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It looks like we can give everyone a list of minimum specs for running City of Titans. Please keep in mind that this is 'for now' until we are able to add more graphics and other system refinements. Currently you will need :
Windows 10 or later required; no Intel integrated graphics like UHD, must have AMD or NVIDIA card or discrete chipset with 4Gb or more of VRAM
At least 16GB of main DRAM.
These stats may change as we continue to test.
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CoH had to build everything from scratch and was funded mainly through one of Cryptic's founders winning a few million in the lottery.
We are modifying an off-the-shelf engine and licensing some material to speed things up and reduce the cost. I'd still say we're not to Cryptic's level.
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
Clearly the "road to launch" is/will be different for CoT than it was for CoH. I guess the real question is will the "Kickstarter paradigm" be enough to succeed in place of traditional financing. I assume NcSoft/Cryptic (back 10 or 12 years ago) managed to secure traditional business loans and the like. Of course they also had to deal with the major overhead of having to produce a bunch of physical retail boxes and the DVDs to go in them not to mention having to make enough profits for the "corporate beast" that was supporting them. MWM doesn't have those things to worry about now.
I suppose time will tell if the software technology of 2014-15 (which will supposedly make creating a game like CoT much easier than it would have been back in 2002-4) coupled with Kickstarter styled crowdsourcing will be enough.
P.S. I never knew one of Cryptic's founders used lottery winnings to bankroll their efforts. Learn something new every day I suppose...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the info. Is that lottery story true or facetious?
OK, so we should still be patient with you...while being completely impatient, of course. :-)
Spurn all ye kindle.
More good points, Lothic. Maybe the paradigm has moved on enough in the last 10 years that it's almost apples and oranges.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I heard it by talking to Statesman at PAX last year. So, if it is true or not, I do not know for certain. But it is one hell of a story.
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
Agree!
Spurn all ye kindle.
Tempering expectations is probably good advice, anyway. Not from a quality standpoint, but because of logging on to the forums every day thinking "Is it done yet?".
I can't really say for sure since I never heard of CoH before it was already released and a year old, so I didn't have any expectations. It probably helped that it was an original IP so it didn't have an established fan base already deciding how it should work.
My experience of games like STO and SWTOR was prejudiced by my familiarity of the subject matter even though how I thought it should work probably wouldn't lend itself to good gameplay. It also didn't help having a good long time (years in the case of STO) to champ at the bit waiting for it to be released.
Even though CoT is going to be all original material, it still has the ghost of CoH looming over it, and some will not be happy that whatever made CoH special for them isn't exactly the same, regardless of how much money or attention it was given in development.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Sorry. Again.
I seem to be having a harder time than usual staying on-topic.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Are you serious?!
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[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
I'm about 98% sure that what the devs have in mind will satisfy most people who loved CoX. That's just my personal belief.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Oh, I agree completely. I was thinking about the outliers. I guess I wasn't really clear as I was jumping in and out of the forum at work and replying a bit hastily.
I'm not even really sure where I was going with that train of thought, to be honest.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Yes, quite serious. We are not planning on a major alteration of Unreal's capabilities, exploiting the systems it has in place, hence why I say we are modifying it...
Oh, you meant the lotto thing. I cannot confirm it, but that is what I was told. It may be true,or not, I don't know. But Jack sure looked serious when recounting the story.
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
Good on both ends :p
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
Lol -- I think I know what you were going for. I believe the only folks who *may* be disappointed are the ones who want CoT to be extremely different from CoH. Not that CoT will be a blind copy, but I think the devs have a good sense of what "in the spirit of" means.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I've got a feeling that the people who want CoT to be CoH 2.0 will also be disappointed. I certainly would be disappointed if the game felt like I was playing CoH with updated graphics. My real peeve will be the people who will inevitably complain that CoT has less content at launch than CoH had after being live for eight years. (Grr. Grr, I say!)
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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!
I do think there's a silver lining here, though.
Game companies these days seem to generally go for "big blockbuster release" games, sinking tons of money into slash-and-burn attempts at big initial cash-grabs without serious intent to support and develop the game unless the game is wildly profitable to maintain. This doesn't usually lead to a long-term, well developed game. As I mentioned in another forum, it's like the music industry looking to manufacture and churn The Next Big Thing instead of supporting and sustaining genuinely talented artists.
But, if a game is started and planned to be continued and developed with moderate resources, then the long-term development should be sustainable without wild levels of commercial success, and any higher level of success will just be gravy. It can BUILD into a mature, amazing game rather than have to try to START as one. We can, in effect, get around the whole oft-attempted-and-failed fool's errand of trying to burst onto the scene with a fully developed game and instead grow it over time because it doesn't NEED virtually unattainable levels of success at launch, but instead can build to a crescendo over time.
And this whole thing about MWM taking the easier path of using U4's innate features is great, because a) that's already an amazing array of features that is way beyond what CoH had, and b) it will mean that ongoing development is sustainable on moderate levels of success, but if things grow and more resources are available, it doesn't preclude them from creating their own unique features later. And it avoids the whole "spaghetti code" problem that plagued CoH and plagues Champions.
I think it's actually KEY to CoT's success that it doesn't have to "rock the MMORPG world" at launch to survive. Though, of course, any and all attempts by them and us to market the launch and make it profitable should be taken.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Yeah, this. I think people sometimes forget how bare CoH was at launch.
-There were no capes
-There were no auras
-There was no PvP
-There were no Villains, much less morality missions or side switching
-You couldn't color any of your powers
-None of the Hazard zone story lines existed. The hazard zones consisted of big groups of enemies standing around.
-There were no inventions, no auction house
-There were no bases
-There were no wings
-All the task forces generally revolved around doing a themed series of normal missions (in Citadel's case, sometimes almost exactly the same mission...) followed by an archvillain fight without any special mechanics.
-No incarnates
I expect CoT at launch to compare favorably to CoH's launch state, largely due to more modern design principles and better technology. I don't know what tools Cryptic built to help generate content for CoH, but I can say that building good content creation tools tends to be time consuming and that Unreal 4 comes with some great ones. I have been extremely impressed with their level editor with the tinkering I have done with it so far.
Well said, Empyrean. We want tortoise instead of hare, right?
Spurn all ye kindle.
I agree completely. There will be significant changes in almost every aspect of the game. The fact that those changes are made by people who loved CoX means the changes won't be completely devoid of relation to CoX but there will be changes regardless.
As I said before...Atlas park is gone and its not going to come back with new paint.
For me it's like christmas I know what I wanted, I wrote the letters to santa. I Pointed begged and pleaded to my parents. At the end when I'm about to open that package I always hope it was something special something more than what I thought I wanted.
The same is here. I want CoH back, I know I can't have it, I know in my mind what I would like to see. That said I don't want CoH 2.0 I want something beyond what I hope. Still magical just in it's own way.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
I guess it depends what you think of as a 2.0. Normally, an increase in the main version number indicates a major update to one or more aspects of the software. If I leave aside the many wishes and suggestions on these forums and go by only what the devs have said, that's what CoT seems like to me: an upgrade of most systems as opposed to a replacement.
They've said combat will be pretty much the same, with the only new focus at the moment going towards console controller support. They've said "how can you improve upon perfēction?" re inspirations. Appearance will be divorced from ability -- and we'll have even more control over appearance than ever before. They've said there will be a similar sub/free/cash shop model. ATs will be more flexible, but there will still be power sets as opposed to completely freeform powers. Characters will be able to travel the spectrum of alignment, albeit in a more nuanced and less binary way. There will be a lot of instancing, though with some new twists. Although there will be a couple endgame options, they expect that for a lot of people endgame will mean creating a new character and starting over. [MWM, plz correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.]
That encompasses the majority of what I loved about CoX. Sure, the IP will be different, but the actual mechanics of the game sound to me as if CoT will be similar enough for me to look at it as a major upgrade. I don't want to call it CoX 2.0 due to copyright, as well as not wanting to make MWM feel tied down, but the term doesn't sound completely off-base to me either.
Spurn all ye kindle.
And, great as CoH IP was, I really like what I'm seeing from MWM. So far it looks like they are developing an IP that could rival CoH in classic feel and richness, but that may be a bit more... interesting.
Anthem and Rottweiler, for example, are classic yet somehow just a hair off-beat for classic comics at the same time. I think this is a plus.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Agreed. I'm really looking forward to a fresh set of NPCs, groups, metastory, etc.
Spurn all ye kindle.
It will not and cannot be a straight CoH 2.0, we don't own the lore, and as you can see from the archetype related bits of these forums, we are doing things somewhat differently.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
In the spirit of agreement with both of you:
1) CoH 2.0 wouldn't be the same game as CoH any more than Guild Wars 2 is the same game as Guild Wars. Yes the IP would be the same, but it would be a NEW game.
2) Just from what we've seen, CoT appears to be faithfully in the best spirit of CoH. Yes, it is its own IP and a totally different game in it's own right, but it's as much in the spirit as CoH 2.0 would likely be--and quite possibly much more, considering NCsoft would have controlled the development of CoH 2.0.
3) People will always, always, always find things to complain about. Once in a while even a good reason--but usually not.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
So true. I will never forget people complaining about patrol XP.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I've heard the "lottery" story before and I've heard that Michael Lewis sold his company to get the initial funding for the game (the success of this company might have been the figurative "won the lottery" ...or maybe the lottery winning preceded it).
I also recall anecdotes that by the time the initial funding (around $3 million) was burnt through, there wasn't much usable- it was a very trial-and-error process at the start for everyone. NCSoft provided what I was told "a little more than doubled the initial investment (so that'd be ~6+ million total) plus marketing,etc and that to get the game "through launch (including server farm investment, marketing, etc) took it into the Million-Teen range.
For people looking to compare elsewhere: Everquest 2's development & first year marketing exceeded $30 million and supposedly repurposed tech & techniques from SWG to meet that goal. WoW exceeded $60 million in development and most sources say another $60 m on first year development, expenses, and (mostly) marketing. Some say SWTOR broke the $100m-150m budget but developers on the project, while tight lipped on actual numbers, call that number highly inflated. They admit that it was over the "typical" EA budget of $30m, but that's it.
Lots can be done to reduce the initial costs. If you can find the art assets that meet your style, you can license libraries of trees, vehicles, entire urban landcapes, etc. IMHO, many MMO budgets are irrationally inflated in part because there's this weird "back of the napkin" calculation of "if we can hit WoW numbers,we'll make X, so Y is a reasonable investment...." When you get to the really large numbers,you start spending more for the same product, rather than paying more for a better one.
And the financing initially worried me about this game--and there will be struggles ahead--but I've come around to thinking of it as a potentially very strong positive. It forces efficiency that could lead to greatly enhanced sustainability for the game.
If the CoT is developed and run on a culture of frugality and ingenuity rather than throwing money at problems, then, while we hope it will be, the game won't HAVE to be a huge blockbuster--at launch or long-term--to survive.
This means there will be TIME. Time for the game to mature and grow--like Eve (though I know there are problems with that analogy)--into a truly great, long-term. MATURE game.
And it's the maturity that I miss most of all about CoH. It was such a bigger and better game right before they turned it off than it was at launch--and it was still growing.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Hey city of heroes, your daughter got a B+ on her coloring assignment. "Oh, well then, you must have a SMACK AND A SMACK AND A SMACK AND A SMACK AND HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU!" Ah, that's what I love about you, city of heroes. You don't ask for a lot, but... um... all right, you do ask for a lot.
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/hinata1032/Kitsune.jpg[/img]
Just have to give them time and see how things develop in future updates. Working on a limited budget sometimes is better because you watch every penny and don't spend on frivolous things, believe me I know I do accounting for non profit and watching funds is key
i know i was joke lol
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/hinata1032/Kitsune.jpg[/img]
joking on the internet ??!!! lies i tell you lies !!!
I think someone needs to go back in the naughty box!
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/hinata1032/Kitsune.jpg[/img]
only if i can wear a collar and tail while you yell bad boy at me....oh wait was that in broadcast ?!!
A comment from the Facebook page that I'd thought I'd share:
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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!
Holy cow! I get the feeling there's already been a LOT more work put into this by the dedicated volunteers at MWM than we realise.
Spurn all ye kindle.
And Doc T's stuff doesn't cover the probability fan of design decisions I've discussed, analyzed, and decided would be a _really_ bad idea.
Or the stuff we want to do but not for another two years.
Or the stuff we've discussed, decided is an awesome idea, and would never fit this game so we're saving it for later.
[color=#ff0000]Project Lead[/color]
I like category 2 best. I am so looking forward to the day when we reminisce over the early days of CoT and how we can't believe there was no x or y at launch yet we still loved it.
Spurn all ye kindle.
"We had to go six miles to school. Uphill. Both ways! [i]And we didn't even have flight![/i]"
Good times.
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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!
"Luxury!"
Spurn all ye kindle.
Sounds like the old days in The Hollows. :)
LOL... "Roight! When I was a child...."
-Wolf sends
I agree. In the last couple of years of CoH I noticed that, despite the Paragon devs outputting a trermendous amount of quality content, the game was getting close to a decade old and was starting to show it's age. In my head - I had a "what I would like to see in a CoH made today with hindsight" list. Now that CoH is dead and CoT is in development, I was delighted to find that the CoT devs seem to have had many of the same ideas - and that is why I gravitated to this game rather than the other "spiritual successors"- which seem to be more like the old game with the serial numbers filed off and an upgraded texture set. I wish the others luck - but I just see so much more potential in this game than the others.
That said - we should all be prepared for the inevitable forum posts such as; "how do I transfer my old characters?" or "where are my 50's/badges". We will just have to link them to the appropriate FAQ page I guess lol.
Oh - yeah - and this as well. CoH had nearly a decade of content under ii's belt - even If the rate we got that content was a bit erratic over the years.
There will be billowing clouds of stupidity, so the forums and game will need a good core of people who can take a deep breath, think clearly and see past their own personal preferences to the bigger picture to help talk down all of the "I didn't' get exactly what I would have done" tantrums. And I think we have that core.
And thank god they didn't get exactly what they would have done. For all of our sakes, and for theirs too.
PS- Wow, ok, I dashed that off and then re-read it later and didn't realize how harsh it sounded when I wrote it. Bitter much :P?
To say it a better way, I think the community here is coalescing into a good "voice of reason" for both the forums and for the game--which is something that I am very glad to see.
One of the main things that really gives me confidence is how well we disagree on these forums. In general, we have very productive and respectful disagreements. That is an excellent sign.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
[img]http://staciesmoretaxtips.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/sleazy_salesman.gif[/img]
Pst.. Hey Buddy! Come over here!
Yea You! I can get you what you want. You wanna transfer all your characters. Suuuuure, I know how to do that! >:)
Theres just a small fee i gotta ask for upfront. Interested? >;)