Drunkard's Walk Forums

Well, isnt this interesting...
There is no coincidence, only necessity....
- Clow Reed

Very interesting indeed.

Edit: Even more so, looking at the source of that pic and noting some of the other things in that post... This guy's gotten some good news before, and if
any of that other stuff is true... *Giggles insanely.*

http://www.badge-hunter.com/boards/inde ... topic=4187

SQUEEEEE!

*does happy dance*

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

Apparently the second link there isn't to stuff under development, but rather a customer survey, testing the waters for new features.

That said, Going Rogue has SUCH potential. Defecting VEATs? A Warshade backsliding into being a Nictus? Just a villian forced into that role(Eyrie regulars
will recognize *that*) and pulling themselves out?

I can't really care much about the other options, but Hero -> Villain/Villian -> Hero swapping sides has been something I've thought they needed
for a long time. I mean, if Manticore can do it, why not us?

Also, arc designer is just plain AWESOME.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

I'm just annoyed I'd hafta placeholder my Nogi's Kunoichi arc to a Knives of Artemis one.

OTOH... >:3
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

I just want more enhancment slots .

The way they described that made it sound like they wouldn't be normal enhancement slots, but what instead... I'm not sure.

On switching sides, I'd say forget the story stuff, just being able to make any archetype on any side would be great. I've got too many concepts that
don't work as things are now. (Oh yeah, like I need more alts, I'm probably the slowest levelling person here already...)

Now, if the power appearance customization thing is true, that would be all kinds of awesome. I might actually be willing to play Plasmabell if she could just
get blue electricity!

Something with less of a "Christmas Tree" look for regen wouldn't be bad either. It's hard to make a costume that looks nice with all that
green. (Actually, there's a lot of self powers I'd be perfectly content to just be able to turn the effects off entirely...)

-Morgan.

Yukuboard, I hate you. I had a long reply to this typed out, but the evil evil board lost it all. =(
Okay, well. Basically what I was gonna say...this is a marketing survey. That means it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But it's a pretty detailed marketing survey with specific plans and design features listed, even possible names. That ain't typical, so it's probably a good sign the developers do think all this stuff is deliverable.
Timeline might be tricky, though. The presence of Power Customisation on the menu of potential future features is kinda an eyebrow-raiser...since far as we've been told, it's always been theoretically possible to do...just labour intensive for the poor dudes in the animation department.
On the other hand, the devs have more than one animator now. In a discussion about costume auras (ie. the ones you unlock at level 30), Back Alley Brawler mentioned he had a new minio---er, subordinate that is really good with particle colours and shaders...
-- Acyl

The one thing I'm not sure on is this "Spy Archetype" that's implied. While I like the concept of ATs being fluid between Blue and Red,
I'm not sure that Spy doesn't sound like "Heroic Stalker" to me. Unless it's the long awaited Blueside Anti-Stalker.

If they're adding ATs, I can think of a lot of different ATs I'd prefer to see before another squishy stealth class, admittedly.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

The way the post is written is really kind of weird. It's not really clear exactly how solid any of it's supposed to be. It's not even said what
sort of questions were involved (except the different names part), just that all this stuff came up somehow.

I've always had a certain amount of doubts on this "power customization is hard" thing. Depending on how things are set up, it might be hard to
even just assign different animations that already exist to powers? Except, that's not what's brought up as the problem, it's that it's hard on
the animation people. But just changing the color of a lot of effects *shouldn't* be that hard to do unless they've got things set up in a way that
seems very strange compared to typical 3d design practices.

-Morgan.

Quote:But just changing the color of a lot of effects *shouldn't* be that hard to do

It's my understanding that they don't _want_ to make that possible - right now if you see green glowie, it's rad, if you see orange, it's sonic, etc, etc.. they don't want to dilute that.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

Speaking to the "it's hard to change colors" topic... Morganni, I can envision half a dozen scenarios that would, in fact, make it as hard or
harder than what's been stated. But the most likely one, in my book, is the fact that as things stand they only have to transmit one piece of data -- a
very small one, in fact -- to tell every client that can 'see' your character what that character can do (ie, powersets) and therefore how to draw it.
We're talking -tiny-, here; it could be as simple as a single number.

Add in something even as simple as color customization, and suddenly you've exponentially (or more!) increased that data, because now you have to transmit
the color information as well as what powersets -- and that's only assuming they allow ONE change per powerset. If they allow, say, blue-flame aura but
green-flame fireballs... yikes!

If you limit it -- say, you can only do primary colors (bad example, but whatever), you're still -at least- tripling the potential information being
transmitted. And remember, this has to go to each and every connected client that can 'see' your character. Imagine the lag that would come from
tripling the amount of data being transmitted in Atlas Park alone.

Now, I'm not saying that's the situation -- I can think of a few other ways to get character data schlepped around that wouldn't have this problem
-- but if the system was never designed to allow this sort of thing from the beginning, it means a partial re-write at the ground level to accommodate it.
Which is a helluva lot of work.

Again, I don't have the direct line into NCSoft's studios, I dunno if this is the problem or not. But it IS a very common problem with
heavily-trafficked networked applications, which is something I -do- know a bit about .

I found some posts a while back that led me to think this is indeed the issue, but damned if I can find them right now. They were by the Brawler, with a very
definite "let's end this discussion" note by... Castle, I think? late in the thread. It didn't state this explicitly, it's just what I
read between the lines. At any rate, if I can find them again I'll edit this to post the link.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

Quote:Imagine the lag that would come from tripling the amount of data being transmitted in Atlas Park alone.

Imagine the lag at a Talos Island Rikti fight...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote: Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

Quote: Imagine the lag that would come from tripling the amount of data being transmitted in Atlas Park alone.

Imagine the lag at a Talos Island Rikti fight...

I get enough mapservers in those already. You're gonna give me nightmares Bob

Anyway, this survey seems intended, from the looks of it, as a deliberate leak, most likely as part-CO counter, and partly simple advertising. I suspect we
may not see any of this, or very little at least, in I13, although I suspect it IS some of the things they're working on.

Regen certainly isn't rad. And I don't think changing colors will make people who go around killing anchors any more or less likely to do so.

As for the increase in data transfer... I'm not sure. I'd expect that information to be grouped with costume information, which I really hope does not
get sent again and again with every possible action. (If that's what it does, I'd seriously consider them beyond help. '.' )

Nothing I've personally read on the forums suggested that lag was considered an issue here. It was all about the work for the animators. And I have done
enough 3D work to really think that, if it's that hard on the animators, they must be contemplating something far more complicated than what I desire...
(Really, I'd give much just to be able to turn off some effects. I'd be able to stand playing an ice armor character! The set seems cool, but I hate
the armor appearance so much...)

-Morgan.

Ice Armor is a lot more stand-able with the Huge body, and one of the more sizeable costumes, something armored...

IMO, anyway.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

The day you see me playing a Huge body character is the day you'll know someone has stolen my account. ^_-

-Morgan.