New efforts!

[Arcana]

I really don't get why people are so caught up on the idea of using AE for this. It's just a bad user interface that can't create anything much more complex than radio missions.

Technically, it's not possible for AE to exist unless all of the framework for creating standard missions is already there (it builds on the same systems). It can't be used as a shortcut.

If we're ever in a position to be able to create real missions, there's so much more that can be done with that than could be done with AE.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think the AE, flaws and all, is a useful means to an end.  Rebooting the City of Heroes community is as important as rebooting the City of Heroes game, and the AE could be a gateway drug to get people involved.  True, the AE had a lot of limits, but while some of those limits were technical, others were imposed for game balance reasons.  Game balance reasons may not be as important in a rebooted game, and many impossible things could be made possible again with the right access to the right systems.  Dedicated content writers could of course do so much more, but the AE could be a reasonable training wheel option to allow people to get started.

I have a complex relationship with the AE.  I supported the concept and even contributed to it in a number of ways.  But I also think the devs made critical erroneous decisions that crippled the concept.  I don't think we've seen the full potential of what the AE could do, even given its technical limitations.  The AE is a Mad-libs mission creator, but I don't think that fully encompasses its usefulness as a player community tool.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Mozart taught himself to play instruments at four and wrote original musical pieces by five.  I'm sure there was some effort involved but he wasn't alive long enough to expend the amount of effort it would take most people to get there.  There's a tendency for many to (want to) believe that natural talents and prodigies don't exist because they think it diminishes the respect for hard work but the truth is some people are born with a combination of an inclination and ability to do certain things that others aren't.  That doesn't mean they don't subsequently work hard at those things or that other people can't get good at those things through hard work, but in my experience while most people have the capacity to get good at most things, it is not true that everyone has the same potential in everything.

If anything, we tend to underestimate the potential most people have to do most things.  We assume it takes significant intrinsic talent to get anywhere.  The problem is the opposite: we can drive people to do things we assume it takes significant intrinsic talent to get good at, and assume that if the work they put in generates results that must be an indicator of intrinsic talent.  Often though, the amount of effort required to excel at that thing is simply torturously high.

Mozart did not teach him self anything.  He was his father's son.  Nor is he the first person to have been that talented at a young age.  Clara Schumann (Originally Clara Wagner) was an incredible musician by the time she was 9 years old for the exact same reason's Mozart was.  As well as Mozart's own sister.  Leopold Mozart was an extremely intelligent and hardworking person.  He had traveled all across Europe working the with greatest minds both musical and other wise.  Leopold him self was a talented and accomplished composers who worked with and personally knew some of the greatest composers of the time.  Something he made sure to pass on to all his children in full including lessons under current Masters.

When Mozart was the young age of 3 years old his father noticed an inclination towards music (That is what talent is) he had a natural drawing to it and wanted to play all the time.  You better believe no one told Mozart to "Get in the other room and practice" that is the start and the end of "natural talent."  His father taught him everything he knew about Harmony, Melodiziation, Arranging, Composing, Pedal Tones,  and their modern Theory system.  By the time Mozart was 9 years old and wrote his first full piece he had probably practiced already for  thousands upon thousands over hours.

By saying Mozart was a "natural genius" is an insult to Mozart.  When he was 28 years old his hands were deformed, something that usually happens to musicians in their 50's.  It is probably a good thing he was only destined for 7 more years after that because by the time he was 40 years old he would have been in so much pain he couldn't write or play anymore.  There is a saying in the musical word "Get your 10,000 hours in" which is the way of saying if you want to be a master you have to practice ALOT.  Mozart could have easily tripled that.  The man wrote his own funeral song and then died when he finished it.  He literally practiced and wrote until the second he died.

You very own argument that he didn't live long enough to reach that level is the exact problem with peoples approach to music.  He had no life besides music.  Its all he did every single day of his short life from 3-35.  He spent more time playing in those 32 years then most people do in 50.

Joey Alexander, a modern day Jazz Piano player, is 11 years old and has practiced 6-8 hours every day since he was 6 years old.  That is why he is so good, natural talent has nothing to do with it.  The only natural thing about it is that he likes doing it instead of playing video games like most kids do.

It's not how many years you have played, its how many minutes.

Anytime someone tells me they believe in natural talent.  They immediately revel their lack of knowledge in the musical field.  Because even Mozart him self said natural talent had nothing to do with it.  And 99/100 of successful musicians and artist I have met or studied say the same thing.

"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied."

Mozart said that

This too

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This is a sentiment sharded almost 100% of the world's greatest composers.  Even Fritz Kreisler a man who spent half his life believing he was just great because he was blessed eventually came to the conclusion it was hard work when everyone around him started to surpass him in every way.  Talent is nothing more then love.  And love is what drives you to greatness.  I haven't played and studied music for the last 15 years because I was born good at it.  I do it because I love music and there is nothing else in this world worth doing in my opinion.  Talent is passion nothing more

The author of that quote never took musicians into account.   They constantly do the same thing over and over and get different results (improved playing).   We call it "practice".    ;D

....Or was the author claiming musicians are insane??    :-\

I'd say its quite obvious musicians are insane.  We are most certainly chasing the dragon.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

I'd say its quite obvious musicians are insane.  We are most certainly chasing the dragon.

You do make some very good points, but i know for a fact that not all musicians smoke opium.

[Thunder Glove]

My take on the games' appeal is this;  CoH was greater than the sum of its parts.  You can't look at each in isolation.  It's when you take them all together that the game works its magic;  character creator, animation, story line, power sets, AE, scenery, and last but not least, the community itself.

Yes, this.  Exactly this.  I've played plenty of games that do one or two things that CoH did at least as well, if not better.  But no game has had everything just work, the way that CoH did. Even though CoH itself wasn't perfect - there were plenty of powersets and powerset combinations and costume pieces and animations and so on and so forth that I would have loved to see - but it was the closest I've ever found to perfect (and they were continually adding new stuff, right up to the end, so even those gaps were slowly being filled in).

CoH was an amazing happy accident that nobody else has even attempted to reproduce, and I don't know if the current wave of Successor Games will be able to really capture that lightning in a bottle a second time, but at least they're trying.

CoH was my favorite game of all time.  Nothing else seems to be even trying to live up to it.

[Taceus Jiwede]

You do make some very good points, but i know for a fact that not all musicians smoke opium.

Haha nor do I.  I just can rarely think of a better metaphor.  You can always be better.  I consider there to be masters but there is no really "mastering" music.  So its an endless chase.  A fulfilling one but endless none the less.

[Arcana]

Anytime someone tells me they believe in natural talent.  They immediately revel their lack of knowledge in the musical field.

I'm not an expert in the field of music, but let's put my knowledge of Mozart specifically to the test.

Mozart did not teach him self anything.  He was his father's son.

First of all, most of the sources I've read over the years state that Leopold first began instructing his daughter Nannerl - Amadeus' elder sister - first when she was about seven.  At the time Amadeus would have been three, and it was during those lessons when Leopold first noticed Wolfgang's musical talent.  It was not just an "inclination" as at that time his father noted Mozart quickly picking up on his own different musical skills.  See: http://www.biography.com/people/wolfgang-mozart-9417115#synopsis : "Leopold started Nannerl on keyboard when she was seven, as three-year old Wolfgang looked on. Mimicking her playing, Wolfgang quickly began to show a strong understanding of chords, tonality, and tempo. Soon, he too was being tutored by his father" and http://www.mozart.com/en/timeline/life/childhood-and-musical-education-child-prodigy/ : "Even at the age of four, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart apparently absorbed everything to do with music with a tremendous appetite and seemingly without effort. Not only did he already know how to play his first instruments, the piano and the violin, but he now composed his first piano concerto. Leopold Mozart regarded the blots of ink put down on paper by the unskilled hand of a child with disbelief, realising that all notes were correctly arranged following contemporary musical rules. From this time on he also taught his son the art of composing..."

Yes, Wolfgang was taught by his father, himself an accomplished musician, but Wolfgang's musical talent - not just inclination, but actual skill - showed up *before* that education.  The fact that he began Nannerl's education at age seven suggests that Leopold thought that was a reasonable age to begin musical education, and most sources suggest that Leopold was amazed at Wolfgang's ability at a much earlier age.  That talent materialized in Mozart's ability to learn to play multiple instruments at a very early age, have an innate understanding of musical structure, and the ability to compose original works.  The sources also say Mozart began to compose before being taught to compose, and he was only taught to compose after he presented the natural nascent ability to do so to his father.

I will defer to Leopold Mozart's musical expertise when primary sources reference him and other contemporaries asserting amazement at Wolfgang's intrinsic talents and his ability to absorb education, and for that matter their implied assertions that intrinsic talent actually exists.

By saying Mozart was a "natural genius" is an insult to Mozart.  When he was 28 years old his hands were deformed, something that usually happens to musicians in their 50's.  It is probably a good thing he was only destined for 7 more years after that because by the time he was 40 years old he would have been in so much pain he couldn't write or play anymore.  There is a saying in the musical word "Get your 10,000 hours in" which is the way of saying if you want to be a master you have to practice ALOT.  Mozart could have easily tripled that.  The man wrote his own funeral song and then died when he finished it.  He literally practiced and wrote until the second he died.

You very own argument that he didn't live long enough to reach that level is the exact problem with peoples approach to music.  He had no life besides music.  Its all he did every single day of his short life from 3-35.  He spent more time playing in those 32 years then most people do in 50.

I did not say he did not live long enough to reach his prime musical level.  I said:

Mozart taught himself to play instruments at four and wrote original musical pieces by five.  I'm sure there was some effort involved but he wasn't alive long enough to expend the amount of effort it would take most people to get there.

Emphasis added.  Between the age of three when his musical talent was first noticed by his father and age four when he first started rudimentary composition there's only a year of actual existence.  By age five when most acknowledge his first formal compositions there's only about two years timespan.  There isn't enough literal time to put in the massive amounts of time most musicians expend to reach that level of musical talent and understanding.  That quote very clearly states that I'm referring to Mozart's musical talent at those young ages; the "there" there is that time I specifically mention.

"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied."

Mozart said that

Mozart also said:

A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.

But in either case, that doesn't contradict what I said, which was:

That doesn't mean they don't subsequently work hard at those things or that other people can't get good at those things through hard work, but in my experience while most people have the capacity to get good at most things, it is not true that everyone has the same potential in everything.

Claiming that Mozart worked hard, and quoting him as saying that he worked hard, has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not people have an intrinsic talent for a particular thing or not.  They are logically distinct things.

This too

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Actually, Mozart never said that.  The scientist Baron Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin said that, or rather he wrote this in Mozart's souvenir album in 1787:

True genius without heart is a thing of nought - for not great understanding alone, not intelligence alone, nor both together, make genius. Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius.

Because of the connection to Mozart, the quote has been erroneously attributed to him a lot.  As a student of Mozart's life, I've seen that come up a lot.

The story of Mozart is not that intrinsic talent doesn't exist.  That's bordering on ludicrous: I can't find a single contemporary of Mozart that would make that case including Mozart.  Mozart only demonstrates that what we do with talent is just as important if not more important than whether or not we have it.  Mozart never said "I don't have talent" or "my only talent is a love of music."  Mozart fought against the notion that talent alone was enough.  But that very fight was against his peers.  The notion, then that actual musicians understand there's no such thing as intrinsic talent is something Mozart's story itself directly contradicts: musicians of his time did believe that intrinsic talent existed, to the point of trying to give it more credit for Mozart's success than Mozart himself felt was warranted.  I honestly don't think an opinion as fundamental as "intrinsic musical talent exists" is something that has changed much since then.  In fact, all the evidence is to the contrary.  There have been scientific studies that attempt to examine whether "intrinsic talent" exists in certain areas, including specifically music.  Many of those studies have concluded that if such intrinsic talent exists, its effect are very small: infants and children tend to have similar affinity and skill for music when exposed to similar music-containing environments.  HOWEVER virtually all of those studies make it a point to assert that the BELIEF in intrinsic musical talent is overridingly strong: that the conclusions of the studies run counter to prevailing common sense ideas.

In other words, there is (inconclusive) scientific evidence to suggest that intrinsic innate musical talent is something that is overestimated if it exists at all.  But there's no evidence that the general beliefs and knowledge of those in "the musical field" match that, or, to put it in your words, "Anytime someone tells me they believe in natural talent.  They immediately revel their lack of knowledge in the musical field."  The musical field, if not the field of psychology, disagrees with you.  Mozart wanted people to know that his successes and achievements were due primarily to his hard work and dedication to his craft, and in that I would agree with him without reservation.  But that doesn't mean his hard work and dedication were not built with tools that at least in the beginning were not much sharper than those in the toolbags of most people.

[Biz]

I'm not an expert in the field of music, but let's put my knowledge of Mozart specifically to the test.

Meh, C+

[Taceus Jiwede]

I'm not an expert in the field of music, but let's put my knowledge of Mozart specifically to the test.

First of all, most of the sources I've read over the years state that Leopold first began instructing his daughter Nannerl - Amadeus' elder sister - first when she was about seven.  At the time Amadeus would have been three, and it was during those lessons when Leopold first noticed Wolfgang's musical talent.  It was not just an "inclination" as at that time his father noted Mozart quickly picking up.....

Just cutting it short to save space.  I won't argue some people absorb things better then others in some areas.  But I have seen many musicians who absorbed things like a sponge and did nothing with it.  I bring up Joey Alexander again because he is the first person in a very long time that I think shows Mozart level talent at such a young age.  He clearly just "gets it" but that would go no where without a lot of hard work and study.  But like you said its really more about what you do with the talent.  Something, like you stated, Mozart believed in very deeply

But I often feel Mozart's insanely hard work is overlooked by his natural ability which given, was impressive in remarkable ways.  You seem to know a lot about Mozart which means you probably know his work almost never had changes to it as if he wrote it all in his head.  This is almost never seen in any other composers work which shows he did have something special to him.  But from what I have studied about Mozart's life he didn't take that for granted.  He worked just as a hard as any other great musician of history if not harder.  And he never would have reached the level he did if he didn't push him self that hard. 

I am glad you have a respect for Mozart I really am.  Honestly that is what I was trying to defend more then anything. But the other thing I want to defend is that hard work in music can accomplish anything and there is no reason to set limits for yourself.  Beethoven was also a brilliant mind and my favorite traditional composer.  He in many ways helped shape the Romantic Era of music.  He like Mozart and many others will be studied for generations to come.  But he wasn't displaying the same sort of natural ability Mozart did.  Nor was someone like my next favorite traditional Edward Elgar.  Yet their talent and hard work is just as legendary as Mozart's in the musical community.  Not to mention countless other composers.  Which I feel shows that it again is hard work and passion that defines a great musician.

But that is really a matter of opinions.  I do heed that some people have a natural tendency to learn certain things better then others but that hasn't stopped a lot of people who didn't have that tendency.

[slickriptide]

CoH was an amazing happy accident...

That's more true than you might realize if you came into the game in the middle of its life.

When the game first launched, you actually got penalized for playing missions over street sweeping. Despite the fact that Cryptic had created this extraordinarily deep back story and lore for Paragon City, the devs at the beginning were very much stuck in the Holy Trinity, "Everyone should level up by killing stuff" mindset that  came from years of Everquest being the 500-pound gorilla of the MMORPG hobby (before WoW showed up and became the five-ton gorilla).

Story missions  took more time, generated less XP per minute, and gave you a miniscule completion bonus that was almost insulting; it was like the XP of three minions. Cryptic was afraid that if missions were too rewarding, that people wouldn't fight crime in the streets and team up together or something, so they made missions so unattractive as potential exploit material that hardly anyone ran them. The story was supposed to be its own reward. They expected people to do the Everquest thing of shouting "Camp at Orc 2 needs Healer!" except that it would be groups in Perez Park or some other challenge zone.

Then they acted surprised when street sweepers were exploiting perching, herding of a hundred enemies into dumpsters, and tanks that were virtually indestructable to rake in thousands of XP at once.

Sometimes, it seemed as if the game succeeded in spite of the devs.

For me, what grabbed me was the stories. The thing the early game did really well was give a new player a sense of being part of something bigger, while settling to make a name for oneself. I never bought into that whole "Statesman is more powerful than I'll ever be? Wah, wah! My ego is bruised!"  crap. My heroes never cared about being the number one hero in the city, as long as they were doing their thing as one hero in a city of heroes.

Plus, Paragon City was a dangerous place. Sure, the players couldn't really die or even be hurt, but the people we were tasked with helping or rescuing frequently ended up being worse for the wear as a result. The players were not gods (even if some of them, by their own backstory, were, heh). I never had a problem with Jack Emmert, personally, and I liked Matt Miller just fine after Cryptic departed, but the one decision Matt made that I really disagreed with was that the Paragon Studios was going to treat every player as if he was the most important person in the game. (WoW has taken much the same approach to escalating player levels in the most recent expansions.) We were already all larger than life unless we deliberately chose otherwise. The game was more interesting when it did NOT cater to the ego of the players, IMO.

Matt's other legacy, for better or worse, was that the lore became malleable. If a dev wanted to tell a story and the lore restricted him, the lore lost. I can understand why they made those decisions but as a player it rankled. Then there was all of the contradictory lore and the fact that some facts as basic as Ms. Liberty's name or the question of who founded Freedom Corp, and why, didn't have clear answers. (I like to imagine that I gave Sean Fish the idea to give Ms. Liberty BOTH names as first and middle, but realistically it was an obvious thing to do, heh.)

Paragon Studios did a lot of things right, but they did a lot of things where the game succeeded despite them as much as because of them.

Still - City of Heroes has a devoted, if dwindling, fan base to this day. Paragon Studios/Cryptic innovated regularly, and much of their game design is unique even by today's standards. Sidekicking, divorcing of loot and gear, "real number" evaluation of power performance, travel powers, the architect, the multiple reward systems that mostly all worked despite there being a half-dozen currencies as a result. It was a unique gameplay experience; one that I think is unlikely to ever be truly reproduced again.

[Azrael]

Quote from: Codewalker on Yesterday at 05:51:15 pm
I really don't get why people are so caught up on the idea of using AE for this. It's just a bad user interface that can't create anything much more complex than radio missions.

Technically, it's not possible for AE to exist unless all of the framework for creating standard missions is already there (it builds on the same systems). It can't be used as a shortcut.

If we're ever in a position to be able to create real missions, there's so much more that can be done with that than could be done with AE.

It's not using 'AE' as such.  I felt it was a wasted opportunity to 'force multiplier' content for the game.  (A game which didn't need CoV, Going Rogue or Incarnates, in my view.  It just needed 'deeper' not 'wider' content...  Not more half empty zones...but a bit more content packed in the ones it already had...still...)  It's user interface was a train wreck.  (Just as, I felt, the Incarnate System had a train wreck of an interface.)

Fussy design.  Can't stand 'fussy' design.

But the 'idea' is more of 'A' tool (ANY?) tool that is easy to use for the community to 'own' and create content.  Ie.  If the content on the original servers is 'gone' then any emulation attempt or 'simulation' ;) attempt will need some tool or facility to recruit the original missions...approximately from the Paragon Wikis...and/or create new content from the CoH fan base in the spirit of...erm...the original game.

Your 'coded' hint about a facility to do 'so much more' is welcomed.  And seeing as you have a dislike of poor interfaces I can be safe(?) in the knowledge that any possible or eventual solution from the SCoRE team will have an elegance and power that carries on in the tradition of CoH itself. 

The team's work on Paragon Chat augers well for the future in this or any regard.

Azrael.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think the AE, flaws and all, is a useful means to an end.  Rebooting the City of Heroes community is as important as rebooting the City of Heroes game, and the AE could be a gateway drug to get people involved.  True, the AE had a lot of limits, but while some of those limits were technical, others were imposed for game balance reasons.  Game balance reasons may not be as important in a rebooted game, and many impossible things could be made possible again with the right access to the right systems.  Dedicated content writers could of course do so much more, but the AE could be a reasonable training wheel option to allow people to get started.

I have a complex relationship with the AE.  I supported the concept and even contributed to it in a number of ways.  But I also think the devs made critical erroneous decisions that crippled the concept.  I don't think we've seen the full potential of what the AE could do, even given its technical limitations.  The AE is a Mad-libs mission creator, but I don't think that fully encompasses its usefulness as a player community tool.

Yes.  Rebooting the community.  That will come from having a deal go through for the original game server image or a 'simulation' of the original game.  We need a solid platform from which to reboot the community.  If it's the latter?  Then we need 'tools' to have ownership of content.  aka.  'Modding' the game to 'some' extent.  A mission creator/zone creator etc.  Expansive and progressive modding software/tools.  A visionary 'community' owned game.

I see the seeds of something like that in Paragon Chat.  Sight seeing and RPGing aside.  All it's lacking is 'something' to do.  When that happens...the community will come back in droves.  I know for some of the players I know, sight seeing alone isn't enough.  They need to able to 'do' something to pull them from whatever they are playing at the moment.  For myself.  I'm quite at home when I log into Paragon Chat.  Though the urge to 'press' energy torrent and 'skittle' some NPC mobs in the Hollows or Steel is ever present.

PPS. 

CoH was an amazing happy accident...

:)

PPPS. 

Still - City of Heroes has a devoted, if dwindling, fan base to this day.

Before the game shutdown.  The servers had become a relative ghost town post the 'announcement.'

But I feel there's a core of CoH players who were there at the end...and those that never got the chance would be a surprising number to get the community back on the map.

It starts with stuff like Icon.  Paragon Chat.  It was always going to be a long process to get the game back.  It will take time to rebuild the community.

[ukaserex]

If we ever get CoH back - do you guys want it back exactly as it was?
Eg: The city layouts the same, or signs of renovation etc.

For me, I'm not a big proponent of change - unless it's changing something back to the way it was. (i.e. Burn returned to fire tanks without npcs running away)

I could get the game back from issue 1 or issue 21. Either way, I'd be fine. I just don't want the game back in some unfamiliar state where all of a sudden my enhancements have to be revamped into some other system. Nor do I want to adapt to new commands to navigate my character. I still cannot fathom why some coding madman would think W-A-S-D was preferable to the directional arrows on the keyboard. That's just plain crazy. I'm sure there was a reason, and it may have been shared with me in the past, but I've forgotten it.

In short, I really don't want to learn any new tricks. I like the old tricks. I get why they have to change things -people get bored and they don't want to lose sales. But for me, an new issue on an annual basis would be just fine.  (and I'm comfy being in the minority on that point)

[MM3squints]

If we ever get CoH back - do you guys want it back exactly as it was?
Eg: The city layouts the same, or signs of renovation etc.

Pre i13 PvP, but disable base raid so crafting bases can still be enabled. Everything else can advance (incarnate system, etc)

[Codewalker]

I still cannot fathom why some coding madman would think W-A-S-D was preferable [...]

Truth. E-S-D-F is far superior. It frees up A and W, giving you two more adjacent keys for binding to quick actions that don't require taking your fingers far from the movement keys.

:P

[Arcana]

Meh, C+

Well, compared to my general ignorance of music in general, I'll take it.

[LaughingAlex]

I wouldn't say it's the wasd's position that people admire, but the overall flexibility and movement of the mouse/keyboard on the whole.  It's a true sum of it's parts thing.  Mouse for turning/aiming/camera gives you perfect precision to properly aim or see everything your character should be able to see.  The ws for forward/backpedaling in conjunction with the mouse gives you a good ability to move, but being able to also strafe left/right with the a and d keys combined with the mouse also enables you to in games with projectiles dodge them.  Additionally, it gives you the ability to peak around corners far better and see dangers ahead without exposing yourself or minimizing exposure time.

All to often i'd see players blunder into a mob in CoX that I knew was there far in advance, simply because they still used the primitive, and vastly inferior, forward, backward, turn left, turn right control scheme.  They could not see the danger UNTIL THEY WENT AROUND THE CORNER AND WERE BEING ATTACKED.  A person strafing to the corner however, can see and react far more quickly than someone who does not see them fast enough.  And strafing is easiest when your control scheme supports it and aiming/turning at the same time.

I do see the logic of using esdf in city of, though, to for more buttons.  But I didn't really need it when I played, as I hybridized the numbers/letters near the wasd for my controls.

[Arcana]

Truth. E-S-D-F is far superior. It frees up A and W, giving you two more adjacent keys for binding to quick actions that don't require taking your fingers far from the movement keys.

:P

They're also the default home keys for the three stronger fingers on the left hand (the fingers that are typically using wasd as well) for touch typists, which of course most programmers aren't.

[Codewalker]

for touch typists, which of course most programmers aren't.

Not sure if serious.

Are there really that many programmers who aren't touch typists? I can't imagine working in a profession that has you typing that much and not picking it up that ability involuntarily, even if you weren't trying to learn it.

[Twisted Toon]

I still cannot fathom why some coding madman would think W-A-S-D was preferable to the directional arrows on the keyboard. That's just plain crazy. I'm sure there was a reason, and it may have been shared with me in the past, but I've forgotten it.

My guess would something to do withkeyboaard and mouse usage. And since most people tend to use the mouse right handed, the left would be used for "directional control" so, the  'WASD' keys would be more handy (heh) to use left handed. I still prefer the directional arrow keys. But, I make do with a gaming pad that has built in directional controls, and about 72 million buttons. Well, actually it only has 16 and a wheel and 4 modes, so that would make it more like 64 buttons...

That is my hypothesis. Whether it's correct or not is another story. I'm sure that Arcana could enlighten us, if she so desired. :-)

I wouldn't say it's the wasd's position that people admire, but the overall flexibility and movement of the mouse/keyboard on the whole.  It's a true sum of it's parts thing.  Mouse for turning/aiming/camera gives you perfect precision to properly aim or see everything your character should be able to see.  The ws for forward/backpedaling in conjunction with the mouse gives you a good ability to move, but being able to also strafe left/right with the a and d keys combined with the mouse also enables you to in games with projectiles dodge them.  Additionally, it gives you the ability to peak around corners far better and see dangers ahead without exposing yourself or minimizing exposure time.

All to often i'd see players blunder into a mob in CoX that I knew was there far in advance, simply because they still used the primitive, and vastly inferior, forward, backward, turn left, turn right control scheme.  They could not see the danger UNTIL THEY WENT AROUND THE CORNER AND WERE BEING ATTACKED.  A person strafing to the corner however, can see and react far more quickly than someone who does not see them fast enough.  And strafing is easiest when your control scheme supports it and aiming/turning at the same time.

I do see the logic of using esdf in city of, though, to for more buttons.  But I didn't really need it when I played, as I hybridized the numbers/letters near the wasd for my controls.

I mapped my movement kys to the numberpad in CoH. that left my left hand free to use all the other keybinds I had set up. and I was able to strafe around corners just fine without a mouse. In fact, I think CoH was about the only game that I didn't use a mouse for movement control. Still, I prefer the number pad or the arrow keys for movement, unless I'm using my gaming pad, of course.

[worldweary]

For me, I'm not a big proponent of change - unless it's changing something back to the way it was. (i.e. Burn returned to fire tanks without npcs running away)

I could get the game back from issue 1 or issue 21. Either way, I'd be fine. I just don't want the game back in some unfamiliar state where all of a sudden my enhancements have to be revamped into some other system. Nor do I want to adapt to new commands to navigate my character. I still cannot fathom why some coding madman would think W-A-S-D was preferable to the directional arrows on the keyboard. That's just plain crazy. I'm sure there was a reason, and it may have been shared with me in the past, but I've forgotten it.

In short, I really don't want to learn any new tricks. I like the old tricks. I get why they have to change things -people get bored and they don't want to lose sales. But for me, an new issue on an annual basis would be just fine.  (and I'm comfy being in the minority on that point)

This!!This!!I always use the arrow keys and mouse.Also I will be very happy to get issue 23.City of Titans, Valiance Online and others saying new new new all seem to think they can do CoH better than CoH did.The last time someone thought that we got Champions Online and we all know how that went.

[ukaserex]

I think I just wrote two pages of stuff - previewed it - and realized it went so far off the conversation that it made me realize I need to get more sleep.

Carry on, nothing to see here.