New efforts!

[Blackgrue]

People in general need to understand the concept of "Man-hours". A non-mmo AAA title generally takes a core-team of 50 people or so 2 years of work.

If you do the math, that comes out to 200,000 hours-per-person approximately.

Now You could in theory slim that time down by hiring more people, but that means higher budget. CoT has a much smaller core team than that, and dispite new efficient engines I doubt we'll see it go gold in the next 2 years.

[Zerohour]

Interesting, certainly the first time I'm seeing it.  I would think you'd prioritize communicating that to people who donated to you...

Drop the strawman bud, nobody is saying that games are made in a year.  The only thing I expect are substantive and relevant updates, not cabbie fanfics.

This is where I'm at too. Enough with the lore. I want to read that stuff when I'm playing through the quests. I feel like they have a binder full of these things and when nothing else is going on they throw one up and call it an update. They've even said that some of this stuff isn't going to be in the game so I don't know why I'm wasting my time reading it.

As for the test zone pics. That's all U4 built in stuff. Including the blue man that they called "Odo" and lead us to believe was a creation of CoT.

And yes I was also taken aback by the low grade Santa. It was rather shocking to be honest.

[Darkfaith]

This is where I'm at too. Enough with the lore. I want to read that stuff when I'm playing through the quests. I feel like they have a binder full of these things and when nothing else is going on they throw one up and call it an update. They've even said that some of this stuff isn't going to be in the game so I don't know why I'm wasting my time reading it.

As for the test zone pics. That's all U4 built in stuff. Including the blue man that they called "Odo" and lead us to believe was a creation of CoT.

And yes I was also taken aback by the low grade Santa. It was rather shocking to be honest.

The low grade Santa was a test model, a prebuilt UR4 unit with all of the appropriate joints and rigging that they can use to test animations while their proper model goes through all of the various iterations needed to get it right. As for the test zone, it's pointed out that the brick buildings in the final pictures are "One of the last things we managed to put in the old test-neighborhood were our very first completed buildings. These buildings are the first buildings we've made from scratch, using every tool available to us. And we've rendered them for beauty with our own home-made textures. This isn't as good as we'll get, but it's as good as we are right now." It seems pretty clear to me that they're not trying to pass the rest off as their own.

As for the abundance of lore updates, the unfortunate fact is that they're at a stage in development where lore comes much faster than the things we'd be interested in seeing. All of the tech stuff that many people want to see are the sort of thing that probably won't be in a public acceptable state for some time to come. People are tearing apart the stuff that they are showing us, which is just as important to the technical side as their own art and assets, so what would they do with stuff that's not ready to be shown yet? Or stuff that's still in a testing stage, and may yet change so much as to be completely unrecognizable by the time it gets to a point that it's properly ready to be shown?

I invested. I don't always read the lore updates, but you can be sure I'm paying attention to anything remotely technical. And while they're not ready to show us much in the way of their own home-grown assets yet, I see promise in the way they're handling the engine to put things together despite the shiny stuff not being ready to show. It's rough, and some of it looks terrible, and it's in bits and pieces, but if you're looking at it from a technical standpoint...it's there, in the few updates of that nature that we've been given.

As for KS investors not getting the updates, I've always gotten each and every update email within hours of it going up on the site, when it doesn't appear first. From what I've seen, they've been pretty good at putting up those updates on both their site and their KS page.

[Fanta]

Hmm. I liked it better a few pages ago when people were talking about speeding Shard content. No need to bother with when the deal is done. When it's done, it's done. After so long you'd think we'd be a bit more understanding. Que Sera Sera.

[Felderburg]

They've even said that some of this stuff isn't going to be in the game so I don't know why I'm wasting my time reading it.

I didnt  fund CoT, so I don't have any skin in the game, but I thought I'd throw it out there that the CoH website had a lot of lore stuff that wasn't in the game. Sure, some of it was referenced in badges or what have you, but there was a lot that wasn't in the game at all. So unless you well and truly hate background information and getting a feel for the world of a game, I'm not sure how reading it is a "waste" of time.

[Codewalker]

what people have said, and I agree, is that there is a time pressure for ncsoft to move on this opportunity. currently they have an IP that no one has seen in 2 years.

The already wrote off its value as zero two years ago when they dismantled the game and announced that they had "exhausted all options". If it's worth more than that, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to what they're earning every quarter from other titles. NCSoft has no time pressure and no reason to care much about the chance that it might be worth more than zero; it's up to any prospective buyers to convince them of that.

[Surelle]

So... Are you guys looking for something like this? http://cityoftitans.com/content/test-zone-developing-basics

Also A feature being included in the engine, and being able to harness it are totally different things.
The engine has built in tools to build and manage particle systems, that doesn't mean it comes with fireworks out of the box.

Wow, those backdrops look amazing, especially the tile floors with the puddles and reflections!  Even the trash on the ground looks eerily realistic.   8)

[Surelle]

I didnt  fund CoT, so I don't have any skin in the game, but I thought I'd throw it out there that the CoH website had a lot of lore stuff that wasn't in the game. Sure, some of it was referenced in badges or what have you, but there was a lot that wasn't in the game at all. So unless you well and truly hate background information and getting a feel for the world of a game, I'm not sure how reading it is a "waste" of time.

Practically all of Destiny's story is not in the game and is only available online-- and that was one of the biggest launches of 2014.  Just sayin'.   :D

[MegaWatt]

Well...i made a mistake, i downloaded icon and played around (even turned one of my characters from an idiot brute into a power armored fire/fire Blaster....definitely resurrecting that one that way). The mistake was that i went all the way to Atlas and now i have a major nostalgia thing going on >.<

[darkgob]

It's in the 'News' section of the CoT Forums. I donated as well and it's where i look to find out what is going on.

Why should I have to go looking for it?  Why should I have to watch the front page like a hawk for each new piece of information?  Poor communication.

People in general need to understand the concept of "Man-hours". A non-mmo AAA title generally takes a core-team of 50 people or so 2 years of work.

*sigh* Again with the low reading comprehension.  I don't want the game out "nao", I want UPDATES.  I can accept that virtually all of the game is not in a showoffable state.  But TELL ME THAT.  This isn't like the NCSoft negotiations where an NDA can be broken just by acknowledging its existence.

Don't flood me with fanfic and leave me wondering what the hell is going on.  What did you work on this week, powers?  Map system & navigation?  Mission mechanics?  There is a lot of room for non-screenshot updates that have nothing to do with lore.  But then, I suppose they're probably overflowing with people writing lore, since that's what most people volunteered for...

Do they even have anybody trying to do PR?  By the time they get this done they may find there's nobody left who cares if they're just going to stay mum.

[ivanhedgehog]

Why should I have to go looking for it?  Why should I have to watch the front page like a hawk for each new piece of information?  Poor communication.

*sigh* Again with the low reading comprehension.  I don't want the game out "nao", I want UPDATES.  I can accept that virtually all of the game is not in a showoffable state.  But TELL ME THAT.  This isn't like the NCSoft negotiations where an NDA can be broken just by acknowledging its existence.

Don't flood me with fanfic and leave me wondering what the hell is going on.  What did you work on this week, powers?  Map system & navigation?  Mission mechanics?  There is a lot of room for non-screenshot updates that have nothing to do with lore.  But then, I suppose they're probably overflowing with people writing lore, since that's what most people volunteered for...

Do they even have anybody trying to do PR?  By the time they get this done they may find there's nobody left who cares if they're just going to stay mum.

that is something that gets overlooked(by the vo people to)..an update doesnt have to be a multimedia presentation. a simple line of text "this week we are finishing up work on rude hand gesture animations and moving to NPC mooning. the artwork people are coming up with appropriate textures".
tells us things are still moving. going 3 weeks or more with just crickets doesnt keep people aware that anything is actually happening.

[Apogee]

Like updates are really going to matter to some people.  Look at Star Citizen, over 75 million in funding, 100's of employees, near daily updates, tons of content, a working flight sim, and easily the most transparent development process in the history of computer games and people still cry "it's a scam!".  No matter what MWM does there will always be naysayers, even after they deliver a finished product people will still complain that the Kickstarter was a failure.

[MM3squints]

Like updates are really going to matter to some people.  Look at Star Citizen, over 75 million in funding, 100's of employees, near daily updates, tons of content, a working flight sim, and easily the most transparent development process in the history of computer games and people still cry "it's a scam!".  No matter what MWM does there will always be naysayers, even after they deliver a finished product people will still complain that the Kickstarter was a failure.

On a side note, when they said Star Citizen was going to be over 100 GB, i was woah... It was like when I though Diablo II was huge when it took up 1.5 GB of hard drive space (Damn I feel old :( .)

[MaxDefense]

Do you think this could eventually help the process of getting a private server running if all other avenues fail?

http://massivelyop.net/2015/02/13/eff-wants-to-exempt-some-emulated-game-servers-from-copyright-laws/

[Remaugen]

Well...i made a mistake, i downloaded icon and played around (even turned one of my characters from an idiot brute into a power armored fire/fire Blaster....definitely resurrecting that one that way). The mistake was that i went all the way to Atlas and now i have a major nostalgia thing going on >.<

Yeah, it's a real thing, getting to see the city is so wonderful, but painfully depressing too when there is no one else there to share it with or bad guys to beat up.

I love Icon, but it can be depressing. . .

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I love Icon, but it can be depressing. . .

I have the joy/torture of having to use it very, very often while I'm working. There have been a couple times when I've been up for 30 hours working (Insomnia, whee) and I'll alt-tab back to the client and see myself standing around in Peregrine...and just kind of start to auto-play before going "wait...wah...Ah, Fuck..."

[Felderburg]

they said Star Citizen was going to be over 100 GB

...what. That... WHAT. That is insane. I mean, I guess by the time it's released, 1TB drives will be reasonably priced, maybe? But that's still 10% of a hard drive.

[Noyjitat]

You can get a 4tb external harddrive for 100$ from newegg and remove it from the case if you don't have usb 3.0 slots. It's a Seagate brand and I know this because I recently bought 3 of them. Pretty damned good price for 4tb. Its a pretty fast drive on usb 3.0 alone at 100 to 160 megabyte average write speed.

[Mistress Urd]

100 GB is not a big deal. about $60 for a 1TB mechanical no problem. I don't even use 1/2 the space on a 500GB drive.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Go $20 more (to $80) and get a 2 TB drive. -nodnod-

I'm looking forward to the fact that it's going to be 100 GB. Means there's a lot of really high quality assets, and I'm excited about that.