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Touchy Subject: Can we spell words on our costumes?

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Cyclops
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Touchy Subject: Can we spell words on our costumes?


https://www.deviantart.com/ginkgosan/art/Battle-663134996

I'm thinking like TCPD (Titan City Police Department). I'm aware of the potential for abuse with this. And I have no idea how expensive protective software will be to censor out the obvious (and there are ways around the censor programs).

But what if you want more than one letter on your hero?
I know in real life, ICE has "POLICE" on their bullet proof vests. Will allowing certain words like that be good to go? Say like an approved list of words.
Police
TCPD
Hero
Thug 1 (for Commander's Minions)

I'm not a programmer, I have no idea how to work out a cheap program to avoid abuse and allow player freedom.

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Well, there's a few ways to

Well, there's a few ways to go about this.

One way is having things like T.C.P.D. be an emblem and only have it so you as a player can only put up to two letters on any given costume thereby not allowing much/anything offensive to be written on costumes.

Or two is to just let players have at and then trust the community to report those that abuse the system.

Even if you had an approved list of words unless a character is limited to one word only on their costume they'd still be able to abuse it. Even with one word only they could abuse it by spelling things backwards, adding numbers instead of letters, spelling things intentionally wrong but still getting the gist of it through.

So the way I see it there are only a couple of ways to do this either make some complete words emblems and players can't have their own custom words, or open the flood gates and let the community police it.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Well, there's a few ways to go about this.

One way is having things like T.C.P.D. be an emblem and only have it so you as a player can only put up to two letters on any given costume thereby not allowing much/anything offensive to be written on costumes.

Or two is to just let players have at and then trust the community to report those that abuse the system.

Even if you had an approved list of words unless a character is limited to one word only on their costume they'd still be able to abuse it. Even with one word only they could abuse it by spelling things backwards, adding numbers instead of letters, spelling things intentionally wrong but still getting the gist of it through.

So the way I see it there are only a couple of ways to do this either make some complete words emblems and players can't have their own custom words, or open the flood gates and let the community police it.

That's not really how an approved list (more commonly called whitelist in IT) functions since only those things explicitly on the list are allowed, so unless they also added in a fuzzy match system it would never allow such changes. You seem to be thinking more of a blacklist (not-approved) where such changes are easy to do to circumvent the list.

As for the suggestion itself, I'd have to agree with PH in that if they use a whitelist then it's better to just do them as ready emblems rather than player typed words.

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Well we already know the Devs

Well we already know the Devs are likely to implement a "blacklist" (using blacke4dawn's term) for character names so that the game can avoid the most obvious profanity as well as people trying to give themselves to most obvious rip-off names like "Superman". But whether or not that same name check tech could be adapted to cover player created labels on their costumes is another question.

This issue is very closely related to the one that's come up several times on this forum as to whether players should be allowed to create their own logos/symbols for their costumes and that discussion usually devolves down to whether or not we want people running around with swastikas on their costumes. Unfortunately I think the problem with "naughty words" might be equally as bad.

Project_Hero wrote:

So the way I see it there are only a couple of ways to do this either make some complete words emblems and players can't have their own custom words, or open the flood gates and let the community police it.

I wish we could do the "honor system" here and just let people self-regulate themselves but I really don't see that being viable. Even if 95% of the playerbase behaves themselves it'd be that last 5% that would constantly have to be reported to the GMs and that would end up wasting a bunch of people's collective time.

The "safest" solution would be to just have the Devs produce a large collection of predesigned "word labels" that could be applied to characters. Another alternative that might be feasible is to have people be able to submit "suggestions" for words they want to use and then the Devs could vet those suggestions and decide whether to add them to the game or not. That might not be that hard to do and it could even be a "service" the Devs could charge a nominal fee for to make money.

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Kiyori Anoyui
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I completely agree with

I completely agree with Lothic, any chance of player freedom will always have someone pushing the boundaries. Even going by what Project Hero suggested about the two letters, all you need is an F and a U and you are already getting reports flying to the GM's.

There are so many different/easy ways that the Dev's can offer services like this that can make them a little extra money. It's a microtransaction but it's definitely not a "Need" thing. If someone wants something specific and are willing to pay for it, I say why not! And the thing that could make it feel worth it, is if you were the only one who had that item, not that you couldn't opt to allow everyone to use it, or possibly just a supergroup.

This would almost be like a Mini-Fashionista.
They could charge like:
$10 for a custom worded wearable badge
$15 for a custom emblem logo

Or something along those lines. It ends up with no touchy subject scenarios and extra income for the team.

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Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

I completely agree with Lothic, any chance of player freedom will always have someone pushing the boundaries. Even going by what Project Hero suggested about the two letters, all you need is an F and a U and you are already getting reports flying to the GM's.

Hey lay off, I wasn’t able to add the N at the end. :(

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why is this a touchy subject?

why is this a touchy subject? Just have the same rules for typing your heroes name for typing out your logo.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

why is this a touchy subject? Just have the same rules for typing your heroes name for typing out your logo.

That could work. Do we have any programmers? Is this feasible, or a lot of extra work the devs don't need right now?

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:
notears wrote:

why is this a touchy subject? Just have the same rules for typing your heroes name for typing out your logo.

That could work. Do we have any programmers? Is this feasible, or a lot of extra work the devs don't need right now?

Well obviously it would require -some- amount of extra work to allow for this and it's not instantly obvious they could use the exact same "filtering" they will use for character names. Clearly it's possible they could adapt the list they'll use to filter names to also filter "textual logos" but it'll likely take more work than just "cutting-n-pasting" the same chunk of code.

They'd also have to figure out how to apply/edit these "custom created" textual logos based on the number of characters they will allow, the fonts that might be possible and exactly where on the character's body's they would allow them.

None of this is impossible to do but also practically nothing like this would likely make it into the game before launch. *shrugs*

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Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

I completely agree with Lothic, any chance of player freedom will always have someone pushing the boundaries. Even going by what Project Hero suggested about the two letters, all you need is an F and a U and you are already getting reports flying to the GM's.

There's actually a character named Fu in Dragon Ball Xenoverse/Heroes

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

I completely agree with Lothic, any chance of player freedom will always have someone pushing the boundaries. Even going by what Project Hero suggested about the two letters, all you need is an F and a U and you are already getting reports flying to the GM's.

There's actually a character named Fu in Dragon Ball Xenoverse/Heroes

That's fine for all sorts of reasons:

1. It's Fu, not FU.
2. Fu is an accepted surname in China.
3. It's clear this character is not a "joke" character that's trying to take advantage of the negative connotation of the F.U. abbreviation.

If you really want to split hairs like this then you can see that any kind of attempt to "automate" a textual logo checker for this game is likely going to be relatively hard to accomplish.

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Not trying to split hairs,

Not trying to split hairs, just thought it was rather humourous. I mean he could have an article of clothing with his name in capital letters on it.

And yeah, I'm well aware any form of automated text checker would be difficult to implement. Not to mention it'd likely be full of holes that people will inevitably find.

Which is why I said it'd have to be either pre-made emblems of words, or left up to the community to police. Regardless of if/how it's done the devs will likely have to rely on some community policing as there'll always be something that slips through.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Which is why I said it'd have to be either pre-made emblems of words, or left up to the community to police. Regardless of if/how it's done the devs will likely have to rely on some community policing as there'll always be something that slips through.

Not if it's done by player submission as has been suggested. If the Devs allowed for that not only would they -not- have to bother to come up with millions of predesigned ones that may or may not end up being used but the submissions could be vetted before they are allowed into the game. Also by doing it that way the Devs could end up making some money as well. They would be in complete control of how many they add to the game so they would never become overwhelmed with submissions. And ultimately players could eventually get exactly what they wanted for any of these logos.

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If it's done by player

If it's done by player submission you'd still end up with pre-made emblems of words. The only difference would be they were player submitted instead of dev made.

And you'd still have to rely on the community to report on anything offensive that people end up making with that. Same as you would for any costume, name, or combination thereof.

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Project_Hero]If it's done by
Project_Hero wrote:

If it's done by player submission you'd still end up with pre-made emblems of words. The only difference would be they were player submitted instead of dev made.

Uh... sure I suppose that any player submitted logo would in fact become useable by "anyone" after it was included into the basic game. I'm not seeing the problem there.

If you're somehow worried that other people would start "copy-catting" you by using the logos you personally submitted the same thing could always happen if the Devs simply created a bunch of generic pre-made options on their own. Also remember that even if the Devs allowed for "player submitted logos" there's nothing stopping them from ALSO including a selection of pre-made ones they create themselves. The more the merrier.

Project_Hero wrote:

And you'd still have to rely on the community to report on anything offensive that people end up making with that. Same as you would for any costume, name, or combination thereof.

No one's saying that anything like this would ever completely eliminate the need for GM policing. But if you can set up a system of where the Devs can vet player submitted logos before they get into the game the number of cases the GMs would likely have to deal with would be greatly reduced which would help everyone involved.

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I'm not worried about people

I'm not worried about people copy-catting anything. I don't know where you got that idea.

Yeah, possibly the cases of reports GMs would have to deal with may be reduced, but you'd also be shifting the workload to the devs that have to vet the player suggested logos. So there's really no way of telling if the overall workload will be less or not.

Which again just leaves us with the two options for handling this I said earlier. You either have a list of pre-made words people can put on their costumes (Dev made and/or player suggested) or you just let the players have at then rely on them policing themselves and others (by way of reporting offensive uses).

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm not worried about people copy-catting anything. I don't know where you got that idea.

I was trying to understand why it would be "a problem" whether or not player submitted logos would become freely available to everyone just as if they were pre-made by the Devs. I guess I mis-guessed what your problem with this was. *shrugs*

Project_Hero wrote:

Yeah, possibly the cases of reports GMs would have to deal with may be reduced, but you'd also be shifting the workload to the devs that have to vet the player suggested logos. So there's really no way of telling if the overall workload will be less or not.

I already mentioned several posts ago that the Devs would be free to regulate how much time they decided to spend on this. If they only wanted to spend 5 or 10 minutes a week on this that would likely be more than plenty. Also remember they could be making serious money with this so it might actually behoove them to spend a bit more time with this.

Project_Hero wrote:

Which again just leaves us with the two options for handling this I said earlier. You either have a list of pre-made words people can put on their costumes (Dev made and/or player suggested) or you just let the players have at then rely on them policing themselves and others (by way of reporting offensive uses).

Right but if you're now allowing for player submissions/suggestions that actually becomes the "third" option for this. ;)

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I never stated nor implied

I never stated nor implied that allowing players to submit things to a pre-made list would be a problem.

Allowing player submissions to a pre-made list doesn't give a third option. It just expands one option. It's still a pre-made list of things you can choose rather than being able to just make your own right there and then.

Likely if they allowed player submissions that would be made available to the general public it'd be mostly generic terms that get ok'd as those would get used more than anything very specific.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I never stated nor implied that allowing players to submit things to a pre-made list would be a problem.

Then why bring up the obvious that any player submitted options would likely be merged into any list of pre-made ones? It seemed like you were trying to bring up some kind of "problem" with this that didn't exist.

Project_Hero wrote:

Allowing player submissions to a pre-made list doesn't give a third option. It just expands one option. It's still a pre-made list of things you can choose rather than being able to just make your own right there and then.

Option 1 = The Devs only produce pre-made logo options with no player suggestions/submissions. This is actually the most likely one to happen.
Option 2 = The Devs allow players to input their own logos WITHOUT Dev vetting. This would be nice but not likely to happen for obvious reasons.
Option 3 = The Devs allow player suggestion/submissions of logos. This would be the best compromise option.

As it turns out the Devs would likely provide a default set of pre-made logos regardless of which of these THREE options they went with. The advantage of Option 3 would be that the game would likely include BOTH pre-made options AND player suggestions that would be useable by anyone. Bonus for everyone.

Project_Hero wrote:

Likely if they allowed player submissions that would be made available to the general public it'd be mostly generic terms that get ok'd as those would get used more than anything very specific.

If the Devs allowed for player submissions that got vetted and included into the game it wouldn't be just "generic" ones - they'd be the EXACT logos that the specific players wanted and submitted. For example let's say I wanted a leather jacket that said "Lothic" on it. If the Devs allowed for player submissions I would submit "Lothic" for vetting. Now let's assume that gets approved as a logo. It gets uploaded to the game so that I could use it, but since it's now in the general game it turns out ANYONE else could also use it. While it might be a bit weird for anyone else to use it that's a consequence of it being "approved" by the Devs.

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This type of submission

This type of submission system for player creations is almost exactly like the one in the WWE video games.
Except in those you upload to a server and for others to either use or see those submissions on others (like during multiplayer) both need to have downloaded the player submission.
Not sure if this is relevant. The discussion just reminded me of it and figured I would toss it out there.

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I said that the devs would

I said that the devs would still have to leave it up to the community to police even if they had player submitted dev vetted options. Because something will inevitably slip through, or through some combination of costume options and colors they'll make it something that is offensive.

That's it. It's the same problem as a dev only list. The addition of player created dev vetted options doesn't remove or reduce this from being an issue.

It's only a third option if you are splitting hairs.
Option 1: a list of pre-made words you can put on your costume
Option 2: The ability to write whatever you want on your costume.

Player submitted dev vetted options still fall under option 1: a pre-made list.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

This type of submission system for player creations is almost exactly like the one in the WWE video games.
Except in those you upload to a server and for others to either use or see those submissions on others (like during multiplayer) both need to have downloaded the player submission.
Not sure if this is relevant. The discussion just reminded me of it and figured I would toss it out there.

Yeah, I'm reminded of WWE games also with this discussion. They, at least in the more modern games, give you free reign to write whatever you want on your character.

Not sure how the online CAWs stuff functions I've only ever played locally.

I know on consoles you can download other's CAWs and such, which I'm sure any offensive material get's removed if it's reported.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I said that the devs would still have to leave it up to the community to police even if they had player submitted dev vetted options. Because something will inevitably slip through, or through some combination of costume options and colors they'll make it something that is offensive.

That's it. It's the same problem as a dev only list. The addition of player created dev vetted options doesn't remove or reduce this from being an issue.

The GMs would ALWAYS have to be ready to police ANY issue regardless if the Devs ever let players submit anything like this or not. I don't really know why you keep bringing this point up because it's never been in question regardless of the topic of this thread. Please stop worrying about this because it's not going away regardless.

Project_Hero wrote:

It's only a third option if you are splitting hairs.
Option 1: a list of pre-made words you can put on your costume

But the "pre-made" logos could EITHER be completely generated by the Devs with NO player input or the "pre-made" logos could be the sum total of Devs generated ideas AND player submitted options. That's TWO very different ways to handle this issue thus why it's TWO different options for how the Devs might choose to implement this. The "let players input customized logos without initial vetting" is the third option just to once again be complete about this.

Project_Hero wrote:

Player submitted dev vetted options still fall under option 1: a pre-made list.

Yes how player submitted options get into the game could be handled this way yes. But you're letting a mere GUI implementation blind you to the fact that it's a fundamental choice/option the Devs have to either allow players to get CUSTOMIZIED logos into the game or not. You can't just merely gloss over that key point.

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If those options are made

If those options are made available for the general public they would likely be as generic as possible. Thereby limiting the amount that said logos are customized.

And in character creation it's still just allowing players to select from a pre-defined list of options. How the devs populate that list DOES NOT MATTER.

The choices for how this is handled for the players are still: selection from a pre-made list of logos or the ability to freely write their own.

Having a player submitted dev vetted thing does nothing for those creating their characters as the submissions could be based on popularity and not see inclusion into the game for months or years. It is not a viable option for the players during character creation.

The options that will be given to the players are still and have always been:

1) allow players to select from a pre-made list of options

2) allow players to freely make their own

Now where would a player suggested dev vetted option go? Oh that's right, option 1. Same as any other dev made inclusions to the list. How the devs populate the list of pre-made options DOES NOT MATTER it still leaves the players with those two options.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

The options that will be given to the players are still and have always been:

Ah, now I see the point you're confused about. I'm talking about the THREE WAYS the Devs might choose to implement this. I couldn't care less how the players use the GUIs to actually attach a logo to a character (customized or not) so I wasn't even considering "those" options.

What's more important to talk about right now is the primary question of whether the Devs will even allow us to have customized logos or not. There are TWO ways that could happen: either via vetted submissions or just letting people enter in logos without vetting. The THIRD way the Devs could handle this issue is to simply not allow customized logos at all.

Thus THREE ways the Devs could handle this issue.

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Sure, I'm the one confused.

Sure, I'm the one confused. Let's go with that.

Even if we can't have customized logos we know a few things. 1, emblems can be put on characters and moved/stretched about. 2, the devs will likely have letters and numbers as emblem options. The question then becomes how many can we put on a costume?

Another question about embles is if we can layer them.

Enabling players to have multiple emblems and/or allowing them to be layered will essentially allow players to have custom emblems.

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There is something that hasn

There is something that hasn't been brought up that is relevant to this discussion. Plenty of games have logos and decals you can decorate with (especially vehicle focused games). Many of those games allow players to move those decals around as they desire, changing location and orientation to taste.

I bring this up because to my knowledge that was something CoH never did (everything was preplaced, decals usually in the center of the chest). It is something that, while relatively simple, allows players to have a great deal more freedom in decorating their costumes. It would also allow players to use multiple decals without needing to code placement points for them since it would be up to the player where and how they want those. You could use them as arm tattoos, put them right on your face, whatever you want.

Of course, it would also allow particularly clever and creative players to use decals in ways they may not have been originally intended.

Here is an example, someone using decals to tip their hat with their aileron

https://imgur.com/gallery/QXSuDp7

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TheInternetJanitor wrote:
TheInternetJanitor wrote:

There is something that hasn't been brought up that is relevant to this discussion. Plenty of games have logos and decals you can decorate with (especially vehicle focused games). Many of those games allow players to move those decals around as they desire, changing location and orientation to taste.

I bring this up because to my knowledge that was something CoH never did (everything was preplaced, decals usually in the center of the chest). It is something that, while relatively simple, allows players to have a great deal more freedom in decorating their costumes. It would also allow players to use multiple decals without needing to code placement points for them since it would be up to the player where and how they want those. You could use them as arm tattoos, put them right on your face, whatever you want.

Of course, it would also allow particularly clever and creative players to use decals in ways they may not have been originally intended.

Here is an example, someone using decals to tip their hat with their aileron

https://imgur.com/gallery/QXSuDp7

As far as I'm aware the ability to move and adjust emblems will be a thing in CoT.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Sure, I'm the one confused. Let's go with that.

Well for what it's worth I was confused you didn't understand what I was saying about this. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

Even if we can't have customized logos we know a few things. 1, emblems can be put on characters and moved/stretched about. 2, the devs will likely have letters and numbers as emblem options. The question then becomes how many can we put on a costume?

Another question about embles is if we can layer them.

Enabling players to have multiple emblems and/or allowing them to be layered will essentially allow players to have custom emblems.

Project_Hero wrote:

As far as I'm aware the ability to move and adjust emblems will be a thing in CoT.

Until we start seeing exactly what we're going to be able to do with the placing of logos/emblems in CoT I'll reserve judgment on this. It sadly might be likely that you're assuming these features are going to be a lot more "free-form capable" than they will be in reality. I'm expecting nothing about being able to "layer" emblems or anything even remotely close to that - I'd rather be pleasantly surprised it's possible rather than be left disappointed it isn't.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Yeah, I'm reminded of WWE games also with this discussion. They, at least in the more modern games, give you free reign to write whatever you want on your character.
Not sure how the online CAWs stuff functions I've only ever played locally.
I know on consoles you can download other's CAWs and such, which I'm sure any offensive material get's removed if it's reported.

I remember the WWE games allowed players to create their own overlays for the wrestler model which could be rotated, scaled and placed in a variety of predetermined areas (right/left arm, upper/lower back, left/right leg and so on). You could also control the opacity, and if done correctly, the color of the overlay.

The process to upload your own images was a little involved but not difficult.
It went like this.You first use whatever imaging editing program you have and follow specific sizing guidelines based on where the image is intended to be used. For example if you wanted a full back image you would create or find an image, then resize it to the full back scale guidelines (say 516x516).
Once you do that you login in to the games website and upload the image under the scale setting you designed the image for.
Very quickly the image is available to download within the in game character creator.
After downloading the image inside the game, which has been converted for use in the character creator, you can then apply it as an overlay to the selected location on the character, in this example the full back location.
You can see this overlay in single player but (I am not 100% sure of this next part) for others in multiplayer to see the overlay on your character they also need to have the image downloaded.

As far as I understand the process of uploading on the website then downloading in game is a safety measure. It gives the developer control to remove problematic images from the player creation section of the character creator and disallow that images use in multiplayer.
In order to see the character created image not only does the player who has it on their character have to download it but so do others who do not have it on their character.

It's true that any crazy image can be uploaded including nude mods, offensive symbols, copyright material and so forth. But they have a reporting system that has always proved fairly quick in it's response and from what I understand they do issue bans for the person who upload the egregious image.
Once an image is removed from the download sections it will no longer been seen in multiplayer by anyone because that particular image has been flagged.

I'm not sure if I explained it all that well.

It does seem to have the best overall method of protecting against widespread offense because in order to see the image you need to download the image. I mean this is a form of accepting the materials use, although not a perfect one. It also does not need massive oversight and likely could be handled by a very small amount of staff.

Anyway, I am not sure just how good a fit this 'steam workshop' type of player submissions will be in an MMO that is going to have a lot of emphasis on character aesthetics. If players cannot see other players creations without downloading them then the game will end up having a lot of blank or unfinished looking characters running around and things like costume contests will be less interesting.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Yeah, I'm reminded of WWE games also with this discussion. They, at least in the more modern games, give you free reign to write whatever you want on your character.
Not sure how the online CAWs stuff functions I've only ever played locally.
I know on consoles you can download other's CAWs and such, which I'm sure any offensive material get's removed if it's reported.

I'm not sure if I explained it all that well.

You explained this scenario well enough. Of course this all hinges on two very important points that actually devolve down to one rather critical one: A) it would require extra/dedicated coding to support this kind of system of submission, uploading, downloading etc. and B) it would require dedicated staff to oversee all this. If we know anything about MWM is that they are attempting to deliver CoT on an incredibly shoe-string staff and budget - could they ever manage to do anything like the big-name WWE games?

The best we might get (for either a very long time or forever) is a system that will hopefully let us customize the placement of "pre-made" elements on our characters. The idea of being able to have "player created" logos/symbols will always be a pipe dream for CoT until a miracle happens.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Well, it was a thought. Not

Well, it was a thought. Not likely practical. Still I would like the letters TCPD be available.

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Tasty Chocolate Pudding

Tasty Chocolate Pudding Dessert?

Count me in!!!

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Brainbot wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Yeah, I'm reminded of WWE games also with this discussion. They, at least in the more modern games, give you free reign to write whatever you want on your character.
Not sure how the online CAWs stuff functions I've only ever played locally.
I know on consoles you can download other's CAWs and such, which I'm sure any offensive material get's removed if it's reported.

I'm not sure if I explained it all that well.

You explained this scenario well enough. Of course this all hinges on two very important points that actually devolve down to one rather critical one: A) it would require extra/dedicated coding to support this kind of system of submission, uploading, downloading etc. and B) it would require dedicated staff to oversee all this. If we know anything about MWM is that they are attempting to deliver CoT on an incredibly shoe-string staff and budget - could they ever manage to do anything like the big-name WWE games?

The best we might get (for either a very long time or forever) is a system that will hopefully let us customize the placement of "pre-made" elements on our characters. The idea of being able to have "player created" logos/symbols will always be a pipe dream for CoT until a miracle happens.

Didn't they have something like that for CoX? Player mods that let you see player created content but only if you also had the mod? Or was it just client side only?

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Any game can be player modded

Any game can be player modded.
Unless you mean mods were a feature of the game. Then no, I don't think CoH offered any support or mechanics that were designed for mods.

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Nope, meant player made mods.

Nope, meant player made mods.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Any game can be player modded.

Not sure how you can mod a game that's not designed to be modded unless you reverse-engineer and/or "hack" it in some way. *shrugs*

Brainbot wrote:

Unless you mean mods were a feature of the game. Then no, I don't think CoH offered any support or mechanics that were designed for mods.

CoH definitely allowed for "client side only" modding from the very beginning. I used it all the time for costume modding as well as power sound mods and GUI map mods. It was always kept on a "don't ask don't tell" level where the Devs of CoH never openly talked about it and if you were ever unfortunate enough to have any kind of "technical problem" while using them the Devs would provide no support for you.

Basically the game allowed you to "overlay" texture files with replacements. If you could figure out the exact directory tree structure where these files existed the game would accept and load in your overlays to graphically replace the defaults with the overlay. That part was actually relatively simple - the hard part (especially at the time in say the first few years of the game) was creating the actual mods. Tools were lacking back then and you definitely had to be at least a "self taught expert" to know how to create something that didn't look horrible once it was loaded in.

Project_Hero wrote:

Didn't they have something like that for CoX? Player mods that let you see player created content but only if you also had the mod? Or was it just client side only?

There was a sort of trick where if you and another player both had the same client side costume mods loaded to replace the respective costume items then both of you would be able to "see" the mod being worn by the other person. The game at that point was essentially fooled into thinking you were both wearing the "default" item but since both of your clients were modded you both ended up seeing the locally sourced mods on each other.

It was obviously a bit of a pain to coordinate that and I actually only tried it a couple of times with other people just as a sort of "proof of concept" experiment. So earlier when I said that having player created content in a game like this is a "pipe dream" what I more precisely meant was that getting player created content into this game that critically other players could see in a seamless, simple, non-tedious fashion is the pipe dream. Even though client side modding is a workable poor-man's method for that it's far from user-friendly or desirable.

The big question of course is whether CoT will be allowing for the same "texture replacement" scheme for client side modding that CoH did.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Nope, meant player made mods.

Most mods are player made mods. Basically 'mod' stands for modification or module.
This modification/module can be as simple as finding a texture in the game's files and swapping it for one you make (or download) yourself. Or it can be as extensive as inserting new sections of a game (maps, missions, ect). Full conversion mods would be another example of an extensive mod.
Originally mods were difficult to make and usually required the mod maker to have a decent understanding of programing. The old school Doom mods are an example of this.
But now-a-days many game developers encourage player made mods by providing the tools, sometimes called a dev kit, one needs to create the mod and a simple way to apply the mod. Steam workshop is an example of this.

CoH did not have these developer tools for mods but file swapping was common enough.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Nope, meant player made mods.

Most mods are player made mods. Basically 'mod' stands for modification or module.
This modification/module can be as simple as finding a texture in the game's files and swapping it for one you make (or download) yourself. Or it can be as extensive as inserting new sections of a game (maps, missions, ect). Full conversion mods would be another example of an extensive mod.
Originally mods were difficult to make and usually required the mod maker to have a decent understanding of programing. The old school Doom mods are an example of this.
But now-a-days many game developers encourage player made mods by providing the tools, sometimes called a dev kit, one needs to create the mod and a simple way to apply the mod. Steam workshop is an example of this.

CoH did not have these developer tools for mods but file swapping was common enough.

Right, like I said CoH did not officially "condone/support" modding in any way... except that the game allowed for client side texture file swapping from Day One. Case in point there was a fairly popular map mod (that added detail to the original maps) that the Devs almost, kinda, sort-of openly endorsed but it was always fun to see them do their best to keep their mouths shut about it because again their company policy was to "pretend" modding of any kind didn't exist.

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A middle ground for user

A middle ground for user created mods and ease of integration would be something similar to what tf2 and a few other games use. Have the community vote on good user made content (in a manner that is easy to access from the game), have the best reviewed by staff before having it added to the game. To further encourage this process, get high quality content, and afford the time of staff reviewing it, have top shelf stuff go to the cash shop and a good chunk of the proceeds from it go to the creator. The best community content creators then become freelance developers, possibly even hired by the studio, which many modders aspire to.

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TheInternetJanitor wrote:
TheInternetJanitor wrote:

A middle ground for user created mods and ease of integration would be something similar to what tf2 and a few other games use. Have the community vote on good user made content (in a manner that is easy to access from the game), have the best reviewed by staff before having it added to the game. To further encourage this process, get high quality content, and afford the time of staff reviewing it, have top shelf stuff go to the cash shop and a good chunk of the proceeds from it go to the creator. The best community content creators then become freelance developers, possibly even hired by the studio, which many modders aspire to.

Yes, something along these lines would be wonderful for CoT. It's of course ultimately a matter of whether MWM would be able to set something like that up.

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It has been proven to be an

It has been proven to be an efficient way to produce content as well as being engaging to the community, but it does require the game to be solidly standing and popular enough to have a community with some eager and skilled creators before it is worth the effort to harness them.

But those are goals the devs are ideally working toward regardless.

To be fair this is sort of how the game is being developed right now, just without the streamlining. A team composed of volunteers is already community sourced. It is a natural fit. Eventually. Such a setup may even prove useful as a stepping stone to bring volunteers on board in a more gradual process since MWM has said that was their goal in the long run.

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Vidiot Maps was great!

Vidiot Maps was great!

Be Well!
Fireheart