and, honestly, i don't think players want that....
they want to build a character that wins....all the time.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.
Nerf Rock.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Hah, pretty much....
or my theory:
PvP is fun, right up until you lose twice.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
New challenge. Make losing in PvP MORE FUN
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Now THAT would be an accomplishment!
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Heh ... PvP losers get a stacking buff to their Powers every time they lose. Buff persists until they either win in PvP or they leave the PvP zone (which could be an instance).
[b]That which defeats you only makes you colder and more embittered ...[/b]
Basic idea is to make ROFLSTOMPing an inherently self-defeating activity over time, because PvP is more fun when there is [b]near[/b] parity (doesn't need to be perfect), rather than unfairly wide disparity. Thus, the objective is to hold the line on the maximums, while raising the threshold on the minimums until "near parity" is achieved through an iterative, evolutionary process.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'd be willing to try this. It would help weed out the people who enjoy real PvP fun from the (as you quaintly put it) ROFLSTOMPERS who will be seriously butt-hurt the first time they lose.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Best fun I had in CoH PVP was when I ran across a team of three villains. A Robot Mastermind, Stalker, and an Ice Dom me I had a Dark Dark Scrapper. It wasn't a I can win this it was more of a how long I could stand. I focused my attacks on the Ice dom mainly because she was the reason I would die with the ice powers zapping my recharge time. Of course I lost but it was a blast trying to outlast the attacks.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Depends on your idea of balance I guess.
For instance...everyone gets so many points to spend on their defenses...you decide to neglect your fire resistance and maximize your psychic resistance...then when you face a fire blaster in PvP, well it's your fault you lost and the game is balanced.
If by balance you mean, everyone has the same life total, same resistances, same defense, same regeneration, and do the same damage...then yeah...go play a FPS.
a nice idea.
Perhaps we should focus on letting the devs make the game first. They played CoH, they saw what each issue added and took away from the game. A little faith is needed, that is as much a part of being a hero as the cape and mask (just ask superman). The idea is not to worry, everything is on track. If we want to help we should keep making suggestions but refrain from causing a stink on the forums. We want to draw people to this game, not scare them off - not even the villians.:-P
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
Well, speaking of balancing vs. ROFLSTOMPers and games that [i]do[/i] exist... We've got a house rule for Uno where, at the start of the hand, each player is dealt ten cards [i]plus one for every ten points ahead of the last place score[/i] they are. Best played with multiple decks, of course. It does wonders for keeping someone from just running off into the sunset score-wise.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
1. If anything becomes more-than-passionate and falls into 'heated' territory, please send me a PM about it. You all are too prolific to read it all and we don't have a "report this post"... yet.
2. Manage your expectations: You all have seen my posts saying stuff like "we can't fix "X" because "X" was part of the CoH engine and we're re-creating everything from scratch, and thus, "X" won't exist in CoT." What will exist in CoT? Even most of the Devs don't know for sure because we're picking apart the new game engine and seeing what it can do. We only know broad strokes like "no (mostly) twitch combat" and "we will have lots of costume options." So arguing about more specific things is pretty much academic at this point, and thus, not worth getting heated over.
3. Our devs like options. If we can keep PvP and PvE both separated and easy to jump back and forth between them, we will. If we can create light-hearted PvP games and dueling zones and hard-core open zones, then we'll do it all. In most cases it's not either-or.
4. Our devs loved CoH. That's why they're working so hard with no pay on a successor. However, just like CoH evolved, CoT will be a next gen evolution over CoH, it has to in order to avoid IP lawsuits and to draw enough paying customers to keep it going. In that regard, it has to keep up with what other MMOs are doing. Picking the best from the past and elsewhere is our direction. If you want a project that is trying to resurrect CoH as it was, keep an eye on the Titan Network folks. If you want a new game that tries to copy CoH exactly as much as possible... well, you all know where to look for that. We're trying to create what CoH Issue 30 or CoH 2.0 would look like.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
z-man.... everything you said, is why I'm here.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
CoH 2.0 and getting lots of paying customers is what I'm hoping for :)
Something like this might be enough to get me to PvP more often than a couple of days per MMO ^_^. One of my biggest problems with PVP is I don't have enough experience with it. (Specialized PvP gear is another, but that's only in games that have it.)
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
for me, the pvp problem is that effective pvp is based on mechanical proficency (manipulating the way the game functions) over some chess-like level of tactical cleverness...
the only real 'smarter' play, is building your character/gear to better utalize quirks and imbalances in the interplay of abilities.
in general, this feature makes me gravitate to purely twitch based PvP experiences, wher my skill at playing the game (rather than skill at picking the current 'most advantageous build') most determines my success
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]