http://cityoftitans.com/content/writing-city-titans-process
Feel free (or obligated; your choice) to discuss this week's update from our Composition team!
Wed, 04/30/2014 - 10:58
#1
Discuss: Writing for City of Titans: the Process
Spiffy little insight into the process. Thanks.
I really don't envy them that work, especially with a slew of people contributing to the setting. Half the time I dread keeping just my own continuity in decent shape.
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I love wikis! CoH was the first game where I loved checking the wiki. Champions Expanded on this with their launch release when they had a "rate my champion" app that was like a way to look at characters out of game as well.
I hope the account/character server can be merged with the Wiki information for cross referencing. I love Titan Network AND Primus Database so much now it's it's own game! An in-game, officially sanctioned version of that (complete with character info like height from the costume creator, stats *if they exist* and bio etc) would be awesome. The ability to link myself to HEART and the other programs/characters that exist in-game when people look up my bio would be an awesome addition. I even want to put a map marker to my SG base and link to the SG wiki page!
So much can be done easily with a wiki! I'd even be willing to BUY an andoid app that serves as the Titan City Department of Public Safety official registry (of sanctioned and unsanctioned inhabitants)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Agreed! I admire MWM's careful approach to all this.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain!
Spurn all ye kindle.
Careful? No offense, but I was expecting that to be a long and detailed update about the process. Maybe I simply have OCD when it comes to these kinds of things haha. Anywho, thanks for keeping us in the loop. :-D
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
Love the music!!
It has that ominous vibe that permeated Praetoria (with a little mix of City of Villains in it).
Hey, is it still possible to join the composition team? I sent an email to Robin months ago and haven't heard anything back.
Mentalshock is usually the best person to email (although I can't guarantee a response, either) at mentalshock@missingworldsmedia.com
Is Issue 2 when an unknown Master Villain starts to frame Heroes in the public's eyes and slowly destroys their Reputation? :o
Maybe an endgame (level 28+) mission that shows a silhouette of a villain, or better yet just his hand as he touches the keypad and switches between a number of very bad villains with you fighting them in past missions you had to do, and he doesn't say a word.. but his assistant blabbers on about how cleaver his boss was to have duped the Heroes into doing his dirty work.
And just leave it as a mystery for the next Issue. :) Let them all guess who that might be. And do that for another 2 issues, always making it seem as if we found out who was behind it.. but leaving a smidgen of doubt.
This looks like a job.... for Space Moose? :-)
________
This looks like a job for SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!
[color=#ff0000]Composition Team[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Space Moose Coast to Coast!
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
We got this!
[color=#ff0000]Continuity Lead[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I wish I could have written some content for the game..is there a way to do that still??
[url=http://postimg.org/image/ub71hq9jl/][img]http://s16.postimg.org/ub71hq9jl/siggy.jpg[/img][/url]
We are currently full up on writers, but if you are interested in editing...
_______________________________________________________________________________
Conundrum of Furballs
[color=#ff0000]Composition Team, Staff Writer[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I am confused about what your team is actually doing. I was a COH/COV patron from the beginning. I have read some of what your goals were on kickstarter and on here and they don't seem to jive completely together.
1. You claim your creating a NEW COH type game, but i don't see the vision
2. How do you plan to take what COH/COV did and improve and not do the same game.
3. I know your choices like using UE4, very good engine. The issue i have is your making a sand box game with very little growth potential. I have a feeling that you will put this thing together. A big city, filled with moving parts...but in the end...its just a big city. How will you address all the issues people had with COH. The creation of a hero, the backstory, the city, etc. How are you going to bring your game to me and want me to make my home there and pass up games like Champions, very poorly done game with crappy graphics and poor interface built on a pay to win scenario, DC online another super hero game that seems to be moving in the right direction, but needs even more help to be awesome then what they already have. Marvel online, another ok super hero game...etc etc etc. and then you have the other game ..that is being made that looks just like yours... i ask again, how are you going to make this new, different and fun. COH was more than just a superhero game, the biggest issue COH had was its inability to grow beyond level 50. You can keep improving on a game but eventually you have to improve beyond 50. Even in COH there were a plethora of areas like perez park, skyway, etc that were great when the game released but then came irrelevant later when they added new zones like the hollows. I just don't see the vision of what your putting together coming to play. I feel as though, both COT and that other game being made are just COH/COV copies and as much as i loved COH i don't want COH, i want the next step, COH/COV taught us one thing, if your not looking forward, then your being shut down, I will use one word to describe the game i want....DYNAMIC! If you know what i mean, you can always let me know what you think, but COT and the other hero games, they are not dynamic, even 99 percent of all mmorpg's are not dynamic. I always say if your gonna do something right do it right the first time and make sure it is what you want, but honestly, what your creating is a game that was made 10 years ago with newer graphics and sputter, its like going from everquest to everquest 2, there still basically the same game.... now everquest next...probably not my style, but at least it is forward thinking... you tell me .. how do you plan to be a DYNAMIC game. When you realize your game is no different than those of the past, and you really have nothing more than another bunch of code piggy backing off the same game that already has been done, let me know, cause even with COH/COV it wasn't dynamic and it is gone, if you can't figure out how to be dynamic, you too are just wasting your time. Very Respectfully....Certified Angus
Remember the fallen
Um... did you read any of the kickstarter updates or anything? At all? There's a forum topic that links to all of them at the top of the Kickstarter discussion forum. They talk a lot about what they're doing that makes the game different from CoX and things like that there.
The only two dynamic MMO's I am aware of on the market are Wildstar and Ultima Online.
I do not see how to leverage that form of system into a comic-book themed game, honestly.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I couldn't disagree more. Deciding that 50 was the max level at the outset and not deviating from that, and instead providing Incarnate content for those who wanted more for their 50s to do -- I believe this was one of the greatest strengths of CoX. It maintained focus. It prevented power sets designed with 1-50 in mind from getting new powers that would have felt just tacked-on. It prevented any high-level grinding done at 50 from becoming obsolete. To this day I think sticking with 50 as max was one of the most insightful decisions the devs ever made.
This seems to directly contradict your previous assertion about max level. Surely the quickest way to make low level zones obsolete is to keep raising the level cap. The fact that alting was a major endgame strategy in CoX kept lower levels alive where they would have died out if CoX had constantly focused on max-lvl activities. The Hollows was added in Issue 2; Perez and Skyway were scarcely made ghost towns because of it. Because there was so much alting, players wanted options for levelling new characters. The fact that there were multiple paths by which to do so was yet another of the major strengths of CoX.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I'm not really convinced. i was one of the people that started playing CoH since Issue 3 and always wanted them to add a lvl 60 Cap. By Issue 18 I got so bored that I kinda WANTED DEVs to throw in new powers into existing power-sets and have us play-test them and see what balances the power-set out, how a new Effect, Buff or DeBuff would affect the dynamics of team game-play and the like. Going with the Incarnate stuff felt like a COP Out as if the CoH DEV's were saying to the VET's,, err,,, 1-50 is PERFECT Now.. We Wont Touch it..
But, We Already Mastered it.. Nothing New here for us to master anymore. :P
And were stuck either playing on One of our 50's, doing the same 2 or 3 Trials, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVERRR... and...
or.. still trying to level up our existing toons... using the OLD but PERFECT Balance and not really being challenged to learn any New Machanic or New SO/IO balancing system. If only the SO's would change the way you played the exact same power-set, maybe it wouldn't be as dull. Ex: If we got the option to Slot Effects that change the way our power bahved.. say From KnockBack to KnockDown and the like. That would have breath new life into existing power-sets.
I know not everyone feels the same way, and most likely allot of CoH players wont feel like i did... but i must have gotten 40+ level 50's and got bored and Deleted them on a regular basis. And no, i didnt use AE to power level my toons. Well, there was that one Archery/Kin defender, but i deleted her soon after. And no, I NEVER Paid a farmer to power level my toon. >:/ Whats the fun in that!?! o.O
I think that the CoX developers also painted themselves *slightly* into a corner as well when it came to new content (although this did also help some of the "teaming aspects" of the game.
If you were at level cap, and new content got introduced, you couldn't do that content unless you teamed up with someone who was already doing said new content.
Now granted, they did give the nice out of doing that via Oroborus (when that got introduced), but that also had its own problems compared to when you were running through it normally (ie the lack of being able to buy enhancements/inspirations from contacts, depending on your build, you might have had a harder time doing it with the build you have at level 50 compared to what it would be if you exemped... etc etc).
For me, because I am NOT a great person for alting, I always wanted something *new* to do on my level cap characters, without necessarily having to jump through hoops to be able to play said content.
Which was why, for me, incarnate content was at least *something* that I could get my teeth into. However, once they introduced they introduced this, I was left scratching with how they were going to introduce more and more "hard content" whilst still keeping the same style of play that CoX had, without making it too twitchy/gimmiky in encounters (combat animations rooting you would be a problem and quite possibly end up being harder to get out of "red circles of IMPENDING DOOM!" syndrome).
Also, I felt that because the incarnate system *didn't* stop you from (eventually) learning ALL the incarnate abilities (you were limited to which one you used from each tree though), there were no real decisions to make... because you could eventually get ALL of them (with enough time and effort).