Valiance Online Dev Goes Crazy, Posts Public AMA

Started by Chance-VO, August 23, 2014, 03:02:44 PM

Chance-VO

Hey all. My name is Nathan V, AKA "Chance" and I'm the Design Director for Valiance Online. We've been making a lot of progress this year and come September there will be many of you who will have the chance to see this progress first hand. We're all very excited about the coming few months and what we've got planned.

Today, however, I thought I'd take a little time to talk to you all and host an Ask Me Anything.

I'll get the easy stuff out of the way first. I'm 31 (32 next month). I work nights as a club DJ and I'm a writer by hobby. I was initially brought on to Valiance as a writer, then started helping out in other areas, getting things more organized and got promoted to Design Director. I've been writing, designing, building, playing and breaking down games and systems for the last 15-20 years. I'm an avid roleplayer and RP enthusiast. In City of Heroes I spent most of my time playing on Guardian, Freedom and Virtue, though I took occasional side trips to Infinity and Champion.

If you haven't had the chance yet, have a listen to the team's interview on Namesake Radio  http://www.namesakeradio.com/#!forums/ca55

So, at long last I'll stop rambling here and open the floor for you all. Feel free to, as the thread says, Ask Me Anything.  8)

plutocracy

Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or one hundred duck-sized horses?

Chance-VO

Quote from: plutocracy on August 23, 2014, 03:09:53 PM
Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or one hundred duck-sized horses?

Bring on the horse-sized duck!  ;D

plutocracy

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 23, 2014, 03:11:13 PM
Bring on the horse-sized duck!  ;D

Respect for your bravery, I wouldn't have the guts.

On a serious note though, I played in some of the early alpha tests, when the menus and character creation looked like a D&D game, and I've checked in every now and then since. How satisfied are you at this point with the progress you and the team have made since then? Changing horses in midstream has both pros (existing engine/client/server development) and cons (re-adapting mechanics/assets), do you feel you've been making acceptable headway in leveraging the advantages while minimizing the disadvantages in the time since VO was announced?

Chance-VO

Quote from: plutocracy
How satisfied are you at this point with the progress you and the team have made since then? Changing horses in midstream has both pros (existing engine/client/server development) and cons (re-adapting mechanics/assets), do you feel you've been making acceptable headway in leveraging the advantages while minimizing the disadvantages in the time since VO was announced?

Actually our progress has been better than I expected. 4 months ago, I was rather worried by the amount of stuff that hadn't been nailed down, so that was my first task was to make sure we got concepts and ideas locked down. It's easy enough to sit back and daydream about the perfect game or perfect system but dreams aren't something players can interact with (at least not until science can manage brain interlinking, but that's a different subject ;) ). In this time, we've gotten a handle on the various systems, wrangled them into a workable state, and have been improving our internal pipelines enough to make real, tangible progress. It hasn't been the easiest thing, jumping in in the middle like I have but I'm proud of the work the team has done and we've had very little in the way of difficulty since.

Chance-VO

Don't be shy y'all. I don't bite that hard  ;)

Black Gold

What do you feel will be the biggest differences and similarities between VO and CoX in terms of gameplay mechanics?

Chance-VO

Quote from: Yellow Gold on August 23, 2014, 04:20:43 PM
What do you feel will be the biggest differences and similarities between VO and CoX in terms of gameplay mechanics?

The biggest similarities are going to be the 'feel' of the game. I know that's a very elusive and difficult thing to nail down, but that's one of our big goals. It's not just the customization or the numbers or the animations, it's something of a perfect storm between all of them that can either make your character feel like just another mook or like the one that could go toe-to-toe with those GMs and AVs. We're fortunate in that we've got not only an example of what works, but what doesn't, and we can look at these and figure out 'why'.

There are going to be plenty of differences though because some of the things that CoH did either won't work for our world and would break the consistency of it, or because we feel that CoH didn't go quite far enough with them. Without going into too much detail on things we haven't released yet, we want our players to be important to the world, for them being there and the decisions they make to actually matter.

Stormie

Will there be radiation powers?  If I wanted to rebuild my rad/rad corruptor could I?

Chance-VO

Quote from: Stormie on August 23, 2014, 04:32:15 PM
Will there be radiation powers?  If I wanted to rebuild my rad/rad corruptor could I?

Yes to the first question. As for the second, that's possible although it will not be exact because of variations in our system from what CoX had.  :D

plutocracy

What one thing that CoX did do you want to implement or expound upon?

Also, what one thing would you not do at all?

Dannii


Chance-VO

Quote from: plutocracy on August 23, 2014, 04:44:06 PM
What one thing that CoX did do you want to implement or expound upon?

Also, what one thing would you not do at all?

CoX's customization was amazing. Seriously amazing. To this day it's one of the ones we all still talk about, from costumes to powers and everything else. It is, to me, still the final word on being able to make what you want how you want short of a 'virtual world' like Second Life or the like.

One thing we want to avoid at all costs is creating NPCs that out-strip and out-shine our players entirely. If they are designed well (and they are) their stories alone should be interesting without resorting to "Oh, X character is godlike" (*coughStatesmancough*)  8)

Chance-VO

Quote from: Dannii on August 23, 2014, 04:48:33 PM
How can someone get in on the alpha testing?

Have patience :) Seriously, that's all it takes. As we announced in the interview, we're launching the next pre-alpha build on Sept 12th to give our current investors a chance to look around and poke things. Shortly after that we've got a list of play testers to come in and do their best to find broken things. Then we're going to start opening the floodgates to everyone. The more of you we have, the more we know what our current architecture can handle.

That having been said, allow me to temper expectations somewhat. This game is still pre-Alpha because we don't have all the systems we'd like in place, nor all the art (including animations), and so on. Things will start to change rapidly though because once it is in your hands, we're not going to have much time to breathe, let alone sit back on our collective laurels. :)

Blackout

I'll be honest I only recently found out that Valiance online was a thing because I had been mostly concentrating on City of Titans, but after checking out your site it looks like its going to be awesome!
I do have a couple of questions in regards to NPC's though, as whilst City of Heroes had unparalleled customization there were a lot of NPC costume pieces that were off limits to the player; the original Circle of thorns, 5th column, and sky raiders come to mind. Do you think this will also be a thing in Valiance Online as well? Or will most of the humanoid enemy groups costume pieces be accessible in some way?

Thanks for doing this AMA and good luck with the development of the game :)

Chance-VO

Quote from: Blackout on August 23, 2014, 05:16:39 PM
I do have a couple of questions in regards to NPC's though, as whilst City of Heroes had unparalleled customization there were a lot of NPC costume pieces that were off limits to the player; the original Circle of thorns, 5th column, and sky raiders come to mind. Do you think this will also be a thing in Valiance Online as well? Or will most of the humanoid enemy groups costume pieces be accessible in some way?

Thank you for such a good question :D
NPC's should have a unique look to them. They should stand out and have something 'special'. That being said, denying the 'special' to our players is a bit like the Devs saying "Lookie what I got! NO! You cannot haz! Mine!" Now, that's very unfair I realize and it makes it sound far more childish than the actuality.

On the other hand! I don't think special pieces should just be given out willy nilly either. If they're just given away, then they have no real meaning nor value other than "Oh, that looks cool" and really, that doesn't separate it from any other costume piece.

Kaos Arcanna

Will you be able to retcon/respec your character? And if so, will you have COX's "All or Nothing" approach or something like Champion Online's "One power at a time" option?


Chance-VO

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on August 23, 2014, 05:28:46 PM
Will you be able to retcon/respec your character? And if so, will you have COX's "All or Nothing" approach or something like Champion Online's "One power at a time" option?

Yes. And it will be more along the lines of CoX's full respec because of some interesting new mechanics that we...haven't announced yet ;)

Chance-VO

Keep firing away with those questions :D I've got plenty of time and "Generic Energy Drink"  8)

Dr. Bad Guy

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 23, 2014, 03:25:57 PM
at least not until science can manage brain interlinking
Direct neural interface technology is not as far away as people think.

Chance-VO

Quote from: Dr. Bad Guy on August 23, 2014, 07:24:16 PM
Direct neural interface technology is not as far away as people think.

Oh I know! Exciting times. I love to stay up on all the recent science news I can digest.  ;D

Inkblaster

Are you keeping expansion in mind for when/if level cap is increased?  CoX, and many MMOs get into trouble when increasing level cap, and not mapping out the power/spells roadmap to match the new levels.
-Ink

Chance-VO

Quote from: Inkblaster on August 23, 2014, 08:59:49 PM
Are you keeping expansion in mind for when/if level cap is increased?  CoX, and many MMOs get into trouble when increasing level cap, and not mapping out the power/spells roadmap to match the new levels.

We are definitely keeping this in mind. Some of the most painful processes for an MMO is power/level creep. As it stands for now, we know where our current cap is and don't plan to expand above that in a direct way. This will be made easier somewhat for us because we're starting our content off below our planned maximum and then expanding the content as time and funding allows.

Apocalord

What are the minimum specifications for the game?I tried to find out a while ago and couldn't find anything.I have an older computer that isn't dual-core but it did play City of Heroes well,most new games seem to need dual-core processors now.I'm hoping this doesn't as I am looking forward to playing it and supporting the good work you guys have been doing.

Chance-VO

Quote from: Apocalord on August 23, 2014, 09:53:22 PM
What are the minimum specifications for the game?

We don't have that as of yet. We're still running an unoptimized version of the game at the moment but that is a part of what the upcoming release will help us to sort out.

Inkblaster

Have you thought of any mobile apps to augment the game?  Like a character creator you can fiddle with?  I mean, who needs to work, or eat, or sleep, right?
-Ink

Chance-VO

Quote from: Inkblaster on August 23, 2014, 10:17:53 PM
Have you thought of any mobile apps to augment the game?  Like a character creator you can fiddle with?  I mean, who needs to work, or eat, or sleep, right?

Haha, actually that's something I've been thinking about personally but haven't sprung on the team yet ;) I figure it's better to let them focus on the core game, then, assuming all goes well, we can expand it out in other ways. Now, certainly, you wouldn't be playing Valiance Online on your phone, but there's plenty of other things that can be done accessing the game through a mobile platform.

Dr. Bad Guy

Quote from: Apocalord on August 23, 2014, 09:53:22 PM
What are the minimum specifications for the game?
Unity's basic requirements: OS: Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.6+, Ubuntu 10.10+, SteamOS+
Graphics card: DX9 (shader model 2.0) capabilities; generally everything made since 2004 should work.
CPU: SSE2 instruction set support.
Web player supports IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and others.

Dr. Bad Guy

Quote from: Apocalord on August 23, 2014, 09:53:22 PM
What are the minimum specifications for the game?
If you are stuck with a single core I would cram as much ram in as I could, swap in a ssd and get at least a 500 series Nvidia card(can't speak to ATI cards, never used one)

Dr. Bad Guy

Windows 7 is a must have as well. 8 sucks butt :P

Chance-VO

Quote from: Dr. Bad Guy on August 23, 2014, 11:41:55 PM
Windows 7 is a must have as well. 8 sucks butt :P

This I cannot possibly agree with enough   ;D

houtex

I would like to know if there will be web/wire/rope/? slinging/swinging abilities.

I would also like to know if there will be commanding of minions.

And if there will be minions that can be commanded, will there Amazon Women that I can command.

And if there will be Amazonian Women minions to command, will I get to dress them as I see fit.  Tastefully, of course.

Um.... Oh, when one is flying (assuming one can fly) will there be total 360/360 freedom of range of movement?  In otherwords, can I actually do a loop-de-loop, barrel roll, aileron roll, split S, immelman, these sorts of maneuver?  It's quite irritating to be stopped at a full verticle when trying to loop, and let's face it, a victory roll would be entirely sweet.  While I could understand CoH's limitation on this, it was jarring to the extreme to find this to be the case with Star Trek Online.  That and not being able to warp away while in battle.  As if.  Perfectly acceptable move to get away from **FOUR** Borg Spheres.  But no, I had to battle all four of those bastids, and I *WON* with my lil' Reliant-type ship (forgive me, the class escapes me at the moment.  I'll have an 'aha!' later, I'm sure.)  It took me forever, but I beat 'em all.  And no loops.  No rolls.  I am well aware of aerial/spatial maneuvers, and believe you me when I say never was I so frustrated at a game when I couldn't loop or roll to bring my guns to bear upon my enemy.... But I had to finish the battles for I needed to beam down to see what that was like.  But after I figured out StO was not for me, I ragequit that game and never looked back, the physics were just that horrid.

Um... so yeah, rolls/loops while in flight?  Yes or not?

I think that'll do for now.  Can't wait to see the progress!  Thanks!

Edit:  AHA!  Miranda Class!  I had 'Mutara' in my brain, but then it got cleared out.  Now I remembered.  Yay me or something, right? :D

Dr. Bad Guy

Microcrap is pulling another Vista on us with Door 8. Door 8 is Vista and Door 9 will be the equivalent of 7.  If you have to upgrade Operating systems wait til 3 or 4 months after 9 is released for all the drivers to stabilize.  I wish Linux wasn't such a pain to play games on.

Dr. Bad Guy

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
  Tastefully, of course.




By tastefully you mean nakkid or in a tastefully tiny set of Holleywood armor(bikini), Right?

Chance-VO

Haha, love the enthusiasm, houtex. Lemme break this down...

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
I would like to know if there will be web/wire/rope/? slinging/swinging abilities.

We haven't announced our options for travel powers just yet. We're still inputting all the ways for you to pummel foes as our primary focus.

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
I would also like to know if there will be commanding of minions.

Yes  8) I don't know if it will be ready by this first iteration, given our current hardware limitations, but we are getting systems in place.

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
And if there will be minions that can be commanded, will there Amazon Women that I can command.

I dunno, I heard they can be a rather temperamental lot ;)

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
And if there will be Amazonian Women minions to command, will I get to dress them as I see fit.  Tastefully, of course.

See last answer :D

Quote from: houtex on August 23, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
Um.... Oh, when one is flying (assuming one can fly) will there be total 360/360 freedom of range of movement?  In otherwords, can I actually do a loop-de-loop, barrel roll, aileron roll, split S, immelman, these sorts of maneuver?  It's quite irritating to be stopped at a full verticle when trying to loop, and let's face it, a victory roll would be entirely sweet.  While I could understand CoH's limitation on this, it was jarring to the extreme to find this to be the case with Star Trek Online.  That and not being able to warp away while in battle.  As if.  Perfectly acceptable move to get away from **FOUR** Borg Spheres.  But no, I had to battle all four of those bastids, and I *WON* with my lil' Reliant-type ship (forgive me, the class escapes me at the moment.  I'll have an 'aha!' later, I'm sure.)  It took me forever, but I beat 'em all.  And no loops.  No rolls.  I am well aware of aerial/spatial maneuvers, and believe you me when I say never was I so frustrated at a game when I couldn't loop or roll to bring my guns to bear upon my enemy.... But I had to finish the battles for I needed to beam down to see what that was like.  But after I figured out StO was not for me, I ragequit that game and never looked back, the physics were just that horrid.

Um... so yeah, rolls/loops while in flight?  Yes or not?

That I'll actually have to talk to our tech guy about, but I would love to see it myself :)

Chance-VO

Quote from: Dr. Bad Guy on August 23, 2014, 11:54:27 PM
By tastefully you mean nakkid or in a tastefully tiny set of Holleywood armor(bikini), Right?

To quote Takei... "Ohhh myyyy..."  8)

Chance-VO

For the record, I'm still awake for another hour. But if I miss a few questions during my downtime, I'll swing back around and answer them when I get a...Chance ;)

Petite

Hi!  Ok.  Hope you're still awake.  I put aside getting ready for a gaming session and dealt with some password problems, but I have arrived!

I'm an assistant manager at GameStop, I write game reviews which have been published in a local magazine and I run a gaming blog.  So.  First question, would it be possible to land some kind of interview or get my hands, eyes on some new work, get into the alpha/beta etc?  I'm a fellow obsessive former Hero/Villain, and anything that would help publicize your project or really, anything I can do at all, would be awesome.

Secondly, in what ways would you say Valiance Online is different or daresay better than City of Titans, since the projects seem very similar and started from the same idea?

Thirdly, will VO follow in Elder Scroll's, DCUO's, and Destiny's footsteps and be multiplatform or will we only see this game on PC, with perhaps some mobile aspects?

Thank you!

Chance-VO

Quote from: Petite on August 24, 2014, 05:55:15 AM
Hi!  Ok.  Hope you're still awake.  I put aside getting ready for a gaming session and dealt with some password problems, but I have arrived!

Welcome! :D

Quote from: Petite on August 24, 2014, 05:55:15 AM
I'm an assistant manager at GameStop, I write game reviews which have been published in a local magazine and I run a gaming blog.  So.  First question, would it be possible to land some kind of interview or get my hands, eyes on some new work, get into the alpha/beta etc?  I'm a fellow obsessive former Hero/Villain, and anything that would help publicize your project or really, anything I can do at all, would be awesome.

Funny! I was 'employed' by GameStop (for all I know I still am! haha) during the holiday season last year. Unfortunately the store was never given the hours to train me, but I got to enjoy the perks all the same ;)

I'm sure we can arrange an interview of some sort, I'll just have to work it out with our team on the specifics, but if you'll drop a line on our forums, I'll make sure the right people see it and we can get the ball rolling on that. Whew, I should breathe occasionally huh?

Quote from: Petite on August 24, 2014, 05:55:15 AM
Secondly, in what ways would you say Valiance Online is different or daresay better than City of Titans, since the projects seem very similar and started from the same idea?

We have something that can be played? :P Just teasing! We love the CoT team and wish them all the best for their project. Ours is different because we're in a different time, different side of the country, different systems being set up, and a different flavor to the world as a whole. Hell, beyond "There are superheroes and they have powers. Oh! And lotsa costumes" there's not a whole lot that is similar.

Quote from: Petite on August 24, 2014, 05:55:15 AM
Thirdly, will VO follow in Elder Scroll's, DCUO's, and Destiny's footsteps and be multiplatform or will we only see this game on PC, with perhaps some mobile aspects?

Thank you!

For now, we're going to stick with PC. It's what we all know and love and while controllers these days may have more buttons than you've got fingers, I feel they're more suited towards the 'action RPG' genre. We took a look at those sorts of systems and, to be honest, we weren't thrilled. There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but to me, when a character relies on your ability to aim at a target, then it becomes a matter of "Do you weigh player skills over character skills?" and that tends to cause a break in character. As an example to this, I harken back to D&D or nearly any other TT roleplaying game. It didn't matter how accurately you pointed your finger at the DM, it mattered what your character was capable of doing based on their skills. That, to me, is what made the characters feel all the more, for lack of a better term, badass when fighting and something we wanted to carry over.

As I said before though, adding a mobile portal of some sort isn't entirely out of the cards, we just need to focus on our core game at the moment though and stash that idea for further down the line.

Petite

Where would be the best place in the forums to drop said line?

Chance-VO

Quote from: Petite on August 24, 2014, 06:41:26 AM
Where would be the best place in the forums to drop said line?

In General Discussion is fine :)

Captain Electric

Hey Chance! You're getting me very excited about the premise for your game. I don't hate action RPGs either, but like you, I'd hate to see a world where they totally eclipsed tab-targeting mechanics that rely on character skills. After all, aren't character abilities what old school RPGs are all about? While I actually (gasp) enjoy action MMOs, what I always enjoyed the most was the gameplay found in City of Heroes.

But enough about the mechanics. What about the world? I heard its story takes place toward the end of the 21st Century. That's a fantastic way to set yourself apart from the pack thematically; with the other two Plan Z games, we'll have our dose of modern era heroes. But what overall effect will that have on the setting and on the game experience? Will technology play a big role in the origin of everyone's powers or will you leave that up to the player to decide? Will there be NPC groups and story arcs where magic is prevalent? Will there be very many baseline humans left in the world, or does everyone have cyber-implants, nanite infusions, and gene mods? Will there be a place for natural origin characters and NPCs who aren't luddites? Will there be Batman-like characters left in the world who are separable from the technology they employ? On the other side of the coin, will there be Cyberpunk-inspired areas of the game world where heroic NPCs (and characters) use their implants to jack into and patrol the net, or use brain enhancements to decipher complex clues, instead of mankind's fusion with technology being demonized à la Freakshow? And speaking of that fusion, will there be transhumanist themes dealing with ascension, artificial intelligence and life, personal mind-body backups, and virtual societies? Will any of the game's story arcs tackle moral and political dilemmas of the future, such as A.I. rights, genetic tweaking, animal uplifts, future drugs, and so on?

You said the game takes place on the opposite side of the country from City of Titan's setting. Are we talking Los Angeles here or a fictional city? Will there be other areas to explore added to the game such as virtual environments or outer space locations? Will space travel figure into the setting and if so, will we be able to go into space? Will there be a space station like in Heroes and Villains and DCUO? Have we colonized the solar system in places like the moon and Mars? Or even farther to locations like the Kuiper Belt, the moons Europa and Titan, or interstellar locations? Will there be time travel to the past or farther into the future?

How far will you go to build up the setting and draw players into it? Will we be able to write our own biographies like in CoH and CO? Will there be features shared between the website and game, like Neverwinter's gateway? Will you develop comic books in digital or print format to accompany the game?

Benjonesart

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Hey Chance! You're getting me very excited about the premise for your game. I don't hate action RPGs either, but like you, I'd hate to see a world where they totally eclipsed tab-targeting mechanics that rely on character skills. After all, aren't character abilities what old school RPGs are all about? While I actually (gasp) enjoy action MMOs, what I always enjoyed the most was the gameplay found in City of Heroes.

But enough about the mechanics. What about the world? I heard its story takes place toward the end of the 21st Century. That's a fantastic way to set yourself apart from the pack thematically; with the other two Plan Z games, we'll have our dose of modern era heroes. But what overall effect will that have on the setting and on the game experience? Will technology play a big role in the origin of everyone's powers or will you leave that up to the player to decide? Will there be NPC groups and story arcs where magic is prevalent? Will there be very many baseline humans left in the world, or does everyone have cyber-implants, nanite infusions, and gene mods? Will there be a place for natural origin characters and NPCs who aren't luddites? Will there be Batman-like characters left in the world who are separable from the technology they employ? On the other side of the coin, will there be Cyberpunk-inspired areas of the game world where heroic NPCs (and characters) use their implants to jack into and patrol the net, or use brain enhancements to decipher complex clues, instead of mankind's fusion with technology being demonized à la Freakshow? And speaking of that fusion, will there be transhumanist themes dealing with ascension, artificial intelligence and life, personal mind-body backups, and virtual societies? Will any of the game's story arcs tackle moral and political dilemmas of the future, such as A.I. rights, genetic tweaking, animal uplifts, future drugs, and so on?

You said the game takes place on the opposite side of the country from City of Titan's setting. Are we talking Los Angeles here or a fictional city? Will there be other areas to explore added to the game such as virtual environments or outer space locations? Will space travel figure into the setting and if so, will we be able to go into space? Will there be a space station like in Heroes and Villains and DCUO? Have we colonized the solar system in places like the moon and Mars? Or even farther to locations like the Kuiper Belt, the moons Europa and Titan, or interstellar locations? Will there be time travel to the past or farther into the future?

How far will you go to build up the setting and draw players into it? Will we be able to write our own biographies like in CoH and CO? Will there be features shared between the website and game, like Neverwinter's gateway? Will you develop comic books in digital or print format to accompany the game?

Well some of this I can answer from the art direction and overall look of our game. From a visual standpoint we are going with a more SCIFI/Cyberpunk look in many aspects. From the city buildings, clothes of pedestrians and vehicles, it will feel more and more like a cyberpunk environment. I think the best way to explain is that cyberpunk usually entails a very dystopian feel but our current city is on the rise. While dark in some areas, they're many areas with the more scifi feel as the city has been building up to a more grand stature. In this futuristic foundation we can go in any direction really and not be chained to the everyday mythos of superheroes.

On the other stuff, Ill try and get our content lead over here to answer so of those things. But be forewarned we have many things on paper right now that would answer many of your questions but we are hesitant about saying they will be in the game until they are actually in game.
Valiance Online
Art Direction
Ben Jones

Chance-VO

Well..That's a question.. :D

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM

But enough about the mechanics. What about the world? I heard its story takes place toward the end of the 21st Century. That's a fantastic way to set yourself apart from the pack thematically; with the other two Plan Z games, we'll have our dose of modern era heroes. But what overall effect will that have on the setting and on the game experience?

It will have a rather marked effect on the game and experience. We have nearly 100 years of history that our content team has come up with to draw from. A lot has happened to change the world and explain what you, the player, will encounter as you play. We're not going to give it to you all up front though, after all, part of the fun is in exploring to find out more, yeah? ;)

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will technology play a big role in the origin of everyone's powers or will you leave that up to the player to decide?

That is, on the whole, going to be up to the player. We felt it would be a disservice to you all if we demanded that you stick to one genre or type alone. That's not what CoX was about, so it is not what we will be about. You want your character to be a time-travelling ghost robot from the other side of the cosmos who calls upon mystical powers of another dimension to work your mojo? Go for it! :D

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will there be NPC groups and story arcs where magic is prevalent?

Yes.  8) Simple enough..Moving along.

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will there be very many baseline humans left in the world, or does everyone have cyber-implants, nanite infusions, and gene mods?

There are plenty of 'normal' humans left. I hear they're the most populous species on the planet ;) But to be less cheeky, not everyone has Google Glass, but everyone knows about it, right? Not everyone has a SYNAPSE chip in their computer and fewer people know what that is. There are layers to the world around us, so there are layers to the game as well. We felt that was an important aspect to retain in our game.

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will there be a place for natural origin characters and NPCs who aren't luddites? Will there be Batman-like characters left in the world who are separable from the technology they employ?

Right now out there in the world are people running sprint races with artificial limbs. But this hasn't stopped other athletes from training to compete or inspired them to hack their legs off. Some people feel the need to push themselves, mentally, physically to the peak of their ability regardless of the options out there to push further. I don't ever see that changing.

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
On the other side of the coin, will there be Cyberpunk-inspired areas of the game world where heroic NPCs (and characters) use their implants to jack into and patrol the net, or use brain enhancements to decipher complex clues, instead of mankind's fusion with technology being demonized à la Freakshow? And speaking of that fusion, will there be transhumanist themes dealing with ascension, artificial intelligence and life, personal mind-body backups, and virtual societies?

Given that much of this is stuff I wrote, it better be in there or I'm going to have to have a long talk with the content team ;)

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will any of the game's story arcs tackle moral and political dilemmas of the future, such as A.I. rights, genetic tweaking, animal uplifts, future drugs, and so on?

We will have to be somewhat delicate with these things.

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
You said the game takes place on the opposite side of the country from City of Titan's setting. Are we talking Los Angeles here or a fictional city? Will there be other areas to explore added to the game such as virtual environments or outer space locations?

Yes.  8) Again, slightly less cheeky, the city is a fictional one, which also means you're not going to look it up on Wikipedia for clues about the backstory, though there will be plenty of those within the city itself.

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Will space travel figure into the setting and if so, will we be able to go into space? Will there be a space station like in Heroes and Villains and DCUO?

Previous answer, first word. And I have to leave it at that or my Content lead might just decide to assassinate me :P

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
Have we colonized the solar system in places like the moon and Mars? Or even farther to locations like the Kuiper Belt, the moons Europa and Titan, or interstellar locations? Will there be time travel to the past or farther into the future?

"Get your ass to MARS!" Heh heh..Love that movie.
Oh darn, look at the time, I can answer maybe 4 more questions...

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AM
How far will you go to build up the setting and draw players into it? Will we be able to write our own biographies like in CoH and CO? Will there be features shared between the website and game, like Neverwinter's gateway? Will you develop comic books in digital or print format to accompany the game?

Oh look at that, four questions :D The first one has been answered as far as I am able to right now (I gotta leave some spotlight room for everyone after all ;) ). Yes to the second. You'll have to explain that third one a little better, I'm not sure I understand the question there, could you explain a little more? I haven't actually had the time to look at any other games in a few months lol That last one would be awesome though, but I think Ben would strangle me if I suggested it right now. He's our solo, overworked underpaid artist at the moment :)

I'm going to keep popping back in here, at least until I grow bored or the team suggests I shut up ;)

Kaos Arcanna

Do you have it worked out exactly how enhancements/gear will be working in the game?  One of the things I liked about COX was the simplicity of how the enhancement system started out. Sure, IOs made it a bit more complicated later on, but there was still the option to slot a couple of accuracies, damages, sleeps, holds, etc. in the power. :D


Skipjack

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 24, 2014, 04:19:28 PM
Well..That's a question.. :D

It will have a rather marked effect on the game and experience. We have nearly 100 years of history that our content team has come up with to draw from. A lot has happened to change the world and explain what you, the player, will encounter as you play. We're not going to give it to you all up front though, after all, part of the fun is in exploring to find out more, yeah? ;)

That is, on the whole, going to be up to the player. We felt it would be a disservice to you all if we demanded that you stick to one genre or type alone. That's not what CoX was about, so it is not what we will be about. You want your character to be a time-travelling ghost robot from the other side of the cosmos who calls upon mystical powers of another dimension to work your mojo? Go for it! :D

Yes.  8) Simple enough..Moving along.

There are plenty of 'normal' humans left. I hear they're the most populous species on the planet ;) But to be less cheeky, not everyone has Google Glass, but everyone knows about it, right? Not everyone has a SYNAPSE chip in their computer and fewer people know what that is. There are layers to the world around us, so there are layers to the game as well. We felt that was an important aspect to retain in our game.

Right now out there in the world are people running sprint races with artificial limbs. But this hasn't stopped other athletes from training to compete or inspired them to hack their legs off. Some people feel the need to push themselves, mentally, physically to the peak of their ability regardless of the options out there to push further. I don't ever see that changing.

Given that much of this is stuff I wrote, it better be in there or I'm going to have to have a long talk with the content team ;)

We will have to be somewhat delicate with these things.

Yes.  8) Again, slightly less cheeky, the city is a fictional one, which also means you're not going to look it up on Wikipedia for clues about the backstory, though there will be plenty of those within the city itself.

Previous answer, first word. And I have to leave it at that or my Content lead might just decide to assassinate me :P

"Get your ass to MARS!" Heh heh..Love that movie.
Oh darn, look at the time, I can answer maybe 4 more questions...

Oh look at that, four questions :D The first one has been answered as far as I am able to right now (I gotta leave some spotlight room for everyone after all ;) ). Yes to the second. You'll have to explain that third one a little better, I'm not sure I understand the question there, could you explain a little more? I haven't actually had the time to look at any other games in a few months lol That last one would be awesome though, but I think Ben would strangle me if I suggested it right now. He's our solo, overworked underpaid artist at the moment :)

I'm going to keep popping back in here, at least until I grow bored or the team suggests I shut up ;)

Oh don't worry Chance your transhumanism stuff will be used and expounded upon... 

Hi folks I am the Content Lead for VO.  I will also try to answer some questions!  Though Chance knows the lore very very well so he covered most of it already.

Space is certainly going to be included.  ;)

houtex

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 23, 2014, 11:59:20 PM
Haha, love the enthusiasm, houtex. Lemme break this down...

We haven't announced our options for travel powers just yet. We're still inputting all the ways for you to pummel foes as our primary focus.
(Was in reference to Web/rope/cable/? slinging/travel) So you're saying there's a chance?  YES!  You heard it here, folks, Quake Guy grappling hook travel powers are comin' soon!  Oh, and I suppose something something arachnoguyish webs...
Quote

Yes  8) I don't know if it will be ready by this first iteration, given our current hardware limitations, but we are getting systems in place.
(re: Minion commanding) Cool.
Quote

I dunno, I heard they can be a rather temperamental lot ;)
(re:commanding Amazonian Womens)  That's ok, I'm a charmer, Themiscyran or no. :)  I mean, if Diana and Bruce could possibly...
Quote

See last answer :D
(re:tastefully clothing Amazon Womens) Well, it's not like their dress is usually not awesome anyway... but still, more of a 'can I make costumes for my minions, or would they be canned in clothing/makeup/make up'? question, that.  Just hidden because, well, Amazonian Womens. :D
Quote

That I'll actually have to talk to our tech guy about, but I would love to see it myself :)
(re: full freedom of acrobatics for aerial/space manuvers, aka 360/360 freedom of movement) Another 'you heard it here', full freedom of aerial acrobatics!  Sweet!

---

Wanna thank you for the time and responses, Chance.  Can't wait to see more! 

Chance-VO

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on August 24, 2014, 04:26:45 PM
Do you have it worked out exactly how enhancements/gear will be working in the game?  One of the things I liked about COX was the simplicity of how the enhancement system started out. Sure, IOs made it a bit more complicated later on, but there was still the option to slot a couple of accuracies, damages, sleeps, holds, etc. in the power. :D

We have it worked out as far as systems go, but we need tech to catch up in order to do it properly. That's going to have to be listed under Soonâ„¢

Chance-VO

Don't tell me I've managed to outlast your curiosity  8)

Kaos Arcanna

I could ask lots of other questions, I'm sure, but I don't want to hog all the attention. :D

How about this one? Will there be plans for an eventual Mission Architect-like feature?


Chance-VO

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on August 24, 2014, 11:58:13 PM
I could ask lots of other questions, I'm sure, but I don't want to hog all the attention. :D

How about this one? Will there be plans for an eventual Mission Architect-like feature?

We're still discussing that one, but I would love to do it personally. If it's something we do it will have to be later on down the line though, given the amount of work it will take to get it implemented.

Captain Electric

Quote from: Captain Electric on August 24, 2014, 09:02:04 AMWill there be features shared between the website and game, like Neverwinter's gateway?

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 24, 2014, 04:19:28 PM
You'll have to explain that third one a little better, I'm not sure I understand the question there, could you explain a little more? I haven't actually had the time to look at any other games in a few months lol

There are other examples I could use instead of NW's Gateway, and all of them have various features. In NW, like WoW, you can log into the website and monitor your character and gear stats. Long ago in Champions Online, you used to be able to write your bio--and view other peoples bios--from the website; using simple HTML formatting, to boot, unlike CoH's bios, which only allowed plain text. On Eve Online's website, you can not only monitor your character's skill development but set skills to train offline (if you meet the necessary requirements in-game). As I understand it, Vanguard automatically created a blog for your character on its website, building a history of tales and other achievements based on your deeds inside the game, but I don't know if it could be viewed publicly or had privacy controls. Even the world's first mainstream MMORPG, Ultima Online, had a feature called MyUO as far back as 1997, where you could view a real-time representation of your character, his or her gear, guild affiliations and current wars, and so on. Earth and Beyond had no such feature, but the team behind the Earth and Beyond Emulator has built functionality into a web portal that allows you to send email to other characters, move items between characters, share a guild vault, and so on.

Quote from: Chance-VO on August 24, 2014, 04:19:28 PMI'm going to keep popping back in here, at least until I grow bored or the team suggests I shut up ;)

One of the nicest features about City of Heroes was one that many players couldn't live without; unfortunately, they also took it for granted, forgot to ask other studios for it until it was too late, and thus it has never appeared in another super hero MMORPG. That feature is its UI. Simple on the outside, rich and as customizable as your characters on the inside, CoH's UI allowed you to create new power trays, bend and reshape them, and place them around your screen, right where you needed them. Button-mashers who didn't use hot keys for every power were able to cut down on wrist injuries and eye strain. There were also power monitors, little bitty windows that you could place on your screen anywhere you wanted that monitored flight speed, DPS, influence, and so on. You didn't have to enter a separate mode to manipulate them and drag them around. You could just drag them around or lock them right on the screen. All in all, the design of the UI boiled down to a principle that Paragon Studios held high: consideration.

All I can say is, I hope it's not too late to [yet again] ask a studio for this while they're developing a super hero MMO.

Chance-VO

Alright Cap E..You win, I'm not quoting all of that lol

For your first part I finally understand what you mean :) I just needed a little context. That I would like to do and make it as feature rich as possible (along with the mobile platform tie in), but that's far future if ever. Gotta remember, we're not a full fledged studio as of yet so, temper expectations for the time being ;)

As for the second half, our tech guy is building the game with a fully customizable UI in mind from the outset, so there will be plenty of support for that :)

Captain Electric

Cool on both fronts. Especially the latter, considering the age demographics; I bet all of the crappy UIs out there are killing some eyes and wrists!

As for the former, no one is going to hang you for that. I don't know if the network code is any harder to implement later than it is to do it sooner. But it's a nice feature to have. Nuff said! (I forgot to mention though, with NW's Gateway, players can also do their crafting.)

Thanks especially for the lore answers y'all responded with. I knew you couldn't give many specific answers and I actually got more than I expected. My intent was to probe around and see how confident you are in those developments, and whether the terms I used made sense to the team. Very satisfactory responses all around, thank you.

houtex

I had a thought.

I wanna be a Leech.

Well, not exactly Leech, mind, but a leech.  A gloomy character that could just stand in a group of Bad People(tm).  And was protected enough to withstand some assaulting.  But would not fire off any power... he/she would just stand there... and then... the Bad People(tm) would just sort of... die/be defeated/get conquered/ whatever you'd be callin' that.

They're so depressed/dark/angry/fired up/? that they suck the HP/life/? outta the enemies, all whilst he/she just stands there... and the Bad People just drop from exhaustion/extingishment.

In CoH you had Fire aura, Dark aura, spines, and other AoEs that would sorta get you there, but they were few and far between.  Would that one could combine them in a special mix and make some sort of AoE-inator that wouldn't fire any shots, but you'd still go down.

So... I guess that's not particularly a question, I just sorta would like to have something like that.  But if I hadda put it in a question: Will we see that sort of thing be possible?  A character of 'suckage'?


Benjonesart

Quote from: houtex on August 25, 2014, 02:15:06 PM
I had a thought.

I wanna be a Leech.

Well, not exactly Leech, mind, but a leech.  A gloomy character that could just stand in a group of Bad People(tm).  And was protected enough to withstand some assaulting.  But would not fire off any power... he/she would just stand there... and then... the Bad People(tm) would just sort of... die/be defeated/get conquered/ whatever you'd be callin' that.

They're so depressed/dark/angry/fired up/? that they suck the HP/life/? outta the enemies, all whilst he/she just stands there... and the Bad People just drop from exhaustion/extingishment.

In CoH you had Fire aura, Dark aura, spines, and other AoEs that would sorta get you there, but they were few and far between.  Would that one could combine them in a special mix and make some sort of AoE-inator that wouldn't fire any shots, but you'd still go down.

So... I guess that's not particularly a question, I just sorta would like to have something like that.  But if I hadda put it in a question: Will we see that sort of thing be possible?  A character of 'suckage'?

I do believe we had a vampiric style set in the works but not sure if its still on our primary list. And feel free to post these comments because you never know, you might think of something we haven't. One thing we are preaching for our community, never be afraid to voice your opinion because we are watching and listening very closely. 
Valiance Online
Art Direction
Ben Jones

Chance-VO

Quote from: houtex on August 25, 2014, 02:15:06 PM
  But if I hadda put it in a question: Will we see that sort of thing be possible?  A character of 'suckage'?

Yeah, that sort of thing is potentially possible. I'll say we don't have a specific set in place for that at the moment but it is not outside the bounds of possibility.

Chance-VO




Alpha Series

Well, I just wanna thank Chance and all you heroes at VO for giving us all (and especially me) a big info resource on the VO front! I've been totally curious as to what has been transpiring in Valiance land and this thread has been a real kick in the pants! I look forward to experiencing some of this world! Thank you again!
"You've started an interstellar war!" "No, I didn't start it. But I'm liable to finish it."

Chance-VO

Quote from: Alpha Series on August 31, 2014, 02:01:48 AM
Well, I just wanna thank Chance and all you heroes at VO for giving us all (and especially me) a big info resource on the VO front! I've been totally curious as to what has been transpiring in Valiance land and this thread has been a real kick in the pants! I look forward to experiencing some of this world! Thank you again!

You're welcome :) I still pop in from time to time (when I have the time). There are big things afoot though and the next two weeks are going to be very exciting for the team.  8)

Hyperstrike

Quote from: Dr. Bad Guy on August 23, 2014, 11:40:27 PM
If you are stuck with a single core I would cram as much ram in as I could, swap in a ssd and get at least a 500 series Nvidia card(can't speak to ATI cards, never used one)

More RAM isn't going to help much.

Currently Unity is 32-bit only.  So it's only going to use about 1.5-1.7 GB of memory before it gets unstable.

Chance-VO

Since I know not everyone has/wants Facebook, I'll go ahead and repost this here to answer the question of "What now with the CoH news?" :)

First of all I would like to begin by saying thank you to Nate Downes and his team for their efforts on behalf of the community in attempting to return City of Heroes to its players. It's been two years in coming and it looks like they are moving closer all the time. Really it is incredible work and we at team Valiance respect the effort quite a bit. We know many of you are looking forward to 'going home' again.

That said, I must say as design director, team Valiance has done amazing work of their own. Lore stretching for almost two-hundred years has been created by our outstanding writing team and we look forward to letting players not only explore it completely, but to make their marks in history as well. The coding that our tech department has been working on and is continuing to put forth has been incredible and gives us access to the sorts of options that we used to only dream of. Our systems are thorough, well thought-out, rock solid and will give our players all new options to interact with one another and the world. Our art team has been consistently putting forth amazing art that not only looks good on paper but can be transferred near directly into the 3D space to create that epic comic look to go with the epic feel created by our systems.

We love and respect and indeed even miss our City of Heroes as much as every one of you. It was put forth that Nate Downes' holding company, once they acquired the IP, would be glad to license the rights out to competing games, including our own. At first, the offer was tempting, to be able to directly point at our game and say "Look! We are a part of this greater world!" However, respectfully we will have to decline the offer.

Our team has put in two years' worth of effort to get the game into its current state. If we were to now turn around and say "Alright guys, you need to rewrite it to include these references and these powers, etc" it would not only be unfair, it would be terribly detrimental. It would be a statement that says we do not believe in our own work. We do.

We have no intention of 'turning the boat' around now, we are going to push forward with our designs, our systems, our writing, our art and hope that you all will understand why we proudly stand behind our work and are glad to call ourselves a true spiritual successor. We love and will never forget our old City, but we are moving forward to bring you the best experience that we can, one unburdened by the limitations of former systems, free from the demagoguery of another company who decides what we can and cannot do. No one can make that call of us except for you, the community. You are our guidepost in this adventure and we sincerely hope you will choose to come along for what will be one hell of a ride.

Nathaneal "Chance" Vogeding
-Design Director

Kaos Arcanna

I think you made the right decision. You've worked hard to create your own world and you've gone too far to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and given that your game takes place in the future it would have been hard to place it within the COX framework.


Chance-VO

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on September 04, 2014, 02:01:44 AM
I think you made the right decision. You've worked hard to create your own world and you've gone too far to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and given that your game takes place in the future it would have been hard to place it within the COX framework.

Indeed, in our case it just didn't seem feasible. We're glad that so many have been understanding and supportive of the decision.   8)

downix

Quote from: Chance-VO on September 04, 2014, 06:33:45 AM
Indeed, in our case it just didn't seem feasible. We're glad that so many have been understanding and supportive of the decision.   8)
Do what is right for your project. Plus can be readdressed in the future as well.

Samurai Cowgirl

#67
Quote from: Chance-VO on September 04, 2014, 06:33:45 AM
Indeed, in our case it just didn't seem feasible. We're glad that so many have been understanding and supportive of the decision.   8)

Yeh, I can see where you going here, added to that all the dangers of external licenses.
Anyways .. Looking forward to seeing how the game looks since the little visit I got in on pre-pre open pre-alpha day. Good Luck

If your still answering questions (and it could be a bit premature for 100% answer .. but definably not to early for the devs to think about .. and I could have missed the answer too)

What kind of pay system are you thinking.. Subs Only/Hybrid/Pay-Per-Expansion .. Cash-Vanity Shop .. Earnable Cash Systems?
Always be Stylin!

Chance-VO

Quote from: Samurai Cowgirl on September 06, 2014, 12:02:32 AM
What kind of pay system are you thinking.. Subs Only/Hybrid/Pay-Per-Expansion .. Cash-Vanity Shop .. Earnable Cash Systems?

We're looking at a hybrid system of subscription/f2p. I can't go into much more detail on it at the moment though.

Hyperstrike

Quote from: Chance-VO on September 07, 2014, 01:59:47 AM
We're looking at a hybrid system of subscription/f2p. I can't go into much more detail on it at the moment though.

Not sure if you've seen this article:  http://martiancraft.com/blog/2014/08/an-unreal-decision/

Have you encountered similar issues in your development cycle with Unity (bumping into the limits of the 32-bit engine, cross-platform being either painful or expensive to deal with, etc).