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Tortoise

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Posts posted by Tortoise

  1. I've always admired content creators. As an alum of the Virtue server, I was particularly proud of our server's creative community, which includes VirtueVerse and Rogue Magazine. These materials were particularly comforting to review during that lonely period from 2012-2019 when we had no access to the game.
     

    When Homecoming launched, I teamed up with my longtime forums buddy @sillow to establish a trial and events community, first with the channel TBraids and later with the supergroup Veracity. We ran between four and six hours of trials every night. One night, bantering between runs, we're sharing which servers we came from. I have Virtue in common with the mind/psi dominator, Sibyl.
     

    Sibyl (@Oracle) PMs me and asks if I have ever seen her magazine. I say, "No, I don't think so," so she PMs me the link to Rogue Magazine and reveals that she was Pinkrise on live. By this point, she had already started constructing our supergroup base, and contributed frequently as a mez team leader on Hamidon raids. It felt like a free first-class upgrade with a seat next to my favorite celebrity.


    A couple of days later, we ran Keyes for the Avoids The Green Stuff badge. Sibyl allows herself to die before the Antimatter AOE hits her, ensuring all received the badge. When you play Homecoming, you walk among legends.

     

     

    Sibyl PMs me the link to her infamous magazine

    442107084_whentortoisemetsibyl.thumb.jpg.4321fa7bfe322290d746b59927809cf9.jpg


    Sibyl showing off what can be accomplished with Homecoming's upgraded base editor

    1764833466_sibylinbase.thumb.jpg.5b751ec3735ec32ef02c73376597e14d.jpg

    An unusual strategy

    37802727_sibyldodgesgreen.thumb.jpg.c15daf3095dcf208fcebc9e015409b5d.jpg

  2. Excellent idea with a great lever.

     

    In general I think this is the right frame of mind for publishing content enhancements to the game.  It seems to me that this could be accomplished:

    *...with asset reuse for existing villain groups
    *...with code reuse from Zombie Apocalypse

    *...most critically, without the need to develop new zones

     

    New badges, giant monsters, or event fights could easily be developed around this simple concept, too.

  3. The dreams of the community are independent of a "legitimate, licensed" solution. City of Heroes will gradually progress toward open source, so Homecoming should let that inform the server's competitive position and governance mechanisms. I will not name the competitors here, but other servers have already started to compete by offering new archetypes, expanded powerset options, and speakeasy environments free of censorship. In contrast, Homecoming competes at the level of architecture (x64 compatibility, server cost improvements, launcher tools), of interface (numerical countdowns on power icons), and of player retention (merit vendor, auction house price floors, surplus of /fire brutes farming in architect).

     

    It's obvious that the community wants new content. A superior path to new content lies in the creation of an entirely new business model for an MMO.

     

    Legitimacy and licensure strengthens our already great opportunity to define an all-new process for developing an established MMO. Let the core team build a durable infrastructure, while the players propose, submit, and vote on what becomes official game content. This is the optimal way to proceed because it minimizes development costs, maximizes game lifespan, maximizes knowledge of the game's development parameters, and maximizes community buy-in.

     

    As the leader of Veracity, I've personally been hungry for new content since our world first Really Hard Way run with No Lores. But the addition of content is a controversial thing, and by deferring the addition of new material, the Homecoming team has wisely evaded a political issue. I think there is an enormous opportunity to educate and source content from the massive Homecoming playerbase, that doing this with the blessing of legitimacy is the basis of a revolutionary MMO business model, and that proceeding in a way that decentralizes the power to publish content would affirm that any controversial decisions made by Leandro ultimately led to a superior outcome.

     

    Some scoff at this negotiation and see it as a means for the Homecoming team to enthrone themselves as eternal dictators. The game's source is leaked, so that won't happen, and that position fails to recognize the massive upside of these conversations. The blessing of legitimacy and licensure can empower Leandro and Cipher to become the community's greatest enablers. We can publish new issues together and collectively write the future of our City.
     

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  4. We've had a few good Magisterium runs, but often find that NegaPendragon is the most dangerous opponent due to his potential to crash the league out of the instance.

     

    After some testing, we've come to believe that his Power of the Fae special crashes users when it hits too many people. A stable workaround has been to direct the melee heroes to fight Chimera, and hold off on using lore until after NegaPendragon drops. Still, I would be interested to see this fixed.

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