This is just a thought, and definitely not something I'd want to be ready for launch, as it's very much in the category of "luxury items for the future" but consider this.
You have a personal lair and or a SG base and that base or whatever it is has a garage in which you keep your super vehicle(s). If you have the cheaper-to-build-and-maintain "Small garage" you can hold a SuperBike, if you have the larger one, you can have the nicer SuperCar. All these items do for you is act as a way to get from the base to a door mission and back, and even then all they do is create a cutscene where you are seen heroically jumping into your vehicle and exiting the garage, then we cut to the mission after that map loads. Then when you click "Exit mission map" at the end of that mission, you have the option of using the same supercar or whatever to go straight back to your lair or SG base. The difference between the SuperBike and SuperCar is that the car takes up more space and thus requires the bigger garage, but it also has more usefulness, in that it can take you to a larger number of different locations, accessable by roads. The bike can take you to some, but only those ones that have a bike rack or something nearby.
So then, if you are a really high roller, you might also have a hangar where you'd store your Super Helicopter, Super Jet, or Super Rocket, etc and that would require more resources and would be able to take you to mission maps in more remote areas, via landing on the roof (buildings with helipads) or even parachuting out of the plane. The rocket might take you to maps in space even. You could also have a docking station for a watercraft which would include a Super Hydrofoil and maybe a Super Submarine, which could take you to offshore maps, as well as underwater bubbledome city maps, etc.
So the idea is, there're no real vehicles per se, it's just a deus ex machina for transporting you to missions in various places, and/or maybe even is the unlock you need to do those missions. Like maybe you can only do the "Moon Base Omega" missions if you or a friend has a hangar with the Super Rocket, while people with the Super Jet get to do missions in foreign countries or on floating sky platforms, like the Shield Helicarrier.
So this isn't super vehicles as a thing you'd drive really, just a way to open up faster travel options and/or different missions you could do. Some of the vehicle functions would act like the SG basse teleporter pads in CoX, where you just go from one place to another faster, and others would act like the SG crime computer or whatever where you can do missions by virtue of having it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
That is actually a reasonably good idea. The consideration about a small world becoming smaller, or translating into abandoned property, because nobody is actually "on the streets" anymore, needs to be tabled, but otherwise... I think it's kind of cool.
of Phoenix Rising
Am I
What if you want to show off your super bike at Phoenix Park?
and I do want to drive around town looking cool and picking up hot chicky babes.
I want to go through fast food places, and go to a drive in movie.
what if I picked up a hot chicky babe and want to use the kiss emote in the back seat?
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Wait, what kind of super-vehicle has a back seat?
Be Well!
Fireheart
The Fantasticar? Pretty sure it seats four...
Oh, and the X-men's Blackbird and the Avenger's Quinjets...
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]
And here's why that's a bad idea.... :)
[youtube]J7csXtVy--0[/youtube]
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
To be clear, I'm envisioning there would be an actual super vehicle docked in the base that is basically like furniture, like the vehicles we had in CoX actually. Then when you use it to go somewhere, a copy of that 3D object will be at the location where you spawn, like you just got out of it and it's parked nearby. That object is either phased such that only you and people on your mission map can see it, or it disappears in a few seconds after you arrive at the door.
In the case of a submarine, it might be underwater and maybe you can swim out and click on the hatch to get back in and leave the mission map.
Theoretically, the Rocket could be used to launch a satellite for your SG or your lair, which might have various uses (giving you a better functioning map, teleporting you from dead to the SG base med bay, some sort of communications thing involving chat functions within the SG, the ability to find your GPS location on the outdoor maps using the /loc command, etc). It could also lead to a chain of missions where you go to say the moon, then a space station, then you do a misison where you unlock a thing that allows you to travel to another planet and do missions there, maybe the devs roll out more extra-terrestrial content over time with more new planets to visit, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not a programmer, so I don;t know how the tech works, or what the names are for the different things you can code up, but in GW2 there are Treasure Chests. They appear closed to you until you open them at which point they appear open. Thus, they look different, or appear to be drawn in one of two states based on your actions. The same chest that looks closed to you looks open to me, after I open it.
I was thinking you could treat the parking spaces in the open world like that. You'd have several spaces marked "VIP Parking" or "Reserved" or something, and when you use your supercar to go there, the spot looks like it has your supercar in it, otherwise it looks empty. If you're on a team with a guy and the two of you use his supercar to go to the mission, you see his supercar there, etc. I'm assuming that would work. Then at that point it's just a matter of having different parking spots for cars, bikes, etc in different places.
Since having a parking space of your own would require the enforcement of the Titan City PD to tow away anyone who tried to use your spot, you might have to unlock that function by doing TCPD content. Since most helipad-equipped buildings tend to be hospitals, you might have to do content for the hospital NPCs to unlock that. Maybe there's a space agency or faction that can unlock space ships and rockets, etc. The whole subsystem of super vehicles as a way to get around town more efficiently could be a service that only subscribers get with their personal lairs and SG bases, while non-subs cannot use that stuff when soloing ans cannot pick a location when teamed, they can only accept the offer of a ride from a team and go to the same place that the team is going to.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I don't think anything that's been mentioned in this thread is a "bad idea" per se. But I suspect it may be far easier to implement "super vehicles" as specialized emotes that basically work a lot like the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Rocket_Board]Rocket Board[/url] did in CoH.
By treating them as emotes they basically wouldn't exist as actual physical objects in the game so things like physics collisions or combat reactions would not need to be accounted for. As simple animations (probably tied to specialized temp travel powers) we could eventually have all sorts of "vehicles" like motorcycles, horses, jet packs, etc. all working again like the CoH [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Rocket_Board]Rocket Board[/url] or [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Flying_Carpet]Flying Carpet[/url].
The main downsides to doing it that way is that vehicles would technically appear and disappear from "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace]hammerspace[/url]" and it might be hard to have one character ride with another character. But those issues might be the worth the compromise for having a bunch of vehicle based emotes to choose from.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I like the Flying Carpet/Rocket Board concept in and of itself, and I agree that we would probably end up getting that LONG before we ever get anything like what I suggested, if they were to do it at all, but I would just point out that the two things are not mutually exclusive. You can do both.
The Rocket Board or Flying Carpet is really just a prestige travel power, like the Jingle Jet from CoX. That is, a fly power coupled with a backpack or something that it emotes for you. Since the "vehicle" in this case leaves your hands free to still do your usual attack animations, it's easy to implement without losing range of motion etc. Driving a car, riding a motorcycle, etc are a little more involved, I think.
Personally I'd rather have the super vehicle as cutscene (and all the flying carpets and jetpacks too) than have to turn the game into a combination flight simulator/MMORPG/Grand Theft Auto clone to try to satisfy vehicle enthusiasts of various types. The vehicle cutscenes could depict you popping a wheelie on the bike or doing a Tokyo drift slide with the car or whatever even, you just never actually pilot the vehicle in question.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The question of how you might be able to enter combat while still riding on an emote-based vehicle would have to be addressed. CoH just handled that by making the "vehicle" disappear and detoggling the travel power associated with - it would be cool if CoT figured out a way to keep riding while fighting. It would probably just require that many more animations to allow for it.
But sure they might also be able to figure out how to give us vehicles that independently exist as physical objects in the world at some point. Obviously lots of people have wanted that for years.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The most obvious answer would be that while the vehicle Temp Power Toggle is engaged, all of your "interactive Powers" (attacks, buffs, debuffs, etc.) are all simply disabled. Kind of like what the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Walk]Walk[/url] Power did, where it disabled everything EXCEPT the Walk Power (including your Passives). Set things up like that and you pretty much remove the question of using the Temp Power Toggle as a combat relevant option, since it disables all of your offense AND defense, turning you into a "sitting duck" where all you can do is be a target. However, you can still MOVE at the speed offered by your Temp Power, in the movement mode manner that it is designed for.
Now ... with THAT in mind ... it then becomes something where you can design these Temp Powers to have designed "on/off" points (parking spaces, mystic nodes, fire escapes, bowls of corn flakes soaking in milk, whatever...) where you can engage and disengage your Temp Power Toggle. So for a motorcycle or a car based (alternate) Travel Power, you'd have to go to an empty parking space on a roadway or in a garage in order to turn the Power on or off, which then mitigates the Hammerspace™ phenomenon ... somewhat ... and helps immersion (kinda sorta). The Power would then have two modes. When you're at an ON/OFF point, using the Power turns it either on or off (duh) ... but when you're NOT at an ON/OFF point, clicking the power doesn't turn the Power on or off. Instead, when you're not at an ON/OFF point, clicking the Power (and holding it if you like) will instead reveal all the ON/OFF points within your field of view (think Glowies if it helps).
This means that if you're "driving" in your fancy Car Temp Power and get attacked (for whatever reason), you're going to need to go somewhere to turn OFF your Car Temp Power (like an empty parking space) so as to be "allowed" to Toggle OFF your Car Temp Power, exit your "vehicle" and return to Combat Ready status.
It's not a [i]perfect solution[/i] by any means ... but it is a very SIMPLE one which can avoid many of the potential combat related pitfalls AND it's something easy to explain to new Players. I'm thinking that the combination of KISS and Easy To Explain/Easy To Use would be the best way to go [b]*IF*[/b] wanting to do anything in this kind of direction. The beauty of it is that if you've got a Helicopter Temp Power, you're only going to be taking off from and landing at (designated ON/OFF) helipads at different places around the city ... rather than from just ANYWHERE for no good reason. It also means that whatever your vehicle is, you have to use "parking spots" for it in order to get out of and into Combat Mode.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yeah there are probably things like this that could mitigate some of the more immersion breaking aspects of emote based vehicles. Again I have nothing against the classic desire to have "real" physical vehicles in a game like this. But considering that the emote based alternative is probably almost orders of magnitude easier to implement it would probably be good to come up with ideas to make that "more likely to happen" alternative work as best it can.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
One thing I would like to see is normal vehicles allowing for us to merge into civilian traffic and for players that don't want to use super-movements to travel at a slightly faster speed for example MOTORBIKES and cars.
I have no conceptual problem with setting a precedent in which UNaugmented movement speeds are deliberately set to be LOWER than the speed of "emote based" Travel Temp Powers ... so if you invest nothing in them, you'll move slower as a character than as a "non-combat" vehicle ... but then allow for the possibility that if you invest Augments and Refinements into your Travel Power(s) you can move faster than the Travel Temp Powers. This then creates a competitive cross-current of factors to consider when trying to decide if you want to use a Travel Temp Power and put more investment into your combat Powers, or do you want to invest those resources into your "actual" Travel Power instead and not "need" a vehicle type Travel Temp Power to get around town? There are trade-offs in either direction, with neither being the "superior choice" when taking ALL factors into consideration.
In other words ... You Get What You Paid For.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Plus by having like a motorcycle or car as a travel temp power, you could use fuel/other costs as a IGC factor to make it a temp travel power. For example to keep it running you have to cover its IGC cost in addition to its initial purchase or something. However ability pool travel powers don't suck IGC like travel temps would do.
Personally, if I have Fly or Super Speed as a "free" power, that is, not taking up a slot that other powers could take up, and all the vehicles do for me is look cool and allow me to traverse the same map at a slower speed with all other powers suppressed, I think Super Speed or Fly wins the "How do I want to get from here to there?" contest every time. That said, there's still room for such in the game.
I think ultimately this game is about the characters. If you're Flying Squirrel Man and you have a Flying Squirrel Plane and a flying Squirrel Mobile, what makes those things a cool fit for a game like this one is their connection to you the character. The game isn't a flight sim or a driving game, it's a hero game. This is one of the reasons I like the vehicle as cutscene idea better than the actually driving the car idea, to be honest. It would be nice if you could customize your super car, like putting a chest symbol on the hood, etc, pick the color(s), have various different types of car and decorative things for them like through-the-hood air scoops, spinning rims, etc. I just think that Fly and Super Speed and Super Jump (which we will all have a power slot for) do a better job than vehicles for actually getting around the outdoor maps, most of the time, and probably should. To be sure, there may be people who, for flavor reasons, take Parkour for their travel power and would want to rely on these types of things (the Flying Carpets and Rocket Boards), so I'm not against having them, but I think the person who chooses to use the vehicular travel option probably ought to be doing so because they made it a flavor choice, not because it's a "right answer" for the travel power min/max problem.
I'm not against fueling Flying Carpets etc with IGC either, as long as it's basically a drop in the bucket. GW2's Waypoints cost IGC to use in that game, but everyone ignores those costs as they are really cheap. Like each time you use a Waypoint you're charged about what a relatively cheap piece of raw materials would cost (Waypointing costs like 2 silver, which you can get for selling like ONE Elder Wood log). I'm also not against the idea of selling such items in the Starmart as one-off purchases. You could even have a sort of generic, not terribly impressive Rocket Board (or jet pack) that can be unlocked in-game and then fueled by IGC, then sell "Nucler-Powered" and/or "Magical" versions that look cooler and cost no IGC to operate, but cost Stars to buy.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Sure there could be a whole subsystem of vehicles that could be bought from the store or earned from missions. There could be "basic" vehicle skins that are cheap to operate (like just pay a few IGC per use for "gas" or whatever) and then there could be "fancy" versions that for instance allow for customized logos or whatever (that would cost more to buy and/or more IGC per use).
Also they could easily charge different amounts for slower or faster versions of vehicles - the basic ones could be slower than the standard travel powers but you could get "super" vehicles that might be as fast as the travel powers.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I would strongly push that non-pool movement powers aka one that doesn't use a power point that we earn from leveling up. To ever be faster than one that you have to put a power point into. By making it have a fair IGC cost it also balances the choice of it.
To keep things "fair" they could always charge a very significant amount of IGC (as an IGC sink) for any vehicle that approached or equaled the same speeds as the standard travel powers. I don't see a serious reason why a vehicle couldn't basically be equivalent (or even nearly equivalent) in capability to the classic travel powers, especially if the "downside" for doing that would be a constant IGC usage cost to "maintain" the vehicle. Remember that many/most vehicles would still likely be of the "non-combative emote based" type so there's naturally going to be disadvantages to that versus the standard travel powers as well.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
i wonder how players will react to Automatically having a Recurring bill withdraw Stars from their Monthly stipend, for a certain power, cosmetic item, etc... :<
To be clear we're only talking about vehicles here and it would always be a player's CHOICE to pay for a vehicle or not. Every vehicle needs to be maintained, even if it's just to put gas in the gas tank.
The exact details of how much vehicles would cost (both up front and/or recurring costs) would obviously be worked out during play-testing. But whatever those numbers might be I wouldn't expect it to be a prohibitive percentage of a character's standard IGC income or cost huge amounts of real money in the cash store. We don't want to prevent players from having vehicles, but by the same token it makes perfect sense that having a vehicle like this would be a good vector for imposing a reasonable IGC sink.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I was under the impression that travel powers would have different animations/styles to choose from. You could fly like supedupman or with jet boots, jet pack, surfboard, flock of seagulls and whatever. Superspeed could be running, roller blades, hover board or skidding on your butt like a dog with worms. Outside of cut scenes, any large vehicles in this game is probably not gonna be worth the work to make them a reality. Rolling around town in anything larger than a motorcycle is probably not going to happen.
Treat large vechicles as a location teleport power that you can customize the cutscene in with either your personal travel power or a simple customized vehicle and its done. Want to go to city hall? Pop the power, choose from a list of locations and watch the cutscene. Want a friend to ride with you? Hit the power and invite to travel and both players watch the cutscene of your vehicle driving.
The vehicle could be a limited use purchase power with unlockable locations like the old COH ones for zone teleports in bases or it can be an actual travel power that can be upgraded to include more locations.
Vehicles are common in super tales from Pegasus to the Batmobile, but they were pretty much just a way to get from A to B. Radiac is right, this isn't a game about vehicle travel so I don't seea point in it going beyond the cutscene stage.
I believe that the devs have already stated that we will have the ability to take a travel power without it taking up a slot. That is, you can take some version of Fly (probably the regular version, called "Fly") and it doesn't take up a slot that another power could use. You could take the "glass half full" view of this and say that we all get a given number of slots AND a travel power on top, or the "glass half empty" version and describe the same situation as "you get X slots, one of which is a Travel-Power-Slot that can only take travel powers". It works the same either way.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
And likewise I don't really see a need to have "vehicles" that, as you say, aren't much more than alternate emote-based animation variations of standard travel powers. All I've really been talking about is having different types of "alternate" travel power animations (for various costs) that could move at different speeds and/or look like motorcycle versus a witch's broom.
The "vehicles as a cutscene" concept is (to me) little more than a different version of a classic MMO "waypoint" teleport system. I'd have nothing against it, but I wouldn't really call that an implementation of "vehicles" in same sense as riding around on a horse, rocket board or motorcycle would be.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Having/using a vehicle could easily be a feature that's completely separate from whether or not we all have a default "travel power" or not. I mean we all know Superman can fly but what would stop him from choosing to ride a motorcycle if he wanted to?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Plus if i don't say that Im not totally bias but a motorcycle would be a great vehicle for my character i have in concept as hes planned to be a normal human, well a soldier so technically a really well trained and fit soldier but still a soldier.
So your "normal human" might choose to have either a "normal" motorcycle (which I assume would be slower than Super Speed) or (if it fits your concept) you might use some kind of SUPERBIKE that could allow for speeds that might approach Super Speed levels. Again I see no reason why "normal humans" in a superhero universe couldn't use technology to effectively mimic actual superpowers... gadgeteers like Batman and Ironman do that kind of thing all the time. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I would assume however, you would want to blend in sometimes you don't want to go walking around carrying loads of guns. Sometimes its nice to be discreet. I would expect it to be far slower than super speed. But the option of the two would likely suit many players.
Assuming they decide to create a bunch of emote-based vehicles like this I would expect that in the long run there could be multiple versions of all sorts of vehicles. Having several types motorcycles that range from "normal" real world ones to others that might do all sorts of weird things (Super Speed, Fly, drive on vertical surfaces, etc.) all seem possible eventually. As emote styled animations there could eventually be many dozens to choose from.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I definitely agree with this. I was just pointing out, for the sake of clarity (and because someone mentioned travel powers using "points" or whatever above), that the non-slot-using travel power is going to be a thing, as far as we know. So any available vehicular movement modes would be in addition to that. If there are vehicles, I expect a lot of people to have them just for coolness value alone, including people who could get from point A to point B around town faster using other options. For that reason, I like the vehicle-as-waypoint idea since you're going to want to waypoint around a lot despite having Fly or Super Speed or whatever. Trying to make vehicles that compete against Fly and Super speed, like the Rocket Board etc is fine too, but I think the easy-to-make versions of that are the jetpacks and flying carpets, etc, not full-blown jetplanes and cars. And I definitely think that any piloting of said jets and cars should be treated as "not really this game's thing, per se".
It would certainly be nice to have a motorcycle you can actually "ride", I just think it's too hard to do and not enough payoff for doing it. You might was well have tank-tread legs, snake-like lower-half-of-body, spider-like lower halfs, etc too. Each of those, if you can use powers while doing it, requires a ll new animations for the powers and amounts to basically a whole new character body type, I think. And cars and planes are just too big to do like that, I think. Since this isnt a car driving game or a flight sim, you're probably never going to get those as anything other than the cutscene function we had in CoX, I would think.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think you may still be confusing the concept of "emote based" vehicles with actual physical objects that might act as vehicles in the game. For example I agree it might be relatively hard to have a CoT character actually get into a car and then drive it like a car simulation. But if it's all handled like a "virtual emote" then it would be just like CoH's Rocket Board or Flying Carpet. Those powers didn't actually "create" physical boards or carpets - they were just alternate versions of the Fly power linked to unique animations that made you "look" like you were standing on a board or sitting on a carpet. There was no need to handle these things as actual objects in the game with their own physics or collision detection because they didn't technically exist as objects.
Do you understand the basic difference I'm trying to explain here?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think so, but those emote-based cars aren't going to have driving controls, like a stick shift and pedal accelerator and braking, right? So it's not going to be like "get in the car and act like it's a driving game" it's going to be like "get in the car and still move around like you always do" or maybe "get in the car and then click on a destination to watch yourself go to, with no real control over the car" like a taxi, right?
I think I'd rather have a cutscene-generator that I can customize a little (paint job, hood symbol, fins, tailpipes, regular tires or Ghost Rider dire tires, etc) than just an emote that looks like everyone else's, and even if you can customize the emote, I don't think I want to watch the care take me to my destination more than like 2 times before it gets boring waiting for my toon to arrive at the destination. Hence, the cutscene. Taxis seem like old tech to me, whereas waypoints seem better since you're not sitting there passively watching your toon slowly traverse the map to get to the end of the taxi ride.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The Taxibots would like to have a word with you ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It the low-flying robot taxis didn't take the same route, every time they were called, then I might enjoy seeing the sights, on my way to the taxi-stand at the corner of Something and Whatever.
Be Well!
Fireheart
There's a reason why I keep using the CoH Rocket Board and Flying Carpet as examples. If you remember how they worked that's exactly what I'm talking about for CoT. You will control your own movement but it will NOT be like a car simulator. You will not "get" into a car because the vehicles will not be actual objects in the game. The emote animation related to it might be able to make you look like you are getting into a car, but that would simply be part of the animation (just like plain emotes make your character move around). This would definitely NOT be like your taxi analogy - what's the point of having vehicles you can't directly control? The game is already going to have a public tram service just like CoH did - I'm not talking about creating some kind of weird copy of that.
The point is that the "emote" could be customizable too. Remember how the CoH Rocket Board was red? I see no serious reason why we couldn't at least choose the color for our CoT version of it. As far as your "cutscene" idea goes that seems far more likely to get "boring" than actually moving myself around with my own independent "vehicles". We don't need yet another version of waypoints that simply beam you (like Star Trek) from one point to another. As I said CoT is already going to have several variations of that. This thread is about independently movable VEHICLES which is something that should be clearly different and separate from being locked into static cutscenes and waypoints.
If you want your waypoint concept to have cutscenes that's fine. I wouldn't want the vehicle concept (whether handled via emote style animations OR as actual physical objects) to be ever be related to static cutscenes.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If it's a car that works like a rocket board, can I drive on the sidewalk? What about the grass, or water, or fly up in the air? If it suppresses other travel modes, that still doesn't require you to stay on the road, per se. Do we want it to do that? I feel like there would be a lot of clipping as you drive over/through bushes, around lamp posts, etc. You could drive the car inside a city hall office room ,couldn't you? Do we want to allow that? If not, how do you prevent it? I could see motor cycles doing a lot of that stuff, but the full sized car is a little more awkward, I think.
And for the record, I'm still not against this, just thinking about details.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I don't think there's really any need (or even point) to "prevent" anything like this or even worry too much about graphics clipping. The whole idea of using the compromise of implementing vehicles like emotes is that it would be much, much easier for the Devs to accomplish making it much more likely to actually happen. The downsides of course is that without having to deal with actual object physics you could also have larger vehicles (cars, planes, etc.) clip through all sorts of things and obviously there would really be no way to restrict people from "driving" these things inside buildings or other places where you couldn't normally have vehicles like this. Basically it would be up to players to decide if they wanted to have a car appear inside a building or not. Remember there was nothing that prevented Rocket Boards from being used inside buildings and they would clip through walls if you decided to run into them yet they were still "acceptable" by most people.
Frankly even if vehicles were going to be implemented like real physical objects I still don't think there would be any point in "forcing" them to stay on roads (and/or stay off sidewalks). Vehicles like cars or planes go wherever they are driven - they aren't locked into tracks like train cars.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
*Has a flashback to SWToR and the 'speeder orgies' at the mailbox*
Nooooo!
I agree with Radiac. I can see flying 'vehicles' crossing above city assets, but if one gets too close to the sidewalk, it should force us to use our feet... or our fly-pose. Contacts and other such such loci should not allow us to 'drive-up' - Unless it's an actual drive-up window. No 'vehicles' in the Mayor's Office!
Be Well!
Fireheart
I would like to be able to motorcycle up a wall though, or even have a flying motorcycle. N'hey.
[img]https://frinkiac.com/img/S06E24/950398.jpg[/img]
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
And to go back to the original post idea, in CoX we had SG base teleporters and entrances in like totally random places that made no sense. You'd use the base telepad to go to Atlas, and you ended up on like the top of a retaining wall somewhere with no great reason for that particular spot being important.
If you replaced that teleporter pad with a supercar in your base, you could then do the same amount of content, or more, to unlock different parking spots all over the city maps, and end up with the same thing, mechanically, but better flavor-text justification for it. That said, you DO lose the ability to actually drive the car (or move around a map looking like a car).
Also, I'm not fond of the idea that you'd be carrying the car around in hammerspace with you, if that's the plan, which it could be. Having a supercar would seem to require a lair with a garage to store it in, to me, or an SG base.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If the Devs could figure out an easy way to give us "real" vehicles (as in actual physical objects that existed in the game environment) then obviously we wouldn't have to worry about hammerspace versions.
I already mentioned earlier in this thread that dealing with hammerspace vehicles would be part of the compromise for being able to have a bunch of emote based vehicles. Since it was acceptable enough in CoH to have things like the Rocket Board and Flying Carpet it doesn't seem like such a huge downside to me. I'm literally simply suggesting having maybe several dozen types of vehicles that all would work like those few CoH vehicles did. *shrugs*
Bottomline I seriously suspect our only alternatives (for at least a few years after launch) will be either hammerspace-based vehicles or NO vehicles at all. Given that choice which would you choose?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
All the more reason for a 'Taxi!' system. Summon a taxi, go where you're wanted, and the taxi takes itself away. No storage fees needed and it's a naturally use-based IGC-sink.
I'd like to see this 'Taxi!' power operate in both 'cut-scene' and 'random-route' mode, where it might show you some part of town you've not seen before, on the way to your destination. Or, it might route you into some dynamic 'trouble' event.
For those that really 'require' their own super-vehicle, they can purchase a fancy 'skin' for the taxi they summon.
Be Well!
Fireheart
The vehicles I'm proposing would work just like CoH's emote-based vehicles did (i.e. Rocket Board). I have no idea what you're referring to from SWToR but if CoT had a car that worked like CoH's Flying Carpet did it wouldn't be able to "hit" anything because it wouldn't actually be a physical object. Do people really not remember how CoH's vehicle powers worked?
While I might agree it would be silly/dumb for someone to drive on the sidewalk in CoT it couldn't actually DO anything bad to anything therefore the idea that these vehicles would need to be "corralled" onto roads would be pointless even if the Devs could actually do it in the first place.
If people are really that worried that people would spend too much time activating their vehicles inside buildings then maybe the Devs could come up with a way to disable LARGE vehicles inside buildings. But "deactivating" cars as soon as they go off-road when they can't actually hit anything in the first place? No, that'd be a major waste of Dev time/effort.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If you'd want yet another waypoint system layered into the ones we're going to get already then this "Taxi" idea might be fine. But it would have nothing to do with having a personal vehicle system.
CoH already had several examples of exactly what I'm talking about and I never once heard anyone refuse to use them because they involved hammerspace. I've already agreed that hammerspace vehicles would never be the ideal, but in comparison to not having ANY kind of vehicles AT ALL I would gladly once again accept the same compromise everyone accepted in CoH.
I'm not talking about doing anything different than CoH already did. I'm simply suggesting that instead of only having 3 or 4 examples CoT might eventually be able to give us dozens of types to choose from.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
For personal equipment type stuff (rocket boots, jetpack, spring coils strapped to your feet) these probably should be simple animated costume parts or travel power skins - whatever works best.
As for proper vehicles (like cars or jets) or mounts, I could get behind them being physical objects in the world a la GTA or Arkham Knight - as long as there are some limitations on where they can go (i.e. no driving in hospitals, stores or missions unless the mission somehow supports that). Also - they should be as customizable as possible - people are going to want to craft their ride like they do their costume - we should not be stuck with a paltry handful of options to choose from. This would be a huge undertaking - basically Avatar Creator 2.0, so I doubt we will ever see it, or at least not for years down the road.
Having the large vehicles appear from hammerspace as emotes could be a workaround, but then the customization angle still rears it's ugly head. So until a solution or compromise can be found I say just do without Batmobiles or Battlecats for the time being (though that said something extremely generic like a horse could work I suppose).
This is basically my position on all this as well.
Having vehicles be "proper" physical objects that could be fully customizable under some kind of grand "Avatar Creator 2.0" system should be the ultimate goal of this game, even if something like that proves to be many years down the road from now. Assuming the ideal system will in fact take a relatively long time to create the alternative of "emote-based" vehicles (like those that already existed in CoH) seems like the most logical "near term" compromise solution for whether or not we have ANY kind of personal vehicles in CoT at all.
I'd rather have some fun with an interim solution that we know worked in CoH than have nothing at all. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Welcome to my world, Lothic. Lay things out perfectly clearly, explain it all in detail (with examples even!) ... and then watch people misinterpret everything you've ever said so as to just about literally believe you said the opposite of what you (clearly) wrote. I'll admit, it does get rather frustrating at times. But then again, it's like I've always said ... "Clues are not for everyone, and some of us have more than our fair share of them." What gets frustrating for me is handing someone a Clue and watching them drop it without ever knowing I gave it to them because they didn't even know it was there, and me realizing they still don't recognize it for what it is when I point right at it and tell them what it is (again). Granted, it's ... amusing ... in the "Dumb looks are still free" kind of way, but it's way more frustrating than it is amusing to see the lengths that people will go to in order to REJECT Clues that are being handed to them free of charge.
So ... yeah ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
There is a big difference between small emote-based vehicles like a hoverboard and large vehicles like jets or cars. Small vehicle emotes clipping into walls or coming out of hammer space is not the same as a car or jet doing it.
Just dropping an intangible image of a car around a character so they can say they are driving would be easy to do but terrible in practice.
Including physical models of bigger vehicles like cars wouldn't be that difficult to include even with a decent customization feature. Its a fairly static prop so not a lot of animation, doors, wheels and maybe steering is about all ya need to animate it. A few base vehicle options and a few dozen add on items finished off with color options and you have a decent customization system. It gets even easier if you remove pretty much any physics to vehicles you find in other games like GTAV, crashing or flipping.
Its pretty easy to include either solid full models of vehicles or the intangible version of emote based vehicles in the game but thats not the problem with larger than motorcycle vehicles.
Will the world actually be designed with player vehicles in mind?
A lot has to go into designing the world for large player operated vehicles. The developers have to consider things like physics, map design, traffic, small instances, uneven terrain, pedestrians, travel base challenges and so on. I don't think the game is being designed for larger player vehicles now or later. Trying to shoehorn them in will only result in a bad end product.
Leave cars, trucks, jets and so on in cut scenes and use the emote based vehicles for smaller personal travel styles like rocket skates, hover boards and small jet cycles.
There are times when I suggest things for CoT that never existed in CoH or maybe are based on ideas from other games. In those cases I can generally understand when I don't always get my point across or even if people don't agree with me. But when I'm essentially suggesting that CoT should include something that came directly from CoH it can be hard to understand why that'd be, well, hard for others to understand.
CoH only managed to create several "vehicles based on emote style animations", among them were the Rocket Board, Flying Carpet and a couple of jump/rocket packs. All I'm suggesting is that CoT could (relatively easily) copy that concept and expand on it to the next obvious steps like motorcycles, witch brooms, horses, flying discs you stand on Magneto-style, hoverbikes, jet skis and so on. None of these things would be "physical objects" - they would all be emote style hammerspace animations JUST LIKE CoH's Rocket Board was. It seems to me that we could effectively get several dozen vehicle types in CoT all from this same core concept.
I don't know how I can explain this suggestion any more simply than that. It's not a perfect implementation for vehicles, but it is a very ACHIEVABLE one. And in the grand scheme of things achievable goals in a game like this are far better than pipe dreams that may be much cooler but never happen.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I've never once said that the "emote" concept would be an ideal solution for all vehicles. In fact I have said several times that doing vehicles that way would likely cause them to suffer from clipping issues that could in practice look dumb/bad if people insisted on trying to drive their semi-trucks or tanks through buildings. Even the CoH Rocket Boards had that problem if you kept trying to run them into walls - the obvious solution that I managed to figure out in CoH was to not fly them into walls...
The key advantage you gain with the emote based vehicles is the fact that you save the Devs the huge trouble of having to implement ANY physics related to the vehicles. That is a gigantic hurdle against implementation eliminated right off the bat.
I think it's clear this game will never allow players to fly around in zeppelins or cruise ships. Obviously vehicles of those sizes will never be supported.
But getting back down to "reasonable" sized vehicles I see no reason, again basing things on the emote concept, why vehicles of standard car sized or smaller couldn't be created. Even with that arbitrary size limit (car sized or smaller) there's still the possibility for dozens of options.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I am trying to mostly agree with you except I don't think anything car size or bigger will work regardless of the way its done. The problems with using the emote style vehicles for anything larger than a motorcycle isn't just people trying to drive them through buildings or clipping into walls. Its in normal travel, what they are actually designed for.
By using an intangible image of a vehicle centered on a character model you run into all sorts of axis issues as well as clipping through walls. For small things like the hover board its hardly noticeable but when you have cars it becomes very obvious. Like in this picture:
[img]https://s27.postimg.org/rt3p6a3hf/axisissue.jpg[/img]
Unless the terrain is even this kind of clipping (the red part) will happen in normal travel all the time because the axis is centered on the character model. For a hover board that extends a small amount from the character model it would happen so quick that you probably wouldn't even notice it but when the front end of your car clips into every hill you will see it clearly. The only way to not have this to happen is to change the way the axis works at which point you might as well make the vehicle a solid model.
There are also other issues with larger vehicle emotes when traveling. Jumping, turning backing up and so forth work different in a vehicle like a car than they do for a character model, all of which have to do with where the axis are. You are proposing to just take super speed or whatever and skin it with a vehicle. It works for small personal type vehicles but bigger than that and its nothing but trouble.
I fail to see the key advantage. There really isn't any difference between emote vehicles and solid vehicles unless, like i said, the devs include all those physics that games like GTAV have.
They both need to be game designed, modeled and animated. The only difference would be one clips the other doesn't. All the physics they have to include would already be designed for character models which is why I said it would be even easier. There is no gigantic hurdle to using emote vehicles vs solid ones except in what I said before. The world is probably not going to be designed with player driven larger vehicles. That's why small emote ones like hover boards or jet packs worked before, the devs knew the world couldn't really accommodate player vehicles so took the least immersion breaking route.
Your annoying strawman of zeppelins and cruise ships aside, I agree with you mostly. I just think anything bigger than a motorcycle, and thats pushing it, is not going to be worth it in the end so leave those to cutscenes during fast travel.
The "key advantage" is that the object physics of CoT is very likely ONLY going to be designed to be character centric, not LARGE vehicle oriented. As you yourself implied CoT will never be "designed" for large vehicles and it would be a lot of extra work for the Devs to account for character model collision physics AND physics that could handle large vehicles at the same time. It's not that a game in general can't be made to handle solid vehicles - obviously countless games like your GTAV example do that. But because it's going to be hard enough for this game to get launched WITHOUT worrying about vehicle physics that it's very easy to surmise that nothing of that sort would likely happen anytime soon. Afterall this game is CoT, not a GTAV clone.
This is why emote based vehicles are going to be a much more likely compromise in CoT for likely years after launch. Now you and I can easily sit here and quibble about where the "reasonable size" cutoff should be for how much clipping the Devs are willing to allow these vehicles to suffer. The only true data point we have on that is, yet again, the Rocket Board and Flying Carpet from CoH. For what it's worth you may be right that the biggest vehicle like this they'd allow would be roughly motorcycle-sized. I still content that it could be as large as standard car. But either way that would be the Devs' call to make. Regardless of what that "max size" ends up being I still hold firm that emote based vehicles are what we're likely going to get anytime soon.
I had to start with sufficiently huge sized examples that we could both unequivocally agree would be "too big" and work down from there. You can call that "an annoying strawman" if you want to but I just call it finding the "common ground" between us. Now as I said before people like you and I could bicker all day long exactly where the final "max size" line for these vehicles should be, but it would be the Devs' call regardless so I'm not going to bother to waste too much time with that detail. The important part is that we get workable vehicles (of some kind) in CoT and at least I think we can agree that it would be possible in some form or fashion.
P.S. For what it's worth I've now pretty much decided the "cutscene" idea for big vehicles is essentially pointless. If the game can't deal with having big vehicles as EITHER physical objects OR emote based there's really no point in "pretending" they exist at all. As I said before there will be plenty of alternatives for waypoint style travel - why conflate "fake" pseudo-vehicles with that?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Ok, now I get it, you were just agreeing with me and repeating what I had just said. The way you worded your first response made it seem like there were other mysterious physics that had to be implemented in order to have a car in the game besides the ones I already said.
I agree that small personal vehicles will be the only real option in the game pretty much ever. I am not quibbling over the cutoff, I just don't agree with your cutoff and said why I don't.
Why did we need to agree on what was too big? The only point to bringing up zeppelins and cruise ships as unacceptable was so your opinion of car sized vehicles would seem reasonable in comparison. It was strawman and you got called on it. Move on.
Quick travel cutscenes are a way to hide loading screens. Offering a variety in quick travel methods and therefore quick travel cutscenes is just more options to personalize the game. You may like the idea of a Star Trek Teleporter beaming you to a location but I might like seeing a car whip around a corner. Just because large vehicles are unlikely to be in the game there isn't a reason to pretend they don't exist either. Be nice if that super car base item I just got was also the base's quick travel access.
For smaller personal vehicles like motorcycles, magic carpets and hang gliders, or possibly small mounts (i.e. not much bigger then the player model) this may work. However, for larger vehicles, I have to agree with Brainbot - the clipping issues would be a HUGE problem for me. When faced with a terrible-looking half-assed compromise I'd rather they just leave it out until they can do it right (if it even can be done right - the game might not be designed well for it). After all, COH did this with capes (though a proper implementation of large vehicles would likely take much longer).
Let's make this simple, shall we?
There's been plenty of unnecessary text spilled over what is "too big" to be workable due to clipping issues ... but no one (so far) has taken on the job of QUANTIFYING the point beyond which "too big" becomes an issue. So here's my stab at it.
Any emote based Temporary Travel Power that uses a hitbox that is 1.5x wider at the base than the character avatar is tall will be problematic.
That means that if your character avatar is 6 feet tall, don't make anything larger than 9 feet long, from end to end, for use as an emote based Temporary Travel Power. So something like THIS ...
[img]http://scifanatic.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/risa_hoverboard.png[/img]
... would be too large/long because the object is more than 1.5x as long as the character avatar is high. Yes, the Power Of Foreshortening Is Strong In This One™ thanks to the low angle and so on, but you get the idea. This is one of the Risa Hoverboards from Star Trek Online, and it is an example of an emote based "travel power" implemented in that game. It only works over water, so it automatically disengages over land, and all it does is give you a huge boost to "running speed" (in effect) that allows you to "fly fast" over the ocean, without being able to *FLY* at whatever height you feel like.
Now we can quibble all day long about the Emote-Length-to-Avatar-Height issue as much as you people want to, but if we're going to do so [b][i]can we at least use numbers[/i][/b] to stake out our positions, rather than wishy-washy "I feel" BS that can't be quantified usefully in a computer game?
For reference, I'd expect something like a Magic Carpet to fall into the 1x to 1.25x range of length to Avatar height. That means a 6 foot tall Avatar flying on an (up to) 7.5 foot long Flying Carpet. Is that clear enough for everyone?
I'd expect a Motorcycle to fall into the 1x to 1.5x range of length to Avatar height.
According to publicly available information, a Mazda Miata Roadster is 154″ L x 68″ W x 49″ H in inches. That then requires a (slightly over) 2x ratio of length to Avatar height for a 6 foot (72 inch) tall male.
The current sixth generation of Mustang cars are 188.3" L x 75.4" W x 54.4" H. Compared to a 6 foot (72 inch) tall male character Avatar, that's a ratio of 2.6x the character height in length.
So obviously stuff like cars and pick 'em up trucks are going to live in the 2x to 3x (or more) length to character height range ... and the less said about 18-wheeler rigs, the better for this conversation. So ... to simplify things enormously (heh...), time for people to start putting their NUMBERS where their OPINIONS are, so we can have a [b]Quantifiable Conversation[/b] about the problem, rather than doing ... well ... this ...
I'm thinking that a limit of 1.5x character Avatar height strikes a fairly decent balance which gives enough "play" for a variety of 2 wheeler modes of transportation (motorcycles) while keeping things away from the Clipping Issues that have already been pointed out in a REASONABLE way. Yes, it won't be PERFECT ... but this is a case of the Perfect Being The Enemy Of The [b]Good Enough[/b]. Yes, clipping issues could still occur, but that kind of thing would be largely the "fault" of the Player for maneuvering in such a way as to cause that to happen. Yes, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMMNvYTEyI]people[/url] (especially Players!) [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMMNvYTEyI]are stupid[/url], but the better response is to Point And Laugh derisively at such nonsense, rather than to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Now, since both Lothic and I have been approaching this whole ... problem ... from a Let's Keep It Non-Combat perspective, it would seem to me that while having one of these emote based Temp Travel Power options Toggled ON, so that it works a lot like the Walk Power did in City of Heroes (except faster, rather than slower than normal movement), it seems like it would be simplicity itself to allow the Power to effect a change in the size of the character's Hit Box for collision detection purposes while the Power is Toggled ON. There ... a LOT of clipping into other objects issues have been solved. [b]You're welcome.[/b]
Now ... if you can do THAT ... where you allow the Power to adjust the size of the character's collision Hit Box to accommodate the size of the "vehicle" that you're showing them occupying ... THEN you can start getting away with stuff that exceeds the 1.5x Height limitation, and start doing things like Cars and Helicopters and Hang Gliders ... and so on and so forth. Why? Because you only run into the aforementioned clipping issues [b][i]if you can't change the size of the collision detection Hit Box[/i][/b] ... which I'll point out, no one has been brave enough to bring up yet in the context of a [b]Combat Disabling Emote Based Temporary Travel Power[/b], where the whole purpose is to TRANSFORM your character Avatar into not just being humanoid shaped, but also to incorporate a "vehicle" of some kind.
As for the whole [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmageddon]Carmageddon[/url] side of people griefing by driving their cars on sidewalks (because you KNOW they will!) and other Stupid Stuff™ ... the way to prevent that is to apply "invisible walls" in the game which certain types of emote based Temporary Travel Powers are bound to ... respect ... but which humanoid character Avatars will not be inconvenienced by. That way, cars have to stick to roads (and pretend to obey the traffic laws?) and so on. But that's a whole other question of USABILITY ... rather than a [b]*IF*[/b] We Do This, [b]*HOW*[/b] Would We Do It? Granted, once the HOW question gets answered, the usability questions will follow, but let's not get ahead of ourselves and try and stay focused on the question at hand, rather than reaching for The Meaning Of Life™ stuff right off the bat, okay?
I hereby yield back the balance of my time.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I've been tracking this thread and it is something we explored in our early design models. Now, what Brainbot said is correct, the world at large is not being designed for larger-than-character vehicle use.
Which also means that Redlynne's suggestion of going back through the entire city to add invisible walls only applying to certain types of vehicles a significant undertaking.
To the point that if we had to add so much as to create a semi-endorced invisible "rule"' of what is and isn't allowable there are far simpler solutions we can apply that end up with similar results using coding already available.
The first idea was what Lothic referred to as a "glorified way point system", allowing players to select a point on a map. An animation playes when the vehicle is summoned and either s loading screen is shown with soecific art of the player vehicle, or with our capture tech, an actual cut scene vid of the vehicle traveling.
The other option is similar, by selecting a point, animation playing of the player entering the vehicle, but this time, the vehicle uses an existing pawn AI and will follow an appropriate path to the selected location.
Advantages of this is that the vehicle is an actual object. We don't have to go back over all existing mals and add invisible walls. We can even add the ability for larger vehicles to grant permission to groups for group travel. We can use the same vehicle assets on specific instance maps designed specifically for player-controlled vehicle uses suchnas car chases, races, and maps where vehicles and combat are allowed. The sacrifice of course is that in the main world, the player isn't in direct control of these larger vehicles. Bur this system does solve a lot of the indicated issues and open up new options.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Been following. Have three general comments. Not directed towards anyone, just general--and some of these points have been touched on already.
1) I'm all for the emote vehicles. Why shouldn't a superhero be able to drive their (presumably) super-vehicle across--well, anything their travel power can handle (probably only actually flying vehicles for flight, though?). This fits the genre, is doable, and allows greater freedom of concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq3X13kgW4U, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJB3hqUsHDE
2) Also in support of emote vehicles--if "hammerspace" isn't a problem (and I agree that it isn't, though it could possibly be somewhat "solved" by animations like masterminds had for their "call/summon" powers), then I personally don't think a little clipping here and there from a larger vehicle should be a problem either.
3) As far as larger vehicles "blocking" areas, why not have areas that you don't want blocked have an auto-turnoff radius for the emote?
As I said, just general comments not directed towards anyone, and for things that have already been suggested, just consider this a "+1".
EDIT: Tannim posted while I was writing this, but I'll leave my post anyway :). But Tannim's post made me realize I may be being even more naive than I thought I was (and I assumed I was naive). I'm not a programmer, much less a game dev.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Sidewalks wouldn't really need a Collider, but a Trigger. Maybe even piggyback off of Pedestrian Navigation Paths which might already have Volumes (defined areas) where the sidewalks reside.
Thank you
I am really hoping this isn't the case because I agree with Lothic in that this would get dull fast. At least with a fast travel cut scene you could make it skippable as soon as the loading is done, with this you just gotta sit there and wait. You would still have the models to use in those specific instance and you wouldn't need to work out pathing which can be time consuming. Wait, I just noticed that you said your select the point. Does that mean there wouldn't be designated waypoints but a player could pick anywhere on the map with this? That might be exploitable or grief bait. I am also assuming the trip could be canceled at any time.
Still, if you did do this I could avoid using as much as i want, save it for getting a drink or answering the phone.
The player may select the way point, but it doesn't mean that the vehicle could go sll the way there, like selecting a point in middle of the ocean or pedestrian plaza and having a car - using a car AI it wouldnstop at the most appropriate location.
Yes, the player who owns the vehicle travel power would be able to toggle it on and off, ending the trip early.
And this would be for larger than something personal to the character. Where those smaller vehicles like hover boards, rocket-skateboads and such still allow use of powers and have their own set of animations.
This offers alternatives for players who don't want any personal travel power for whatever reason, and opens up the other possibilities I mentioned for group travel, racing maps, and vehicluar combat maps.
All providing personal customization.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Actually you've been agreeing with me for most of this thread. I've said numerous times in this thread that emote based vehicles (of ANY size) would not be the ideal compromise PRECISELY because of the clipping issue. You just decided to highlight (with a bunch of hyper-handwaving detail) the issue with car sized vehicles as if I hadn't already said that would be one of the downsides to that implementation.
Thanks for joining the party late.
Again you can call it a "strawman" all you want. I was simply driving home the point that some of us would not be stupid enough to constantly run our emote based car sized vehicles into walls all the time. If you think you'd be so clumsy that you'd run into everything around you in such a vehicle that's frankly your problem, not mine.
It seems that Tannim222 happens to agree with you on this one minor point. I happen to think you're both being hyper-conservative on this issue and have just collectively managed to destroy the possibility of having personally drivable car-sized vehicles in this game for the foreseeable future.
Good job with that...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I would prefer to be able to independently drive a motorcycle in-game.
At least (I think) everybody here agrees that "independently drivable" motorcycle-sized vehicles are a reasonable possibility for CoT.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If you go back to the red/green/blue diagram Brainbot put up, the guy's head is being cut in half at the nose and his feet are still visible on the ground. This is like the Flintstones car, where they just pick it up and carry it around while they still walk everywhere. So the car, in order to solve that problem, has to replace the character avatar entirely, not just be an added prop, like an hoverboard would be. Also, if you just replaced my toon with a car avatar and left the movement controls the same (suppressing fly and so forth) then I could still strafe left and right instead of steering the car, couldn't I? That would look awkward and impossible to do with a real car, to me.
I like having customization of what the vehicle looks like. As I said earlier, I think it defeats the purpose of the Supercar to have everyone using the same one, like it's some kind of thing we can all buy at Sears or whatever. I want Radiac to have designed and built the Radmobile to look like HIS custom vehicle, not the same hoverboard or whatever as everyone else. I don't know if that means having to write a whole new avatar creator for cars, and if it does, then we might never get them due to the work required and the relatively small payoff (like centaurs, driders, etc it might just be too much work for too little gained). It would be nice if the supercar could fly, like Coulson's Lola in the SHIELD show, but I would want thrusters and anti-gravity plates, and wing fins etc for it too.
But on a different note, I think, vehicles or no vehicles, it would be nice if the base teleporter system used some kind of relatively decent visual that isn;t just a shaft of light coming out of the ground indicating the entrance to your SG base from wherever you are. I'd rather it were an innocent looking door, manhole cover, or something as opposed to just "shaft of light indicates entrance, then when you leave you get dumped in some random location" like CoX had. Like if I have an underground lair, I might use manhole covers as entrances and exits to my base. I could see that. And it would be more flavorful than what CoX had.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
No Radiac it doesn't have to replace the model, all it has to do is put the model in a sitting position.
And Tannim said there would be customization to it.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I honestly think that vehicles of this size would be acceptable as a "maximum size" using an emote based system. And yes as Brainbot exhaustively highlighted what I already covered earlier in the thread this would likely have significant clipping issues (due to the fact that it would not be a physical object in terms of standard collision physics). But even CoH's Rocket Board and Flying Carpet had "clipping issues" if you kept trying to nose-dive into walls with them. My solution to that: just don't do that.
If you want to have even the remote possibility of having a car like this in CoT then I think most people could bring themselves to overlook the shortcomings and restrain themselves from actively trying to run into other objects around them. In real life it's usually bad to run into things with a car anyway. All a player needs to do to make this work in an acceptable manner is just to pretend that running into other objects would be bad to do and simply STEER CLEAR of them even though technically nothing bad would happen. I think I could very easily pretend my emote-based car was real enough and do that for my own roleplay benefit. I'd rather have to employ a tiny amount of self-delusion like that than to NOT HAVE car sized vehicles at all which is what people like Brainbot and Tannim222 would seem to be happy with.
Pros and cons people. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater just because this is not a "perfect" solution.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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But that's not quite what Tannim said.
Tannim said that he thought that there would/should be car-sized vehicles, and Larger, but that they would not be individually pilotable [i]In The Open World[/i]. He specifically mentioned having pilotable vehicles in purpose-built instances and customizing those vehicles. That really sounds like the best compromise on the subject.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Personally, I'm more interested in customization of the vehicle's look than actually piloting it in the open world, for the record. This isn't a driving game, after all. And since I don't expect to be actually fighting crime from inside the car, I would implement it as a transportation mode of some kind and nothing more. Rocket boards and flying carpets are a nice custom emote for when you fly around busting powers, and are low-hanging fruit, and I'm fine with that stuff coming from out of nowhere and being used inside a building. The idea that you'd have people pulling their supercar out of hammerspace and driving inside buildings, clipping all over the place, and strafing right and left with the car just makes the whole thing look too goofy in actual execution, to me.
I like the supercar as a cutscene or as a taxi, but not as an emote like the jetpack or the rocket board. And whatever we get, if we get anything, there's no point in even rolling it out if I can't at least change the colors and put my chest symbol on the hood.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
In post 56, I asked people to give Numbers for applying a standard ratio of character height to overall length of an emote based Travel Power.
So far, everyone has rather resolutely declined to engage the topic using the kinds of Numbers that would be useful for computer programming purposes. I staked out a position that a 1.5x ratio of height to width should work just fine. Since then ... I've been the only one to even engage the subject of Numbers at all.
To quote Megatron from Beast Wars ... "This does not inspire confidence, noooo ..."
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm fine with the numbers you gave, Red. It sounded well thought out to me. No vocal disagreement = tacit agreement, at least in my case.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising