Update 40 Discussion Thread

**zeroone506**

lol you trying to outvote me? SMILEY

nah, just kidding

HCFrog · 01/13/2006 16:04:19

I appreciate the amount of thought you've put into your posts, 01! We certainly could look at making some nights brighter again, or maybe try to get kind of a "moonlit" feel to some of them (that might take a little experimentation SMILEY

). And I totally understand where you're coming from with realism doesn't necessarily mean quality, or fun. That reminds me, I have to implement permadeath next week... j/k

oh and P.S., I have our great players to thank for my kickin' sig, I love it too SMILEY

Message Edited by HCFrog on 01-13-200604:04 PM

**Tseng.**

shame you coudlnt make the floors icy that would of been hilarious to go with the snow, peoepl flying on there arse all over the place

**cloudwolf**

Well good patch imo.

It actually shows the devs listen! i mean the higher construct drop rate, the darker nights and the black slacks are all player side. w00t devs! rock on my brothers (and sisters?)

On the night thing, i have to say i personally agree that the nights shoudl be darker, like frog i currently find it hard to distinguish between night and overcast. However, i see where zeros coming from and his concerns are legit, i think they should deffenatly be some sort of variation (tho nothing as bright as we have now) also loving the idea of proper moonlight effect.

The paced missions are also a good move imo, it a) stops the 'criticals released and i do em in 5 minutes, mxo soxors!' whiners and b) also could help the storyline flow and add many opportunities for the continuation by what details can be released and when.

All in all, Kick *CENSORED*.

**zeroone506** · 01/13/2006 16:49:47

Thanks for the great feedback, Frog, and to all of you out there, just keep ignoring all those hypocritical "Devs don't care!!!" threads, what they try to say simply hasn't anything to do with the reality.

And yea, I used a lot of confusing comparisons in my last message, but I just brought a little order into my thoughts: The new night time concept shows much more the night itself than the city at night time. I think this pretty much sums it up.

But I'm not going to force my opinion on everyone around, I'm kinda open to these improvements and I'll just watch the whole thing develop.

Message Edited by zeroone5069 on 01-13-200604:49 PM

Detrius_MXO · 01/13/2006 17:15:06

This patch sounds like it could be pretty decent.� I like the darker nights idea myself.� What I would be very nice is if we could turn off the body glow at night.� Man how awesome that would fight with only the moonlight to guide us.

I'm not really concerned about the missions music though I did like it somewhat.� I usually have Winamp playing my selected music any how. It would be nice if you could select your own in game music. This game is very limited on the sound options.

I'm also a little confused on the mission setup.� Are they releasing one mission every few days or something instead of in batches?� So more days of patching?� If so The dial up cats will have a ball. I for one think its a great idea since it would be much more convientant for the person writing the missions.

Devs: I'm curious, how difficult would it be to make the "time of day" client side as opposed to server? It would be nice to be able to choose my time of day. Because when I get off work it's always night time in game, and while I love it, I kinda forget how it looks in the day time.

Message Edited by Detrius_MXO on 01-13-200605:15 PM

**UniToxic**

dialup?
you mean theres still a thing as the 28.8k and 56k modem?
wow i want to see how much lg they get when they play SMILEY

**cloudwolf**

Det, they mean they'll release all 5 in a patch but then place system locks on the missions (we've seen it before) that will be systematically unlocked every couple of days.

Chuui

Devs: I'm curious, how difficult would it be to make the "time of day" client side as opposed to server? It would be nice to be able to choose my time of day. Because when I get off work it's always night time in game, and while I love it, I kinda forget how it looks in the day time.

Considering how it's probably tied in to the weather system (which is server side) and is the same on all servers at the same time, it's probably not a question of being difficult but of continuity. How can you really run around in the "daytime" when at the same time, other people are running around in the "night"? This is supposed to be a city that we are all in at the same time. As such, weather and day time cycles should not be player controlled.

Detrius_MXO · 01/13/2006 18:05:50

Well we have the option to turn the weather off. Therefore when it's raining for you it's not for me. Why would allowing us to change the time of day be any different? Maybe turn it on for live events or something then turning it back off so we can control our time of day. Did I just say Live Events? Hmmmmm

Message Edited by Detrius_MXO on 01-13-200606:05 PM

**EndlessVoid** · 01/13/2006 18:08:31

Well done, Devs.
Well done.
So... How much have the construct boss drop rates been increased, anyway?

- Void

EDIT: And while we're at it, are any other items being looked into for "color balancing", because it would certainly help us match things if there were certain color standards.

I've never liked that my pinstripe pants don't quite match the same material as found on my Tam Duster...

Message Edited by EndlessVoid on 01-13-200606:08 PM

WGAnubis1

I have to say well done Walrus and team.

I esspessually like the points about the night times being darker, even a Chicagoain such as myself knows first hand that the matrix night times were downright to bright to see the stars, heck see even the moon.

The critical mission pacing is a very good choice and makes alot of sence, I mean if I just handed a packet of information, and Flood says it will take awhile to look over the information, and I start the next mission up then Flood must be one of the fastest speed readers in exsistance.

Sad to see that the winter holiday will soon end, I mean I really liked the snow and I hope the devs (after the CU 2.0) consider maybe adding seasons into the game.

Glad to see the holloween masks are tradeable now, ill be able to transfer the masks to my alt.

Im glad that the transistion glasses and coat now have the animation back, finally can use them again for my RP'ing to signal my alter ego taking over.

--Some little things Id like to see happen in the next few updates--

Sorter reuse timers for the unique items we have gotten so far, The glasses and coat, Fly in amber and Mobus code. Why? Well its rather pointless that these abilities that dont give that high of a tactical advantage have such a long reuse timer. Heck, power shot only has a 1 minute reuse timer and I get more IS from that then from my ring.

**ZaneZavin**

Sounds like a good patch, I'm still holding out for those Archivist Missions thou, I can't wait to do the other orgs old criticals.

**Stack** · 01/13/2006 23:19:31

Okay, here's what would be perfect as far as my opinion of the day/night cycle goes:

Make the nights darker (check!)
Add a moonlight effect so cloudy nights are darker than clear ones
Make it so that, when it really is overcast, the clouds don't fly across the sky at two billion MPH
Add an option to remove the personal exterior spotlight from your character so that the real-time exterior lighting actually has an impact on your character at night (allows you to sneak around in the shadows or step out into a streetlight)
Add an option to synchronize the in-game day/night cycle with the client-side clock so that if you play during the day in your time zone, it would appear as day in the game (helps continuity with accounts of events happening "the night before" or "yesterday afternoon"
Most important of all to me, ADD DISTANT BUILDING LIGHTS! This was what disappointed me the most about the atmosphere of the game after going back and watching the Trilogy again. The Mega City right now looks like Niobe and Ghost pulled another power plant demolition job except for whatever neighborhood, nay, whatever street you're on. Those buildings in the background need windows, I don't care if they're monochromatic black and white instead of 32-bit color textures, the City needs to be lit up.

Most of those are ideas I've had since I first started playing the game. I was going to suggest the fourth near the end of Beta, but I figured that it wasn't as important with the impending launch of the game. Now that I've heard other people complain about it, figured I'd throw in my two cents as well and say that it's been bugging me like crazy that you can't turn off your personal nightlight.

And as for realism vs. quality, you have to wonder what the point of having a day/night cycle is in the first place if it doesn't have an impact on the game, whether good or bad. I don't care if it makes it harder to navigate the City at night, that's what nights do. They force you to stick to places you recognize and to stay out of dangerous areas. It's cool and all that games are including day and night these days, but they're kinda pointless if they're merely aesthetic changes, and even more pointless if the aesthetic changes are not noticeable.

Message Edited by Stack on 01-13-200611:19 PM

**zeroone506**

Well, I don't really think the day/night cycle could affect the gameplay significantly. I completed several missions during Halloween and was't killed by the street mobs one single time. On the other hand, a level 5 can go to Downtown at day and can't afford leave the main roads unless life doesn't mean anything to him. Navigating in the City doesn't really get that harder no matter how dark it is, since we still have the map and the atlas. So, if the day/night cycle doesn't affect the way we play, the only thing it can affect else is the aesthetics. As the difference between night and day was always quite noticeable (the music, the lights, the "personal exterior light" and of course a still significant decrease of brightness), it's less about differing between daytimes but more about the aesthetical aspects of the nights themselves. The darker nights mostly show that it's really nights right now and everything automatically gets darker. A great concept and also a great feeling, but the city itself suffers from that. Let's say you aren't running missions or pvping at the moment and just exploring the world (what I use to do pretty often). The brighter nights didn't take the fun from this kind of activities since they didn't really hide texture nuances, but brought new aspects and colors into the world. Both night and day were individually amazing (I have to admit, the culminations of the day, especially "Sati's" day and especially in Richland weren't that amazing) and were like two sides of the coin, if you want. Now, day is the time where you still see much and night where everything just turns dark. It even takes some of the districts' individuality, in my opinion.

And here's just my main argument: If the days change from green to purple once a week (disclaimer: I only read that at the forums), what's so wrong about that kind of variation during nights, either?

And then, there are parts of the Earth where the night doesn't turn completely dark during nights (mostly at summers) so the whole night really looks like later in the evening evening or right before sunrise.

Also, because of all the lights, big cities look quite bright even at nighttime. And since this is the Matrix with a green sky and not the real world we're talking about, what's the meaning of "realism" at all? I mean if it looks better in certain aspects (c'mon people, it didn't really look that awful, did it? SMILEY ), why not simply keep it at least partially? (just repeating the same stuff for better overview lol)

I'd really like to hear your opinion about that, Stack, so I'm looking forward to your answer.