Gear Sized Gaming

[PH0ENIX]

Greetings one and all---new and old.

 

(I'm old...from 2003 Alpha and Beta).

 

Once upon a time there was a mission where the hero was shrunk to the size of a gear (I believe for the duration of the mission).

 

A)  Does anyone remember this mission / arc?

 

B)  Does it still exist and is it still accessible?

 

C)  Game developer inheritors, could you please make this a purchasable power?  

 

Back in the day, the argument against being able to access this power regularly was that it was 'an unfair advantage in PvP.'  I didn't understand that then and quite honestly, I don't understand it now.  But I was wondering if this could be made to be one of the purchasble, prestige powers.

 

Thoughts?

 

~ PH0ENIX

The Undying.

[Lost Ninja]

I seem to remember it too. Not sure it was the whole mission though. I started in i3 (EU Beta/Launch), it was fairly low level though IIRC.

[TyrantMikey]

I don't remember this mission. That's no indicator of whether or not it was there, mind you. I'm getting old, and a lot of my synapses are failing.

 

But it does remind me of players who somehow hacked the game and made their toons GIGANTIC and modeled them in Atlas on Virtue. That was interesting. 

[PH0ENIX]

I wonder if there's a way to find a listing of missions that might reference something like this.

[Clave Dark 5]

Hm, never heard of this one!  But I was mostly on redside and still haven't done a lot of heroside stuff.

 

I recall a screen shot or two about those guys who hacked the system to be giants, but the only other detail to the story I recall was they got banhammered for it.  😄

[Sovera]

I believe you may be thinking of Champions Online. There are no oversized materials around and that sort of stuff would have been recycled for other content.

[Arcanum]

Hmm, I don't recall that being a possibility, either. The tech in CoH typically doesn't allow for that so I'm not sure how that could've been done.

Sounds like it'd be fun, though! ^_^

[Extor Prime]

That was in CO, not CoX. And that's as much as I remember.

[PH0ENIX]

Gosh...I hope I'm not mis-recalling...

 

I could have sworn this occurred in CoX---right around the time I think Siren's Call became available.

 

Still...if this wasn't a CoX line of programming---is this something that can be programmed into the game?

 

Thanks,

~PH0ENIX

[Solarverse]

Yeah, played this game from the start, I don't recall any such mission, but I do recall this in CO., I too would like to see it added though if at all possible. That has lots of potential to be VERY fun.

[PH0ENIX]

Much like a million other powersets from comics / movies I'd love to see come to the game, shrinking and growth would be among them!

 

~ PH0ENIX

[Lost Ninja]

23 hours ago, Sovera said:

I believe you may be thinking of Champions Online. There are no oversized materials around and that sort of stuff would have been recycled for other content.

Know I'm not as I never played it. I might be recalling it from another game but not Champions.

 

What I dimly remember is a mission where you could only move between parts of the map if you had a temporary power/buff that you found by defeating something (Probably Clockwork gears). Once you had the buff you could click on a doorway styled glowy that would allow you to move into a different area of the map, without the power/buff the glowies didn't work. Map was either sewers, abandoned office or warehouse.

[PH0ENIX]

Well...this is heartening because honestly, I remember making the reference regarding the shrunken size in this game---referring to the size of gears at the time to friends as we were playing the game.

 

I wonder if any of the original Devs are playing this current game---if they might have a better recollection of the event.

 

~ PH0ENIX

[Techwright]

On 12/26/2019 at 9:17 PM, PH0ENIX said:

Much like a million other powersets from comics / movies I'd love to see come to the game, shrinking and growth would be among them!

 

~ PH0ENIX

Much as I'd love the idea, I'm pretty sure the "growth" part doesn't work with the current engine.  If it did, we'd probably have had Atlas as an interactive NPC, if only for a flashback mission to the Fifth Column invasion of Independence Port.  I believe the sizing issue came up in old endgame material where targeting (target boxes?) got to be a problem due to the size of a character.

 

Besides, even if you did have a Giant Man, would you really want to fight in the blue cave tunnels using him? 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Techwright

[PH0ENIX]

42 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Besides, even if you did have a Giant Man, would you really want to fight in the blue cave tunnels using him? 

Horrors of horrors...I think I just shat myself!

 

~ PH0ENIX

[Call Me Awesome]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

Besides, even if you did have a Giant Man, would you really want to fight in the blue cave tunnels using him? 

Heck, I had a character at max height that I HATED playing in the caves and I shrunk him down to around 6' 6" once we got the ability to do so.  If being over 8' was that bad I can't imagine being even taller, unless you did nothing but street sweep the character would be unplayable.

 

On the other side it's a lot of fun playing a minimum size character and it's MUCH easier to navigate the caves.  Plus there's something to be said for a punch to the nuts.

[Shadowsleuth]

I remember this mission.

 

It was a one shot mission the contact only gave you after finishing all his storyarcs.

 

Although the mission text claims you were shrunk by a villain's invention (a glowie on the map) your character's size was never actually changed.

 

It was faked by having all the ordinary objects on the mission map (warehouse map) scaled up to look enormous & the enemies were gears the size of Tesla Princes (but still had the name gears on them).

 

Clicking the glowie ends the mission & upon leaving the mission map the contact says you were restored to normal size (Again, for clarification your actual size never changed).

 

Since this mission wasn't a storyarc it was never added to Ouroboros.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Shadowsleuth

[Call Me Awesome]

39 minutes ago, Shadowsleuth said:

I remember this mission.

 

It was a one shot mission the contact only gave you after finishing all his storyarcs.

 

Although the mission text claims you were shrunk by a villain's invention (a glowie on the map) your character's size was never actually changed.

 

It was faked by having all the ordinary objects on the mission map (warehouse map) scaled up to look enormous & the enemies were gears the size of Tesla Princes (but still had the name gears on them).

 

Clicking the glowie ends the mission & upon leaving the mission map the contact says you were restored to normal size (Again, for clarification your actual size never changed).

 

Since this mission wasn't a storyarc it was never added to Ouroboros.

Never ran into it on Live, sounds like it was an interesting concept.  Shame the Dev's didn't ever expand on it.

[Shadowsleuth]

After the Atlas Park revamp I never saw the mission again. (Maybe it was one of the origin starter missions?)

[Call Me Awesome]

43 minutes ago, Shadowsleuth said:

After the Atlas Park revamp I never saw the mission again. (Maybe it was one of the origin starter missions?)

And it was Clockwork... makes sense I never saw it since all my characters were Natural Origin so I didn't do any of the other origin beginner missions.

[Kyksie]

4 hours ago, Techwright said:

Much as I'd love the idea, I'm pretty sure the "growth" part doesn't work with the current engine.

During Live, a GM once transformed players into a bunch of different models, one being the Avatar of Hamidon. The engine handled it poorly; the camera was inside the model, and it jerked around wildly when on uneven terrain.

[PH0ENIX]

3 hours ago, Shadowsleuth said:

I remember this mission.

 

It was a one shot mission the contact only gave you after finishing all his storyarcs.

 

Although the mission text claims you were shrunk by a villain's invention (a glowie on the map) your character's size was never actually changed.

 

It was faked by having all the ordinary objects on the mission map (warehouse map) scaled up to look enormous & the enemies were gears the size of Tesla Princes (but still had the name gears on them).

 

Clicking the glowie ends the mission & upon leaving the mission map the contact says you were restored to normal size (Again, for clarification your actual size never changed).

 

Since this mission wasn't a storyarc it was never added to Ouroboros.

I'd kiss your feet if you were nearby.  I can't thank you enough.  I have been wracking my brains trying to remember the specifics of this mission for YEARS now.  YEARS.  

 

Thank you sincerely.

 

Now...however...that doesn't stop me from wanting to be able to purchase a prestige power that shrinks me down to the size of a gear (or smaller).

 

My rationale is really simple...  If you can purchase a prestige power that transforms you into a black panther or a coyote or someone riding on a disk, rocket board or flying carpet, would it be too far-fetched to ask for a transformation into a shrunken version of your character.  (And outside of PVP---still be able to use your powers?)

 

I know I'm dreaming...but...

 

~ PH0ENIX

[THEDarkTyger]

I'm with several others here. Played since open beta and have absolutely no recollection of any mission that shrinks you down like that.

[quixoteprog]

You can kind of fake this by going to the costume guy, "face changer" or whatever he is called and using a costume slot to make a costume that is smaller size. Then, any time you want to "shrink" you /cc 1 and your giant guy is now a small one.

 

I usually fill one costume slot with a "tiny toon" costume that I can change into on the small cave maps. Just seems easier to navigate around the tight spaces.

[Shadowsleuth]

The giant objects were completely immobile, nothing the player did could move or damage them.

 

Giant objects included:

 

Cigarette butts, several scattered across the map
Empty discarded Coffee Cups
Chewing Gum (several scattered across the map) - stepping on or near it slowed you like caltrops (No Dot, No Damage, just slow)
Spilled Chinese food takeout box - rice & pieces of meat on the floor (Giant Chopsticks as well)
Slip of paper with girls name & phone number (555 - ****) & a lipstick kiss on it. (The last 4 numbers were smudged & illegible)
Dead Bug stuck in one of the pieces of Chewing Gum
Dead Mouse next to a tray of poison pellets, some of the pellets were scattered on the floor

Enormous Broken non-functional Tesla Knight slumped on its side with several giant gears working around/on him (They ignored the player walking through)

 

 

Giant warehouse crates & boxes blocked your path into the mission map, you had to walk up some pipes (slanted like a ramp) attached to the wall on your right to get past the giant crates.

 

The further up you went, you encountered spider webs which slowed you like the chewing gum. (Teammates pointed out webbed up insects, no spider though)

 

As you went further into the map the warehouse started looking more like the clockwork map from the last mission of the Synapse TF.

 

To get to the glowie in the final part of the map you had to cross over a gap, the "bridge" crossing the gap was a giant Number 2 pencil you walked over.