And the mask comes off.

[hopelives]

C'Mon guys, can you get it right?

Acquired: City of Heroes. Pie: Required?

  LOL !  At any rate. on that hopefully great day,  i23 will rise from ..well wherever it is they have it stashed, and we will get to play the game 4ever & ever amen :)  Addendum: on that day also, let it be known, that pie & cake will no longer be called, "..a lie".    :)

[LaughingAlex]

In which Issue? At Issue 1, Tankers did pretty low damage. I recall at least two damage boosts for them, and one was pretty significant. After that, yeah, Tanks became a much better soloing AT. Also, because it was after the Global Defense Nerf, their defenses were no longer so overdone, and you actually had use for multiple defensive options either because you wanted to buff the Tank or you wanted multiple Tanks or something.

Basically, in the beginning, they were unwanted and superfluous after the first Tanker, and ridiculously OP defensively. But after a good amount of decent fixes, they became a solidly-balanced AT that fit in a playstyle outside of the healer-tanker-control (or maybe damage in CoH) trinity.

When I talk of the game as I see it I'm usually refering to Issue 8 and beyond.  I started playing CoX when villain side came out, ironically because I had bought the good vs evil edition I played hero side the most initially.  It was a couple months in after that I was beginning to drop the trinity and start designing more around multipliers or doing more than one thing in a team.

[LaughingAlex]

Exactly so. As deep into the game as I4 the devs were still designing around archetypes as if they had far more fixed roles on teams than the players felt they should, and were still thinking in terms that trinity-style gameplay could still  be salvaged.  The "everyone should be able to solo" informal design rule didn't really become a genuine design rule as far as I know until CoV.  Look at CoV archetypes, and notice the shift in design.  CoV is obviously "post-trinity." 

But if the devs actually had a strong grasp of how to make the numbers do what they wanted, we would have never gotten the City of Heroes we ended up with.  To put it in direct terms, the devs did not have enough control over the numbers to fine-tune archetype power between "lame" and "overpowered" so most things ended up overpowered relative to the design.  At launch, powerset combination meant more to your overall power than archetype.  Invuln/SS tanker?  Godzilla.  MA/DA scrapper?  Doormat.  Dark defender?  Awesome.  Electric/Fire Blaster?  Roadkill.  Emp/Electric defender?  Useless except as a sidekick.  By the time they figured out how to fix it, it was too late to fix: City of Heroes became the best MMO in the history of MMOs to solo in, because the devs handed out powerlevels most admins don't have in other MMOs.  They couldn't bring down the overpowered stuff to "correct" levels except in the extreme cases, so they were forced to buff the players upward to balance archetypes out.  Players always complained about nerfs, but the history of City of Heroes is an 80/20 buff to nerf empower-o-rama.

Incidentally, the last vestige of trinity-thinking lasted surprisingly long.  It was the legacy of Blasters having no alternate design ethic once trinity was no longer the law of the land.  In my opinion, it wasn't until Arbiter Hawk started to look at Blasters - literally in I23 - that I think Blasters escaped trinity-thinking; the last archetype to do so.  Also, just a bit too late because I24 would have been the first issue to contain the start of non-trinity Blasters (one of my regrets was that I think in AH I finally had a Blaster ally on the dev team that thought about them somewhat like I did, and was willing to experiment with them outside the glass-cannon trinity model, and I'll never know where we could have eventually gotten Blasters to).

In any case, none of this was even remotely by design.  It was 100% accident.

I recall another game that ended up a crown jewel by accident.  Deus Ex was originally meant to be a pure stealth game, but the developers accidentally went a little overboard in providing to many weapons for the player....

...then they added a lot of combat augmentations....while forgetting it was a stealth game they were designing.

The best part of it was, thats what made deus ex so great.  In doing those two things, and of course adding the skills system in addition to the augmentation system, they made a beautiful role playing game/first person shooter hybrid that rpg players and fps players could both seriously enjoy.  Heck its a game I seriously say everyone should play.  I know some people avoid fps's like the plague, but those people could probably get through deus ex if they'd just think their way through it.  It's a game where by accident actually does allow you to get through it with little to no shots fired from a gun.  You don't have to be the crack shot to win even on realistic.

And unlike system shock 2 before it, you didn't need X or Y skill to beat the game.  In fact this video series shows beating the game through absolute max creative use of crates, no skills, augmentations or inventory items allowed; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVRpvgYVMg&list=PL67B3634D970D5603 .

Just as deus ex was one of those games that accidentally entered the odd side of the game industry as a true freeform game, city of heroes accidentally exposed the mmorpg to non trinity play in the truer form, unintentionally, but would it want to go back giving up all of that freedom? :)

[Taceus Jiwede]

In which Issue? At Issue 1, Tankers did pretty low damage. I recall at least two damage boosts for them, and one was pretty significant. After that, yeah, Tanks became a much better soloing AT. Also, because it was after the Global Defense Nerf, their defenses were no longer so overdone, and you actually had use for multiple defensive options either because you wanted to buff the Tank or you wanted multiple Tanks or something.

Basically, in the beginning, they were unwanted and superfluous after the first Tanker, and ridiculously OP defensively. But after a good amount of decent fixes, they became a solidly-balanced AT that fit in a playstyle outside of the healer-tanker-control (or maybe damage in CoH) trinity.

I remember just after launch I would play on a team with my brother and some of his friends.  One of them was an invul tanker that would do nothing but stand in the middle of the room and just taunt over and over again.  I'm pretty sure he would just bind it and go afk sometimes.  For awhile tank's were only good at standing around and soaking damage heh.

[Scott Jackson]

Thank you, Nate and Ironwolf - and unnamed others - who've carried the deal this far.  Thank you, NCSoft, for being willing to try once again.

I wish Irish_Girl and the negotiating team the very best of luck.  Let us know when (and how) you need us.   :)

[lapucelle]

Scott! Good to see you. Thanks for posting, and thanks for starting this whole thing off.
- Warcabbit

[hopelives]

Thank you, Nate and Ironwolf - and unnamed others - who've carried the deal this far.  Thank you, NCSoft, for being willing to try once again.

I wish Irish_Girl and the negotiating team the very best of luck.  Let us know when (and how) you need us.   :)

  Ditto ! Of course, since I am not well versed in the computer sciences, about all I can do is send best wish's, and lol,cash when the time comes of course. :)

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Okies, digging because I know I saw it.   Found this, bolded by me.  I just did a search for "hell yes" in each big thread here, lol.  I knew I remembered that part!   :P


Task Force Hail Mary / Re: New efforts! -- metadiscussion
« Message by Nyx Nought Nothing on August 31, 2014, 08:51:35 pm »


    If Missing Worlds Media turns out to be THeM, then I suspect that it's an agreement for the IP, rather than actually "turning the servers back on",  MWM has already invested time and money in their architecture, including a sweetheart deal for the Unreal Engine.  It would be short-sighted of MWM to throw all of that away to take over a game whose code and server architecture are unknown and undocumented.

Just so you know, many-many-many pages back in the New Efforts! thread, somewhere near the beginning, it was reported that the NewDev team had contacted NCsoft about acquiring the IP and NCsoft said "By the way, we also have an archive of the game's code at shutdown, would you be interested in buying that as well?" and the team basically said "Oh hell yes!" with the intention of getting the original game back up and running while transitioning the game to a new engine. They also found NCsoft's asking price to be thoroughly doable, which does make MWM seem fairly unlikely as it's a mostly volunteer effort being run on a shoestring budget. They've made some remarkable progress, but i can't imagine MWM would have the funds to also acquire CoH.
Regardless, the stated intention of the team currently bargaining is to get the original game up and running in at least maintenance mode while working on a revamped engine.

To be honest you'd be better off finding the original Ironwolf post in the New Efforts! thread rather than going on my hearsay. i need to run off to an opening, but i might try wading through his posts after i get back.  :P

Found it:

Oh, at this stage I don't think you will need me.

Another group is moving forward and they have the contact at NCSoft needed and the price to purchase the game. Now I don't know what "purchase the game" entails.

I know in early conversations the group expressed interest in the IP only - not the actual game engine - now as some have said here it may be not easily possible to divorce the code from the engine or the price may be inclusive. Those are not things we knew about in the earlier talks. The discussions I was involved with were - will NCSoft talk to anyone?

Yes, all the information I had on any offers made was that NCSoft did talk and listened to the offer. Once that was resolved the problem was some of the rumors that had gone around. The $80 million price tag tied to the Texas state sales tax increase - was proven not to apply. It was calculated at that price if all game sales for NC Interactive had to be tied into the purchase of the IP - they don't.

At this stage - I don't know what the purchase might consist of. The CoH engine is old and described as a cobbled together spaghetti mess by anyone who worked on it. NCSoft may now be aware of this and so the "engine" may be fairly worthless on its own. Not to be discouraging or to insult our beloved game but how much should someone pay for a 10 year old cobbled together mess that has been out of service for 16 months?

Consider NCSoft paid $8 million originally to Cryptic and a period of profit sharing. There was development true but the core is still the 10 year old engine with custom bolted on graphics updates. I won't guess any more on what is on offer - we hopefully will find out soon enough!

[Pep Rally]

I remember just after launch I would play on a team with my brother and some of his friends.  One of them was an invul tanker that would do nothing but stand in the middle of the room and just taunt over and over again.  I'm pretty sure he would just bind it and go afk sometimes.  For awhile tank's were only good at standing around and soaking damage heh.

That's on the player. Don't blame the AT. You can't expect to do damage when you don't take, enhance, and use your attacks.  You actually hold aggro better when you mix attacks(damage+gauntlet) with Taunt as well.

[Feign]

Well, looks like I'm about a week late to this party, but I'm just gonna say holy crap I'm excited!

I'm a little nervous about any kind of business doings with NC, but I'm sure it's an inflated fear from their past slights feeling so personal.

[hopelives]

well I don't care that it's old, just want it back  :)   

[Rejolt]

The Guards Jolteh?

Yes! I actually ran into Infinite Zen in DCUO over the summer.

[Dollhouse]

That's on the player. Don't blame the AT. You can't expect to do damage when you don't take, enhance, and use your attacks.  You actually hold aggro better when you mix attacks(damage+gauntlet) with Taunt as well.

Exactly. And some Tanker primaries were better than others at getting and holding aggro. WP/ was never that good at it, yet my very best Tanker was WP/DB. The key? You could slot the area attacks in /DB to grab more aggro (and some of the IO sets for WP/ had taunt boosts, too). It took a careful build, but I got that character to be one hell of an aggro magnet...and quite survivable (MSTF, etc), too.

[Ankhammon]

Yes! I actually ran into Infinite Zen in DCUO over the summer.

Hey hey Jolty! Welcome to the gawk n wait.

Nice on the Zen find. If you find him again say hi from me. it's me Shadey. figured I wanted a less common name.

[Ankhammon]

Exactly. And some Tanker primaries were better than others at getting and holding aggro. WP/ was never that good at it, yet my very best Tanker was WP/DB. The key? You could slot the area attacks in /DB to grab more aggro (and some of the IO sets for WP/ had taunt boosts, too). It took a careful build, but I got that character to be one hell of an aggro magnet...and quite survivable (MSTF, etc), too.

There were some other ways to help out too.

Placing de-buff procs into the aura went a really long way to shoring up the taunt. Almost no one used those procs so they were really cheap. The only time I saw them not really working was when a tank/brute would actually use the taunt power and as soon as the duration on it was gone they would jump me again.

Someone showed me that trick long ago. Later I used two on my Time/Ice defender and it worked really well. I thought I was a tank. I played him like a tank... Heck, I was a tank but with better AOEs... but less HP. :)

[Arcana]

I remember just after launch I would play on a team with my brother and some of his friends.  One of them was an invul tanker that would do nothing but stand in the middle of the room and just taunt over and over again.  I'm pretty sure he would just bind it and go afk sometimes.  For awhile tank's were only good at standing around and soaking damage heh.

Its more correct to say that some players who played tanks were only good at standing around and soaking damage.  It was never true that the problem rested with the archetype itself.

[Harpospoke]

The main purpose of the Hollows was to teach players about the importance of aggro range.  Something you learn VERY quickly when the place is full of mobs of 4, 6, or even 8+ gangers, all hanging around waiting to get biblical on your ass. 

I have to admit the Hollows was where I learned that.    Figured out how to zoom out the camera so I could see danger better.   Learned how much space I needed to thread the needle between two groups too.

[Harpospoke]

Okay, here is another funny story.  Some friends of mine were killing time waiting for some other SG members to show up and we thought, hey, lets go mess around in the Hollows.  We were at least level 20+ so no worry about aggro.  As we were walking around we run into a bunch of trolls beating drums and doing the "Troll Dance".  You know the one where they hop from one foot to another....  So we were like, Hey let's join in.  So some of us used the emote for large or small drums beating on them like they were bongos...some joined in the dance.  When a low level player sees us and walks up wanting to know why the trolls were ignoring us.  We tried to warn him to back off but it was too late....he aggroed the mob and we had no choice but to put them down or watch the new player get mauled.  Then after we all had a good laugh.   ;D

Here is a pic of my Police officer character Troll's Taskforce Ted citing a troll in the Hollows for loitering.  LOL

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i56.tinypic.com%2Fsynh92.jpg

lol...I love that.  :D

This game is way too fun.   Got such a strong urge to log on right now.

[Harpospoke]

I joined a number of the all Fire/Rad teams on Freedom - I think they were on Tuesdays.  Amazing how mobs just melted away. :)

I did some of those as well.    Ever play with a toon called "Satan's Loogie"?  (Exactly what it sounds like...his bio was....interesting)

[Harpospoke]

Yup! That was me! I ran two or three other popular team-forming channels as well... I was all about doing those Task Forces! :D

I was probably a member of all of them.   Always plenty of options to choose from and the teams were full of good players.  (Maybe there is a correlation between knowing about chat channels and being a good player?)