New efforts!

[duane]

It's only grinding when it's no fun.   Technically the whole game can be considered grind as aspects are repeated.

[Rejolt]

I'm working through a backlog of 3DS and DS games (already played: Bravely Default, Fire Emblem Awakening, Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds.  Currently playing: Final Fantasy III.  Still in the queue: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Tales of the Abyss, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Disgaia DS), so I'm keeping distracted until the game comes back.

I don't think I've ever had a backlog of games this large in my life.

COH gave me my backlog...

[skoogmik]

Here is an interesting observation of COH vs DCUO as far as procedural generated content (COH) vs handcrafted content (DCUO).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.860780-Procedural-vs-handcrafted-comparing-City-of-Heroes-to-DC-Universe-Online

[chuckv3]

Suggested server names, appropriate for our situation I think, yet still somewhat in the heroic attribute domain that the old names were:

Tenacity
Determination
Persistence

[Arcana]

So was the difference between grinding and farming based on if you enjoyed the activity or not?

Not absolutely, but because most people consider grinding to be repetitive activity specifically to earn rewards from that activity, if you're not doing it for the rewards because you just enjoy the activity, that reduces the likelihood you'd see yourself as grinding.  Also, because there's a lot of grey area as to what constitutes repetitive activity, if you're enjoying yourself you're likely to lean on the conservative side of judging something as repetitive.

Is street sweeping "grinding?"  It depends on whether you see that as repetitive or not.   Why is killing a group of spawns in a mission considered doing one thing and not thirty repetitions of one thing?  Why is it different if its done in Brickstown instead of a mission?  Perception has a lot to do with what someone will call "repetitive" and the degree to which we perceive what we're doing as repetitions of a small unit of activity or sequences of actions to complete a single activity.

And here's the kicker.  If your *only* reason for playing MMOs is character progression and earning high powered high level characters, and you don't care about missions or story or plot or even type of enemy or anything else, then in a sense *everything* is a grind and the only question is how much swings of the sword will it take to reach level 80.  That's an extreme point of view, but the reason why I said there isn't a definitive definition of "grinding" is that everyone has a slightly different definition that sits on a continuum between "everything is grinding" and "only when everything is exactly precisely the same and the action is forced is it grinding."  At no time in the history of gaming did a committee decide to specify where on that continuum the official definition lies.  About all we can say is that the median definition appears to be a little subjective: the act of repeating the same or similar activity with the primary intent being earning the rewards associated with that activity.  How similar it needs to be depends on who you ask.

[Arcana]

I always wondered how one determined such information.  Was it from insider information, pinging a dev who could datamine game logs, or was it just from Triumph Watch chat? 

The latter seems... imprecise.  What about the folks who didn't bother making the public announcement or who chimed in at some odd hour of the day going unnoticed by most?  I have some dim recollection of someone on TW stating they were the first X (first L50 SoA?) with my own thoughts of "I know of *at least* two SGers who accomplished that already". 

(Dunno if I would've posted an accomplishment victory-lap, never had the opportunity 'cause I leveled like a stoner on caltrops)

Theoretically speaking, its possible someone dinged 40 without anyone else (player) knowing about it.  However, its unlikely.  The players at the leading edge of leveling were relatively known to each other and had an idea of who was what level and who dinged when.  CoV has less zones so it was more difficult to be running lots of content in the higher level zones without being noticed by someone.  And given the speed at which we leveled (the first wave got there mere days out of headstart), the effort required was pretty high: I can't imagine anyone doing that and wanting to keep it a secret.

And to be honest, I claimed to be in the top eight because I know specifically of five people to definitely get there ahead of me, and there were a few in striking distance that I never confirmed their precise leveling moment which could have beaten me. 

[CrimsonCapacitor]

(Dunno if I would've posted an accomplishment victory-lap, never had the opportunity 'cause I leveled like a stoner on caltrops)

Wait... you mean you're NOT a stoner on caltrops?

Then again, EVERYONE is slow compared to me.

My battle cry really should have been either, "Hey y'all... watch this!" or

"Dibs on the faceplant!"

[MM3squints]

Something tells me there is going to be a race to be the first lvl 50 when the game goes back online XD

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Something tells me there is going to be a race to be the first lvl 50 when the game goes back online XD

Oh most definitely. That's something you could bet big money on. Heh

[Surelle]

Something tells me there is going to be a race to be the first lvl 50 when the game goes back online XD

Well, at least there will be plenty of lowbies to team with on the way to 50 if CoX ever does get rezzed at some point.   

[LaughingAlex]

Here is an interesting observation of COH vs DCUO as far as procedural generated content (COH) vs handcrafted content (DCUO).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.860780-Procedural-vs-handcrafted-comparing-City-of-Heroes-to-DC-Universe-Online

Didn't read the entire thing but i certainly noticed some map flaws in DCUO, in that while they look prettier, they also weren't that well made, somewhat unintuitive in a way.  You have a lot of static meshing everywhere, which always bothered me.  It was easy to get stuck or just run into very funny moments if you were using acrobatics or super speed and running along a ceiling and you come across some awkward piping.

I remember playing UT2k3 and it was actually a very annoying problem, in that alot of maps had these pipes and whatnot everywhere, so you couldn't navigate without getting stuck if you were moving at full speed.  The double dodge jump wasn't always the best, but the wall jump double jump(yes, that was a move) wasn't viable everywhere.

Move forward to ut2k4 and you'd see a very sharp improvement in the map layout such the advanced moves could be used safely.

City of heroes maps were admittedly non-sensible, but they could support some solid gameplay at least.  Though I hated caves alot, as those were examples of bad map design.

[dwturducken]

Our next forum game! Name the new servers!

New Freedom!

Phoenix!

Titan!

FREEEM!

EDIT: I really, really hate that I know about the negotiations. I should be playing other games instead of waiting for stuff that may not be and I just barely got over existing.

Um, isn't "New Freedom" the name of a feminine hygiene product, at least in the US?

[Rejolt]

Um, isn't "New Freedom" the name of a feminine hygiene product, at least in the US?

Before we continue ... How do you know that?

[Codewalker]

Here is an interesting observation of COH vs DCUO as far as procedural generated content (COH) vs handcrafted content (DCUO).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.860780-Procedural-vs-handcrafted-comparing-City-of-Heroes-to-DC-Universe-Online

What's funny about that article is that it's based on a wrong assumption. The maps in COH may have looked like they were procedurally generated, since many consisted of the same building blocks being slapped together in different orders, but they were not. All of the different variations are fully realized map files, so whether the process was tool assisted or not, some map designer had to assemble and save each one.

[ivanhedgehog]

Before we continue ... How do you know that?

NFL football commercial breaks

[Phaetan]

Well, if we're going to toss out server names, I might as well chime in with onethat seems appropriate if we get CoH back- Invictus.

[Arcana]

What's funny about that article is that it's based on a wrong assumption. The maps in COH may have looked like they were procedurally generated, since many consisted of the same building blocks being slapped together in different orders, but they were not. All of the different variations are fully realized map files, so whether the process was tool assisted or not, some map designer had to assemble and save each one.

Its hard to come down too hard on the average player for not understanding how the game worked, but it always bugged me just a little when they just randomly guessed without doing any research.  Based on the article, it seems that player is just confused about the difference between random placement maps and procedurally generated maps.

Where I was more than a little bugged is when players asserted absolute or near absolute certainty about their guesses and were horribly wrong.  I might have taken just a little too much enjoyment out of pulling the wings off of those guys.

[Phaetan]

To be fair, they could easily be mistaken for procedurally-generated maps if you only gave a very cursory inspection to the matter.  Having worked on the Maps Popmenu for Icon, on the other hand, I can't forget the joy of slogging through the myriad of slightly different maps.  The map designers had my sympathies, as it had to be a...dare I say it...grind to create.

[Baja]

Something tells me there is going to be a race to be the first lvl 50 when the game goes back online XD

I'd love to see which power set and strategy works the best solo. Lots of people group up and power through content, which I can't even argue with it makes more sense than doing it solo. However as someone who mainly solo'd, obviously tf's and such I did not, if someone set up a twitch stream soloing to 50 as fast as possible by any means I'd love to see it. I mean I got 1-50 in like 4 days solo but that was using inf/IO's from other characters and running my AE mission over and over. Without the ability to buy inps and all that jazz I'm going to be lost as to how to do this.

My game plan thus far is as follows:

1.) Make a ss/fire.

2.) Get burn.

3.) Beg for a /kin of any kind to tag along.

4.) Find a very dark corner in a large room and cry until I become dehydrated, at which point I will drink as much water as possible in order to continue crying.

Bullet proof.

[skoogmik]

So, what the article should have talked about was:

1) The advantages of first generating building blocks and then assembling them into map (COH style).  Using this method, a dev can generated several maps quickly once the blocks have been built.

2) The disadvantage of building each map individually (DCUO style).  A dev can design fewer, but more unique maps.

And 3)  Even though the COH method has a lot of repeated blocks in different maps and the DCUO, a player going through the DCUO one becomes a grind, because there are fewer maps.