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Weather

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Heavy Weather
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Weather

Any thought of changing weather/seasons?
Seasons
I liked how the day/night cycle of CoH was short enough that you saw sunrise/sunset often, and visibility changed at night, but I don't think seasons changed. Going with a day = 30 minutes, you'd have 48 days/day, or one year slightly more than a week. Having it be not exactly a week would be cool, similar to actual moon phases gradually sliding through the calendar.

Weather
Would love to see stuff like:
rain
hail
snow
fog

Ideally, this would actually interact with game play (electric blast buffed by rain, for example), but my guess is that would be a drastic level of development work. Maybe make it just a display layer that has no impact on gameplay, and can be turned down/off for old/slow computers?

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I'd rather the seasons

I'd rather the seasons reflect the current season in real world MA, regardless of how many "days" passed in game.

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MA?

MA?

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I agree with syntax. I'd love

I agree with syntax. I'd love to see the seasons in game reflect those of the real world, whether those of MA (Massachusetts) or England.

As for weather it would be nice to have the occasional rain shower, which perhaps could turn to snow in winter. For autumn/fall it would be nice to see piles of leaves on the ground, blown about by the wind or the hero/villain running or flying past at speed.

It would also be good to see the trees in game being affected by the seasons. Bare in winter, perhaps lined with frost, blossom in spring, full greenery in summer and then all the colours of autumn.

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Agreed on the trees, not sure

Agreed on the trees, not sure about matching the seasons with the real world...do you want to wait a whole year between seasons in-game? Thought it might be fun to have them roll by a little more quickly, and that would also be a way to not 'insult' the southern hemisphere gamers.
Obviously, this is not a priority as far as gameplay goes, just one of those "hey, it would be cool if..." things.
Though it would be funny if there was a heinously wild blizzard once in a while, causing DoT to all, worse for fire-themed characters and minimized for ice-themed ones ;)

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Heavy Weather wrote:
Heavy Weather wrote:

Agreed on the trees, not sure about matching the seasons with the real world...do you want to wait a whole year between seasons in-game? Thought it might be fun to have them roll by a little more quickly, and that would also be a way to not 'insult' the southern hemisphere gamers.

In most online games you have to wait a whole year between the seasonal events such as Halloween and Winter. I used to love the ski chalet and winter skiing events, but they used to leave it on for a few weeks which was usually enough time for people to get sick of it. Perhaps they could have the seasons going twice as fast, so we get two of each per year... but then the question needs to be asked whether or not you'd have to then do the events twice a year instead of one. This is presuming that there will be various holiday events in game.

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Heavy Weather wrote:
Heavy Weather wrote:

Agreed on the trees, not sure about matching the seasons with the real world...do you want to wait a whole year between seasons in-game? Thought it might be fun to have them roll by a little more quickly, and that would also be a way to not 'insult' the southern hemisphere gamers.
Obviously, this is not a priority as far as gameplay goes, just one of those "hey, it would be cool if..." things.
Though it would be funny if there was a heinously wild blizzard once in a while, causing DoT to all, worse for fire-themed characters and minimized for ice-themed ones ;)

Short answer, yes. I understand why day-night cycles in a game would be inconvenient to run on a 24 hour cycle, but I see no reason we can't have 3 months of winter. I don't see the season having any effect on the game other than the weather, and I don't see the weather having any effect on game play either. I also don't see why having the seasons mimic the geographical location of the city would be insulting to any player.

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I'd like to see seasons cycle

I'd like to see seasons cycle in response to the real-world location The City is at. If you want to put it somewhere warm year-round, fine, but I'd really like to see an urbanscape covered in snow. Or trees that change color in fall, lose their leaves and are bare in winter, grow leaves in spring...

Most weather effects are just that -- effects. But if it's raining, I'd like to see puddles on the ground -- and reflections from wet streets.

One other thing I'd like to see: City decorations for special events. If we're having Founder's Day, I want to see banners on the street lights, and maybe special displays in buildings. For Christmas, I'd like to see a very visible skyscraper set up their nighttime office lights in the shape of a Christmas tree. (Other buildings can do other symbols based on other religious holidays. A menorah for Chanukkah, etc.)

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The city is located in

The city is located in Massachusetts, that much is set in stone at this point I believe.

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Any thoughts on it? Yes.

Any thoughts on it? Yes.

Any ready to share with the public? Not yet, at least not from me.

Any reason for hope? Well, my first "big" (publicly visible, for any meaningful value of public) game coding project was a continental-scale weather simulation, with the specs laid out by someone who was working at NCAR at the time. Of course, it brought the entire server to a standstill every few minutes, but let's just say I've learned a bit since then. Also, two decades makes a bit of a difference in processing power...

That particular game also ran at a very severe 'skew', with daily time running normally but seasonal time running at about 13:1, and a large number of the ones I worked on later had between 2:1 and 3:1, though avoiding "phase lock" (and understanding how the skew was liable to affect play) was a very real issue on those games. So it is, at the very least, not unfamiliar territory.


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DeathSheep, an actual weather

DeathSheep, an actual weather simulator is one of the things I'd dearly love to see -- rainstorms that actually lasted a few days, rather than coming at the same time every day? Oh yeah -- but I didn't think was possible given the amount of coding.

But if you're going to code thunderstorms, then may I suggest that electrical/weather heroes be able to interact with them? I'm not asking that weather-controlling heroes be able to change the weather, but when it's storming outside, it'd be cool to have the power to call the lightning down on your foes.

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I Found the season idea and

I Found the season idea and wheather changes attractive, perhaps not in real time but quicker like Twice a year. And real time for holidays like christmas is the same everywhere.

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I would love to see seasonal

I would love to see seasonal weather patterns, however;

If you had it affect powers, it would affect a small minority of heroes. I, with my mentalist, would never be able to gain from it.
People would probably react the same way real weather affects them; they'd stay indoors and not go out adventuring. (ie: play the game)
It'd be neat to have an occasional major weather event, but it would affect playability as above.

I don't see a winter realm in the cards, it seems to close to IP infringement, so a nearby mountainous area could have skiing and a lodge. The same area would be a state park area during off season months.
I would not want to see it inundated with enemies like Perez park was.

Steve

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I figured the weather effects

I figured the weather effects should just be something to make the world feel more alive, not have any noticeable effect on the game. A player should be able to flick weather on/off in the settings and the only thing it should effect is their frame rate.

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I love weather systems! I

I love weather systems! I can play a game without them, but a weather system is like chocolate chip cookies with M&M's too: I'll eat that chocolate chip cookie, but man...M&M's too!?

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

I figured the weather effects should just be something to make the world feel more alive, not have any noticeable effect on the game. A player should be able to flick weather on/off in the settings and the only thing it should effect is their frame rate.

Agreed. Even relatively small nods toward such things can have a huge impact on immersion. Some snow, some ice, frost, icicles, bare trees, and the NPCs in cold weather clothing and, hey, it's winter!

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kids throwing snowballs at

kids throwing snowballs at school buses and running away...

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I'd like to see quarterly

I'd like to see quarterly seasons. Rather then one week it was winter and then the next it was spring. Weather patterns would be fun. Sometimes its raining sometimes it not. Sometimes its windy and you can see leaves flying. No clouds in the sky. Transition from night to day and day to night. Events causing weather changes. Super villain has blocked the sun and its dark and lighting everywhere hitting the ground.

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You know, if the game is to

You know, if the game is to be set in Massachusetts... here's an idea. Tie the weather in-game to the Weather.com information. Then not only do we get realistic weather, but we also get realistic weather forecasts too.

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I always wished COH had

I always wished COH had weather that could be voted on by all the Storm Summoning characters currently logged in. As if each Stormy were pulling or pushing the weather and the consensus was reflected in the game weather.

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as a Canadian player I don't

as a Canadian player I don't see the need to have American holidays represented just the universal holidays would be a better plan, as this is a whole world of heroes not just American heroes

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As a hopeful storm summoner,

As a hopeful storm summoner, I would really hope that that doesn't effect the awesomeness of the power set. If it was already raining.. a rain summoning power would be useless, same goes for blizzards. :O Don't take my storm summoning away from me!

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I would like to see that too,

I would like to see that too, graff, what did you have in mind?
I like Halloween and Christmas, and a lot of countries celebrate them. What American holidays are you referring to?

Me, I'd like to see some special event for about two weeks each season.

(personally, I'd emulate the Germans with Oktoberfest, but we probably shouldn't promote drinking quite that much!) ;)
Teen rated, after all...

Steve

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For a spring or summer event

For a spring or summer event I'd like to see some kind of carnival / fasnacht with the masks and costumes (for the NPCs this time, suck it supers! :P ), the ferris wheel, roller coaster, etc., etc. Titan City could also be known for its own festival, something like La Tomatina, an international flower show, or a sailing regatta, etc.

Whatever it takes to turn the city into an NPC, rather than just a place where NPCs live.

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Events typically have some

Events typically have some kind of scavenger hunt for the players, like trick or treating or collecting xmas presents. Would you want to continue that?

So, a Carnival in the spring and a Regatta in the summer with packed beaches, etc. (similar to the ski chalet in CoH) That sounds really good!

Might be a few years down the road, but I like it! :)

Steve

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Could ghosts and hauntings*

Could ghosts and hauntings* count as weather effects?

I'm serious! (I think.)

/notsureifserious.jpg

* In the "there's something weird about this town" sense more so than the typical, over the top Halloween versions.

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universal holidays are

universal holidays are easter, st.patricks day,spring break, Halloween,valentives day,thanksgiving is harder as Canada's is in oct and America's in nov,christmas and new years I think are most holidays for a game

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graff wrote:
graff wrote:

as a Canadian player I don't see the need to have American holidays represented just the universal holidays would be a better plan, as this is a whole world of heroes not just American heroes

But...here's the thing, Titian City *is* in the US. It should have an Independence Day celebration just like almost every US municipality has (or any other US holiday for that matter).

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graff wrote:
graff wrote:

universal holidays are easter, st.patricks day,spring break, Halloween,valentives day,thanksgiving is harder as Canada's is in oct and America's in nov,christmas and new years I think are most holidays for a game

Actually, not one of these that you mentioned is a universal holiday. In fact, there really aren't any universal holidays.

Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's and Christmas are particular to the Christian religion. And in fact not all of them celebrate Patrick as a Saint. Other religions have other holidays. The Jewish do not celebrate any of these. They have holidays such as Passover and Chanukkah. Islam has Eid ul-Fitr and other holy days. Buddhism has different holidays as well.

New Year Eve and New Year Day is particular to those who follow the Gregorian calendar. Which the Chinese do not. Which is why we have Chinese New Year.

You already pointed out that the Canadians and Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day on different days. Most other people in the world don't celebrate Thanksgiving. And Halloween? That isn't a holiday, it's just more of a special event for the kids (and the people who don't wish to grow up). (America no longer celebrates the associated holiday, All Saints Day, Nov. 1st. But other parts of the world do.)

Spring Break is not a holiday to those of us no longer in school.

There are holidays celebrated in the U,S. that you didn't mention. Festival de la Muerta, for example. May Day (which is actually a religious holiday). Memorial Day. Martin Luther King's Day. President's Day. Patriot's Day. Arbor Day. Children's Day. Mother's Day. Father's Day. Labor Day. International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

The list of holidays is extensive, and at this point if you want to be all-inclusive, we'd be celebrating a holiday event probably every other day, if not every day. If we don't want to offend anyone, we'd probably never have a holiday event, ever.

I think the holidays that should be celebrated in-game are the national days celebrated in the country of location of The City, plus the religious holidays the designers wish the game to celebrate. If they want a generic winter gift-giving celebration, they can do that. If they want to celebrate Christmas and snub other religions, well, it's their game.

And perhaps there should be tools for celebrating holidays in-game as well. Signs that can be placed in strategic locations and will remain in place for 24 hours -- available for a premium in the microtransaction store (otherwise they become a spam tool). Powers that can deliver awesome pyrotechnic displays when fired into the airspace above the city (so we don't have asstards firing off their Spamwheels in the middle of the AH just to annoy people). Purchasable holiday powers like this would also work if someone wants to celebrate a special event in their life in-game, like a wedding or the birth of their child.

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Would be cool if the game

Would be cool if the game world itself has it's own version of the holidays. For example WoW does this. They borrow from real world holidays around the world but give them their own name and events and in some cases even lore. Example, Hallows End is like Halloween. Except in the game it celebrates the day the Forsaken broke away from the Scourge. They even have Day of the Dead which is like the Mexican Day of the Dead so grave sites get decorated. They also have the Darkmoon Faire which is kind of like a traveling carnival that shows up in various locations. I would like to see stuff like that. And it lets them sort of making their own reasons why these holidays exist. I mean this is all assuming the CoT universe is in its own universe and not taking place in our world. But I think it'd be neat. And they get to decorate the game with the theme of the holiday thats happening.

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I'd like to see weather. It's

I'd like to see weather. It's immersive, fun, and I think it'd be pretty cool if it were on a real world cycle. While I'm sure that there were good technical reasons for the lack of it in our old game, I always found the cavalier way it was sometimes dismissed as "unnecessary" very off-putting. It's kind of the same with seeing NPC children around the game - it just makes it feel more like a real world.

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I think John-Andre has the

I think John-Andre has the best suggestion...just tie it to the real-world weather at some city in MA. There would still be tons of work for implementing all the different looks, but the whole modeling thing goes away.

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Hmm.. might be doable...

Hmm.. might be doable...
For Snow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otedqKHET1w
For Rain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djXuW0912sI

we could probably do that for Caves, so it looks like a Snow Monster was now occupying that cave, for that instance.

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Weather would be cool but I

Weather would be cool but I think adding it could create lag issues for people with lower end computers. There would need to be a way to turn off those effects. Also, on a practical side, it makes it more complex as now they would have to code the people / citizens of Titan City changing their clothes etc. to reflect the weather. In addition, for things like snow and such, they would need to show it accumulating etc. While it definitely would make things more immersive, it seems like a lot of work (as best I can tell but I have no clue) for something that has no direct game play benefits.

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It would be more work, and

It would be more work, and therefore not something I would expect to see at launch, however, I would still like to see it.
And you're right about toggling it on and off; a good reason for it being only cosmetic and not affecting anyone's powers.

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Would love to see real

Would love to see real seasonal weather reflect with seasons based on where the game is being developed. North America.

Would also be nice to have real time clocks (like WoW) instead of sunrise/sunset every 15 minutes (like CoH). It always threw me off and I'd end up playing 8 hours and miss my college class, back when i was in school.

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Adelante wrote:
Adelante wrote:

Would love to see real seasonal weather reflect with seasons based on where the game is being developed. North America.
Would also be nice to have real time clocks (like WoW) instead of sunrise/sunset every 15 minutes (like CoH). It always threw me off and I'd end up playing 8 hours and miss my college class, back when i was in school.

I've expressed that I'd like the seasons to last, well a season. I do love the feature in GW2 to display my local time on my mini-map, I too have lost track of time playing a game more than once, that's the reason I have a clock-radio on my computer desk.

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I'd like to see weather other

I'd like to see weather other than glorious sunshine, honestly. I would love more rain, I'd love storms or winds, and more...just more. Making the fog rise up in October and there actually being piles of snow on the ground in November, December and January. Light spring rains and sun, with the browning of the trees in Autumn (what I believe to be ostensibly refereed to as Fall for our American and Canadian friends). Also, I feel we should leave the seasons where they are, just make it more obvious, so when we enter the three months of Winter, everything is snowy. When we enter the three months of "Fall", everything shifts to browns and foggy, if that makes sense.

The other thing I saw, which I disagree with, is that I'd like to SLOW the day/night cycle, maybe double it so it's an hour rather than thirty mins. Just so that you are not playing a creature of the night during the day, quite so much. Areas of eternal night or eternal day would be good too and (if you're an RPer) it always feels silly so say "Have a good night" when you're stood in the blistering midday sun XD

Take care!

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DocSyonide wrote:
DocSyonide wrote:

The other thing I saw, which I disagree with, is that I'd like to SLOW the day/night cycle, maybe double it so it's an hour rather than thirty mins. Just so that you are not playing a creature of the night during the day, quite so much. Areas of eternal night or eternal day would be good too and (if you're an RPer) it always feels silly so say "Have a good night" when you're stood in the blistering midday sun XD
Take care!

The only problem with a long day/night cycle is if there are events spawns that only happen at a certain time of day. A common one I remember was having to defeat Circle of Thorns in Kings Row, and getting that mission during the day. You'd have to wait till sunset for the CoT to spawn. 15 minuets is annoying, waiting an hour will drive people mad.

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There was a similar mission

There was a similar mission in First Ward and I still think it's terrible design to force a player to wait until a certain time in-game to be able to perform a mission. If I can obtain the mission I want to be able to go do the mission, not sit around twiddling my thumbs lest I miss my window of opportunity because I decided to go play the game, instead.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

There was a similar mission in First Ward and I still think it's terrible design to force a player to wait until a certain time in-game to be able to perform a mission. If I can obtain the mission I want to be able to go do the mission, not sit around twiddling my thumbs lest I miss my window of opportunity because I decided to go play the game, instead.

I would prefer not tying a mission to a time of day as well, but if you are going to do it, having a long day-night cycle is acid on the wound. Now, I could see an event that only triggers during the day or night, like the troll raves. Once again though, a reasonably short day-night cycle would help give everyone a chance to participate.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Now, I could see an event that only triggers during the day or night, like the troll raves. Once again though, a reasonably short day-night cycle would help give everyone a chance to participate.

Yes and no. For such events a short cycle does mean it triggers more often, but it also means that they end sooner. This shorter window of opportunity reduces the chances for a player to have a meaningful participation in or contribution to the event. For such a scenario I'd argue for longer day-night cycles to reduce the impression that if a player isn't there when the event starts, they might as well not bother.

A longer cycle might even make it worthwhile for the artists to work on putting in some very pretty sunsets and sunrises!

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For those that said real

For those that said real world seasons I HEARTILY agree. But make sure that it's based on areas like New England that have Four Distinct seasons. The Northwest only has two (wet and dry) which is boring. I want to see beautiful fall colors on the trees and pretty pink flowers in the spring, snow and ice in the winter, and clear days with puffy clouds in the Summer. That would be a reason to activate the account and play alone. Ex: "Holy crap, Spring starts today, I gotta get in there!" etc.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

syntaxerror37 wrote:
Now, I could see an event that only triggers during the day or night, like the troll raves. Once again though, a reasonably short day-night cycle would help give everyone a chance to participate.

Yes and no. For such events a short cycle does mean it triggers more often, but it also means that they end sooner. This shorter window of opportunity reduces the chances for a player to have a meaningful participation in or contribution to the event. For such a scenario I'd argue for longer day-night cycles to reduce the impression that if a player isn't there when the event starts, they might as well not bother.
A longer cycle might even make it worthwhile for the artists to work on putting in some very pretty sunsets and sunrises!

That's why I said reasonably short, as opposed to hours of day & night.

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Since this is a fantastic

Since this is a fantastic world that we're creating, here, there is no need to tie the Day/Night cycle to the Seasonal cycle.They can run separately and not just in terms of the Events schedule. Eventually, though, there might be enough Events in the cycle that they could be linked to, or take the place of, a Seasonal cycle.

Weather might be another cycle. What could be Interesting, is if the various cycles affected each other.

Day + Summer + Precipitation = 'Sun Showers'
Morning + Fall + Recent Wet = Fog/Mist
Night + Winter + Dry/No Clouds = Crystal Clear Night

It might be useful to get a Meteorologist involved in planning out how these cycles interact. Everything from Summer Scorcher to a Hurricane/Blizzard that actually makes Flying powers difficult?

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Jordan_yen wrote:
Jordan_yen wrote:

...make sure that it's based on areas like New England that have Four Distinct seasons. The Northwest only has two (wet and dry) which is boring. ...

It doesn't get much more New England than Massachusetts ^_^.

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To be honest I sort of hate

To be honest I sort of hate the idea of tying in-game seasons to real world analogs if for no other reason than we'll have players playing from all over the world and the supposed "real" seasons will only apply to a subset of the players. For instance I quite happily live in a place that really only has two seasons a year: summer and a couple of weeks in January when it dips to around 40 degrees F. To me ice and snow is something I'd have to travel on an airplane to see and I love it that way.

Now on the other hand if it's true that the game has already been set to be somewhere in Massachusetts then I can begrudgingly accept (for the sake of game world realism) that it'll have something more like the traditional four seasons. Still I'm not really sold on those seasons having to be on a full one year cycle to match the real world, but I'm sure whatever they work out for the game will make sense for most people.

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An idea that I kept trying to

An idea that I kept trying to bring to the attention of Andy Belford (so he could take it to War Witch) was the notion that with different kinds of weather in the game you could change the spawning and behavior patterns on the NPCs present on the city's outdoor environs. Combine this with a day/night cycle and you can start building a matrix of different "looks" to entire zones, giving a feeling of dynamism to a particular city.

So, for example, if it's Day/Clear, then the Hellions in Perez Park are spawning extra mob groups that are "patrolling" looking for Skulls to go fight in the streets. If it's Night/Clear, then the Skulls in Perez Park are spawning extra mob groups that are "patrolling" looking for Hellions to go fight in the streets. If it's Night/Fog, then the Ghosts in Croatoa become more active and spawn extra groups that fly around (not all of them at ground level). If it's Day/Fog, then the Witches in Croatoa are spawning extra groups that patrol and "push out" onto the regions held by the other groups they're hostile to. If it's Night/Rain then the Will o' the Wisps become more "active" and start getting more aggressive. If it's Day/Rain then the Tuatha de Danan spawn extra mob groups that "patrol" to push out the boundaries of their territory. If it's raining, day or night, the Devouring Earth becomes more active and numerous in their areas.

And so on.

So what you wind up with is that you have a "basic map" of mob spawn locations that is the underlying foundation for what the city is like in the day, and a second one for what it is like at night ... and then you have "overlay maps" for the different weather conditions that can occur during the day and night which "adds things" to those basic maps, lending a particular set of dynamics that favors one particular mob group over another for as long as that particular weather condition holds sway. So rather than having the weather be JUST an environmental thing that has No Impact, it is instead another axis on how the city changes its population of NPCs (and their dispositions!) such that the city doesn't remain "static and eternal" where the only variation is the day/night cycle.

One way to implement such a system would involve use of Phasing Tech, such that the different weather systems would "phase in" these modifications/additions to the underlying Mob Spawn Map so as to bring about these different behaviors in the various Foe Groups that spawn all over the city. This could be done either as an "overlay of extras" as I've described above, or in a more ambitious design could involve replacement ... such as having Clockwork "building" other Clockworks which then get sent out on "patrols" to attack other groups and locations, so as to "seize territory" when the day/night cycle and weather conditions favor their group, thereby expanding their presence and influence in the neighborhoods where they are active.

Yes, it's an added layer of complexity (literally!) ... but it's also something where A Little Goes A Long Way in terms of creating a more dynamic environment for the players to move around in. Even if it's something as simple as having a group of Skulls spawn out of Doors on the street, gather up, and then move as a group on a patrol route that takes them into "hostile" territory like gang would, that's something that would bring "life" to zones beyond just having mobs standing around waiting to get arrested (or fighting for purses with civilians who have Super Strength).

And then, just for added shizzle, perhaps a PC's Secret Identity could be set up in such a way as to be "aligned" with one or two NPC Foe groups, such that when you're in your Secret Identity those groups won't aggro you (without being attacked first). That would then create a potential "safe passage" means of traveling through contested areas which might otherwise be too risky to move through (for whatever reason). Such a status might even be a result of an "earned reward" done as something akin to the Day Jobs system where logging out in certain areas conferred a particular benefit for a span of time while playing.


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Jordan_yen wrote:
Jordan_yen wrote:

For those that said real world seasons I HEARTILY agree. But make sure that it's based on areas like New England that have Four Distinct seasons. The Northwest only has two (wet and dry) which is boring.

Southern California has four seasons, although distinguishing them in game might be difficult, and they're not always driven by the calendar -- Earthquake, Flood, Drought, and Fire.

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Weather is awesome...Rain,

Weather is awesome...Rain, Snow, fog...some cloudy days, some sunny days...that would be sweet. Different parts of the city could be affected differently as well. Here in SoCal where we have mountains...it can be sunny in one spot and 2 miles away its pouring rain.

Cycling the seasons would also be cool...and I agree just model it on the season in New England and call it a day.

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Weather, the seasons, and

Weather, the seasons, and such are all excellent elements, but remember that effective implementation can be considerable. If you're using assets like speedtree, you might be able to just say "set tree to winter" to get a winter look or "set to fall" for the fall look of trees, but real seasonal representation means a lot more like this. Do you add piles of leaves and snow to public places? banks of snow along the roads? animations of snow-shovelers and plows? If you change the terrain, how does that affect pathing for NPC's? All of these assets need developed and placed so they can transition in when appropriate, and that's all time spent not doing other things. For water, putting a "wet fx" on surfaces, audio, and rain transparency is tricky enough, but what about water in the gutters, puddles, NPC's reacting to the inclement weather, etc? Trees bending in the wind? Is is really that immersive to have the audio and raindrops of a hurricane, but see the pedestrians stroll by?

You might be satisfied with the half-way-done method, taking the "better than nothing" approach. An art director may validly decide that "maintaining the illusion in that moment" to be more critical and opt not to introduce anything he cannot do convincingly and completely.

I think its worth doing, but I see many that really underestimate the effort this takes when they say things like "don't understand why x isn't done." As MWM has a strong volunteer element, I'd strongly suggest that people that want this volunteer to help with it, as it can be quite time consuming to set up and troubleshoot.

If anything, I'd suggest going further:

Night/day differences spawn... well, I'd argue for a night-day-dusk-dawn myself. Not only will any environmentalist suggest to you that different "nocturnal" animals are active at different times, but any city dweller will tell you that the people you encounter at 10pm are very different from those on the street at 3am. Changing the spawning could be more than just the NPC's you fight. You could have different pedestrians, different concentrations of them, and different behaviors (a nervous walker... more joggers in the morning-evening, etc) if you truly wanted to get dynamic.

Finally, I want weather buffs/debuffs. I don't want these to be powerset-specific (no "fire powers are useless in the rain) but there are effects that should affect everyone. This seems to be lost on people that can easily avoid weather by going indoors or driving from place to place, but I'm sure fellow veterans that have spent any time in the field can account to how combat exercises in the rain... or a month of field drills in the winter... or a heat wave in the summer- can be very different from doing the same activities in the comfortable temperate ones.

So, let's make a street patrol on a sunny summer day a VERY different gameplay experience than the same patrol in late November as the remnants of Hurricane Jack hit the city.

The argument against this has often been that if people encounter debuffs, they'll avoid them, They'll log out and come back after this is over. I don't blame them, if they're really there for optimizing their XP/hour time. Part of this could be offset by mixing buffs n debuffs to make the different environments play differently. rather than harder... part of this may be to make sure there's some reward for the extra effort.

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chase wrote:
chase wrote:

Finally, I want weather buffs/debuffs. I don't want these to be powerset-specific (no "fire powers are useless in the rain) but there are effects that should affect everyone. This seems to be lost on people that can easily avoid weather by going indoors or driving from place to place, but I'm sure fellow veterans that have spent any time in the field can account to how combat exercises in the rain... or a month of field drills in the winter... or a heat wave in the summer- can be very different from doing the same activities in the comfortable temperate ones.
So, let's make a street patrol on a sunny summer day a VERY different gameplay experience than the same patrol in late November as the remnants of Hurricane Jack hit the city.
The argument against this has often been that if people encounter debuffs, they'll avoid them, They'll log out and come back after this is over. I don't blame them, if they're really there for optimizing their XP/hour time. Part of this could be offset by mixing buffs n debuffs to make the different environments play differently. rather than harder... part of this may be to make sure there's some reward for the extra effort.

One of the main reasons I want weather to be purely window dressing is so the effects can be turned on/off by the client. If someone has to worry about the rain whether or not they actually see it is going to piss some people off. Also, just because it is logical and realistic to make the weather effect players, does not mean it should be implemented. Reality should always take a back seat (or even the trunk) to game play.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Short answer, yes. I understand why day-night cycles in a game would be inconvenient to run on a 24 hour cycle, but I see no reason we can't have 3 months of winter. I don't see the season having any effect on the game other than the weather, and I don't see the weather having any effect on game play either. I also don't see why having the seasons mimic the geographical location of the city would be insulting to any player.

I agree that no one should be offended if the game has seasons like the game setting. I do want to see seasons (mainly because I think it will make the City feel more like a place is the NPCs dress differently, or we see the boats shrinkwrapped for winter living at times, etc.), but it would be nice to also have locations where you can escape the season. Sometimes it was nice to bask in summeryness of Talos, even though it was a gray winter's day outside. :)

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

One of the main reasons I want weather to be purely window dressing is so the effects can be turned on/off by the client. If someone has to worry about the rain whether or not they actually see it is going to piss some people off. Also, just because it is logical and realistic to make the weather effect players, does not mean it should be implemented. Reality should always take a back seat (or even the trunk) to game play.

Which is why I'm not arguing for "reality"- I'm arging for gameplay variety.

I've seen people argue "fire powers should be weaker in the winter" because that "makes 'sense' and that's just bad gameplay. I agree with you there. That means that people log out of the fire powerset they'd otherwise want to play and log in with someone that would be better. That's bad design.

That's not what I advocated.

I'm more interested in weather/effects providing balanced gameplay variety- buffs/debuffs that can change the feel of the gameplay. I want people to not just spam out the same attack chain they always use and expect the same results. Make different tactics stand out in the rain, other strategies stand out on the snow, etc.

It challenges the min/maxer-- do you bulld for the best possible "average," do you optimize for one environment, or do you build for adaptability. It keeps the game fresher-- its no longer about the same routine everywhere. The "strategy" has to change, and that keeps you thinking and reduces boredom. It can be good gameplay, just disguised in the game as a bad rainstorm.

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chase wrote:
chase wrote:

I've seen people argue "fire powers should be weaker in the winter" because that "makes 'sense' and that's just bad gameplay. I agree with you there. That means that people log out of the fire powerset they'd otherwise want to play and log in with someone that would be better. That's bad design.
That's not what I advocated.
I'm more interested in weather/effects providing balanced gameplay variety- buffs/debuffs that can change the feel of the gameplay. I want people to not just spam out the same attack chain they always use and expect the same results. Make different tactics stand out in the rain, other strategies stand out on the snow, etc.

Uh ... chase? I don't know if you noticed it or not, but ... if you have weather imposing ANY kind of buffs/debffs on either Player Powers or NPC Powers, then you've just enabled (and enforced) the very problem you say you wanted to avoid of encouraging people to log out their character(s) and not play them while weather "unfavorable" to their build is present. This is not a line you can walk so long as you slice it thinly enough. If weather imposes ANY sort of buff/debuff on Powers and their effects, that's then a game mechanical REASON to log out and not play while adverse effects due to weather are being enforced (to the detriment of your build). Cement that into the game mechanics and I guarantee you that it'll become Conventional Wisdom without too much effort.

This is why I say that if you're going to have Weather, it's better of have that weather state and the time of day influence or otherwise "augment" the NPC Spawn Maps so as to change their numbers, disposition and patrol routes, leading to a more "dynamic" city environment rather than picking losers and winners among the powersets for who gets a benefit, and who gets a penalty, while a particular weather state persists.

Use weather to adjust and shift the balance of NPC populations in any given zone, thereby affecting "the world" at large through weather conditions, rather than having weather affect certain power sets advantageously, while others get penalized.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

chase wrote:
I've seen people argue "fire powers should be weaker in the winter" because that "makes 'sense' and that's just bad gameplay. I agree with you there. That means that people log out of the fire powerset they'd otherwise want to play and log in with someone that would be better. That's bad design.
That's not what I advocated.
I'm more interested in weather/effects providing balanced gameplay variety- buffs/debuffs that can change the feel of the gameplay. I want people to not just spam out the same attack chain they always use and expect the same results. Make different tactics stand out in the rain, other strategies stand out on the snow, etc.

Uh ... chase? I don't know if you noticed it or not, but ... if you have weather imposing ANY kind of buffs/debffs on either Player Powers or NPC Powers, then you've just enabled (and enforced) the very problem you say you wanted to avoid of encouraging people to log out their character(s) and not play them while weather "unfavorable" to their build is present. This is not a line you can walk so long as you slice it thinly enough. If weather imposes ANY sort of buff/debuff on Powers and their effects, that's then a game mechanical REASON to log out and not play while adverse effects due to weather are being enforced (to the detriment of your build). Cement that into the game mechanics and I guarantee you that it'll become Conventional Wisdom without too much effort.
This is why I say that if you're going to have Weather, it's better of have that weather state and the time of day influence or otherwise "augment" the NPC Spawn Maps so as to change their numbers, disposition and patrol routes, leading to a more "dynamic" city environment rather than picking losers and winners among the powersets for who gets a benefit, and who gets a penalty, while a particular weather state persists.
Use weather to adjust and shift the balance of NPC populations in any given zone, thereby affecting "the world" at large through weather conditions, rather than having weather affect certain power sets advantageously, while others get penalized.

To be clear: I'm not advocating specific powersets getting nerfed over others, I'm advocating chages to the overall mechanics that EVERYONE experiences to give the gameplay variety. There is still a risk that certain powersets will be winners and losers depending on how the buffs/debuffs are managed-- the impact of a (using CoH's terms) -10% toHit to all characters- PC and NPC- would have a different impact on a defense-based scrapper than a damage-resist based scrapper, after all. I don't expect the buffs to be so black-n-white because of this.

I'd also expect any added risk have some reward to it (if the gameplay becomes harder, then perhaps XP is modified by an appropriate fractional multiplier or drop rate increase.) so if you're stopping some villain group from looting the city during the night of a hurricane-induced blackout, (lots of increased challenges) I'd expect the reward to be proportionate.

Perhaps its better to discuss this separate from weather- think of it as a zone modifier. Several games have had zones where basic game mechanics differed somewhat- gravity, combat attributes, toxic effects (damage over time) factional penalties for PvP victory conditions being met, events in the zone, etc). These all run the risk of driving out some players that don't want the penalty, but these games work to balance the penalty with a reward to make it worthwhile.

These are just zone modifiers that vary over time (tied to a visual effect we call"weather"

In Many an MMO, In CoH, we had to know what foes were the biggest disruptors and had to be targeted first, depending on what you had in your team. That provided some variety.

In the real world, knowing your capabilities, knowing your foe's, and knowing the limitations that your battlefield places on you are all keys to victory. In many MMO's, you know your powers. In some MMO's, the foes have become so homogenized to avoid min-max foe selection that there's vary little variety in tactics. You spam the same few powers in the same sequence over and over again, because that's all that matters, but in the better ones, you have to know what foes need taken down first. Very few of them really make the environment a factor at all (aside from how to close with the enemy or remain out of reach) which is a shame, because it offers so many more combinations for variety.

The suggestion for weather effects with oomph is just one way to try to make that environment relevant.

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/em shakes head

/em shakes head

And I'm telling you that any kind of GLOBAL POWER ADJUSTMENT due to weather will simply create Winners And Losers, such that Players will AVOID PLAYING when there is a Weather Effect that penalizes their build.

All attack powers have -10% Range on them? Congratulations, you've just encouraged every Ranged Powerset to quit playing until the Global Debuff is over!

The kind of thing you're talking about creates the sort of INCENTIVES STRUCTURE that is fully capable of FRAGMENTING a Community! This is NOT a choice that is advantageous to a Friendly/Casual Gaming Environment! This is capriciously PUNISHING Players for having builds that the "Random Number Generator" has decided to ... disfavor ... for a time.

THIS ... IS A BAD IDEA™.


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I'll keep this short so as

I'll keep this short so as not to interfere with the other discussions:

- Would LOVE random weather that did not affect powers.
- Would like seasons, probably tied to real world MA seasons.
- Would LOVE the idea of in-game holidays that were independent of real-world holidays so as to avoid controversy. (E.g. AP 33 Day.) These could come with special events, like Halloween did in CoX, but could also just be background that didn't affect gameplay, like banners, parades, etc, just for flavour.

The essential thing with all of these would be that they not interfere with normal gameplay, so that people who just wanted to do their regular missions could do so regardless.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

/em shakes head
And I'm telling you that any kind of GLOBAL POWER ADJUSTMENT due to weather will simply create Winners And Losers, such that Players will AVOID PLAYING when there is a Weather Effect that penalizes their build.
All attack powers have -10% Range on them? Congratulations, you've just encouraged every Ranged Powerset to quit playing until the Global Debuff is over!
The kind of thing you're talking about creates the sort of INCENTIVES STRUCTURE that is fully capable of FRAGMENTING a Community! This is NOT a choice that is advantageous to a Friendly/Casual Gaming Environment! This is capriciously PUNISHING Players for having builds that the "Random Number Generator" has decided to ... disfavor ... for a time.
THIS ... IS A BAD IDEA™.

You seem determined to choose the most boneheaded buffs and debuffs as your examples, so either you have a low expectation of myself or are just determined not to consider what kind of modifer sets would be closer to universally-applied, as has been done elsewhere. Either way, there's not much sense in continuing.

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Global weather so in no way

Random global weather should in no way ever affect any stats of a player character. Doing so is penalizing players for actions that they have no control over.

If weather is to affect a player character, it has to be non-random story based weather. Like Doctor Dastardly has built a weather machine, go into this instance with crazy weather and stop him! Then go nuts. Harsh winds, lightning strikes, and so on. And play it up, since it's a supervillain with a weather machine. Subtlety isn't common in that scenario.

This isn't The Sims they're building. It's a combat RPG with superheroes. The Sims has weather that affects mood, gets people wet, cold, overheated, and such. And that's great for that game since it's a life simulation. But for a superheroic combat RPG? It's at best noise and at worst a reason to log off for the day.

Just have cosmetic weather, it'll also allow the devs to go nuts with it and do crazier looking weather without having to worry about debuffs.

A damp night with a light drizzle turning the streets dark and reflective. Perfect for a street-level hero of the Batman caliber. It doesn't make him 5% less accurate with his Batarangs, it's just there to set the mood of the scene in the comic book.

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One of the things I remember

One of the things I remember most from _Tabula Rasa_ was the zone Ashen Desert. If you didn't know it was ash, it looked like snow covering the whole region... and the constant snowfall, gently and silently coming down....

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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McNum wrote:
McNum wrote:

Random global weather should in no way ever affect any stats of a player character. Doing so is penalizing players for actions that they have no control over.
If weather is to affect a player character, it has to be non-random story based weather. Like Doctor Dastardly has built a weather machine, go into this instance with crazy weather and stop him! Then go nuts. Harsh winds, lightning strikes, and so on. And play it up, since it's a supervillain with a weather machine. Subtlety isn't common in that scenario.
This isn't The Sims they're building. It's a combat RPG with superheroes. The Sims has weather that affects mood, gets people wet, cold, overheated, and such. And that's great for that game since it's a life simulation. But for a superheroic combat RPG? It's at best noise and at worst a reason to log off for the day.
Just have cosmetic weather, it'll also allow the devs to go nuts with it and do crazier looking weather without having to worry about debuffs.
A damp night with a light drizzle turning the streets dark and reflective. Perfect for a street-level hero of the Batman caliber. It doesn't make him 5% less accurate with his Batarangs, it's just there to set the mood of the scene in the comic book.

This is what I'd like to see. Cosmetic (and thematic) weather as a regular, global environmental effect and weather combined with character-affecting effects for specific events/missions that mesh with the ongoing plot line. Fogmaster has filled the warehouse with his trademark fog, limiting visibility, for example.

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Doing something with the

Doing something with the Environment, calling it an ambient "Weather" effect, and having it apply modifiers and or limiters to what characters can "DO" on a particular map or in a particular zone is FINE so long that that map or zone is an Instance. As Mendicant highlights, doing something like THAT for an Instanced Mission is perfectly acceptable. Think Frostfire Mission in The Hollows, having all of those slippery ice patches throughout the mission that effectively "ruined" the Friction Coefficient for ground movement/running in lots of places. So having the Environment modify powers and abilities inside of Instances is a Tool that should not be thrown out of the Content Team's Toolkit.

Doing those same things in the World Map Zones however is quite unacceptable. This may have been informally understood or just simply assumed, but I want to place the marker delineating the difference here in explicit and obvious terms.


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I agree with Redlynne. As

I agree with Redlynne. As long as the instanced effect affects everyone relatively equally.

My fire blaster would not be happy with a building where the fire sprinklers degraded her attacks while characters with other power sets remained unaffected. Realistic? Yes. Fun? Not so much.

I think the FF slippery floor example is a good one. It affected characters equally enough for me. Sure, maybe fliers had an advantage, but it wasn't enough to make my non-fliers upset.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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I'll make one caveat to my

I'll make one caveat to my above statement about Weather Effects On World Maps ... and that is the Winter Events in City of Heroes making the lakes freeze over so we could all go ice skating. THAT sort of creative thinking by the Content Team is welcome and encouraged on the World Maps!


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Would love to see cosmetic

Would love to see cosmetic-only weather in game, and since I'll probably never see MA in the fall the leaf color changes would be welcome as would the snow.

Personally, I think if it was raining or snowing and that caused a 20% chance of slipping and falling (NPCs as well as heroes) it would be funny and not detract from the gameplay much. Fog would lower stealth detection by 10%, etc. but could be hell in a PvP zone.

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Heartsong928 wrote:
Heartsong928 wrote:

Would love to see cosmetic-only weather in game, and since I'll probably never see MA in the fall the leaf color changes would be welcome as would the snow.

Speaking as someone who is in the area, I'd suggest they should go for some unrealistically nice Fall, as well, where the colorful leaves are up for longer than in RL. :)

Quote:

Personally, I think if it was raining or snowing and that caused a 20% chance of slipping and falling (NPCs as well as heroes) it would be funny and not detract from the gameplay much.

Effects on NPCs of seasons and weather could be fun. They could be bundled up more in the winter. If it is raining, they could have umbrellas and raingear... and the trash cans should have the skeletons of umbrellas that were busted by the wind. :3

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Doing something with the Environment, calling it an ambient "Weather" effect, and having it apply modifiers and or limiters to what characters can "DO" on a particular map or in a particular zone is FINE so long that that map or zone is an Instance. As Mendicant highlights, doing something like THAT for an Instanced Mission is perfectly acceptable. Think Frostfire Mission in The Hollows, having all of those slippery ice patches throughout the mission that effectively "ruined" the Friction Coefficient for ground movement/running in lots of places. So having the Environment modify powers and abilities inside of Instances is a Tool that should not be thrown out of the Content Team's Toolkit.

The fist time I did the Frostfire mission, our team spent an hour playing in the ice ramp room. It remained one of the more fun mission in the game just because of the ice patches and structures.

Quote:

I'll make one caveat to my above statement about Weather Effects On World Maps ... and that is the Winter Events in City of Heroes making the lakes freeze over so we could all go ice skating. THAT sort of creative thinking by the Content Team is welcome and encouraged on the World Maps!

Absolutely. A 'flood' event where a normally dry gorge is filled with rushing water that carries your character down to the outlet should they choose to jump into the torrent would be cool too, for example.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

I'll make one caveat to my above statement about Weather Effects On World Maps ... and that is the Winter Events in City of Heroes making the lakes freeze over so we could all go ice skating. THAT sort of creative thinking by the Content Team is welcome and encouraged on the World Maps!

I enjoyed that immensely, too, but all that sliding around made it tough to stay in melee range with mobs, significantly affecting the scrappers there, while not affecting ranged one whit. It would appear to be an example of what you fundamentally opposed. Somehow they did this in a way so that the frustration factor didn't go high enough to tune out players- probably because it was manageable, avoidable (taunt mobs off the ice or do other missions) and otherwise enjoyable. If it wasn't, they may have been able to balance it out more so ranged dps also degraded so the winter event wasn't just used by ranged characters, but they didn't have to.

That was the target I was aiming for- something tangible, that affected the way everyone engaged their enemies to add variety to the gameplay without alienating the player.

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I think that global debuffs

I think that global debuffs and such due to weather is a bridge too far.
A likewise design is mandatory for a Sniper FPS, for example, but not for what's on the table for CoT.

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Catherine America wrote:
Catherine America wrote:

I think that global debuffs and such due to weather is a bridge too far.
A likewise design is mandatory for a Sniper FPS, for example, but not for what's on the table for CoT.

I do agree as it relates to here.

My talk here was intended to be "wishlist" rather than "grafted on to an existing system." I'd like to see a game where combat at its core isn't as template-oriented as I see in so many MMOs- where a specific group with specific powers spammed at specific points are always the best strategy to use- combat becomes a "routine." Sometimes you have to adjust based on the faction you're facing, but that only adds a certain bit of variety. Making you combine faction adaptation with environment adaptation multiplies the level of variety in encounters, but it only has a chance to work if the "archetype" build system has the flexibility to let the characters adapt.

Fighting in the water in most MMO's is usually a matter of swinging your sword as you would on dry land, just with your feet kicking instead of firmly planted. Anyone that's done any underwater horseplay (get your mind out of the gutter!) knows that swinging anything underwater doesn't work that way very well and metal swords make great anchors. IRL there are other ways to fight underwater- other techniques that are used and other dangers to look out for, but directly imposing reality on the game isn't going to be balanced or fun or fair across all archetypes. If the armored knight's only option was to go unarmored, fight bare-handed, and risk drowning losing all his advantages, it isn't very fun or fair, particularly if the the blaster-mage gets a "breathe water" spell and then casts spells as normal with no penalty. If that same armored knight had those same penalties, but they opened up a full range of other tactics and techniques fitting for the setting, then it would be more fair and add variety to the play experience.

As a simpler example, let's stay outside the water: on the beach a good martial artist figting on a beach wil find that the loose sand impedes certain attacks that require solid footing, so he focuses on strategies that do work. This may be a complex mess of sorting out different powersets to slot in or out or it may be that certain attacks that would be "bad" in this area are swapped with others. Instead of a heavy-strike attack that needs better footing, the tray swaps in a sweeping kick that sprays a blinding cloud of sand against the foe. Another may take advantage of the foe's poor footing --a leg sweep that knocks down the foe, giving them a damage resist debuff that lets you land a finishing blow. The dps melee character thus finds more "control elements" in his arsenal, but less heavy hitters. to take down the foe. He's got to figure out when these power changes are best applied.

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*shrugs* Guild Wars 2 does it

*shrugs* Guild Wars 2 does it another way....

You have a set of weapons that are *only* useable underwater (harpoons, spears etc), and a set of skills that only they can use.

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DeathSheepFromHell wrote:
DeathSheepFromHell wrote:

Any thoughts on it? Yes.
Any ready to share with the public? Not yet, at least not from me.
Any reason for hope? Well, my first "big" (publicly visible, for any meaningful value of public) game coding project was a continental-scale weather simulation, with the specs laid out by someone who was working at NCAR at the time. Of course, it brought the entire server to a standstill every few minutes, but let's just say I've learned a bit since then. Also, two decades makes a bit of a difference in processing power...
That particular game also ran at a very severe 'skew', with daily time running normally but seasonal time running at about 13:1, and a large number of the ones I worked on later had between 2:1 and 3:1, though avoiding "phase lock" (and understanding how the skew was liable to affect play) was a very real issue on those games. So it is, at the very least, not unfamiliar territory.

I've also heard (but never seen implemented) ideas that had different instances of the game being in different "times" (Take 2 different instances, each acting as an 12-hour offset from the other. When it is 2am in one, it is 2pm in the other).

Many games have almost ridiculously fast day/night cycles so users don't have to wait TOO long for time to change if they have a night-related quest issued to them in the daytime. In single-player RPG's, you often just "wait" a few hours to speed ahead to the nighttime, and having instances on different time cycles would allow for the same kind of effect (want to 'wait until nightfall? Switch to zone 2).

You could then slow the sun's often-too-fast trek across the sky without forcing these questholders too much unnecessary downtime.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

*shrugs* Guild Wars 2 does it another way....
You have a set of weapons that are *only* useable underwater (harpoons, spears etc), and a set of skills that only they can use.

Realistically speaking, this is really the only way to go ... if you're going for maximum realism. Weapons (and armor) that works perfectly "fine" in the air (and "on" land, as opposed to being "in" it) simply become worthless when you're swimming around in the water. Swords are just REALLY difficult to swing (duh, water resistance!) compared to doing the same thing in air, so that they become just really slow and cumbersome, in most cases. That's why the most commonly used underwater bladed weapon is a Knife, not a Sword. If you're going to be using a "gun" styled weapon underwater, you're pretty much going to be dealing with some kind of "spear like" arrow or crossbow bolt, usually, because regular bullets just don't fly far enough through the water to carry their damage far enough downrange (too much frontal cross-sectional area relative to their mass creating lots of drag which means short range and poorer kinetic energy transfers to the target).

So in a lot of ways it just plain "makes sense" to mandate a specialized set of weapons for use underwater, as a nod to the "fact" that what works just fine in air while standing (or flying) above the ground becomes substantially useless once you get underwater. The physics involved become "different enough" to warrant swapping out all the weaponry and attack modes to something specialized for the purpose. Downside to that, of course, is that build diversity then immediately gets thrown out the window.


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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

I agree with Redlynne. As long as the instanced effect affects everyone relatively equally.

My fire blaster would not be happy with a building where the fire sprinklers degraded her attacks while characters with other power sets remained unaffected. Realistic? Yes. Fun? Not so much.

And not necessarily equally as long as you got a comparable benefit from the inconvenience. Look at the pencil-and-paper Champions RPG -- you take a Limitation on a power, it gets cheaper depending on how much it interferes with your free use of the power. In your example of the sprinklers being activated in a building, both direct-damage fire and cold powers would be inconvenienced from the spray -- fire from vaporizing the falling drops, cold from freezing them. Bullets or other solid projectiles wouldn't have any significant modifiers; electric damage could short through wet clothing to ground and do very little damage.

But rather than getting down in the weeds about making environmental modifiers realistic, they should be kept minor and balanced by giving the character some bonus -- if their powers are all fire-based, and because of the pouring rain they're getting a 5% debuff on their damage, they should be getting a 5% bonus to their XP (or some similar benefit). Don't just penalize characters for a special effect of their powers; make it a tradeoff so that they have a reason not to just switch to another character.

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if weather is to be seen , as

if weather is to be seen , as are season, I say let them be decoration not actual effects

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My idea and personal exercise

My idea and personal exercise for coding practice was to grab the kml/GIS data from weather.gov for the city of boston. It polls every 2 minutes maybe a kilobyte of data.
Provides everything from current temp to wind and precipitation, including amount fallen intensity and type (rain/snow). It's also quite easy for apps like google earth and other map applications to read and reflect the data. I'd propose this polling API grab the current data and then translate that into a city-wide particle-emitter effect to draw rain/snow or clear, wind by faking leaves and plastic bags flying around, etc.

A more robust system could apply flooding, persistent snow on the ground, and even could provide world events for incidents of severe weather.

It'd be really cool to have fire heroes trying to melt the streets during a blizzard...

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams

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Socked in due to weather, I

Socked in due to weather, I fire up the MMO to pass the time... playing a character in a blizzard. HOLD ON ...

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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summer-heat wrote:
summer-heat wrote:

My idea and personal exercise for coding practice was to grab the kml/GIS data from weather.gov for the city of boston. It polls every 2 minutes maybe a kilobyte of data.
Provides everything from current temp to wind and precipitation, including amount fallen intensity and type (rain/snow).

Much as LCF indicated above, the thought that came to me is that this could be exceedingly dull for people who live in that part of the world. Imagine that it's been raining all week and every time you log into the game it's also grey and wet.

Realism in something like a superhero game should be taken with a big grain of salt, to begin with, and then there comes the point where the risk is great of missing the forest for the trees.

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That's a fair argument Fez.

That's a fair argument Fez. It's clear there are more questions to ask at an earlier state before jumping the gun into implementation questions.

What will be more appealing? Real-time data or simulated weather
How extensive should weather be? a minor environment graphic or potentially world-event prompting incidents
How persistent should effects be? no flooding to applicable water flooding, no accumulation to traffic-affecting snowfall
What impact should temperature have? absolutely none to adding a cold-breath effect outdoors to freezing water features
How destructive will the weather be? absolutely none, visual/pre-baked destruction or as extensive as uprooting trees, damaging cars, breaking windows...
Severe Weather - possible, down the road, no interest at this time, etc.
If Severe weather is done, what extent? We've got lore built around hurricane Atlas. Could hurricanes be implemented as a world event? what other major weather patterns could be implemented?

I'm just listing the many questions that still have no official answer yet, some have already been asked in different words.

Knowing what's possible for release in 2 years and what could be implemented in 3 or 4 could implement the weather system in phases instead of an all or nothing method.

I'd like weather to be implemented in phases with a roadmap at least... something like the following
Phase 1: 2015-release: simulated random weather, no impact on world aside from visual. Can be disabled in graphic options
Phase 2: 3-5 months minimum: seasons implemented (falling leaves, persistent snow, rainy puddles, rising/falling water table with flood zones) current weather and season effects are optional, flooding is not(?).
Phase 3: additional 3-5 months min., optional: Severe weather phase 1: Minor weather damage (hail implemented) in the form of destroyed cars, broken skylights, broken building windows, damaged trees. (all weather effects still optional)
Phase 4: Severe weather phase 2: hurricane events, tornado events, thunderstorm events, etc. (events are the only weather feature not optional as it offers potential leads, heroic acts, neighborhood-specific calls-for-action and opportunities for looting.)

Just some of my random thoughts on a Friday morning...that clearly got away from me.

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As my earlier posts hopefully

As my earlier posts hopefully indicated, I'm all for including it for ambiance and immersion. I'm not interested in having it affect game play unless it is a planned and announced event. Others have also pointed out that it's not much good going whole hog on the weather if half the players will have to turn it off because their computers can't handle it.

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If it's done right, players

If it's done right, players won't have to resort to turning it completely off, it could be scaled down like the number of particle effects, but admittedly there will be times when a specific neighborhood is so crowded players open up those graphics options to turn things down so they don't risk lagging out. There's only so much that can be done for backwards compatibility. The unreal engine officially supports Windows 8, but there's been mention somewhere that it worked well enough on windows 7. It doesn't make sense to me to design for systems that don't meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 7 if the game engine doesn't go that far back. That said, I'm well aware the minimum system requirements for windows 7 are really low in comparison to what is available on the markets even for super-cheap new laptop builds or budget machines from Dell HP and toshiba.

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An Everquest Next Round Table

An Everquest Next Round Table in which they speak about weather. Honestly, the only reason I'm posting it is because they mention that they had an overwhelming response of people voting to have weather in the game. I found the remainder of the video to be less interesting than this thread.

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Thanks Fez! Yes it's just one

Thanks Fez! Yes it's just one poll, for another genre MMO, but it is interesting to see that people do in fact want weather as an environmental immersion in some form or another. I'd assume weather in some client-based, optional after-effect is easily accomplished on the UE4 engine and I still look forward to some immersion from that direction.

Honestly, there are lots of things and aspects about the game I'd like to see a similar polling done to the playerbase but I'll just be happy to play the game and have fun.

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams

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Throw me in for one who'd

Throw me in for one who'd like to see Weather in the game. Like many have said, I'd rather it not be anything that really affects game play. Just something that changes every so often so as to give us a difference in mood and scenery. While I wouldn't like for it to be tied to actual weather patterns that are happening right at this moment, it would be nice to have the seasons played out like they generally are supposed to be. When it's spring, it's spring, etc. Just have some kind of randomizer that determines whether or not it's raining, snowing, sunny, cloudy, blowing like crazy, etc. I think this would be a fantastic idea.

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+1 to everything Static just

+1 to everything Static just said.

I'm playing Skyrim just now, and even though it affects nothing other than visibility, there is something just ... special ... about seeing the weather change unexpectedly.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Weather is definitely in the

Weather is definitely in the "bells and whistles" category, but I've found it surprisingly important for immersion. It just enhances immersion to see the sun rise and set, to have rainy dark days, and to look outside the window and see snow and then have snow in the game.

I vote for accelerated day cycle like CoH but seasons that match the actual seasons. I can't give any reason WHY playing at night in the game in the middle of the day isn't a problem but playing in the dead of winter in the game in the middle of the summer is less immersive.

But, that's just one more opinion. Grist for the mill.

I have to say, since I've discovered these forums, I've really started to ache for CoH even thought I'm playing DCUO right now (just to keep my poor Heroes alive since I just couldn't play CO any more). I mean, shut down right before ancillary pool color customization too! My nuts still ache from that kick.

Ok, we're ready! Let us in Titan City!!!

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What others call bells and

What others call bells and whistles I call "polish" and frankly I do not want an unpolished game.

I say this not just about weather but about the components of any game that is in the development stage. It's not something you need to work on when you're first building a level but if you tell yourself it's not important you end up with a sub-par product. So please remember after the basics are done to go back through and add polish everywhere possible because those details will be very appreciated.

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Not sure I'd want CoH exact

Not sure I'd want CoH exact day cycle.

It does make sense to use a sped up day cycle though, so all players get a chance to play in the night. CoH if memory serves was like 15mins of night, right? I don't hink it was 30mins and 30mins.

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I can't remember what game it

I can't remember what game it is right now (Probably more than one), but the ambient music transitions to fit the weather in the event it's an "abnormal" (anything that isn't sunny/cloudy). So if rain started, you'd get a track that fits more with the rain. Thunderstorm? Same deal. And to curb any worries, the music is mainly peaceful until combat happens so you won't have a thunderstorm come out of nowhere and turn a nice piano track into something heavy metal.

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Jay: I see your point about

Jay: I see your point about polish. I guess I meant to say that I would understand if there couldn't be that level of polish on release, so I said "bells and whistles", when I meant more what you said--not essential for launch but definitely on the SoonTM list. So, yeah, what you said--polish. And definitely immersion-enhancing.

Brand: Yeah, accelerated day/night cycle and seasons fit the real seasons. I don't really care if it's EXACTLY CoH, but if I get on to play for 30 min I like to see some time progression. Makes it feel like I played longer :P.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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