Author Topic: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.  (Read 333339 times)

Twisted Toon

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #560 on: May 14, 2013, 04:24:03 AM »
I know that, for me, I had about five minutes of "fidgetting." I had to go through and accept all the veteran's rewards (not a chore, just a necessary housekeeping routine), "fix" my interface, and then organize my powers in the tray. Now, it's not that I had to do these things, but I could!  I think that's one of the things that bugs me about so many other games is not so much that I have to get used to a new interface, but I can't adjust the interface to be more comfortable to me. Now, my original layout was born of having a smaller, regular aspect ratio screen compared to what I have now, but I have yet to find an game with an interface as intuitively adaptable.
One thing that I have noticed from seeing screenshots that other people have taken of their characters, just about everyone had a different layout for their interface. I had my power trays along the top, the right side, and the right half of the bottom of the screen. I've seen other people with their power trays on the top and left of the screen. What works for me doesn't always work for someone else.

If I'd ever said "okay, there's NO way I can justify making this toon WITHOUT this Barbarian belt", I probably would've paid NC more of that money they were always salivating over.

That was probably why my hands were a little slimy when I pulled out my credit card to get something...they couldn't wait to salivate all over it.  :-[
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Lightslinger

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #561 on: May 14, 2013, 11:19:33 AM »
After popping into Galaxy or Atlas, the very first thing I always did was take a toon for a [walk]. If it looked goofy while walking, I'd head to Icon and adjust  stuff until it looked good or needed to be deleted/re-created. Also, colors in the costume creator looked different in sunny Atlas. Light red, for instance, would suddenly be pink (or at least too pink-ish).

The biggest problem with the Costume Creator was all the locked gear. I never understood why NC wouldn't give us the chance to try on new gear especially since they sold all that gear seperately.
If I'd ever said "okay, there's NO way I can justify making this toon WITHOUT this Barbarian belt", I probably would've paid NC more of that money they were always salivating over.

I don't remember when exactly, but the CC did exactly that. Basically you built your costume and there would be a shopping cart icon next to anything you didn't own. It was a really great incentive to explore and buy things you needed.

However unlockable items were not in the CC, I guess they didn't want to show them to you and then say "Wait until level 35 to run the ITF to get this piece!", that would have been a bummer.

Segev

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #562 on: May 14, 2013, 01:08:12 PM »
Thanks, all. That's useful to know. So having different "backdrop" scenes (with attendant lighting) would help, it sounds like. We are already planning to allow use of emotes and powers-as-emotes in the costume creator (though we're not yet sure if that'll be available initially, or will be an update as we move along), so that players can see what their character will look like doing various things.

The one thing I don't think we can quite do until the game is "live" is allow the use of unpurchased, non-free costume bits, because at least initially, it would be basically giving them away for free. The idea, though, has significant merit once we have more game in which to put these characters.

Having the powers give some decent description of what they do in a tool-tip sort of way sounds like a good idea, too, when you're building the character.

Does this sound like it addresses your concerns? Can you think of any other features that would be useful in a character creator?

Illusionss

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #563 on: May 14, 2013, 03:13:05 PM »
It's frustrating.  The urge to play CoH is not fading over time.  It's getting stronger and stronger as I'm forced to play more of the competition.  It really was the perfect game for me (even if the game was not perfect in and of itself), and as good as the CoH community is, I mainly want the game back.

As time passes, the enormity of what we all lost weighs ever more heavily upon me.

I would say that losing CoX has been one rung below the time I lost my best friend ever at age 10, because we moved out of state. This was a sentinel event in my life, and one I never really got over. My family moved every six months, often from state to state so as you can imagine, I quickly learned not to bond with others too much because it was just too painful.

I let myself become bonded to this game, to experience a similar sense of terrible loss when it was all ripped away with no warning. Please God, this cannot happen again. I just want to be somewheres I love, and feel safe within that little game-world. The real world is unsafe enough.

Lightslinger

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #564 on: May 14, 2013, 03:32:14 PM »
As time passes, the enormity of what we all lost weighs ever more heavily upon me.

I would say that losing CoX has been one rung below the time I lost my best friend ever at age 10, because we moved out of state. This was a sentinel event in my life, and one I never really got over. My family moved every six months, often from state to state so as you can imagine, I quickly learned not to bond with others too much because it was just too painful.

I let myself become bonded to this game, to experience a similar sense of terrible loss when it was all ripped away with no warning. Please God, this cannot happen again. I just want to be somewheres I love, and feel safe within that little game-world. The real world is unsafe enough.

Thankfully that's the point of this thread, we will be back in-game and all this time without the game will seem much shorter once we're able to enjoy the game again.

Take the silence we have from a supposed i24 project as proof its happening, if it weren't I believe we'd be hearing a lot more "Look people there is no i23/24 server, its impossible, CoH couldn't be cracked!" Instead of that we get silence, which shows it IS being worked on and those working on it are being smart about it.

Take heart, hold on to those sentinel files or be ready to have fun leveling all your characters again. We will have our city back and this time it will be on our terms, not NCsoft's or anyone else's.

Lightslinger

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #565 on: May 14, 2013, 03:41:01 PM »
Question for techy types:

I had heard talk here and on the official forums that a private server could be placed in a country that does not have trade agreements with the US or South Korea. This would mean that any attempt by NCsoft to shut down that server would be futile. http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements Currently the US only has free trade agreements with 20 countries and I bet South Korea has even less, so there are definitely plenty of places to pick from.

What I'm worried about is lag/latency issues. I've never played a server in another country, does anyone have any experience with that? I know CoH isn't a twitch game at all, so that helps, but too much lag could definitely be an issue.

Would it be possible for a server to be placed in America (where the bulk of CoH's playerbase is, no offense to players in other countries its just fact) and mask the location? I figured there may be some relay-technique that could hide the exact location of the server and prevent it from being found.

dwturducken

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #566 on: May 14, 2013, 03:58:05 PM »
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the concern is so much about free trade agreements. There are some countries where copyright law is essentially ignored, and that was, I believe, what was being suggested. The trouble with most of those countries is that the government tries to exercise tighter controls on what the users within their borders are using the internet for. In China, for instance, many of the computers in private use are running unlicensed copies of Windows, mostly still XP, but some websites are restricted. Much was made in the news a year or so ago about the Chinese government and Google at something of a stand-off over what restrictions Google was going to put up with, for instance.

Also, to Segev and the MWM team, my vote is for getting something that works. Don't shoot too high right out of the gate. There was a lot of stuff in CoH that we miss, but the devs had 8 years to get us there. Set a good foundation, and the rest can be built onto it. We're all clearly in this for the long haul, and we've shown ourselves to be a cooperative community. :)
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

Segev

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #567 on: May 14, 2013, 05:43:07 PM »
That is absolutely our goal. We are, ourselves, members of this community, but that doesn't excuse us from the need to keep our fingers on the various pulses. It'd be easy to fall into the trap of thinking, "We're from the community, so we know what it wants," and then insulating ourselves. We work hard not to do this.

Which is partly why I keep asking questions when I see comments that seem pertinent. While aiming for "achievable" is always our goal, it's helpful to know what achievements to prioritize to maximize the benefits what we deliver can give.

JetFlash

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #568 on: May 14, 2013, 05:55:10 PM »
Can you think of any other features that would be useful in a character creator?


One of the things that Champions Online got right was the Power House, where you could level up and test out a new power or enhancement. If you didn't like it, you can back out and try something else!  Only after leaving the Power House do your choices lock in.  One of the strengths of CO's system IMHO.

Segev

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #569 on: May 14, 2013, 06:04:47 PM »
Hm. We've had a mixed bag of people who think having to exit and go to a trainer is a good idea for various reasons, and some who think that it's a hassle that takes you out of the moment. Maybe that would be a good "perk." If you go to a trainer, you get something like CO's "power house" as you actually do train with your hypothetical new powers. If you train on the fly, you're locked in, but you got to do it easily enough.

Noyjitat

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #570 on: May 14, 2013, 07:50:35 PM »
If you do the powerhouse make it part of the zone rather than a separate area. Extra loadscreens always suck. Even with a fast machine and a ssd.

Thunder Glove

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #571 on: May 14, 2013, 08:11:00 PM »
This is useful and interesting information for the Phoenix Project, I think. Can you please go into what your next steps were? Particularly anything that didn't require actually picking a fight with something or getting a mission to perform.

We will take these into consideration as we plan our the precise development order of things with the character builder for the Phoenix Project, and how it develops going forward towards the base builder.

Next would be, as someone else mentioned, setting up the UI: three bars, attack powers on bar 1, defense and other toggles on bar 2, travel powers and other miscellaneous powers - like Secondary Mutation and Mystic Fortune - on bar 3.  (I'd eventually add a fourth bar when the powers started to really pile up in the 40s)

And after that was actually playing the character - seeing how the character performed immediately, and trying to identify any holes that hadn't been immediately obvious from looking at the powers in the creator, to fill them in with future power picks, power polls, and eventually even Epic and Incarnate powers.

... I do like the idea of a Powerhouse-like structure for training, where you can try out powers before you pick them permanently.  One of CoH's little frustrations was always having to completely re-pick all your powers and reslot all your enhancements when all you wanted to do was fix the last one.  (CO handles respeccing much more simply and elegantly, being able to remove powers one-by-one working backwards as well as all at once, all for normal in-game money rather than special respec tokens)

Quote
Can you think of any other features that would be useful in a character creator?

Real numbers with an adjustable level bar like CoH had is a must for me.  I want to see exactly what all the powers do, numerically, before I settle on a powerset (especially if I'm locked into those Primary and Secondary powersets once I leave the creator).

... really, though, just start with the features from CoH's character creator as a baseline.  I don't think there was anything there that was worthless.  (Well, maybe the "playstyle" screen can be skipped)

srmalloy

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #572 on: May 15, 2013, 03:17:22 PM »
Man, that last part seems to be what is defining this community (CoH refugees at large, not just here at Titan). These feelings aren't fading, they're getting stronger if anything. At this point I think a majority of us would have moved on, myself included, but a day doesn't pass that I wish I could log in.

I think that a significant part of that is negative reinforcement; a lot of us have moved on to other games, where the shortcomings, limitations, and restrictions keep bringing up "CoH did this so much better" thoughts -- every time we play another game, we get reminded of what it was that we lost.

JetFlash

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #573 on: May 15, 2013, 05:54:12 PM »
Hm. We've had a mixed bag of people who think having to exit and go to a trainer is a good idea for various reasons, and some who think that it's a hassle that takes you out of the moment. Maybe that would be a good "perk." If you go to a trainer, you get something like CO's "power house" as you actually do train with your hypothetical new powers. If you train on the fly, you're locked in, but you got to do it easily enough.

How it is implemented is (to me) secondary to having the ability to test new powers before locking them in, i.e. "try before you buy".  Whether or not I go to a special zone to accomplish this is not important to me.  I DO like the option of leveling up on the fly, and not allowing "try before you buy" in those cases.

I never liked having to visit a trainer just for the sake of visiting a trainer.  If there is functionality associated with visiting the trainer then I'm OK with that.

Triplash

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #574 on: May 15, 2013, 06:35:09 PM »
I DO like the option of leveling up on the fly, and not allowing "try before you buy" in those cases.

Yeah, I can get behind that. If you know what you want and would like to move on to the next thing quickly, then open up your powers window and "click it to pick it", no takebacks. But if you want to preview things, get more detailed info and compare options, then you go to a specialized contact ingame. It makes sense... a trainer is there to share their expertise and help the character make an informed decision, right? It fits.

I also had the idea to make two different kinds of respecs. You'd have a slow, step-by-step process (like City had) that's earnable ingame, such as by currency or a straightforward task. You'd also have the much quicker kind (more like Mids, where you get a list of your selections and you can swap or alter them individually) that can be bought through a cash shop. That's what I always thought cash shops should be used for... convenience. Take something you can do in the game anyway, and make it simpler or more reliable.

Johnny Joy Bringer

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #575 on: May 21, 2013, 01:32:46 AM »
How it is implemented is (to me) secondary to having the ability to test new powers before locking them in, i.e. "try before you buy".  Whether or not I go to a special zone to accomplish this is not important to me.  I DO like the option of leveling up on the fly, and not allowing "try before you buy" in those cases.

I never liked having to visit a trainer just for the sake of visiting a trainer.  If there is functionality associated with visiting the trainer then I'm OK with that.

I alway thought it would have been nicer to be able to go to the trainer sometime before the next level, and choose the next power then. So you knew what you were working towards. Why no have training, but have training before making the level?

FlyingCarcass

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #576 on: May 21, 2013, 02:21:24 AM »
All this talk about trying out a power before locking it in makes me think of Planetside 2 and Blacklight Retribution. In both games one can rent a weapon and take it for a time-limited test run before purchasing it and in Planetside 2 there's a "VR Room" where one can test out all available weapons, vehicles, and abilities against targets... I could see power trial runs and "training rooms" before locking in powers being useful to folks in a superhero MMO.

Illusionss

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #577 on: May 21, 2013, 04:05:16 AM »
But cant you see what a new power looks like, before you ever exit the character creator due to the power customization screen? Or are people talking about being able to try it out on a trial NPC or something...? Clueless here.

saipaman

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #578 on: May 21, 2013, 04:33:50 AM »
You could see most, but not all, of the animations in the power customization screen.

malonkey1

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Re: OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.
« Reply #579 on: May 25, 2013, 05:24:13 AM »
On an earlier topic, yeah, if there, hypothetically, was an entirely theoretical and purely rhetorical PM list for a supposed private server, I would likely be very interested in the possible prospect of being on such a list, if it were to exist.

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