Sunday, April 27, 2014

Sunday: April 27th

Current News

I'm baaaaack! Vacation was great, but holy heck I have a lot to catch up on!

Here's our latest updates for the month of April:

http://cityoftitans.com/content/epic-demonstration-map-construction
http://cityoftitans.com/content/law-and-superhero
http://cityoftitans.com/content/nearing-end-pre-production

And two of those updates included some totes amazing videos you should check out!

Forum Posts

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/discuss-nearing-end-pre-production
Our latest update about nearing the end of our pre-production period

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/discuss-law-and-superhero
The discussion thread for our update on Law and the Superhero

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/conundrum-super-pvp
Thread by Empyrean, with questions about PvP in the Superhero genre

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/wish-list-4-no-gear
Have you seen AJSB's Wish List threads? Check out this one, if you haven't.

Ask-A-Dev

From: jcheraz
For: Gameplay
Will the new game engine allow for, and will you use, more active combat roles (like dodging, blocking, etc.)?

Warcabbit, Project Lead: The new game engine will allow for more active combat roles. However, we've seen that blocking has come off poorly in certain competing games, so before we implement anything like that, we'll have to be darn sure it's fun and functional.

Right now, we're not aiming to use it - we're starting off with some fairly traditional gameplay, though we're encouraging a bit more mobility in combat, and we've got some really good ideas on how to make pushing buttons to trigger powers a bit more fun and interactive.

Got a question? Use our Ask-A-Dev tool! http://tinyurl.com/askadev 

From Around the Web

Photoshopping has officially gone too far.


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Sunday: April 6th

Currents News

Clicky Cape! Soon to be the biggest rage in MMO gaming!

But, no, seriously, we have a real Tech Demo which shows off the particle capabilities of the Unreal Engine 4 and it's pretty sweet!

Forum Posts

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/discuss-april-1st-technical-update
Our Ha-Ha update.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/discuss-real-tech-update
The real update.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/dev-digest-april-week-1
Who posted what and where on the Dev team.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/feeling-truly-heroic-its-little-things
A good discussion from Empyrean, but what is it that makes you feel heroic in a game?

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/any-interest-party
AmbiDreamer would like to throw a party in game and it's never too early to plan!

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/what-mmos-are-you-playing-while-you-wait
Consultant would like to know what MMO's you're playing while you wait.

Ask-A-Dev
From: Nucleon
For: Gameplay
Do you plan to make a nemesis system with customizable minions, lieutenants and the main supervillian?

WarcabbitProject Lead: As for the nemesis system, we wouldn't mind doing that, but we also have another idea that ties into the idea of playing with your friends. I don't want to spoil it because it might not work, and it might not be fun, but if it is, it'll be the best thing ever. A _real_ nemesis to play with.

If it doesn't work, though, the customized nemesis is something we can do, but we want to do it a little better than other iterations.

From: Tskales
For: Tech
With regards to the unreal 4 engine you're now gonna use, will it be possible to have capes and long hair without major clipping issues?

DeathSheepFromHellAssistant Art Director: The UE4 engine supports physics-based collision modeling of clothing through a suite of code known as APEX (made by NVIDIA, but runs on any graphics card.)

Which means that once everything is properly set up with the pipeline and the client, a cape will drape over the character wearing it. Or get blown about by wind. Or be blocked if you spin around and it runs into a wall, shift around if an animated tail bumps into it, or pull you into a jet engine if you fly too close. Okay, maybe not the last one, but not because we *couldn't*.

Long hair is a somewhat more complex question, mostly because the "state of the art" in dealing with it is a rapidly moving target. Do we intend to have long hair? Absolutely. Will it clip? No, for the same basic reason that clothing won't -- physics modeling. *When* will we have it? That one is much more up in the air, because the timeline is determined in part by what technique / approach we go with, and for some of the options, in part by when Epic is able to integrate all the new shiny into the stable engine builds (as opposed to a bleeding-edge tech demo).

Probably not until after it shows up for clothing, for two reasons: first, clothing that handles what we aim to do is already in the stable engine (and has been for a while). Second, it presents a lot of the same *types* of problems that hair does, but they are almost universally simpler with clothing. So it makes a better place to start tackling them.

From Around the Web

Vader-Pooh? The voice of Winnie the Pooh reads some of the Darth Vader's lines from Star Wars. Please make sure to have a towel underneath you before watching. You might leak with laughter.