Arcana Involvment.

[Tore]

Q: Arcana is a huge part of the titan network and was apparently involved with the developer team quite heavily. Her knowledge of the game and the coding seems to be larger than any other player I'm aware of. I suppose my question is that similar to the big name roleplayers, how much influence did she have (if any) on how the game conitinued its development? Did you personally ever interact with her?

A: We communicated a lot with Arcana. Really sharp player. I pinged her a lot for basic math help for all sorts of things.

I think we even contracted with her to design a whole procedural rewards system for...shit, what was it...architect missions maybe? That was kind of done hush hush. Dunno if it was ever made public knowledge. So as far as players having a direct influence on the game...yeah, she definitely did.

Fun Arcana story. After I got laid off, I sent her a signed box copy of Going Rogue. She sent me a bunch of goodies from Hawaii. Koana cofee is delicious. SPAM flavored peanuts, not so much.




Just wanted to say a huge thank you to Arcana, clearly someone that was "behind the scenes" when it comes to our favorite game. Apparently even as much as creating an entire reward system. I really hope she plays a major role in whatever the future of CoH is!

[duane]

if this is going to turn into a love-in thread add me in. I always enjoy reading her posts, even if they are over my head at times because it's not stuff she pulls out her butt.  I do not have to agree with her, but I know she puts sound reason in her posts.

I am just a novice gamer even for my age and I like reading the technical aspects on how games work, but actually I just enjoy pushing buttons and games being fun.

[eabrace]

Psst.

I know where the original Q/A quote came from, but you might want to add a link to make it a little less confusing for people who don't.

[Arcana]

The original Reddit thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4gv8xl/final_moments_before_city_of_heroes_shut_down_for/

Search for cbruce to get his AMA comments in that thread.

I interacted with quite a few devs at Paragon, although certainly not all and not even the majority of them.  I like to think I was friendly if not friends with a few of them, and BaBs was one of those.  In the early days it was Castle and BaB that devoted the most time to chatting with me about game internals and BaB was one of the few devs outside the "powers" people that would give me the time of day back then.  I lost track of him after he went to Cryptic to work on Neverwinter, but I'm glad to hear he's still working in the biz.

I kinda stuck those SPAM flavored nuts in there on a lark: even *I* don't eat those.  And I still have that signed GR box, still sitting on my desk.

When I look back on City of Heroes, years after the last time I logged into the game, it was a great game and it was a lot of fun times, but what I think about the most is that in eight years I earned the respect of not just many of my fellow players, many of whom I sparred with constantly on the forums, but also some of the professionals that actually created the game we all loved to play.  When you've lived more than half your life as a professional, and respect is the most valuable and ephemeral currency in your world, that means something.  And that's why that box still sits on my desk.

[Captain Electric]

*SALUTES*

[Paragon Avenger]

Q: Arcana is a huge part of the titan network and was apparently involved with the developer team quite heavily. Did you personally ever interact with her?
A: We communicated a lot with Arcana. Really sharp player. I pinged her a lot for basic math.
(edited for humor)

Developers can roll binary left or right in their sleep. but decimal addition, forget about it.

[Arcana]

Developers can roll binary left or right in their sleep. but decimal addition, forget about it.

Back Alley Brawler (Christopher Bruce) was an animator.  He wasn't computer illiterate, but I don't think he did binary arithmetic for fun.

The "math" help he was referring to was probably related to the fact that at one point I was heavily analyzing the animation/cast time mechanics of the game, particularly with regard to how DPA affected offensive performance.  As a result, I created a mega database of every attack power and how it functioned especially over time.  So if BaBs wanted to know, say, how many attacks in the game had the same rooted time as Shadow Punch, or how what the average DPA of all melee attacks was, I could tell him in less time than I think even the powers team could answer that question.

It was fair trade.  He answered most of my animation questions, so my analysis numbers were at his disposal.

[Excidia]

The cover-up continues even now.  There was no development team, it was all just Arcana multi-boxing and a few actors she hired to attend events.

e-

[rookery.]

The cover-up continues even now.  There was no development team, it was all just Arcana multi-boxing and a few actors she hired to attend events.

e-

So you are saying it was all an Arcana plot?

AND

Since All plots are Nemesis plots.

We can then deduce, using the first law of conspiracy, Arcana is Nemesis.

[Kelltick]

Arcana is Nemesis.

https://media.giphy.com/media/kKdgdeuO2M08M/giphy.gif

[ukaserex]

No.

Nemesis is Arcana.

[Kelltick]

Nemesis is Arcana.

https://media.giphy.com/media/pW2KUtm2zqxqg/giphy.gif

[Abraxus]

So you are saying it was all an Arcana plot?

AND

Since All plots are Nemesis plots.

We can then deduce, using the first law of conspiracy, Arcana is Nemesis.

I suspected as much.  :-X ;)

[Vee]

So if BaBs wanted to know, say, how many attacks in the game had the same rooted time as Shadow Punch

Did you have an experiential rooted time chart? If we go by experiential time I'm still rooted from a Shadow Punch I missed back in ish 13.

[blacksly]

No.

Nemesis is Arcana.

Thought so.

[Arcana]

Did you have an experiential rooted time chart? If we go by experiential time I'm still rooted from a Shadow Punch I missed back in ish 13.

I think you mean Shadow Maul.  If I remember correctly, 3.1 seconds of rooted time, 3.1 minutes of frustration time, 3.1 hours of feeling vulnerable to counter attack time.

Of course, there are some release-day Martial Artists that would like to present you with Storm Kick v1.0, except they all killed themselves before the animation finished.

[Vee]

ah yes, maul. in the context of rooting my mind immediately went to that one despite what you actually typed.

[LateNights]

I think you mean Shadow Maul.  If I remember correctly, 3.1 seconds of rooted time, 3.1 minutes of frustration time, 3.1 hours of feeling vulnerable to counter attack time.

It grew on me once I came to grips with maul being a chance to rest in between "arrests"...

:)

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

I think you mean Shadow Maul.  If I remember correctly, 3.1 seconds of rooted time, 3.1 minutes of frustration time, 3.1 hours of feeling vulnerable to counter attack time.

Of course, there are some release-day Martial Artists that would like to present you with Storm Kick v1.0, except they all killed themselves before the animation finished.

i loved the original Storm Kick from an animation perspective, but it was so not worth using in combat.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

if this is going to turn into a love-in thread add me in. I always enjoy reading her posts, even if they are over my head at times because it's not stuff she pulls out her butt.  I do not have to agree with her, but I know she puts sound reason in her posts.

I am just a novice gamer even for my age and I like reading the technical aspects on how games work, but actually I just enjoy pushing buttons and games being fun.

i sort of miss another (not so dearly departed) Titan member because he almost always pulled all stuff out of his butt and it was always fun to watch the other forumites with actual knowledge, especially Arcana, explaining why things didn't work the way he thought they did. But now he's left us so that he can tell a wider world about his incredible rewriting of physics (and any other topic that he spent thirty seconds thinking, "wouldn't it be awesome if i could...", and then arbitrarily decided he could (his pontificating on how CoH combat mechanics "really" worked was hilarious)) that makes all sorts of formerly fantastical technologies feasible, but he won't reveal any details because the world is not ready for them.