Sunday: May 11th

Current News

This week our update was from Terwyn and it was all about business and marketing.

Check out the original announcement here:  http://cityoftitans.com/forum/once-upon-time-business
Join the discussion here: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/disscus-once-upon-time-business

Forum Posts
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/putting-your-kids-through-college-cot
Thread by Radiac, about hardcore gaming, gear, and selling loot for cold hard cash.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/comic-recommndation-thread
Always worth re-recommending, the comic recommendation thread, by Skaargoroth

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/goats-color-book
Awesome art and coloring by Lord Goat

Ask-A-Dev
Got a question? Ask it here: http://tinyurl.com/askadev

From: Darth Fez
For: Composition / Lore
How does Titan City manages to (presumably) remain largely peaceful despite so many heroes and villains, and those who fall between those extremes, pursuing their goals? Will be a question of suspension of disbelief?

Robin, Composition Lead: This depends a lot on your definition of 'peaceful'. In part, people have learned to work around the super-battles. The heroes do a good job of handling the villains, and the TCPD and the TCFD are both excellent at keeping civilians out of harm's way."

It's also worth noting that super-criminals -- at least, those who aren't out to deliberately kill as many people as possible -- tend to try and avoid getting people killed because if they're to the point where they'e fighting a super, they know they might be caught, and if they might be caught, they don't want to make their sentence worse."

Another thing is that citizens of Titan City understand this to be a part of life. They don't mind putting up with it in exchange for living in what they consider the greatest city in the world. The can-do attitude common among the locals means that instead of worrying about it, they come up with solutions, and honestly the supers help; heroes will often do their own cleanup, and there's a number of city workers with their own powers."

Supervillains often end up helping as well. Not voluntarily, of course, unless they're seeking good PR. But for convicted criminals with suitable abilities, cleaning up superbattle sites is often part of their sentence as hard labor, and it is also accepted as community service.

From Around the Web

*Shakes head* I never thought it was this possible to fail that hard.

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?

Warcabbit, Project 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?

DeathSheepFromHell, Assistant 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.

Sunday: March 30th

Current News

This week's update was another tour of the city by our lovely Gabbie the Cabbie. Check out the update here (http://cityoftitans.com/content/where-go-when-it-dark-and-you-are-bored)

Forum Posts

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/forum-update-0
Forum update from Doctor Tyche

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/dev-digest-march-week-4
Dev Digest for the 4th week of March, compiled by VDG

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/hey-where-did-mallet-come
Thread by crowpeople, all about not having your weapons appear out of mother loving nowhere.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/maul-shopping-mall-open-rp
RP Thread by Rotten Luck - all set inside the Maul.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/things-you-other-supermmos
Thread by Empyrean which asks about what features and what not you like from other Superhero themed MMO's.

Ask-A-Dev

From:  Dinma
For:  Business & Marketing
Would you deploy an additional stand-alone adventure/danger room builder; a pen and paper (tabletop) CoT game; personalized avatar action cards, T-shirts, mugs etc. to raise funds or have Comic book stories--with player characters to reward loyalty?

Terwyn, Marketing: We're certainly exploring the various options, but it is too early to make any promises right now. Developing a pen and paper game, for example, would draw time and effort away from our other priorities for development. Creating personalized avatar materials would also require a degree of effort that we cannot quite invest just yet, as well. All of these things have been noted as things that we would eventually like to do, if possible, but first we have to get to the point where they *are* possible.

As for loyalty rewards, I think you'll love some of the things we've come up with already.

From Around the Web

I need this. You need this. We need Goat Simulator

Sunday: March 23rd

Current News

If you haven't heard the news you then you're living under a rock - but City of Titans will be built on the Unreal Engine 4. If you read that and you're all like "What the what?" then check out this video:

Forum Posts

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/update-city-titans-use-unreal-engine-4
Discussion on our latest Announcement We're using UE4!

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/flight-training
Love to flt? A fun RP thread, by KaosKitteh

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/ironport-rp
An RP set in one of the grittier areas of Titan City, thread by Gladatoria

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/cot-micro-fan-comic-hurricane-atlas
More updates on the amazing webcomic, by Tiger

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/sharing-trolls
Thread by ProfessorSpecter about concerns of trolls gobbling up character names.

Ask-A-Dev

From: jcheraz
For: Tech
Other superhero MMO's have not always had a great first-person view. Will you be a) allowing that and b) making it more viable?

Doctor Tyche, Company President & Technical Director: Too early to know. I don't want to promise something which we just do not know yet.

From: JayBezz
For: Tech
You've announced an independent character creator released for mobile devices and the like..
Any plans for Ability to Bank/Trade, Chat a Event Notifiers, when the SG lair is under attack, or other incentives to log in within the hour et cetera?"

Doctor Tyche, Company President & Technical Director: Not initially, but over time the mobile app will gain expanded features.

Sunday: March 16th

Current News

This week's update was from our Art Director, Petalstorm, and showcased some awesome artwork by some of our newest artists. You can view that update at:

http://cityoftitans.com/content/art-our-new-artists

Also, as some of you may have noticed - our blog url has changed! We've switched from the old 'tppdevblog' moniker to 'city-of-titans' - and I totally forgot to announce that change. My bad. Won't happen again. I promise.

Forum Posts
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/famous-ray%E2%80%99s-original-pie-shop-open-business
How have I not linked to this RP thread before? Shame on me! Thread by GhostHack

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/superhero-parenting
Thread by HellsBouncer, but address the topic of being a superhero and parenting.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/grayson-tower-villain-based-open-rp
An awesome villain RP thread, by RottenLuck.

Ask-A-Dev

Visit: http://tinyurl.com/askadev to submit your question!

From: jcheraz
For :Gameplay
"Newer games are going with fewer toolbars and power clickables. Levels provide updates and expansions to existing powers, rather than new powers. Will you follow suit?"

Felix, Systems Analyst: We plan to provide a fairly dynamic experience. In some cases you will be able to choose "meta powers" that affect your other powers rather than just add a new clickable. However, in keeping with our overall design intent, many of the later powers will be situational, rather than just obviously better. It is our intent that your early powers will remain useful throughout the game.

From: Dimma
For: Gameplay
"Would you consider power rating score for characters? It could assist with PVE balancing and be used by players in PVP to determine an opponents relative power."

Felix, Systems Analyst: We will not provide a power rating score for characters. We feel that the inclusion of such a feature would be toxic to the overall cooperative nature of the game. However, we acknowledge that there will be "gating" down the road in endgame content, where a certain amount of endgame progress is required to participate in certain content.

From Around the Web

What the what? Wireless Electricity?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/tech/innovation/wireless-electricity/index.html

A 3D capturing camera? I want one. Nao.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/14/more-project-tango-specs-revealed-showing-two-wide-angle-and-one-depth-sensing-camera/

Also, a 1001 movie clips you need to see before you die.