Phoenix Project update 283. Really?

[Luminara]

54 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I think GG's Heroes and Villains kind of faded away a couple of years after sunset.

 

She'd posted weekly status updates up to the second half of 2019.  A few days after I found that, I read that Co* had been resurrected, so that was the last I saw of her project.

[Drakwatch]

I think my main problem with all of these spin-offs is that none of them have any art direction. They look like ugly UE4 asset flips. They just don't look good graphically or technically. Period. I'm sure the devs are working hard to justify the money backers have given them, but considering some of these have been in development since 2012? I don't think they'll ever look any better or come close to the complexities, charm, and style that City of Heroes had at launch.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Dr_Snokle said:

Valiance Online is the third /fourth game that was spun out of CoX. I think it has gone the furthest out of the major three spin-offs

 

No updates since 2018-2019.  There's more life in @Snarky than there is in Valiance Online.

[ChzBoi]

...it looks like a dev from Valiance answered something 14 months ago and 6 months ago.....

....regarding Titans : I just 'zoomed' around the massive open space that is their newest demo.......my RTX2080 goes to single digit FPS anywhere near leaves/fauna...

 

.....it's big, but taxing........for me

 

......credit where credit is due: some very interesting/cool/unique areas/ideas: amusement park, full airport, skyways, etc.
.......and they do have a somewhat active Discord - their forums are kinda ghost-townish, in my estimation.........

[Snokle]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

No updates since 2018-2019.  There's more life in @Snarky than there is in Valiance Online.

 

Yielding the frost hammer on VO, with that call out. Send it to the grave as it will not be coming back now.

[Scarlet Shocker]

Valiance Online... that's the one

 

I just did a very quick search and came up wtih this

https://massivelyop.com/2021/03/09/whatever-happened-to-superhero-mmo-valiance-online/

 

but if you try and get to their website (I won't link to it here) Firefox gives a security warning and it seems to be down.

There's something in my mind that makes me think they really refocused a lot at one stage turning the game from a successor to something totally different. I may be misremembering however.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I think there's an important point we're all missing (or at least leaving unsaid)

 

The successor projects set out to give us back something we'd all lost. When we got the actual game we'd lost back it must have taken a lot of wind out of their proverbial sails and made them collectively wonder what to do next.

 

I also think that whatever stage they are at currently, I never ever felt that I was being ripped off or scammed, and I contributed small amounts where I felt I could help. I didn't ever feel like there was a lack of intent and I made my choice knowing that it was very unlikely I'd ever get a meaningful return on investment but that was ok because maybe one day we would and if nobody helped out, we definitely wouldn't.

 

So I think we should all be a bit careful and not be too harsh on those guys. If they've made missteps and failed to deliver, well, I am willing to cut them all a lot of slack and I appreciate them trying even if we don't have a finalised product. At least they put our money where their mouths are!

[Snarky]

30 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I think there's an important point we're all missing (or at least leaving unsaid)

 

The successor projects set out to give us back something we'd all lost. When we got the actual game we'd lost back it must have taken a lot of wind out of their proverbial sails and made them collectively wonder what to do next.

 

I also think that whatever stage they are at currently, I never ever felt that I was being ripped off or scammed, and I contributed small amounts where I felt I could help. I didn't ever feel like there was a lack of intent and I made my choice knowing that it was very unlikely I'd ever get a meaningful return on investment but that was ok because maybe one day we would and if nobody helped out, we definitely wouldn't.

 

So I think we should all be a bit careful and not be too harsh on those guys. If they've made missteps and failed to deliver, well, I am willing to cut them all a lot of slack and I appreciate them trying even if we don't have a finalised product. At least they put our money where their mouths are!

You make some good points.  
 

<insert Snarky comment here>

[tidge]

I was an initial backer of the City of Titans... for most of the sentimental reasons that have been written. Also like others have written: I long ago gave up on the project. I've never installed a single piece of software that was offered as part of my initial Kickstarter pledge. In my case it was less about the slow pace of progress, it was that the early focus seemed to be entirely on the graphics... especially the costume options... and trying to make a highly detail (graphics-wise) world. I specifically remember reading in one of the updates how the dev team was trying to adapt true (Planet Earth) surface scans into terrain features for the game world. This struck me(*1) as a blatant time-sink... especially (IIRC) as this was after a decision in the choice of the underlying graphics engine.

 

(*1) Full disclosure: I spent many years as a project manager on multiple software projects... yes, for those of you in the business, that guy. Every project has its own unique ways of going off the rails, but letting programmers spend more than 5% of their time on "experimenting" has always been an incredible time-waster. I'm not anti-creativity, my approach was to tolerate creativity in the pursuit of satisfying actual requirements. AFAIK the Phoenix Project was almost entirely passion-based as opposed to being target-based. The initial updates struck me as completely reasonable.

 

EDIT: I didn't find out about Ship of Heroes until much later. What struck me as most interesting about that project was that they explicitly wanted to have a reason why players couldn't leave a zone.... aka "War Walls". I thought that was a fine solution to a grumpy complaint about wanting to get past the zone walls in CoX.

Edited November 25, 2023 by tidge

[OmegaOne]

On 11/24/2023 at 8:10 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

I think there's an important point we're all missing (or at least leaving unsaid)

 

The successor projects set out to give us back something we'd all lost. When we got the actual game we'd lost back it must have taken a lot of wind out of their proverbial sails and made them collectively wonder what to do next.

 

I also think that whatever stage they are at currently, I never ever felt that I was being ripped off or scammed, and I contributed small amounts where I felt I could help. I didn't ever feel like there was a lack of intent and I made my choice knowing that it was very unlikely I'd ever get a meaningful return on investment but that was ok because maybe one day we would and if nobody helped out, we definitely wouldn't.

 

So I think we should all be a bit careful and not be too harsh on those guys. If they've made missteps and failed to deliver, well, I am willing to cut them all a lot of slack and I appreciate them trying even if we don't have a finalised product. At least they put our money where their mouths are!

This is my view on the situation as well - particularly with City of Titans. I mean if nothing ever became of the game, then we would still be in the same boat. But if they or someone else managed to produce something, then it could be a step up from where we were at the time.

 

I agree that the "return" of COH had an effect on the successor projects. That said, even with CoH "back". It doesn't mean it will last. And let's not kid ourselves, this game isn't perfect - there are areas where it could improve. So I'm still interested to see if one of the projects can actually pull something off. I followed CoT the closest as I wasn't really interested in the two or 3 other projects for various reasons; SoH I didn't like the sci-fi "it's all on a spaceship" bent, H&V seemed like a mirage, I don't remember Valiance offering anything that caught my eye.

 

There was another project as well that were/are working on re-writing the base COH code in another engine. I'm trying to remember the group's name. Anybody know who I am referring to?

[Scarlet Shocker]

2 hours ago, OmegaOne said:

There was another project as well that were/are working on re-writing the base COH code in another engine. I'm trying to remember the group's name. Anybody know who I am referring to?

 

Are you thinking of SEGs?

 

I don't know what's happening with that either.

[Greycat]

11 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

Are you thinking of SEGs?

 

I don't know what's happening with that either.

 

The times I hear about it, it's like "oh, they'll be emulating the game as it was on issue 2" or some such... and it never seemed to get more current. *shrugs*

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

 

The times I hear about it, it's like "oh, they'll be emulating the game as it was on issue 2" or some such... and it never seemed to get more current. *shrugs*

 

It's not a project I've followed in any detail for exactly that reason.

 

But it can be interesting to wonder how great this game would be with the existing content and a brand new, modern graphics engine.

[Greycat]

12 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

But it can be interesting to wonder how great this game would be with the existing content and a brand new, modern graphics engine.

 

I just dream of my characters having fingers.

[Clave Dark 5]

On 11/24/2023 at 4:40 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

The successor projects set out to give us back something we'd all lost. When we got the actual game we'd lost back it must have taken a lot of wind out of their proverbial sails and made them collectively wonder what to do next.

 

I also think that whatever stage they are at currently, I never ever felt that I was being ripped off or scammed, and I contributed small amounts where I felt I could help. I didn't ever feel like there was a lack of intent and I made my choice knowing that it was very unlikely I'd ever get a meaningful return on investment but that was ok because maybe one day we would and if nobody helped out, we definitely wouldn't.

 

So I think we should all be a bit careful and not be too harsh on those guys. If they've made missteps and failed to deliver, well, I am willing to cut them all a lot of slack and I appreciate them trying even if we don't have a finalized product. At least they put our money where their mouths are!

I actually did some work for them and... I'm not willing to go that far ha ha.  Based on ignored attempts to contact them about the promised form of payment which never arrived, I suspect this is indeed never going to be a thing.

[High_Beam]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

I just dream of my characters having fingers.

What?  You don't like having Mitten Hands?

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

 

I just dream of my characters having fingers.

 

Tough glove! 🤣

 

That aside, I do not understand why we cannot all have fingers given that VEATs actually do.

[Without_Pause]

On 11/24/2023 at 12:47 PM, Dr_Snokle said:

 

Valiance Online is the third /fourth game that was spun out of CoX. I think it has gone the furthest out of the major three spin-offs, and seems to have the most focus. I can be wrong about this, as I only really look into them once every 3-6 months if I remember them.

I just looked. There hasn't been an updated on their site in 5 years. I also like the fact I get a warning about going to an unsecured site which has a login aspect. 

I also saw on Facebook people were talking about how backing CoT gave physical rewards, and yet to this day not all of those rewards have been sent out. 

[Snokle]

8 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

I just looked. There hasn't been an updated on their site in 5 years. I also like the fact I get a warning about going to an unsecured site which has a login aspect. 

I also saw on Facebook people were talking about how backing CoT gave physical rewards, and yet to this day not all of those rewards have been sent out. 

 

Yeah I took a look into the three to see what is happening, CoT was still somewhat alive on the forms, Ship is on Steam for Alpha testing? VO is dead beyond dead on the shogun site. I was able to get to see their forums and reddit page, and there has been no real activity there in about two years, as they stated they were in some massive overhaul and then crickets.

 

So out of the three Ship and Titans are probably the furthest ahead now to update from very old memory for it but the future does not look bright for them in general.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

I just dream of my characters having fingers.

 

I only want one, but I want to be able to give it to everything that irritates me.

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

I only want one, but I want to be able to give it to everything that irritates me.

 

never saw that coming! in a manner of speaking

[Clave Dark 5]

9 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I also saw on Facebook people were talking about how backing CoT gave physical rewards, and yet to this day not all of those rewards have been sent out. 

Huh, imagine that.

[uninventive]

I donated to this ten years ago.  Ten.  City of Titans.  That silly Dynamic Duo tier that I'll never get to use.

 

Just realized that right now.  It's Grey Gardens all over again, "We're really close to launch, it'll be ready tomorrow, you'll see..." I'll be hearing that from them another 20 years from now.  Another bunch of demos, more pictures of 3D Models that a 2nd Year college student could do better.  Graphics that resemble Myst.  (I mean, parts of City of Heroes looks better than the 'new' models.)

 

Asking for a refund today would mean I'm stopping someone from having dinner that night when I've already got food.  They need it more than I do at this point.

 

Cruel? Mean? No.  Cruel and mean would be calling this (what boils down to basically being an art project) group nothing but scammers and thieves.  I think they meant to do what they intended.  But in polite company you don't yell shenanigans if they can't perform, but I also won't call them artists either. 

 

Just leave the theater, keep a tighter grasp of my money next time, and do something else with my night.

Edited November 30, 2023 by uninventive

[Without_Pause]

Someone asked about a refund on Facebook. They said they only do it if you gave within the past two weeks. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, uninventive said:

Asking for a refund today would mean I'm stopping someone from having dinner that night when I've already got food.  They need it more than I do at this point.

 

Yes!  Fatten them up so my horde of zombies will have an epic feast!  I need good video, not picking at the bones of half starved creatures huddled over whiteboards with "future code" on it.  I need fat bloody limbs bouncing off those boards!  My zombies are training right now!