At least they aren't going on about MWM receiving federal funding, or some such rot, as I've seen them do elsewhere. I assume this person is showing up here, again, since they managed to get themselves banned from the APR forums.

Parenthetically, if anyone knows how to get us federal funding, we're listening. I mean, I'm sure not going to complain about the idea.

Pick a DC area Private Investigator...I'm sure they have plenty on a dozen at least!

Darth Fez wrote:

At least they aren't going on about MWM receiving federal funding, or some such rot, as I've seen them do elsewhere. I assume this person is showing up here, again, since they managed to get themselves banned from the APR forums.

[[b]]Edi[[/b]]: Ignore this post, I was thinking of the wrong forum

You have to do something [b]really stupid[/b] to get yourself banned on the APR forums for something that doesn't involve general misconduct or immaturity (which a good chunk of the forumnites display). I moderated that ridiculously toxic community a long while ago and the very most we could do without getting chased out the forums was to ban hackers whining about there in-game accounts getting banned by GMs or Devs. Or to close down threads if said thread ended up reaching the point where it was just like watching a bunch of monkeys toss there own shit at each other.

Moderators and Devs get chased off those forums all the time. I recall a art dev getting chased off the forums for using dev commands. The art dev got immediately called a hacker and personal attacks started. I was surprised at how they didn't tell me to close that thread until after the dev pretty much told the community to stop being asshats and quit.

The moderators for that forum tolerate a lot of stupidity before they start banning users. This guy must of been spamming threads constantly or something. Either that or he started a fight with someone else (I wouldn't be surprised...that occurs on those forums all the time).

Might of changed though...I gave up modding those forums a long time ago. A friend of mine said that after the art dev incident the mods have been getting a lot more serious about shutting down toxic threads. Albeit it's probably not doing the community much good though.

Maybe Bleddyn saw "APR" and accidentally thought "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB:_All_Points_Bulletin]APB[/url]". Everything Bleddyn mentioned sounds like the kinds of things I heard about that game and its community..

warcabbit wrote:

Parenthetically, if anyone knows how to get us federal funding, we're listening. I mean, I'm sure not going to complain about the idea.

Maybe [url=http://www.booksbylesko.com/]this guy[/url] has the answer for you.

Radiac wrote:

warcabbit wrote:
Parenthetically, if anyone knows how to get us federal funding, we're listening. I mean, I'm sure not going to complain about the idea.

Maybe this guy has the answer for you.

...the Riddler?!

islandtrevor72 wrote:

Not sure about the states...but in Canada we can get federal funding for games under the arts.

That's because [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Canadianism#United_States]Canuckistan[/url] is full of overly polite people who tend to care about the arts. ;)

I don't actually want to get political here but let's just say there are people in the States who reflexively consider something getting a few dollars of "federal funding" to be a sign of it being part of the "big government liberal/socialist agenda". Strangely those same people usually don't seem to have a problem with the trillions they favor pouring into the US military industrial complex year after year...

Needless to say I wouldn't mind if MWM could get some kind of artistic grant like that regardless of the political ramifications.

warcabbit wrote:

Parenthetically, if anyone knows how to get us federal funding, we're listening. I mean, I'm sure not going to complain about the idea.

Tell them it can be modified into a tactical simulator used to train soldiers.

Also, claim it might benefit the use of psychic phenomena. The government has already spent money on both.

Lothic wrote:

Sure it might have been nice if City of Heroes could have been saved in some form or fashion but it wasn't - people need to let that sad pipedream go and look towards the opporunities of the future.

FWIW, I agree with you and I admire you for saying it to this audience. But let's face it... many of the same names in development "over here' have been and continue to be the most staunch supporters of the save CoH movement "over there". And don't think for a moment that that bias doesn't come across loud and clear in the development of CoT.

I certainly would like to see, some three years later, more of a commitment to move on. But MWM has politely but consistently maintained that this is an integral part of their "core identity" . As players, we have the option to either accept that (in a constant stream of subtle and not so subtle inferences) or move on ourselves to another game. Personally, I think too many people in MWM are carrying too much baggage (too many scars) from a different time and a different place to let go as you suggest. And in the long run, I do not think that is healthy or beneficial to the CoT cause. I keep hoping the sands of time will make a difference in their point of view.

Fire Away wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Sure it might have been nice if City of Heroes could have been saved in some form or fashion but it wasn't - people need to let that sad pipedream go and look towards the opporunities of the future.

FWIW, I agree with you and I admire you for saying it to this audience. But let's face it... many of the same names in development "over here' have been and continue to be the most staunch supporters of the save CoH movement "over there". And don't think for a moment that that bias doesn't come across loud and clear in the development of CoT.
I certainly would like to see, some three years later, more of a commitment to move on. But MWM has politely but consistently maintained that this is an integral part of their "core identity" . As players, we have the option to either accept that (in a constant stream of subtle and not so subtle inferences) or move on ourselves to another game. Personally, I think too many people in MWM are carrying too much baggage (too many scars) from a different time and a different place to let go as you suggest. And in the long run, I do not think that is healthy or beneficial to the CoT cause. I keep hoping the sands of time will make a difference in their point of view.

The major problem with the idea of literally resurrecting the original CoH game at this point is that you're talking about trying to dust-off and maintaining a huge code baseline that's now roughly 12+ years old. From a software engineering point of view that's the very definition of a scary nightmare.

Even in the last few years of CoH's existence the Devs were strongly hinting at how hard it was to maintain and/or modify the old "spaghetti" code they were dealing with. The only best case scenario we could have ever had by the time NCsoft was giving up on CoH was that we could have gotten it loaded on some server somewhere and kept alive with no real updates for maybe a few more years at best. It would have been a sad zombie version of itself.

Another point to realize is that the CoH graphics were getting very antiquated. Sure I'd probably be one of the few diehards playing it today if it was still around but if you objectively look at it compared to games being created today it really is very old and dated at this point. There's no real way CoH could have been a serious, viable game in the 2015-2016 timeframe when there are so many better looking alternatives. Even its character creator, a feature which was one of its defining strengths back in 2004, is simplistic and clunky compared to many modern games.

I loved CoH for many years but its time has come and gone. I can only hope the folks at MWM are now 100% dedicated to looking forward to CoT because that's the ONLY path towards getting what we all want here.

Darth Fez wrote:

Honestly, to me it sounds a great deal like these other people are not the only ones carrying too much baggage from CoH.
It was made clear from the outset that this is a CoH successor project. The only reason this project exists is because of CoH. I don't know what you're expecting, but if it's that CoT would have no ties to CoH then you really haven't been paying attention. I know I'm not the only one here who no longer has any interest in playing CoH - especially a zCoH - but is looking forward to CoT with anticipation. Heck, we've got people here who have never played CoH. One can have high hopes for CoT without begrudging other people their fondness for CoH.

Fair enough. Let me tell you about my baggage. I have to stifle a gag reflex every time I hear a reference to AP33, torches, calls to action, we are heroes this is what we do, and the whole nine yards associated with the save CoH movement from TTN. I make no secret that I didn't drink that Kool Aid a few years back and I really don't care to revisit any of it now. Obviously, ymmv on that whole experience and I don't want to ruffle the feathers of anyone who buys into that program. But so far, MWM pretty much forces you to play that hand over again with CoT. It's not only embedded in the lore; it's in the forefront of the mindset of the developers. And since when did any of this become the definition of CoH or the CoH community anyway?

Whenever I ask about the identity of City of Titans (guess where that name came from?) what I essentially get back is "You know us! We are the torch wielding, Atlas Park stuffing, heroes who do what we do". After I regain my composure, I calmly have to say "Ok, but that was then and this is now. So who are you?" When you try to engage the upper tier of MWM you discover rather quickly that they seem to be as concerned with preserving the save the CoH movement as they are developing their own game... and mixing the two activities together in the process.

Somewhere along the line, CoH spritual successor got morphed into some kind of glorification of the cult like acts of one segment of the CoH community years ago. Yeah I find that strange and unpleasant. And you know what? Things did not have to be this way. MWM has chosen this path, decided to cater to this audience, and to tell the story in this way. I continue to contend that we don't even have a game yet... but we have all the makings of a player class system comprised of the people who held up a torch in Atlas Park on one higher level (the so called displaced former CoH players for whom CoT is intended) and the rest of us on another.

The good news is the coattails of TTN only stretch so far. That's the reason I'm still here and still giving my highly valued opinions on the issues of the day (that was a joke btw). Eventually, CoT is going to have to rise or fall on its own merits. I'll concede that the problem may be my impatience over when that time arrives. But I'll also point out that by demonstrated action, MWM isn't doing much these days to engage anyone who doesn't share TTN world view.

As for myself, I never played CoH. I'd read a bit about it in a webcomic writer's blog, Howard Taylor of [i]Schlock Mercenary[/i] fame IIRC, but at that time I wasn't into any MMOs. Then my roommate dragged me into WoW, and then we heard about CO and started playing that, and then [url=http://cityoftitans.com/users/ellysyn]Ellysyn[/url] of the Justice Girls told her supergroup on CO (of which some of my characters were a part) about the Kickstarter for CoT.

So I have less connection than most here to the Atlas Park 33 torchbearers. But I find I don't mind their references. I'm not a part of the Titan Network, nor one of the Save City of Heroes crowd. But I am a part of the City of Titans.