Okay, so this is just going to be a bit of a mini-rant (hopefully). I just wanted to get most of this off my chest and not argue with people on other social media like Facebook about all of this. So, as the title suggests some of us might be aware that there are those who don't monitor the development status of CoT as close as us forumites, but this is perhaps my main problem with the public. There is perhaps SO much skepticism towards CoT's release that it's almost saddening. Over the past few years I've become emotionally invested in this game and hope to see it do very well given the lack of superheroes games as far the MMO market is concerned. To see people call City of Titans, “vaporware” or see comments like “This game is never going to release, it should've come out three years ago.” is just completely annoying. To address the latter statement about CoT releasing three years ago (2015-ish), I feel as though that would've been a very speedy development for an MMO that only acquired the software funds needed to create the game only two years prior to that point (2013). The comments then would've been “The game looks like shit.” or “This looks sooo bland and cheap.”. There's also the fact that MWM switched engines twice I believe, so depending on how much managed to get worked on with either engines before finally making the transition to Unreal Engine 4 is debatable but can be safely assumed that it may have set them back a bit to even make a 2015 release date even remotely possible.
Comments such as these are really unfair and are coming from a completely ignorant point of view. To see comments under even the latest update on the game that say: “I've given up on this game, it has been nearly half a decade and there's still no game. I hope they enjoyed the pizza my money went to.” < (This by the way was an actual comment I came across on Facebook, I believe). However, I will admit that from an outsiders' perspective I could see why they would think this. I've seen it discussed on here that there needs to be a 'Gallery' tab added to the top of the web page because clicking through each individual update to find something shiny and new does get really repetitive. It also doesn't help that small teases and bits of information are scarcely spread out between forum threads that can go on for five or six pages with about a hundred posts on each individual page. There's plenty more that I could go on about but I think that's going to be about it.
TL;DR: I don't like seeing people lose faith in this game, but I can understand their reasons for why.
P.S. If any discussions are generated from this, please try to keep it PG. I've seen some threads get locked down because very heated debates.
"If I am to die in battle, Remember me for who I was and not what I've become..."
It comes down to "live and let live". The main thing is to avoid falling into the trap of "how dare you not like something I like". For the rest, I've heard of game devs (for big games and big studios) make posts about how development works and people argued with them. Some people live to be contrary. Even when the game is live there will be people who don't like it, and that's OK too.
It's also important to remember that for every person who posts here, or on Facebook, there are at least ten who're waiting quietly in the wings.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Exactly. Luckily for me I never really fall into that trap. I just try to politely inform those that are unaware about latest news regarding the game, if this reassures them, awesome, if not then fair enough. Last thing I would ever want to do is come off as the Thought Police.
"If I am to die in battle, Remember me for who I was and not what I've become..."
I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what people are saying now. I think only when the game comes out will the word on the street matter, and from what I know of the game at this point I think once it's live it will garner much more positive reaction than negative. Even acknowledging Darth Fez's points that there will still be negative comments simply due to taste.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Yeah I've made the mistake of mentioning it on chans a time or two. Not something I recommend, but will probably do it again at some future point.
It's one thing to look at the information released and come to the conclusion the game is not for you. That's fine and thanks for all the fish.
The problem comes from people complaining that the game is taking too long to release. As much as I loved CoH and hated the circumstances behind the plug getting pulled, the game's coding was a giant jenga tower waiting to colapse. I'd really rather City of Titans have stable coding coding.
I've heard the term "Fast, cheap, and good. You can have two of them." I want the game built to last.
I've avoided "waiting burnout" by dipping in and out.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
MWM will need some publicity when they get close to a major release they get funding from, but trying to attract too much attention before that can backfire as people don't have a big impressive first impression.
They will certainly need a big PR splash when they get close though. Certain studios are really good at teasing and building hype, as well as making the most of news outlets and advertising. Creative assembly might be one studio to check out with how they handle showing off total warhammer. They are of course a much bigger studio but the way they handle social media and youtube clips is something that can be done on the cheap. Some of their bigger advertising stunts, like renting out an entire village to cosplay a live action vampire counts attack complete with costumes, makeup, professional camera work.....that might be above MWM's budget.
Probably all too true!
Very definitely true unless we find some volunteers - and maybe not even though.
As for the Facebook stuff I just go with the rule of "Don't feed the trolls", respond politely to the questions I actually know the answer to, and thumbs up commentators and posts. But lately I don't even do that much as I'm barely on Facebook or other social media. They are horrible time sinks. These forums are about as active as I get - and I'm limited here for time reasons too.
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[color=#FF0000]Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.[/color]
Maybe once the second kickstarter drops and people can play with chargen, and show off the world. MWM could host some promotional contests to get some free PR ads circulating. Raise hype and community involvement. The winner(s) get featured on whatever form of major media MWM uses.
nothing like word of mouth (added to some advertising)
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I would say the average gamer isn't interested in coding, only the shiny shiny. Seems, atm, that MWM isn't focused on the shiny shiny but the coding...which makes sense. It does seem like the intersection is fast approaching, though, when the shift will go from coding to the shiny shiny as the coding is nearing completion (at least for the relevant bits). Then will the masses be pacified during the last leg of the race that ends with a full release.
Prepare yourselves, for the shiny shiny is coming.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Most people just don't realize how much work and effort has to go into making video games - especially ones as large and complex as MMORPGs. Also, most developers/publishers tend not to announce anything major until the title they are working on is well under way. MWM didn't have the option to wait until 3 months before release, so the whole process seems dragged out, when in fact a development cycle of 5 to 7 years is the norm, at least for games like City of Titans.
I can tell you, from personal experience, this is very much the truth. I've been part of the team here since... well, the beginning, and I've been able to see the staggeringly huge amount of work that has had to happen just to get us to where we are now. In a lot of cases we've been building the tools, to build the tools, that we're using to build the game. Stories have to be written, new art has to be created and turned into 3D models, sounds, connectivity, all the numbers behind the scenes that make this whole thing work, it's just mindblowing.
And that just the small part I actually understand.
We're at the last couple miles of this marathon, and now is the time we have to focus even more to make it over the finish line. The time is coming soon where we'll be able to show you the shiny-shiny stuff, but were not quite there...
...yet.
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
Just remember: Collapsing and dying after delivering the message is [i]not[/i] a part of the modern marathon! The finish line is, hopefully, just the beginning. ^_^
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]
Good point!
Given that this marathon ended with the loss of a battle (Battle of Paragon City, 30 Nov 2012) instead of a win, the end of the run will hopefully have the opposite outcome as well. :-)
Spurn all ye kindle.
If only CoT could be released on 30th nov 2018, it could thumb the nose at history :p
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[color=red]PR - Europe[/color]
So worth repeating.
/bow
I see this as less of a race and more like kids wanting to go play on a playground at an orphanage. The orphanage knows the kids want to play on something, probably the old playground that just got demolished to become nothing more than an open field. The orphanage draws them a nice picture of an updated playground and the kids scream and shout in excitement. So the orphanage, being poor, has to buy it in pieces and set up a tarp around it while they build it to hide their progress for the kids, to build excitement. It takes a while...and most kids aren't very patient. Sometimes its stormy outside and the orphanage can't work on it. The kids think it'll never be finished but for some reason continue to stare at the tarp from the windows. The orphanage tells the kids they can offer their allowance to make it better and some do, but others don't want to waste their allowance on something they might never see. The orphanage keeps telling the kids 'almost' and this satisfies them, some longer than others, but they continue to stare out the window. Their friends come by to play and tell them of other playgrounds being built close by...couldn't hurt to check them out but most still come back to sit at the window and stare at the wall of blue tarp between them and the playground. Some kids have left the orphanage and don't come back to visit, some kids are new to the orphanage and are excited about the playground. They all sit and stare at the tarp.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
That got dark quick.
I lightened it up in my head by placing the story in honorhall orphanage in skyrim, a place best known for the wicked sweet suplexes pulled off by the dragonborn for an adoring crowd of children.
I figured an orphanage was appropriate metaphorically since we all lost our 'home' CoH...although that would make CoT a different orphanage, not a playground. Meh, whatevs. You got the gist of it.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
The gist of those sweet, sweet suplex moves.
To be clear, we changed engines once after the KS. Before the KS we did do a prototype on CryEngine and Multiverse before Unreal (irony: Multiverse dumped their client and now runs on Unreal). Having Unreal 4 offered was unexpected, and we are grateful for the opportunity. The drawback however was that we went from an established game engine with a decade of tools for it to a new one which lacked everything.
And if I were to go back, I would make the same decision again. The power of UE4 surpasses anything we could have hoped for with UE3. We could build the game all of us wanted, at the cost of time. Time to build the toolchain, for the necessary apps and plugins to appear, for UE4 to be more widely adopted. We gambled on UE4's success and I believe that gamble was a smart one.
We were one of if not the first adopters of many tools and systems now in common use, such as Dungeon Architect, with our bug reports and suggestions eventually trickling into the official versions. There are dozens of titles which our early work with these tools helped, and that is something to be proud of.
To show off, here is Dungeon Architect, the plugin that we, and many other games, are using for quest maps.
[Youtube]4aNgzmibRIs[/youtube]
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
And given that this is an MMO that we all hope will run for many successful years with the concomitant opportunities for updates, you actually have tons of time. So: win-win!
Spurn all ye kindle.
I've said it before and I'll likely say it again at some point: The only reason people have plenty of time to bitch and moan about not having a game to play yet is that we don't have a game to play yet to absorb all that excess time. Once we get a few years past launch virtually no one will remember this angsty "before time" we're stuck in right now. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Oh, I'll always remember how the game was way later than they said in the KS. Always. :p
Bioware screwed up with their engine choices and it shows...big time.
Well I did say "virtually" no one would remember. I'll probably remember, but by then I hopefully won't "care" all that much. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Is that just a blanket statement for all of their games, or one series in particular? Because I find the Dragon Age series to be quite beautiful / stunning, especially with maxed out settings on PC.
This! [size=18]Is![/size] [size=20][b]TITAN CITY![/b][/size]
Swtor uses the Hero engine I think?
SWTOR uses a heavily modified hero engine. It is incapable of handling large scale pvp in any acceptable way. It was so heavily modified that they cant even get support for it.
Lets be fair, there's not much support for it anyways.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
This seems the most relevant thread to say this. I just saw the latest ship of heroes video and it was nice to see they are making progress, but the art and animation looks extremely.....cut and pasted? Uncanny valley? Like everything is plastic and the people are mannequins?
It worries me somewhat. Animations are really important for a game like this. The old CoH was on the forefront of games using a more animated look (before wow and tf2 popularized it) and their main strength was animations. Other games had more complex textures and models such as EQ2 that came out the same year. CoH always felt more believable though, since the characters looked like they fit in the world. In EQ2 everything looked plastic, shiny, lit by spotlights....even the environments and furniture often had a sort of "just came out of the mold" quality, further compounded by robotic movements and a general lack of chatter and activity from NPCs. CoX excelled in this regard, with NPCs always stealing purses, banging on cars, holding protests, talking on cell phones, etc. They felt alive, and they moved like it.
I mentioned this in this thread since I realized CoT has not put out nearly as much footage. Still, the bits we have seen, though largely still shots, have looked solid. It can be hard to really judge without seeing it in action.
There's another game that I followed for years, waiting for it's release. But by the time it came out, it was pretty clear that it was being designed around squeezing maximum cashflow out of the franchise, not around maximum gameplay.
I played it off and on for a while, but a serious disappointment, and from what I've heard it just kept going downhill.
CoT has had a totally different vibe from the word go; a totally different design philosophy. That's a huge part of why I've found it easy to be patient waiting for the game, and also a reason why I'm so eager to get my hands on it.
I also watched the SoH videos and I thought they looked good...not 100% polished, but they are also at relatively the same pre-alpha/beta point in their respective timelines. They are also both running on the same engine. I'm not here to defend SoH...I won't be playing their game, I'll wait for CoT, but they've done a very good job at sharing exciting aspects of their game with their fans (lots of videos, including tons of power animations, running through missions, a combat beta, lots of videos and pictures of their 'world', etc) and doing everything in a very professional way. I'm not a fan of the setting, personally, or that they aren't doing aesthetic decoupling as CoT is, but other than those 2 things I think CoT could take some plays from their handbook.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
CoT is constantly hitting the base with updates.
SoH has actually stopped communicating for a awhile, then started back when someone complained about it.
VO is apparently taking supporters money and not giving them the alpha, from what I am reading on their social media feeds. I have not heard from or seen these people on any mmo media page, Youtube, rarely their own facebook page.
[img]https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/715/142/f6c.jpg[/img]
I will say CoT is in a good place right now. What I will be happy with? More costume pictures, pet gen or char gen.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Because of this post I was reminded of [url=http://www.heroes-and-villains.com/phpb/home.php]Heroes and Villains[/url] (which was effectively CoT's first real "competition" as far as the "spiritual successors" for CoH go) and the fact that I haven't heard anything about the game in maybe a couple of years now.
I was semi-surprised to see Golden Girl still updating the "News and Announcements" area of the webpage on what appears to be a roughly bi-weekly basis. Most of the rest of the threads on the forum haven't been posted to in months or years now. Oh well...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I hope H&V can make it. However, I did feel when last I checked in, it felt like it was more like "CoH with new names!" Which, I'm not fond of the idea of that.
H&V seems to have several things named after places in CoT. Like a Titan City and some area names. Was this related to CoT at some point?
I believe they were together in the very beginning and quickly broke off.
Yeah, I understand the two projects had a disagreement and decided to go their separate ways, but they have shared rights to some of the concepts and names that arose when it was all one project.
Spurn all ye kindle.
[EDIT] Seems Brand X and Cinnder sort of beat me to this. Oh well... ;) [/EDIT]
There are probably folks that work for MWM who know the story better but as I understand it Golden Girl (who was a well known CoH player) did work directly with what became MWM during their initial plans to make a "spiritual successor" for CoH. Apparently their collective "visions/goals" for what they wanted the spiritual successor to be like quickly diverged and Golden Girl basically broke off to "do her own thing" which turned out to be what is now Heroes & Villains.
Because Golden Girl was associated with MWM for a while it's probably not too surprising the ideas and names closely overlap as Cinnder implied. Despite that I've personally always had the feeling that MWM retained the majority of the "mojo" between the two groups after the split and (again my own personal opinion) I've never really thought Golden Girl has had a snowball's chance in hell compared to MWM. I know it's a bit taboo around here to speak ill of the various successor projects but since I don't technically work for MWM I tend to feel a little more free to express my own thoughts on the matter.
For what it's worth I suppose I do wish Heroes & Villains well enough. I simply don't see that effort coming to a meanful conclusion.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think I heard of some of that, I had just been thinking it was CoT and SoH. I totally forgot H&V existed.
The last thing posted for H&V is talking about having AI teammates possible so solo players can enjoy team focused content.
This is something I've only seen in really old MMOs on life support such as everquest (which is still around and making money somehow). Usually games want to encourage players to play with each other as the social aspect is a big draw to the game. From a monetary standpoint, having people encourage their friends to play and keep playing is an obvious goal.
While I don't mind soloing, I think the CoX approach of having content scale to the number of players in a group is a great way to do it rather than forcing you to have X players on a team and filling that in with bots.
Some games need a set amount of players, especially more traditional pvp focused games (solo checkers?) so filling those in with bots makes sense.
SWTOR's NPC companion system makes it really easy to solo all but the raid-type stuff. Even down to the variety you get in your set of companions, so you can bring along the class of NPC to balance your character's weaknesses. I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing for the game in general.
If anyone remembers otherwise please correct me, but I think I recall MWM saying that most (all?) content will be playable by any number of players, and that a solo player won't be arbitrarily locked out of even task-force-like content -- though that doesn't mean it will be easy.
Spurn all ye kindle.
This is pretty much it here. We tried to work together, but GG's vision and ours were far too divergent and rather than work out the differences she decided to go her own way.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
That's probably for the best, honestly. I can tell you right now that more than a few of my friends and cohorts would not have supported MWM/CoT if GG was attached in any way, which was almost entirely based on their experiences with GG on the forums.
I'm not looking to start a "let's poo-poo on GG and the competition" non-sequitur, I'm just stating an observation on my part.
Ran into a Reddit thread just the other day with someone shitting on CoT by saying its as likely to be released as "that science based dragon MMO."
I disagreed and put in some concrete info so hopefully the /r/MMO crowd didn't read only one side, which was just one guy's opinion really. I hope people don't lump CoT in with some of the directionless and ill-fated games in development just based on the amount of time being spent on making it. Generally people who play games don't understand how long it takes and they just go based on their own assumptions of game development. /rant
20041004-20120910
There's not really much point in trying to "counter" people like that because either that person will be right or wrong eventually.
Of course everyone on this forum will probably want to assume that Reddit guy will eventually be proven wrong but either way it'll be the [b]release of CoT[/b] that will be the judge of the matter, not how much you try to "defend" the game one way of the other. The irony of course is that once CoT is finally released it'll be people like that Reddit guy who'll end up being avid players of the game. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I just want to play a mastermind again in a game that doesn't punish people for having friends that play different amounts of time or friends that want to play a particular archetype.
We all love CoX for different reasons but it just did so many things well. Always room for improvement, sure, but it did that too over time.
This... and also it did so many things *differently* from most other MMOs. Honestly, Superheroes aren't really even my favorite genre. My love of CoH was in the environment -- the whole gameplay experience.
I've played a number of other MMOs, and almost always I'd run up against some "standard" MMO feature(s) that would just drive me NUTS. I'd keep finding myself asking, "why can't they do this more like CoH did it?"
As Lothic mentioned above, there really isn't anything yet to counter people's skepticism about the game. This may not be true to the devs who can see everything behind the scenes right now, but to all of us we haven't really been shown anything to indicate how the game will actually be....lot's of 'plans' on what they [i]want[/i] done but until we can play it who knows. Aesthetic decoupling is one of the big factors keeping me here over CoT's competitors but if it is just completely botched that will be a deal breaker. If that isn't done right it could be just a terrible experience. I mean, CoT's scope is so much larger than the other games that there is a higher standard of expectations that need to be met. In the end, it'll be pretty easy to compare once they're all launched and 'going'
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
This thread touches on many points I've made repeatedly in the past. It is unfortunate that people are overly critical of games before they are even finished, however, the skepticism that people have here is warranted I think. Especially when a player like SoH comes onto the scene, using the same technology, with a fraction of the money and in a fraction of the time, and starts putting out videos like the ones they've been putting out. I am not super thrilled with SoH, just based on the hokeyness of their lore and some artificial limitations they are putting on player background stories, due purely to the setting, plus a subscription based beta is a non-starter for me, but I am extremely impressed with how far they have come, and how polished it looks, given how recent they are on the scene, and the fact that they had to abandon their kickstarter.
I am definitely beating a dead horse here, but if MWM started replicating their format of putting out semi regular produced and narrated videos of the current state of the game, or hell, even just some more in depth screen shots of the city and hero powers in action, I guarantee it would go miles to dispel the air of skepticism around the game currently. Yes there will still be haters and skeptics, even when people can play the game for themselves, but especially with their aspirations for bringing in more funds in the near future, something has to change in their current marketing and publicity strategy if they are serious about gaining support. I hope this is something they are thinking seriously about, and not just sticking to their guns of "well, our haphazard update strategy has worked this far, so let's just hope for the best". That strategy may have worked to a certain extent, but it's efficacy is reaching the end of it's lifespan.
Kid Rad has a point. Doubly so if there really is going to be a release soon and massively so if an attempt to bring in more money is made. If you are ready to go somewhere you have to warm up the hype train.
Well, there's a big update in the works right now. It was supposed to be out a while ago, but got pushed back twice - first for a feminine point of view (whatever that means) and then later due to hardware issues. If the update lines up with what i'm expecting, though, it'll be a great way to dispel skepticism
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
I doubt it'll be anything different than what we've seen, they haven't talked it up at all. My guess is some video of the chargen making a male/female char and use the pieces they've posted on their Instagram. We've seen them use the chargen but this will be just a little more eith maybe an updated UI. I hope I'm wrong and it's a lot more than that but I doubt it.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
It should at least show off a few things we haven't seen before. i've been talking with CharlesLogan on discord (one of the main devs working on the costume creator) and mentioned a few things we haven't seen directly to Dr. Tyche. If all goes well, this should be an update showing off the real power of the CC. And if we have that, well, a good costume maker is generally worth the price of a full game. I've got several friends that explicitly want to get CoT for no other reason than the CC itself, so they can make all their OCs in a stylish system.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
More over, the CC will be the first part of the game released...so it would be logical to have a shiny update on it :)
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A character creator is well and good, and if they have something to show, they should show it to the fullest extent. However, that is not enough. They need to show actual gameplay as well. Characters running around in a city, fighting bad guys. They had that at some point, as previous updates have shown, but for whatever reason it's been quite a long time since we've seen anything in that realm. People aren't going to obsessively comb previous updates or find unknown YouTube channels of one of the devs to see these things, MWM needs to make regular updates showing them off.
SoH has done many video interviews where they just did tours of their first zone. I would even be up just for that. A quick creating a character and then walking around the start zone.
While Kid Rad has a point I feel there are significant difference between how MWM and HGC (Heroic Games Corporation, devs of SoH) have approached their respective games.
It seems to me that HGC has come at it primarily from marketing PoV while MWM has a "tech" PoV. By this I mean that HGC has made lots of shiny and marketable work but not so much on the underlying tech while MWM is the opposite. Not only is this rooted in upper management's focus and/or mentality but the differences also comes from what was available when they started.
MWM started with UE3 and went to UE4 about a year iirc before UE4's official launch so they had no third-party tools, libraries, assets, and such to choose from and thus had to build all of those by themselves so a lot of dev-time was spent there. yes, once UE4 was officially launched others could start to make sellable stuff for UE4's marketplace but it still took time for it be "sufficiently" populated. Yes MWM has picked up a few third-party tools now, and some of their existing tools would probably never been made by someone else in time.
On the other hand when, as far as I can tell, HGC started with SoH the UE4 marketplace had a fair amount of stuff in it so they could pick up a number of items there to significantly reduce their dev-time, add in that HGC is also a fulltime studio and afaik they can throw resources on it that MWM currently can't hope to match.
From the shiny/aesthetics aspect SoH is certainly in front of CoT but from the tech aspect it, at least to me, looks to be far behind of CoT. Not only can't I see anything concrete about launching with control sets at all (yes CC effects will be in but no definitive word on CC sets/AT's) but I can't remember if they have introduced more than 5 sets total (2 ranged, 1 each for rest of AT's). There are also hardly any posts that detail the underlying tech or capabilities that I could find.
Contrast that with CoT while being short on visual representation have a large amount of technical and capabilities posts which gives a good view on what we can expect out of it mechanically speaking.
Maybe I am in the minority but I prefer to know mechanics over having lots of shinies to look at, and while shinies are important they aren't as important as solid mechanics. I will have more confidence in a game that shows they are thinking about longevity and potentials for future feature/mechanics additions and/or changes.
I think you hit it on the head with that. I'm not saying either approach is wrong, but I respond better to a bottom-up technical pov myself, which is one of the reasons I'm here and not over there.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I'm happy to be a part of that minority, if it is indeed a minority. It's not as though marketing videos are going to get the game launched any sooner. We'll see the spiffy videos on MWM's schedule, not on anyone else's.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Those videos were all testing some not using any of our own assets. Some using some of our building asssets to test building creation along with scale to character.
We have resolved to not show anything in an official release that does not use all of our own assets.
The CC is a separate system from the animation system for aesthetic decoupling which are both separate from the combat engine. All of those are separate from the world map project. And so on.
You won’t see everything in one vid until everything is ready to be shown to its full extent.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
It's just another side to a multi-faced dice. Mechanics can obviously make or break a game...but equally so can visuals make or break a game. The visuals draw you into the game, IMO, as much as mechanics do. So, while visuals aren't [i]more[/i] important that mechanics they need to give it just as much love. Especially at this point where the majority are going to want to try this game, that don't already know about it, from seeing visual updates and videos of gameplay.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Which means at least 5 shiny updates :) One per system ^^
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I for one applaud that decision.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Sure, the visuals and videos showing them are important, as is showing them at the correct time. It's not as though having the videos will change the graphics quality and aesthetic.
Anyway, since we have the official word from Tannim we can put this to bed.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
When is the correct time for you? If the majority of fans are right that the 2nd Chance will be released with the Chargen, and the devs are still saying a Fall 2018 release, then I would imagine getting some pretty cool videos before the release to build hype. That's just logical. And all Tannim said is that we won't get anymore gameplay videos until everything is done to it's full extent. We have no timeline for that, no 'maybe by this date', nothing.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
I should clarify:
By our own assets may include packages purchased from the market place store that we repurpose for CoT. We won’t be showing official videos featuring anything done in one of our devs’ personal test environments. Sometimes we shoenthise to backers because we want to share something fun or show some sausage in progress.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Me too, it is interesting to hear about these projects from the CoX successor historians. I came into this pretty late. When I arrived, VO was the only game I knew. I think CoT was actually the 2nd game I heard about.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Same. Anyone can crank out a video that shows "progress" using canned assets. As with my tabletop, I prefer the home-grown goods.
People seem to be glossing over the point that was made earlier, that if there is going to be a release of some kind soon that implies there is something worth showing off. If that is true, showing it off a bit and bringing attention to the project is important. Not doing building the necessary hype and attention means that such a release won't make as much of a splash, which is important to bring in money. Showing off a well made product also shows conviction from the devs, that they believe in the strength of their work and are not worried to let it stand in the light for all to see.
Opposite strategies are often used when there is fear that seeing a weak product will harm financial potential. In this case, MWM already has all the money from the kickstarter, they aren't trying to trick people into preordering anymore. Anyone they are trying to get more money from now is going to want something shiny and exciting. Those that were willing to fork over cash on pure faith have already done so.
It doesn't matter whether MWM is unwilling to show something precanned or homemade, that isn't really the point. The point is if there is going to be a release MWM needs to get people excited. People are naturally worried of silence.
The issue the OP describes is valid (roughly paraphrasing... people have some justification to moan, but there is reason for optimism too), but it goes in the other direction too. Just like some people get pissed off/annoyed by the naysayers and cynics, some get annoyed at those who seem determined to not acknowledge the causes for cynicism (which are real too).
Both sides are valid, but which is healthiest for a forum? Which is the easiest to silence and which is the most toxic to a healthy mix of opinions?
Given human nature being what it is, which side do you think is the easiest for a moderator to side with? The naysayers? Or the supporters? I'd say its the supporters. (Both can be toxic trolls by the way, hence this point).
Moderators, like most of us (me included), are also wanting to see the game be born, otherwise why the motivation to spend the hours they do policing and supporting here? Its only natural that they feel more empathy for a supporter than a naysayer. And given that natural bias, the supporters generally have an easier time expressing "amazeballs" and "here's a cookie for the devs" type thinking, which to be honest, often makes me cringe.
Its a rare moderator that is aware of the dynamic where a single constructive sincere criticism is shouted down and silenced by those who feel a need to defend the devs against any attack, and steps forward to point out that someone having criticism doesn't take space away from those who love everything the devs do. They do exist though. I've seen them in action, and they deserve respect.
Criticism, to be taken seriously, should be grounded on reasoning and credible opinion. That's only fair. But... how often do we apply the same criteria to praise? More often than not, we don't. And many of those with valid criticisms just keep quiet because its just not worth it, and silently leave. Amazingly, I've seen it said on a forum by a someone when a certain game was dying that he blamed all those who left without passing on the reasons why... Really, you cant win either way.
So if we don't want to end up being an echo chamber of "amazeballs" and "have a cookie devs!", lets bear in mind that good criticism is valuable to the health of forum (and if used as a conduit between players and devs, the game too!), and is often the side of the forum that's hardest to nurture well.
Well that explains a lot. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I respect your desire to not take credit for work you didn't do, or to not give an impression of your game that is not representative of how it will be on release. On the other, it seems like that decision is coming back to bite you, as is evidence by the title of this thread. Furthermore, your competitors in this space are not adhering to this principle at all, opting instead to build the bones of the game with placeholder material and filling it out with their own original material as they are able. As a game in development, especially one from an indie studio, I think this approach is perfectly reasonable, and I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you showed footage now that looks drastically different from what we will see in the final product. Especially if it's clear that you're showcasing a particular aspect. Like to show off capes, you could have the character in an actual level running around doing some moves, to show how the cape moves. Even if the level and moves are not your assets, or going to be in the final game, I think it is fine, as long as it is clear that the intent of video is to show off capes. This could easily apply to showing off any aspect of the game, showing off powers on villains that are not your own, showing off levels with npcs/cars/textures that are not your own, etc. It's all good.
However, it does lead one to ask, if not all of these parts are done, then which parts are done and which parts aren't? How far along are you on the unfinished parts? Without any videos or updates talking about these things, we are all left in the dark guessing and hoping that you are maybe hopefully plugging along. However, that is not enough for me to back you financially in the near future. If you can give some indication of where things are, either through written updates, or through images/videos, then I think myself and others would be less skeptical. Going on blind faith is not for everyone. Thus why using placeholders is not such a bad idea. Then at least you can give a reasonable idea of where things are in the development, without having to have everything be completely perfect and finished before you can show it off.
This also plays into what theinternetjanitor said, that it is easy to assume the worst about those who refuse to show their work. If you are planning to raise funds, you need to build back hype, and in order to build back hype, you need to prove that your first round of funds has been well spent. I don't think a character creator, no matter how good, will be enough to prove that on its own.
On the subject of shinies vs mechanics, I think having a functional city to run around in, jump from roof top to roof top, zoom through the streets past pedestrians, etc, is a pretty critical part of mechanics of the game. Yes, the unseen is critical as well, such as your alignment, how your characters stats affect gameplay, etc, but at the end of the day if you don't have a city full of NPCs to use those mechanics in, what good are they? So to me, what is being called "shinies" here by some are actually just as important as those things being called "mechanics".
I'll also just mention, (as I belatedly noticed that captrench essentially just did, much more eloquently) that although it may seem as though I am being a bit harsh or overly critical, it is with the best intentions. I want the game to succeed. I want you to raise a ton of money for your second round of fundraising, and to take it home to the finish line strong. I am simply letting you know some of the reservations I have as a fan and potential financial backer. I'm certain I'm not the only one who has these same concerns, outside the bubble of the diehards who have been here since the beginning (no disrepect to them, but you are already sold on the vision and are willing to patiently wait for it to come to fruition, however long it may take). Just something to consider.
The points, both positive and negative, that you brought up are all reasonable and many fans have the same criteria for donating during the 2nd chance. I personally think the devs will deliver what we require to donate for the 2nd chance...I just don't think it's anytime soon. The lack of pic/videos is my evidence for that. I think they know they need to build hype leading up to that and not release everything at once with the 2nd Chance.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
@ Kid Rad being critical is fine. At times even necessary.
Regarding your suggestion to show off stuff not using our assets Brig ok with you - that’s understandable.
It is something we have done for backers in certain threads but not something we are doing with any official releases. This was a deliberate decision on our part. We had previously released “grey box” footage of work in progress and we spent more time straightening up misconceptions and explaining what was (and wasn’t) being shown.
We aren’t going to react and change course in how we operate based on what another company may or may not be doing. We stand by our decisions on this.
You have Tony deretsnd, not only are we a indie studio - we are one of unpaid volunteers putting extra time from regular work. Other studios are paying employees and run more traditionally than we do. Some of the modular projects we have are being worked on by people who don’t stream or record their work.
It would take more time to have them package their current work - explain what it is, what is working and not working for someone else to record, edit, and provide explainations.
Instead we let the modular project devs do their work and when something is complete enough we will make a video.
Case in point our 4th of July teaser. It used all in-game assets and real time footage. The character in hat video was made using the actual character creator (which has since been improved upon).
We are just as eager to get everything working and showing off so much more as much as anyone else. Just as we are equally eager to have a complete game and play along side of everyone else in it.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
As Tannim wrote, they're not going to show game play footage until it all comes together. Which is also, basically, their yardstick for the Second Change fundraiser. Thus I don't anticipate any such videos until they're quite close to also being ready for the Second Chance. The more pertinent question, to me, would be when exactly the Second Chance is scheduled to happen. I'd expect that doing it right as North America is going into the Halloween - Thanksgiving - Christmas season would be unwise, since that's when people are least likely to have any extra disposable income. And it's not like the devs don't have lives, so they're probably not looking to babysit a fundraising event at that time of year, either. So, assuming they don't do the fundraiser during North America's busiest holiday season, we'll have three or four months of "hype" before the Second Chance.
In closing,
[img]https://qt.azureedge.net/resources/quotes-images-large/i-love-deadlines-i-like-the-whooshing-sound-they-make-as-they-fly-by-6205abc69f7e075eaf41d63d77540f58.jpg[/img]
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
any idea if there will be a release this wednesday?
Maybe Thursday, that's the normal day they release updates. I hope the 4 week delay was long enough to get the female version of whatever they made. I would have expected them to mention this release in the updated banner or on the hardware problem forum but they didn't which leads me to think they wont release it this week. Which sucks because this weak would have technically been a whole new big major update had there been no technical issues or delay in this postponed release.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
One thing we need to remember is every minute spent creating a shiny video is a minute that's not spent on getting the game ready to play. (Sometimes more, based on Tannim's point about how some updates require even more time explaining them.) Asking for more videos and also for a release date that's soon (not soon[sup]tm[/sup]) is a direct contradiction.
Also, although MWM has come up with a good application for any funds they raise during the Second Chance, remember it was never a case of MWM coming to us saying they needed more money, but rather folks in the community who missed the Kickstarter asking how they can contribute (hence the reason it's referred to as a Second Chance). It just speaks to the integrity of MWM that they are holding off eager backers until they have something material to give us.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I think most fans would be ok with a minute for minute ratio. The dev team losing a few hours to create a video to keep up faith in the community is not a bad trade-off, especially when we arent expecting a big shiny video for every big release. There is a big difference between having blind faith in the devs and just believing it will be a phenomenal game without ever asking for 'proof' and asking for more 'filling' updates in appropriate intervals, especially if you are debating giving them money with no promise of a payoff. Talk is mostly cheap.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
That depends on what "talk" you are referring to. If you mean the style of the current CoT updates then personally I would say they are better than videos since they convey more info in a better way than videos could do without spending too much time on them.
If you mean "talk" in general then it's not that much better than just putting out "shinies"-videos imo. Sure they need to put some effort into getting it to "work" but a lot can be scripted to perform in a specific way. Though I do recognize that other people are convinced more by what they directly see (rather than read) I think too many people do so to a fault in that that they never think critically about what is presented.
You guys keep referring to substantive videos as "shinies". As I said above, a complete video showing a functional game is not a shiny, it's proof of concept. I presume you say this as a dig at SoH, but the reality is, they have a functioning game, and they are happy to show it off. If MWM had a functioning game, I think they would br happy to show it off as well, but as tannim said, they don't show stuff they didn't build themselves. Which basically says that they don't have a game yet. This basically legitimizes any skepticism that exists in the community. It's fine that you and others are blindly faithful that there will be a game eventually, but until I see that there actually is, I'm gonna have to continue to be skeptical. Seeing is believing.
Edited to say: On the other end of the spectrum, you have the approach of VO, who also do not have a game, but made it available anyway. This approach earned my support for a bit, but when they stopped updating anything, it kind of backfired on them. My point being, I think there's a middle ground between barely releasing anything, and releasing everything. SoH is residing in that middle ground nicely, with CoT and VO residing opposite ends of that spectrum. Thus why SoH has so much hype around it right now. It's something I think CoT and VO could learn from.
And again, just to reiterate, it's not shinies I'm asking for, it's proof of concept.
I think you are going to far here. People age not blind, they just hope. And there Will be a game of course. Do you really think MWM Will not release a game while they raised about 650 000$ ? That's not being skeptic , it just a bullshit (sorry i dont have the correct Word i wanted)
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The fact that they raised this much money for the game, and are still just showing teasers 5 years on, is what has me skeptical. I'm not saying that they won't have a game, just that it's taking a hell of a long time, based on the progress they've shown. I may be old and gray before I get to play it. If I wanted that, I would go play Star citizen. If there is indeed progress, then they should show it off. If you're ok with hanging on to the idea without substantial progress in the central game mechanics being shown, I'm not sure what else to call that but blind faith. It's no dig against you, you do you, but I need more to become a believer.
The real joke is that even star citizen, long laughed at as the scam of scams when it comes to video game kickstarters, is actually fully playable right now. They don't have all the features or content complete yet, largely because they have continually pushed their goals back to include bigger and more stuff. You can absolutely walk around space stations and planets, fly around in ships, blow stuff up, load up cargo, talk to npcs, do all those basics of gameplay. It also looks incredible and has amazing voice actors as a bonus.
I want CoT to be in my hands and impressive as much as anyone but pointing to SC as an example of a scam or failure compared to CoT is extremely laughable. SC can and does show off everything it has done, constantly. They also use that flaunting of success to bring in more attention and money, allowing them to further build their team and product, which allows them to make even more impressive stuff.
To put it in concrete terms, if CoT had successfully followed a similar strategy we'd all have been playing an alpha for a few years by now, with tons of examples of what devs are working on coming out all the time, encouraging feedback from players.
How is that not what everyone else on the forums wants? CoT could learn a lot from SC.
Of course SC has raised somewhere in the neighborhood of [b]250x[/b] the amount of money ($150 million as of about a year ago) MWM has raised for CoT. Having that much money to work with is probably the only thing MWM would really need to "learn" from the folks at SC. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
It's a very valid point. I just used SC because it's an easy example that everyone gets, not because the criticism of them is necessarily legitimate.
I've had the "where'd all the money go" conversation around here before, so I won't start it again, but I would think that a game of this scale (small) with the features they are planning would be pretty easy and straight forward to make with half a million dollars. Maybe I am overly optimistic on how games are developed. We can get into the woulda coulda shouldas, but it is what it is. I just hope they take what we're saying to heart and will have more to show in the near future.
It is a bit of a catch 22 though. They don't have time to work on nicely produced videos, since they're a part time volunteer team. Yet, they need to raise money, which will require some nicely produced videos. If they raised money, they could be less part time and less volunteer, and focus some time on nicely produced videos. But they can't do that yet because they don't have the nicely produced videos to do it....and round and round we go.
Also, yes, I'm aware SC has a ton more money than CoT. They didn't start out that way though. The vast majority of their money was made after the kickstarter. Instead of turtling up and trying to make a game with zero costs, they drummed up hype and kept bringing in money. There was definitely a dry spell where they didn't have much to show outside of concepts and were taking people's money, but they successfully came out the other side of that and have been delivering content.
Doing a "second chance" kickstarter after producing something to show off is not fundamentally different from SC's strategy in terms of basic concept. Vastly less effective overall (unless they manage to raise something like 200 million from second chance), but fundamentally the same idea.
There isn't a great reason CoT has to function purely as an unpaid volunteer project. Investing in quality marketing means a return on investment, and that money can be used to make a better game. It also means the devs get to eat food and pay bills and not have a server running out of a mid tower in someone's basement full of spiders.
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