Author Topic: New efforts!  (Read 7210232 times)

LateNights

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27900 on: August 12, 2017, 04:22:42 PM »
Tubbius is home from the beach.

Children did not try to roll His Snoozing Rotundity too far into the surf, at least.

Mostly true!!

Edit : Wow, was I drunk when I posted this!!

« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 02:52:41 AM by LateNights »

ivanhedgehog

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27901 on: August 13, 2017, 06:30:42 AM »
does anyone have a list of power animation time lengths for coh?

Tubbius

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27902 on: August 14, 2017, 02:56:18 AM »
Mostly true!!

Edit : Wow, was I drunk when I posted this!!

:D

I was wondering why it was "Mostly true!"  :)

Vee

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27903 on: August 14, 2017, 04:40:25 AM »
does anyone have a list of power animation time lengths for coh?

There was once a program that would spit out all that info on demand. It became sentient and grew and can now spit out info on any topic. Calls itself Arcana.

Arcana

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27904 on: August 14, 2017, 08:43:34 PM »
does anyone have a list of power animation time lengths for coh?

I had one.  Not sure where it is now.  Although that's a hazy question unto itself because of the way powers worked.  Starting from scratch, when you activate a power there was sometimes a weapon draw animation if weapons were not yet drawn, then there was one or more animations in a sequence that played.  At the end of the animation was a post animation that was interruptible, meaning if you didn't activate another power that animation would play as part of the power's animation, but if you did activate another power that animation would skip or stop to allow the next power to begin immediately.

When most people asked for power animation times, they usually really wanted to know what the minimum rooted time for the power was: the minimum amount of time that must elapse before another power could be used.  The exception was mainly people making custom demos and videos, or in rare cases using emotes inside of architect missions.

Somewhere on these forums that question has been asked and answered before; someone made some spreadsheets or other document that contained a lot of that information: I lost track of where that was also, but it shouldn't be difficult to find.

Fireheart

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27905 on: August 15, 2017, 02:33:58 PM »
Maybe on Ted Tomax's City of Data?  http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

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Fireheart

Arcana

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27906 on: August 15, 2017, 08:41:12 PM »
Red Tomax power tables contain the power definition cast time.  That's not the same thing, in a couple different ways, but it would take some time to fully explain the difference.  The short answer is that the game has a powers system and an animation system that are mostly independent.  But both affect the player in terms of when they can do something.  The powers system has a say in how long you must wait after you activate a power before you can activate another one.  The animation system has a say in when your character avatar is doing something you are not allowed to interrupt, which includes activating another power.

Because what the powers do numerically and what the animation and visual effects engine does graphically are not exactly the same thing and are not tightly coupled, what you see and what you do aren't always congruent.  So in particular when someone asks what how long a power animates for, the context of that question is significant.  Are they more interested in the visual aspect or the combat mechanics aspect?  And besides that, it is still a complicated question to answer.

Complicated enough that even though I worked out the most detailed description of how this works back in the day, it was still the case that no one, not I and not even the devs, could *precisely* describe how this works in a way that gave 100% accurate answers to the question "how long does this take?"  It is not that the game was weird or glitchy, but rather that in a pseudo-real time system like City of Heroes technically is, there are always complex corner cases and timing trivia to deal with.

To this day I haven't played a game where this situation is nearly as complex, not because those other games somehow magically avoid these problems but because most MMOs use regulatory mechanisms like global cooldowns and timing interlocks that slow combat down into very predictable (and thus easy to balance) timing.  City of Heroes didn't do that: it let players do things more or less as fast as they could happen.  This is a balance-nightmare, but it is also at the heart of the faster paced combat (for a traditional MMO) City of Heroes supported.

ukaserex

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27907 on: August 17, 2017, 06:41:37 PM »
Perhaps that's why I haven't played any other MMO more than a moment...I like going as fast as I can and running out of breath.
Those who have no idea what they are doing genuinely have no idea that they don't know what they're doing. - John Cleese

Golden Aurora

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27908 on: August 17, 2017, 07:12:45 PM »
What I can say is that if you're having a Scrapper itch, try World of Warcraft and make a WindWalker spec Monk.
It feels exactly like a MA/Regen scrapper used to. I've solod one doing quests for the last two weeks and am having a blast.
Its the high maneuverability combined with no cast times and quick animations which make it super fun.
Well, fun for me at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXhI5IpcZJw

Doc Artz

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27909 on: August 17, 2017, 08:02:39 PM »
Word of caution.  The phrase "City of Heroes" is trademark protected but not copyright protected, as VV indicated, which allows you to use the phrase generically (which is why she said don't capitalize or use as a title, which would turn it into a proper noun, which would be more shaky).  But the City of Heroes game content and the constellation of books and comics are copyright protected, and copyright protection is a bit tricky.  Trademark protection is pretty straight forward: don't use the mark to identify your own products, brand, or company, or attempt to confuse your use with the protected use.  That's why I can use the phrase "City of Heroes" here: I'm referencing the real product, but I'm not using the phrase to identify one of my products or my company itself.  I'm not using the mark to conduct business, I'm just using the phrase to discuss the subject.
Copyright protection has more judgment calls, to put it one way.  Using the phrase "city of heroes" is not going to cause problems unto itself, but you need to be careful you don't reference too many other City of Heroes content obliquely.  If there is too much similarity between elements of your story and City of Heroes game or other content, a nod/wink use of the phrase could become the straw that breaks the camel's back. As long as the rest of the story is an original work with no connection to City of Heroes except for obvious generic story elements, the phrase itself shouldn't be a problem.  Disclaimer: I am not a copyright attorney.
I certainly respect and understand Angel Phoenix77s words of caution mentioned above. That being said does anyone/someone have projected date when the  opening of our favorite game, COT, COH ..etc. will be? Perhaps  Code Walker mentioned it in his timeline?  8)
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Dev7on

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27910 on: August 18, 2017, 06:13:45 AM »
Word of caution.  The phrase "City of Heroes" is trademark protected but not copyright protected, as VV indicated, which allows you to use the phrase generically (which is why she said don't capitalize or use as a title, which would turn it into a proper noun, which would be more shaky).  But the City of Heroes game content and the constellation of books and comics are copyright protected, and copyright protection is a bit tricky.  Trademark protection is pretty straight forward: don't use the mark to identify your own products, brand, or company, or attempt to confuse your use with the protected use.  That's why I can use the phrase "City of Heroes" here: I'm referencing the real product, but I'm not using the phrase to identify one of my products or my company itself.  I'm not using the mark to conduct business, I'm just using the phrase to discuss the subject.

Copyright protection has more judgment calls, to put it one way.  Using the phrase "city of heroes" is not going to cause problems unto itself, but you need to be careful you don't reference too many other City of Heroes content obliquely.  If there is too much similarity between elements of your story and City of Heroes game or other content, a nod/wink use of the phrase could become the straw that breaks the camel's back.

As long as the rest of the story is an original work with no connection to City of Heroes except for obvious generic story elements, the phrase itself shouldn't be a problem.  Disclaimer: I am not a copyright attorney.

I should keep this in mind too. I'm also working on a story that's inspired by City of Heroes. I explained my story to my friend and he was saying that some of the elements I put are similar to City of Heroes. Does costumes matter too? I drew 2 characters and showed it to my friend and he told me they almost look like Dr. Aeon and Maelstrom.  What I do I use Icon/Paragon Chat to design the costumes and then I draw them. I've visited the Multimedia section there and I see other members of the community use Icon to design their costumes.

Biz

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27911 on: August 18, 2017, 09:16:23 PM »
What I can say is that if you're having a Scrapper itch, try World of Warcraft and make a WindWalker spec Monk.
It feels exactly like a MA/Regen scrapper used to. I've solod one doing quests for the last two weeks and am having a blast.
Its the high maneuverability combined with no cast times and quick animations which make it super fun.
Well, fun for me at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXhI5IpcZJw

Quick animations? You must not have used Eagle's Claw =P

Zombie Hustler

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27912 on: August 24, 2017, 01:55:38 AM »
What if the real reason CoH was shut down was because it had been discovered that the game was developing into a sentient AI?  :o

Doc Artz

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27913 on: August 24, 2017, 02:26:35 AM »
What if the real reason CoH was shut down was because it had been discovered that the game was developing into a sentient AI?  :o
Synonyms of sentient: alive, apprehensive, aware, cognizant, mindful, sensible, conscious, ware, witting. Which of these reasons was COH shut down? All seem like money making synonyms to me. But I just fly around, taking notes and explore while rarely are there more than 10 other players are on COT.  :'(
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RGladden

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27914 on: August 25, 2017, 03:05:07 PM »
If CoH had become sentient...then...then...NCSoft committed MURDER!!   Murder most FOUL!!   >:(

Whaddya think?  Could the culprits get the chair?


MegaWatt

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27915 on: August 25, 2017, 04:56:31 PM »
probably the CEO's chair knowing how NCSoft seems to behave.
If we set it on fire it'll burn....but that'd leave evidence...I KNOW ! COMPLETE ATOMIZATION! WOOOO!

Arcana

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27916 on: August 30, 2017, 01:38:00 AM »
If CoH had become sentient...then...then...NCSoft committed MURDER!!   Murder most FOUL!!   >:(

I don't think that fits the definition of murder.  I'm not sure it fits the description of any crime.

I'd probably hold off on uploading one's brain into the singularity when that becomes available until this particular loophole is resolved.

Abraxus

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27917 on: August 30, 2017, 02:46:22 AM »
I don't think that fits the definition of murder.  I'm not sure it fits the description of any crime.

I'd probably hold off on uploading one's brain into the singularity when that becomes available until this particular loophole is resolved.

If the crime were defined by the sense of loss felt by those left in its wake...then this qualifies.  ;)
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Undercat

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27918 on: August 30, 2017, 11:04:30 AM »
If "the sense of loss felt by those left in its wake" were a legally recognized damage, I should think the relevant crime in this case would be genocide, not murder.

RGladden

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Re: New efforts!
« Reply #27919 on: August 30, 2017, 02:42:54 PM »
But the thought of a guilty CEO meeting Ole Sparky....sigh!

Gotta get back on my meds....