One of the posters from the Lore thread got me thinking.
When playing CoH, or any number of other games, there are numerous times one is hammering through mission arcs and skipping dialogue, missing some scenes, etc. Reading a wall of text or boxes of text from the NPC mission givers is a bit dull after the fact and somewhat removes the player from the explicit narrative - think of the wall of text that were the Knives of Artemis mission arcs or the task forces.
A nice option would be to take a character's activity from an arc and drop it into a webcomic - sort of like the snapshot at the end of the roller coaster.
For instance - playing through a given task force's set of missions, perhaps with friends/supergroup, and the relevant set piece dialogues and characters are placed into a comic panels with the player's toon incorporated as the protagonist with whom the set piece NPCs are interacting with the dialogue put into dialogue bubbles. These images could be lifted straight from periodic screencaps during the course of the arc, including the battles, or be mostly pre-rendered with the player's toon dropped into the generic 'hero goes here' spot - the result is a proper comic. If the player wants to print them, he/she can micro-pay for the option of a downloadable pdf or something (just spitballing here!)
Each play through with each different toon is going to be slightly different, this would be a great way to retain some of those memories in a format well-suited to helping expand the lore of the game, help differentiate MWM/CoT in the market, and help the players keep such memories front and center as time passes.
I like this idea. It really reinforces the comic book theme.
I even don't mind the MTX option, except I would suggest it being a one-time-only purchase and from then on you could have the prompt for a web-comic saved to your game account afterwards (where you could download it at any time). Maybe the cost of the MTX could pay for the back-end storage for your then-enhanced account.
The more I think about this idea, the more I really, really like it. The reason being that when I first started playing CoH, since it was my first real MMO, I had no idea what I was doing. One of those things I didn't really know about was screenshots. I would have liked to have known about them so that I could document all my firsts in the game. This would at least offer a kind of second chance to save some memorabilia of one's accomplishments and progress.
An interesting idea for maybe a post-launch update.
Fun story: Years ago a bunch of us drove over to Disney World for the day and among other things managed to "ruin" one of those end-of-ride group snapshots by collectively flipping off the camera as we flew by. The Mickey Gestapo instantly grabbed us as we got off the ride and threatened to kick us out of the park if they caught us doing it again. They take fleecing the out-of-state rubes of their hard-earned money very seriously considering they were charging something like $15 for those silly pics. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
guess you should stick with busch gardens where that sort of activity is not only not frowned upon but actively encouraged ; )
yes, exactly
Great idea! Of course I have no idea of the level of effort involved to implement... but great idea nonetheless.
Early on our Lead Lore dev requested we include a character journal to catch all the mission text and dialogue so players can go back over and read it at their leisure. Making it look like a comic is possible, but would require a lot more work to get working over a simple UI based system you can access any time.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I sure that something effectively the same has been suggested for loading/opening (or was it ending) screens for TF's so a lot discussion about this concept has already been had.
Even though it would be very cool to have I fear that the rendition options will be way too restrictive to properly convey the character in a satisfactory way in regards to the players intended way to depict it. It could be something as simple a speech pattern (stutter, lisp, accent or something more "alien") that makes it different enough to not be worth using.
This could be overcome without a lot of hand waving...unless you have other examples. Make it a newspaper type account with web comic action photos where the character is never directly quoted to the degree where speech pattern is apparent. [edit add: another side benefit is the excuse that the newspaper didn't depict the character in the way he or she wanted... happens all the time :) ]
I was afraid of the visual comic style technical part however.
I feel like this would be a good community goal. An artist could take the root shots from an arc and then photoshop in the players character. I think they've stated that a player could save the costumes as a file that could then be shared. So you'd have to share your costume design with the artist and they could then grab the appropriate poses and angles for the comic panels. It would take a substantial amount of work. Automating that work could be done easier by the dev team but still requires a lot of work to generate something of the quality expected.
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Somewhere between the whole comic book and the newspaper option:
After you complete an arc you get a comic book "cover" or maybe a "splash page"(To avoid changing the title) Your character is rendered in a pre-set pose (perhaps based on archetype) against a pre-drawn background in combat with the villain. Maybe you get a small (140 characters?) to fill in a custom dialog bubble. At the end of the arc you can see a preview of the pic and have the option of down loading a higher res version (better than screen capture) for some IGC? STARS? Buck-fitty at the cash store?
It would be good if you could make it a cover and let the player fill in the title by typing it in a dialog box (with a character limit) and then choosing a font to render it in from among a set of fonts.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Th OP's got a good idea and I don't think it would be overly difficult to implement. It's not all that different than including an in engine cut scene other than being easier to do.
And not every quest needs this kind of short comic treatment, just certain special ones.
I'd love that, too. But the graphic designer and comic fan in me imagines how tacky that would probably end up looking. I mean, we can't all have our own logo-type names like a real comic would. And what if your name exceeds the character limit? I dunno. Without some intense programming to make this look good I think it would fall so much short of what you're trying to simulate that it would actually turn people off.
There are examples of comics where the main character's name is not the title of the comic. Action Comics, Strange Tales, etc. Also, nobody's buying a comic called "SpliffyMAN69_420BLAZEITXX0RZ!!!" anyway.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Okay, by now you know that if I hear a creative idea, I won't rest until I think of an implementation suggestion. So I got one on this.
Take a look at this video:
[youtube]3SPDMsnS22c[/youtube]
(Edit: the first link I included wasn't working in this forum for some reason, so I had to link to another video, which is just as good of a demonstration as the original link)
It was made with the Miku Miku Dance (MMD) application which has a large support base, apparently. But regardless of the application, it is the visual effects that find most intriguing for this subject. The ones that turn a 3D rendering into what looks like a 2D sketch, complete with faux coloring pen marks.
What I have in mind is not anything the developers would work on, but rather an aftermarket 3rd party service to make any adventure into a comic. And with the visual capabilities showcased in that video, the comic could actually be a moving or animated story, it wouldn't have to be static. But if you wanted a hard-copy, or a .pdf downloadable copy, then I suppose it would have to be static.
So, some 3rd party offerer would have a selection of missions pre-coreographed. Then you as the character/customer, would select the mission, send the alphanumeric text string that is your character's aesthetic file to the business, which then inserts your character into the screenplay. I would expect that there would be some other things the business would want from you, such as your character's name, and if there are decision trees in the mission, which choices your character makes. And maybe some other blanks to fill in like a Mad-Libs to give it a more personalized feel.
I don't see why the in-game mission architect couldn't be used to generate the scenes. But I think the offerer would probably need to get some sort of license and NDA from MWM to access the engine, even if it is on the client side, to manipulate how it is rendered. Or is this really just the realm of the mod community anyway?
So then the business crunches the visuals, applies the effects and a day later sends you the .pdf version of your own personalized webcomic, with hard-copy option available with free 3-5 day ground shipping.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
i like the idea of having a 3rd party licensed by MWM offer this service. Using that model, reduces the time and effort required of MWM after the initial work and offers an interested 3rd party a vehicle to showcase their work/build their skills/make a tiny bit of money from a repeatable process.
I remember something like this came up before. A splash page for loading screens where you see your character in comic book image taking down the bad guys/good guys.
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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
Oh, much better idea. Then you could have a cool title logo of , say "Tales from Titan City" featuring [HeroName01] in a more generic (but still cool) font.
I still like the idea of being able to type in a short comment that appears in a dialog bubble, though.
+1 to the Lead Lore dev
I so wanted this in COH. In a group I don't want to take everyone's time to read it all, but later I want to review everything. As a completionist I want to gather every mission.
"THE TITANS ARE COMING! THE TITANS ARE COMING!"
Personally I'd prefer in engine cut scenes that can be reviewed later for important or big missions and leave the log for minor missions.
As for the OP's suggestion. I still think a splash page that features your character during load screens would be welcome. It's not that different than what CoH or almost any MMO does with load screens except now your character has been put into the picture. As players we don't get to see our characters from other angles that often when playing.
This is pretty easy for devs to do as well. They make a template, set where a character and foes model would go, include an appropriate background, put a characters superhero symbol, if any, with the characters name in the title and boom done.
[img=200x150]http://scoop.previewsworld.com/Image/NewsImage/4/134468/492524/2[/img]
or
[img=200x150]http://st2.depositphotos.com/3263277/6895/v/450/depositphotos_68954241-stock-illustration-comic-book-page-template-with.jpg[/img]
To make it more interesting and fitting there can be multiple templates based on characters class. The devs could also include a mid animation shot of a character using one of their powers now and then or have a word bubble with a characters battle cry.
There really isn't a need to hire an outside source to create pages or make a completely customized system for this. It doesn't have to be that complicated.