Testing times currently wednesday 12pm- 9PM PDT and Fridays 12pm -12am PDT the testing times are expected to be expanded soon.
To Clarify I am submitting a guild application I have 5 spots left open for this application you PM me here with your e-mail address and I submit the names and e-mail to Cryptic and we wait for the beta invites. Its less random then submitting a one person beta application (which I still recommend you do)
Actually, they're 10am to whatever pm.. I know because I have to get up at 9am alaska time in order to get the most time in.
Ok the guild application has been submitted so hopefully we get some news later this week.
AtomicDynamo on
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freakish lightbutterdick jonesand his heavenly asshole machineRegistered Userregular
edited July 2009
Anecdotal wisdom says invites get sent out on Tuesdays, and the last round wasn't until about 11:30-midnight EST, so don't count it out until Tuesday has officially passed.
In the last section of our three-part interview with powers chief Brian Urbanek, we talk about the games that inspire him, and some of the mathematical rigor that is going into Champions Online…
Colin: Let’s talk about some of the mathematics behind Champions Online…
Brian: I daily work with a pair of spreadsheets which individually are twelve megabytes in size. Everything is on spreadsheets and everything is driven by the formulae… [draws incredibly complicated axis-graph on napkin]…and in theory everything falls within the same space in terms of its efficiency and utility to cost over time. So is it fool proof? Absolutely not, but it is a very good starting point from which to hand things to the QA department and say I think this is pretty good, find what I missed.
Colin: Do they often find things you missed?
Brian: Absolutely, but it’s usually a bug. Like for example, I am infamous for mistyping the cost formula into the damage part to the power and the damage formula into the cost power, making powers that cost five energy and do five thousand points of damage.
That being said, no one has yet found a hole in my formulas or a power that adhered to the formulas and was still not right.
Colin: From this perspective, does PvP combat work in the same way as PvE
A. PvP is always a consideration in the powers that are built. For example, we went through a ridiculous amount of iterations and amount of work to make our taunt system and our aggro system be something that works as well and makes as much sense in PvP as it does in PvE. Our system works the same for players as it works for NPC enemies. I believe we succeeded in making sure every system and how it effects the player it effects an NPC in the same way, with the exception, the notable exception of multiplayer super villains. Epic and legendary challenges, they follow their own rules. They kind of have to.
But master villains follow the exact same rules as players, taunts effect them the same way they effect players
Colin: How do the taunts work?
Brian: A taunt in our game is a advantage you buy and add onto another power. No power is natively a taunt. The effect of a taunt is - an enemy you hit with a taunting power, that enemy suffers a debuff which causes them to do reduced damage versus anyone but the person who hit them. And that debuff goes away very quickly unless the person that used it on you keeps hitting you.
Colin: What have you enjoyed playing in the past year or two years that has really helped you in the work that you are doing at the moment? External games that have made you go right, I’m learning a lot from playing this game.
Brian: Well I will always give props to World of Warcraft. While I could speak for hours about things I see as shortcomings, that is the griping of a loyal fan who really enjoys the game and still plays on an active basis.
Beyond that I try to get input from as many different projects as I can. In terms of things that inspire me, I’m actually going to call board games and pen and paper RPGs an as big or bigger inspiration than computer games at this point.
One computer game I’ve played recently that I found very impressive is Fallout 3. It’s not so much I drove any particular mechanics inspiration from that as simply took great pleasure in seeing a game developed to such a high level of quality and that in and of itself is inspiring to want to be in that same world of developing that quality of a product.
Also, I’ve seen a game recently which did have a little bit of math that I really liked. Electronic Arts recently released Battle Forge which used an approach to doing Area of Effect damage that I had never thought of before.
In some games, the area of effect attacks are simply limited to ‘will not hit more than X targets’. This is to prevent certain abuses called dumpster diving. As a result of the dumpster diving events in our previous games we instituted a cap on the number of people an area effects fell on, a fireball or an explosional effect.
Battle Forge uses an approach that I think is much cleverer where it’s predefinitely defined individually the maximum amount of damage an area attack will do in total to all of its targets and that maximum amount is divided up equally among all who are hit by it, and they also define a maximum amount of damage done to any single target.
So if there’s only one person in it that person will probably not take the whole effect, they’ll still only take a portion of it, but it’s a very nice way of capping how much an effect can potentially be done. It also introduces an interesting gameplay element - it distinctly implies a tactic which is to get as many people as possible hit by the AoE so that the damage is distributed out fairly thinly across everybody.
Actually that's not a bug. I looked it up, someone filed a bug report on it and the reply was that that was the intended effect.
Can you show me where? I've seen reports of similar issues like that being fixed.
The in-game bug reporting tool lists Experimental Blaster (the Gadgeteering power that requires more endurance to use than players actually have for 2-3 levels) as "working as intended".
In the last section of our three-part interview with powers chief Brian Urbanek, we talk about the games that inspire him, and some of the mathematical rigor that is going into Champions Online…
Colin: Let’s talk about some of the mathematics behind Champions Online…
Brian: I daily work with a pair of spreadsheets which individually are twelve megabytes in size. Everything is on spreadsheets and everything is driven by the formulae… [draws incredibly complicated axis-graph on napkin]…and in theory everything falls within the same space in terms of its efficiency and utility to cost over time. So is it fool proof? Absolutely not, but it is a very good starting point from which to hand things to the QA department and say I think this is pretty good, find what I missed.
Colin: Do they often find things you missed?
Brian: Absolutely, but it’s usually a bug. Like for example, I am infamous for mistyping the cost formula into the damage part to the power and the damage formula into the cost power, making powers that cost five energy and do five thousand points of damage.
That being said, no one has yet found a hole in my formulas or a power that adhered to the formulas and was still not right.
Colin: From this perspective, does PvP combat work in the same way as PvE
A. PvP is always a consideration in the powers that are built. For example, we went through a ridiculous amount of iterations and amount of work to make our taunt system and our aggro system be something that works as well and makes as much sense in PvP as it does in PvE. Our system works the same for players as it works for NPC enemies. I believe we succeeded in making sure every system and how it effects the player it effects an NPC in the same way, with the exception, the notable exception of multiplayer super villains. Epic and legendary challenges, they follow their own rules. They kind of have to.
But master villains follow the exact same rules as players, taunts effect them the same way they effect players
Colin: How do the taunts work?
Brian: A taunt in our game is a advantage you buy and add onto another power. No power is natively a taunt. The effect of a taunt is - an enemy you hit with a taunting power, that enemy suffers a debuff which causes them to do reduced damage versus anyone but the person who hit them. And that debuff goes away very quickly unless the person that used it on you keeps hitting you.
Colin: What have you enjoyed playing in the past year or two years that has really helped you in the work that you are doing at the moment? External games that have made you go right, I’m learning a lot from playing this game.
Brian: Well I will always give props to World of Warcraft. While I could speak for hours about things I see as shortcomings, that is the griping of a loyal fan who really enjoys the game and still plays on an active basis.
Beyond that I try to get input from as many different projects as I can. In terms of things that inspire me, I’m actually going to call board games and pen and paper RPGs an as big or bigger inspiration than computer games at this point.
One computer game I’ve played recently that I found very impressive is Fallout 3. It’s not so much I drove any particular mechanics inspiration from that as simply took great pleasure in seeing a game developed to such a high level of quality and that in and of itself is inspiring to want to be in that same world of developing that quality of a product.
Also, I’ve seen a game recently which did have a little bit of math that I really liked. Electronic Arts recently released Battle Forge which used an approach to doing Area of Effect damage that I had never thought of before.
In some games, the area of effect attacks are simply limited to ‘will not hit more than X targets’. This is to prevent certain abuses called dumpster diving. As a result of the dumpster diving events in our previous games we instituted a cap on the number of people an area effects fell on, a fireball or an explosional effect.
Battle Forge uses an approach that I think is much cleverer where it’s predefinitely defined individually the maximum amount of damage an area attack will do in total to all of its targets and that maximum amount is divided up equally among all who are hit by it, and they also define a maximum amount of damage done to any single target.
So if there’s only one person in it that person will probably not take the whole effect, they’ll still only take a portion of it, but it’s a very nice way of capping how much an effect can potentially be done. It also introduces an interesting gameplay element - it distinctly implies a tactic which is to get as many people as possible hit by the AoE so that the damage is distributed out fairly thinly across everybody.
Actually that's not a bug. I looked it up, someone filed a bug report on it and the reply was that that was the intended effect.
Can you show me where? I've seen reports of similar issues like that being fixed.
The in-game bug reporting tool lists Experimental Blaster (the Gadgeteering power that requires more endurance to use than players actually have for 2-3 levels) as "working as intended".
Well it works fine now. Any others like that?
Was there a playsession between Friday and today that I missed? Because that's how it was on Friday.
Actually that's not a bug. I looked it up, someone filed a bug report on it and the reply was that that was the intended effect.
Can you show me where? I've seen reports of similar issues like that being fixed.
The in-game bug reporting tool lists Experimental Blaster (the Gadgeteering power that requires more endurance to use than players actually have for 2-3 levels) as "working as intended".
Well it works fine now. Any others like that?
Was there a playsession between Friday and today that I missed? Because that's how it was on Friday.
There was not! But I did just get permission to do something that will explain how I can know that, and that something should now be clear. Tada!
I'm not here to: Nitpick posts for NDA breakage (not that I encourage/endorse it)
I am here to: Get feedback, clarify things, and answers questions as best I can (whilst not breaking the NDA myself).
So, hello!
Akinos on
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FalloutGIRL'S DAYWAS PRETTY GOOD WHILE THEY LASTEDRegistered Userregular
For those of you in the beta who wish to discuss specific issues that are not NDA-friendly I am also on the preview forums (CrypticAkinos) and you can PM me there (not here, please).
Well we already knew he worked for Cryptic, just didn't know what he was doing. Also, I so called it that he got us in.
Since you are in charge of combatan' Akinos, I would like to lodge a formal complaint on the state of Munitions. Mostly that the damage numbers seem off for certain powers. Also I want a time bomb, land mines, and a net gun. Oh, and a tank.
I submitted another group of people from here to become testers the guild name submitted was Intrigue,
If there is anyway you can slip that app to the top of the pile. I think it is a group that probably gave names to pony but may have just missed his cutoff.
I'm going to play with my graphic settings for a bit and see if Magic Radio's tips will help me out.
So Fig, did said tips ever work for you?
They did, actually! My framerate was certainly much better and the game looked cleaner and less muddy altogether. I don't think my PC particularly liked how ChO handles shadows. That had the biggest effect.
That info on the earth flight sounds really cool pulling the ground that you are on when take off is really nice little things like this that bring home the immersive feeling in an mmo
Actually that's not a bug. I looked it up, someone filed a bug report on it and the reply was that that was the intended effect.
Can you show me where? I've seen reports of similar issues like that being fixed.
The in-game bug reporting tool lists Experimental Blaster (the Gadgeteering power that requires more endurance to use than players actually have for 2-3 levels) as "working as intended".
Well it works fine now. Any others like that?
Wow, who would have guessed that me being a cranky, NDA-ignoring asshole would actually be somewhat constructive? :P
Perhaps a dumb question, but should the Support Ticket button on the launch pad do anything? Right now all it does is take me to the main preview page.
The easter egg for earth flight took em about 10 mins to find I think.
Remember it detects what you are standing on and you rip that up, so what happens if there is nada under you?
Monkey anyone?
MrIamMe on
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
edited July 2009
So I had a really great time playing this game on Friday. Finally got a chance to sit down and play for a few hours through the tutorial. Created a character I liked (Nega Hell), messed around with a custom power set (which I will promptly rework with a new character) and made my way through most of the tutorial.
Lots of fun, very easy to pick up. But I also like some of the new things available (like charging up powers). Character creation is of course fantastic.
I did find myself getting my ass kicked in the last mission of the tutorial. It was so bad I thought that I'd perhaps missed an opportunity to level up my character. I won't post any details, but I suspect that has more to do with my actual choice of powers than a necessarily. I selected two powers that I thought would be cool, but don't seem to allow me to generate energy in an efficient or useful way. But maybe that's an issue in and of itself.
No idea. Hopefully I haven't said too much. If I have, please let me know and I'll delete most of this post. I will say that this game is looking pretty awesome and I'm looking forward to it.
Another issue with the final mission in the tutorial is that if, for whatever reason, you get your ass beat by the boss. (Lag, noob mistake, whatever.) and you have to fight him again, Defender doesn't respawn, which forces you to beat the boss by yourself, and that boss isn't meant to be faught by yourself.
Posts
Actually, they're 10am to whatever pm.. I know because I have to get up at 9am alaska time in order to get the most time in.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Colin: Let’s talk about some of the mathematics behind Champions Online…
Brian: I daily work with a pair of spreadsheets which individually are twelve megabytes in size. Everything is on spreadsheets and everything is driven by the formulae… [draws incredibly complicated axis-graph on napkin]…and in theory everything falls within the same space in terms of its efficiency and utility to cost over time. So is it fool proof? Absolutely not, but it is a very good starting point from which to hand things to the QA department and say I think this is pretty good, find what I missed.
Colin: Do they often find things you missed?
Brian: Absolutely, but it’s usually a bug. Like for example, I am infamous for mistyping the cost formula into the damage part to the power and the damage formula into the cost power, making powers that cost five energy and do five thousand points of damage.
That being said, no one has yet found a hole in my formulas or a power that adhered to the formulas and was still not right.
Colin: From this perspective, does PvP combat work in the same way as PvE
A. PvP is always a consideration in the powers that are built. For example, we went through a ridiculous amount of iterations and amount of work to make our taunt system and our aggro system be something that works as well and makes as much sense in PvP as it does in PvE. Our system works the same for players as it works for NPC enemies. I believe we succeeded in making sure every system and how it effects the player it effects an NPC in the same way, with the exception, the notable exception of multiplayer super villains. Epic and legendary challenges, they follow their own rules. They kind of have to.
But master villains follow the exact same rules as players, taunts effect them the same way they effect players
Colin: How do the taunts work?
Brian: A taunt in our game is a advantage you buy and add onto another power. No power is natively a taunt. The effect of a taunt is - an enemy you hit with a taunting power, that enemy suffers a debuff which causes them to do reduced damage versus anyone but the person who hit them. And that debuff goes away very quickly unless the person that used it on you keeps hitting you.
Colin: What have you enjoyed playing in the past year or two years that has really helped you in the work that you are doing at the moment? External games that have made you go right, I’m learning a lot from playing this game.
Brian: Well I will always give props to World of Warcraft. While I could speak for hours about things I see as shortcomings, that is the griping of a loyal fan who really enjoys the game and still plays on an active basis.
Beyond that I try to get input from as many different projects as I can. In terms of things that inspire me, I’m actually going to call board games and pen and paper RPGs an as big or bigger inspiration than computer games at this point.
One computer game I’ve played recently that I found very impressive is Fallout 3. It’s not so much I drove any particular mechanics inspiration from that as simply took great pleasure in seeing a game developed to such a high level of quality and that in and of itself is inspiring to want to be in that same world of developing that quality of a product.
Also, I’ve seen a game recently which did have a little bit of math that I really liked. Electronic Arts recently released Battle Forge which used an approach to doing Area of Effect damage that I had never thought of before.
In some games, the area of effect attacks are simply limited to ‘will not hit more than X targets’. This is to prevent certain abuses called dumpster diving. As a result of the dumpster diving events in our previous games we instituted a cap on the number of people an area effects fell on, a fireball or an explosional effect.
Battle Forge uses an approach that I think is much cleverer where it’s predefinitely defined individually the maximum amount of damage an area attack will do in total to all of its targets and that maximum amount is divided up equally among all who are hit by it, and they also define a maximum amount of damage done to any single target.
So if there’s only one person in it that person will probably not take the whole effect, they’ll still only take a portion of it, but it’s a very nice way of capping how much an effect can potentially be done. It also introduces an interesting gameplay element - it distinctly implies a tactic which is to get as many people as possible hit by the AoE so that the damage is distributed out fairly thinly across everybody.
Well it works fine now. Any others like that?
So Fig, did said tips ever work for you?
The devs play a lot of WoW? I don't belive it.
Was there a playsession between Friday and today that I missed? Because that's how it was on Friday.
There was not! But I did just get permission to do something that will explain how I can know that, and that something should now be clear. Tada!
I'm not here to: Nitpick posts for NDA breakage (not that I encourage/endorse it)
I am here to: Get feedback, clarify things, and answers questions as best I can (whilst not breaking the NDA myself).
So, hello!
it was a jab at the gameplay
I'm looking forward to being in a position to give you some feedback :winky:
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
you guys now know how i managed to get that guild invite processed so fast
you can all thank akinos for that, i was just the frontman
But did all of the work, so thank YOU for that!
Since you are in charge of combatan' Akinos, I would like to lodge a formal complaint on the state of Munitions. Mostly that the damage numbers seem off for certain powers. Also I want a time bomb, land mines, and a net gun. Oh, and a tank.
I submitted another group of people from here to become testers the guild name submitted was Intrigue,
If there is anyway you can slip that app to the top of the pile. I think it is a group that probably gave names to pony but may have just missed his cutoff.
Are you pushing 7 days a week, 18 h days yet?
They did, actually! My framerate was certainly much better and the game looked cleaner and less muddy altogether. I don't think my PC particularly liked how ChO handles shadows. That had the biggest effect.
I am constantly blown away by the rest of the team here, honestly. Work hours are quickly approaching absurd, though.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1001299p1.html
Chris is a great guy and does amazing work (he did the latest power armor stuff).
http://www.champions-online.com/
someone should try using it in water
Is there a secret handshake that I can learn or something?
Wow, who would have guessed that me being a cranky, NDA-ignoring asshole would actually be somewhat constructive? :P
Remember it detects what you are standing on and you rip that up, so what happens if there is nada under you?
Monkey anyone?
Lots of fun, very easy to pick up. But I also like some of the new things available (like charging up powers). Character creation is of course fantastic.
I did find myself getting my ass kicked in the last mission of the tutorial. It was so bad I thought that I'd perhaps missed an opportunity to level up my character. I won't post any details, but I suspect that has more to do with my actual choice of powers than a necessarily. I selected two powers that I thought would be cool, but don't seem to allow me to generate energy in an efficient or useful way. But maybe that's an issue in and of itself.
No idea. Hopefully I haven't said too much. If I have, please let me know and I'll delete most of this post. I will say that this game is looking pretty awesome and I'm looking forward to it.
PSN: Threeve703
Mine was a jab towards Bill Roper.
It might have been that munitions thing that the 2nd power requires full bar of energy and its not all that crash hot.
my dude had both munitions powers right from the get go
and he wrecked asses all the way through the tutorial
ripped black talon apart in less than a minute
the hell you doing wrong